Friday, October 10th, 2025 | 10:30 – 11:50am | Location: 1605 Tilia St., Davis CA
Simon Jowitt, Director, Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology
Join us for the UC Davis Energy & Efficiency Institute’s Fall 2025 Energy Seminar Series. These weekly Friday morning seminars feature leaders in energy and climate research, providing insights for students, professionals, and the public.
What will we need? Uncertainties, challenges and opportunities in the metal and mineral requirements for the energy transition
The Energy Transition, the global move toward low- and zero-CO2 energy generation, storage and transport, will require unprecedented levels of metal and mineral mining, especially of metals and minerals considered critical as a result of supply chain insecurity. However, the metal and mineral needs of the energy transition, the balance of metal and mineral supply and demand, and the influence of policy and geopolitics remain uncertain, as shown by recent price volatility in a range of metal and mineral commodities.
Key uncertainties include (but are not limited to): (1) Demand uncertainty over the metals and minerals required for the energy transition and the timing of this demand, (2) Supply uncertainty, or the timing of supply changes as a result of increases or decreases in mining capacity, discovery, and other key aspects, (3) Technology uncertainty, or uncertainty over the technologies to be deployed during the energy, and (4) Policy uncertainty or the negative and positive impact of policy and geopolitical changes. This presentation provides an overview of the uncertainties facing the minerals industry, the information and data we need to consider relating to these uncertainties, and ways forward.
Simon M Jowitt is the Director of the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology (NBMG), Nevada State Geologist, and the Arthur Brant Chair of Exploration Geology at the University of Nevada Reno. In addition to NBMG he currently leads the Ralph J. Roberts Center for Research in Economic Geology at UNR and his research focuses on the use of geochemistry to unravel geological processes in a variety of settings with direct application to understanding not only mineralizing systems but also igneous petrology, mineral exploration, global tectonics and the links between magmatism and metallogeny.
Jowitt has also undertaken extensive research on mineral economics, global metal resources and the security of supply of critical minerals, and the “economic” side of economic geology. He has published more than 125 scientific papers, peer-reviewed book chapters and geological survey reports since 2010 and was awarded the Society of Economic Geology’s Waldemar Lindgren Award in 2014.
