Biology can transform mining, but frequently innovators open conversations with the scientific specifics rather than industrial considerations. To see genuine impact, particularly for more sustainable processes like biomining, biotechnologists need to speak the language of the mining industry, and build economically sustainable businesses that can compete against low-margin, incumbent industry players. That means translating promising lab breakthroughs into the metrics that matter at scale.
Scientists should be familiar with the financial language of industry in order to discover entry points for better and cleaner technologies. We are thrilled to announce an open-source techno-economic analysis (TEA) resource specifically built around copper extraction from chalcopyrite heap leaches, and developed in collaboration with the team at Conductor Labs. As part of our Orecast project – intended to help biomining innovators determine if their technologies have a viable path to market – this Excel-based tool is designed to put scientists in the “Command Center” of a mine: illustrating how value is created, and showing what biology can do to move the needle on costs and revenues.
In this post, we’ll highlight:
- What the Excel tool covers and why we chose copper from chalcopyrite.
- How to navigate the tool without an MBA in finance.
- The three biggest levers for adding value in chalcopyrite biomining: acid use, rate of extraction, and total recovery.
- Why bridging biology and mining economics is critical for real impact.
If you’d like to skip all the talk and go directly to the model, we welcome you to do so. Please find the relevant resources below:
- The chalcopyrite heap leach TEA
- A manual that accompanies the TEA (highly recommended)
- The Geobiotech webpage, the home of Orecast and any other upcoming TEAs
Why Focus on Copper and Chalcopyrite?
Copper is a cornerstone metal for modern electronics, energy infrastructure, and construction. Demand for this metal is projected to increase by 70% by 2050. However, conventional copper extraction can be energy-intensive and environmentally challenging. The process of biomining – using microbes to assist with metal recovery – shows promise, but scientists often struggle to demonstrate economic feasibility to industrial stakeholders.
Chalcopyrite (a copper-iron sulfide) is a copper ore that makes up about 70% of the world’s copper reserves and already sees some bio-based industrial extraction. Extraction of copper from chalcopyrite poses challenges like “passivation,” where mineral surfaces become less reactive over time, reducing overall recovery. By focusing on chalcopyrite, we’re looking at a widely relevant case where biology is already part of the conversation – and where there’s plenty of room for further innovation.
Meet the TEA: Your Command Center Dashboard
Our Excel spreadsheet acts like a digital twin for a copper heap-leaching operation. Think of it as the cockpit that shows you all the dials and knobs controlling production. With this model, you can experiment with how scientific breakthroughs translate into the metrics a mine manager or investor cares about, and ultimately drive your own decisions around R&D and commercialization. Think of the model as an illustrative reference of what types of data, decision-making, and analysis is involved when navigating the path to commercial deployment for an early-stage technology.
The Process Flow Diagram (PFD)
A key starting point in developing a new technology is understanding where it fits within an existing process flow. Thus, this model starts with a Process Flow Diagram.
In this process, we’ve mapped:
- Extraction, Crushing, and Sizing – Getting the chalcopyrite out of the ground and processing it into smaller, more uniform sizes.
- Agglomeration, Stacking, and Leaching – Preparing the ore stacking in layers (called lifts) and irrigating it with an acid solution. Traditionally, this is also when microbes might be added.
- Solvent Extraction and Electrowinning – Separating the copper from the solution and producing copper cathodes, the final metal product sold on the market.
The spreadsheet visually mirrors this flow so you can see how changing one step (e.g., different acid concentration) ripples through the rest. We’ve made the model highly customizable and agnostic to the specific biotechnology, so that researchers working in a variety of systems or with differing technologies can utilize this model as a starting point.
The “Dashboard” Sheet: Where the Numbers Come Together
- Costs and Revenue at a Glance
The Main sheet provides a high-level summary: annual tonnage, operating costs, capital costs, and revenue from copper sales. You’ll see familiar (but often daunting) financial terms – like COGS (Cost of Goods Sold), CapEx (capital expenditures), and variable costs vs. fixed costs. If these terms are new to you, don’t worry; our manual is filled with definitions and references. - Key Economic Drivers
From the perspective of mining economics, improving a process is only worthwhile if it reduces the dollars per tonne produced or increases the dollars per tonne sold. This model breaks out the biggest cost items, such as sulfuric acid, so that you can instantly see where a small scientific improvement might save millions of dollars annually at scale.
Tornado Charts and Sensitivity Analysis
We see a lot of numbers in this financial model, but which ones are the most important? Sensitivity analysis is a way in which we can see which variables have the biggest impact, such as decreasing an input cost or increasing an output price.
Above: sensitivity testing and a tornado chart for chalcopyrite heap leaching, as also seen in the Orecast model.
The spreadsheet includes a Tornado Chart, which ranks variables by their impact on costs or profitability if you tweak them up or down. This is a powerful way to see, for instance, how a 10% change in sulfuric acid price can make or break your operation — or how speeding up the leach cycle yields faster returns on capital. If you’re a biologist hoping to pitch a better microbe that reduces acid usage or accelerates reaction rates, the Tornado Chart pinpoints why (and how much) that matters.
Three Big Opportunities for Biotech Innovation
This TEA indicates that there are three primary levers where biomining holds great potential in chalcopyrite heap leaching:
- Use Less Acid
Sulfuric acid is expensive, particularly when it is deployed at a heap leach scale. Even a modest reduction in acid consumption can translate to massive savings. If your microbial process somehow regenerates or reduces the acid load, that directly impacts the bottom line. - Leach Copper Faster
Heap leaching can be slow, on the order of months and years. Faster leaching means more metal recovered in less time, increasing throughput and allowing mines to produce more copper before adding new lifts. Time really is money in heap leaching. - Leach More Copper
It goes without saying that extracting more copper can raise profits. But this aspect of the model provides a vignette into how TEAs can translate science into economics; a brilliant idea to remove passivation might take months to develop and hours to fully explain, but at an economic level, it’s simplified to “more copper” and potentially, then, “more profit”.
For academic scientists, it can be easy to get bogged down in how your engineered proteins or microbial communities work. But in the Command Center, the core question is: Are we reducing costs or increasing production speed (or both)? That is what determines if an idea moves forward in a commercial mine.
How This TEA Resource Helps You
- Speaks the Language of Industry
If you have an innovative biomining approach, you can use this resource to plug in your assumptions about how it might perform. It translates lab-scale data into the financial metrics that mine operators and investors consider. - Cuts Through the Noise
Big ideas can die quickly if you can’t show economic impact. Our TEA helps you see which improvements – such as acid consumption, extraction rate, and yield – are the ones that matter. It also reveals which cost items are relatively negligible, so you don’t waste time on marginal gains. - Keeps You Honest and Focused
With every assumption clearly documented, you can’t hide fuzzy math. You’ll learn whether your “world-changing technology” is truly a game-changer or just a neat lab project. - Educational Crash Course
This TEA doubles as a crash course in mining economics, and serves as an example of what ‘good looks like’ when it comes to projecting your economics at early stages. You won’t need an MBA or to be a TEA expert to get started, but you’ll need to take time making the model your own. Our goal is to help get you started with a structure, industry-standard color-coding and formatting, and a detailed step-by-step manual, so you can gain the fluency required to confidently discuss feasibility with industry stakeholders.
Orecast exists to help biotechnologists forecast the economic potential of their best ideas and communicate those ideas with potential funders and the mining industry.
How to use this TEA Resource
Above: the Orecast manual for the Chalcopyrite TEA.
- Download the Excel Tool
Access our open-source TEA workbook and make a copy to play around in. Unfortunately, the Excel “Data Tables” used to run the sensitivity analysis & tornado chart are only available in Excel, so beware that if you convert it into Google Sheets, there will be a loss in functionality. - Read the Manual and Try the Examples
We’ve written a thorough walkthrough and guide, which includes some examples that help users become familiar with the model. We recommend skim-reading the manual before trying to adapt this model for your own use! - Focus on the Levers That Matter
Head to the Dashboard sheet and check out the Tornado Chart. Use the sensitivity testing to understand how small changes in acid cost or leach rates shift profitability. - Make it Your Own and Build-out Your Own “Bioleach” Sheet
We strongly encourage you to thoroughly understand how the model works and the applicability of the assumptions before taking the outputs at face value. This is more than a disclaimer—we want climate biotech founders and ecosystem participants to develop robust mental models around TEA. As part of that, we remind users that we left the “Bioleach” sheet as open-ended as possible, so if you already have lab data showing how your idea can shift a lever like leach rate or the total yield, input those assumptions to see the potential economic payoff. - Validate and Iterate
Use the Validation tab to compare your bottom-up assumptions with top-down industry benchmarks. For instance, equipment costs vary greatly from location to location – ensure the numbers the model is pulling make sense for you, and if something looks off, refine your inputs until the results make sense.
Conclusion
Our hope is that this TEA, and the Orecast project in general, empowers biotechnologists to engage directly with mining’s economic realities. By putting yourself in the Command Center, you’ll see exactly how (and why) innovations can sink or swim on industrial scales.
Cleaner mining starts with shared goals and shared numbers. With this TEA, scientists, funders, and mining decision makers can all speak the same economic language.
If you have questions, feedback, or are interested in work like this – we invite you to reach out to us at jayme@homeworld.bio and jesse@conductor-labs.com
Learn more about
- Homeworld Collective is a nonprofit field-building organization accelerating climate biotechnology. Homeworld supports scientists, technologists, and entrepreneurs working on the planet’s most pressing problems—by funding bold ideas, building community, and creating knowledge that connects ambition to impact.
- Conductor Labs is on a mission to democratize access to tailored commercialization support for scientific founders, via services and open-access software. Their goal is for scientific innovators to build stronger mental models that tie R&D and go-to-market decisions via techno-economic analyses.
- TEAs: The authors were recently on the Climate Biotech podcast discussing the value of TEA for early stage innovators.