There is no shortage of bauxite, but there may be some refining issues.
Similarly there are lots of copper mines that have been shut down waiting for the price to rise. I visited several last year in Arizona.
As has been pointed out by others the graphs need to be corrected for scale and probably also for inflation.
Silver demand should go down as photographic film is replaced by digital images and copper use should go down in communications and electronic devices. Long range communication is become wireless or glass fiber while electronic devices get smaller and thus use less raw materials. Policies not Politics ---- Daily Landscape
Processing of oxide ores is much cheaper, using acid leaching and electrowinning (as in aluminium production).
Traditionally sulfide ores, however, require a multi-stage process including concentrating; smelting; anode reduction and electrorefining. These required expensive plant, are not only more costly to run and they also produce a lot more pollution.
There are new plants in test-production in Arizona, Mexico and elsewhere, that are using bio-reactor leaching of sulfide ores, which may make copper extraction from sulfide ores much cheaper.
Bio-reactor leaching may also be useful in processing tailings from old mines, extracting not only the remaining copper but also other metals such as molybdenum. Eats cheroots and leaves.
