Australia’s mineral and metal exports have a substantial carbon footprint, twice that of its domestic
emissions, mainly due to fossil-fuel-dependent downstream processes like processing into
secondary metals and their transport. The country’s vast renewable energy and low-carbon
hydrogen potential offer a promising alternative to mitigate this impact. These resources can be
leveraged to displace fossil fuel use and become embedded into the metals value chain. Ultimately,
it will yield ‘Green Metals’ that can be scaled to reduce the environmental footprint and provide an
avenue for Australia’s vast green resources to be embedded (incorporated during production and
supply) in green metals that can be exported. One potential green metal is copper, which is in great
demand and likely to drive global decarbonisation through renewable electrification due to its role as
an energy conductor. Given that Australia is a large producer and exporter of copper, this paper
provides a techno-economic model of the copper value and applies it to Queensland (a hub of
Australia’s copper production) as a case study. The results show that under incumbent hydrogen
(A$8/kg) and renewable energy costs, the cost of green copper would be A$9704/t (~10 per cent
higher than current copper costs). Further analysis revealed that the cost of hydrogen is a major cost
driver; therefore, if the cost of hydrogen can be reduced to A$2/kg (a 2030 target of the Australian
government), the cost of green copper would become competitive. Furthermore, if a carbon pricing
regime ($54–79/kgCO2) is introduced, green copper would become competitive at a hydrogen cost
of A$3/kg. Altogether, these findings provide insights for a future green copper export opportunity in
Australia. Additionally, as the next step, the model can be extended to include other metals and
released as an open-source resource for assessing global green metal opportunities.