Measure of Metal Supply Finds Future Shortage

Ian Malcolm wrote:

Joseph Hertzlinger wrote:

If we take copper, for example, 13 million tons are mined per year and
the Earth's crust is 50 parts per million of copper on the average.
If I did the arithmetic right, the top centimeter of the Earth's crust
contains a year's supply.

We probably won't have to use ordinary rock because landfills make
better mines.

Too low grade an ore due to vast quantities of plastic bags etc. :-(
OTOH if we are already mining the landfills to recover petrochemicals
might as well go for the metals one way or another.

ISTR that currently about half of all copper is obtained through recycling.

I think however that we will be deep sea mining nodules (not just
manganese down there) and maybe also extracting metals we want
electrolytically.

Actually, copper is purified through an electrolytic process (we get a
lot of gold that way).

Regards,
John

Shawn Wilson wrote:
"Space Cadet" wrote in message
oups.com...


Hi All found this article on Sci-Am:

http://tinyurl.com/ds6k8

Basically it says that the current supply of copper, platinum and zinc
is in short supply.



What it is, sadly, is pure economic illiteracy. No, we aren't going to run
out. Ever. The market won't let it happen. The scarcer it gets, the more
expensive it gets, the better substitutes become, until the substitutes are
superior and extraction stops. It doesn't run out, it just becomes
uncompetitive.

It is especially ridiculous to claim we'll 'run out' of metals, since they
can be recycled infinitely many times.



I dunno 'bout that...

Seems like an awful lot of electronic devices just get thrown away.

There is not a lot of gold in each, but there is a lot of then in the trash.

In article .com,
"Space Cadet" wrote:

Hi All found this article on Sci-Am:

http://tinyurl.com/ds6k8

Basically it says that the current supply of copper, platinum and zinc
is in short supply.

Basically, this is the same tired old "limits to growth" political
bull****. One reason I quit subscribing to SciAm.

There are plenty of raw materials available for just about any
conceivable future economy on earth.[1] For obvious economic reasons,
mining cos. don't explore a given resource past a 10-20 year supply. And
all the historic trends of declining real metal prices continue.

Peter D. Tillman
Mining Geologist, Tucson & Santa Fe (USA)

[1] Not to mention the asteroid-belt metal resources for a space-based
economy: see Lewis, "Mining the Sky",
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg.../-/0201328194/

In message . net,
Richard Lamb writes
Shawn Wilson wrote:
"Space Cadet" wrote in message
groups.com...

Hi All found this article on Sci-Am:

http://tinyurl.com/ds6k8

Basically it says that the current supply of copper, platinum and zinc
is in short supply.
What it is, sadly, is pure economic illiteracy. No, we aren't
going to run out. Ever. The market won't let it happen. The
scarcer it gets, the more expensive it gets, the better substitutes
become, until the substitutes are superior and extraction stops. It
doesn't run out, it just becomes uncompetitive.
It is especially ridiculous to claim we'll 'run out' of metals,
since they can be recycled infinitely many times.


I dunno 'bout that...

Seems like an awful lot of electronic devices just get thrown away.

There is not a lot of gold in each, but there is a lot of then in the trash.

The metals in landfill can be extracted and reused, it just isn't
economically worthwhile at the moment. As the supply of easily
accessible new ores runs out then metal prices would rise and eventually
it would become cost effective to mine the landfill.
--
Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm
Brett Paul Dunbar
To email me, use reply-to address

Shawn Wilson wrote:
"Space Cadet" wrote in message
oups.com...

Hi All found this article on Sci-Am:

http://tinyurl.com/ds6k8

Basically it says that the current supply of copper, platinum and zinc
is in short supply.


What it is, sadly, is pure economic illiteracy. No, we aren't going to run
out. Ever. The market won't let it happen. The scarcer it gets, the more
expensive it gets, the better substitutes become, until the substitutes are
superior and extraction stops. It doesn't run out, it just becomes
uncompetitive.

This is *SO* much more illeterate and naive economics wise that the
original crappy article


It is especially ridiculous to claim we'll 'run out' of metals, since they
can be recycled infinitely many times.

Leading on to pure bull****.

Peter D. Tillman wrote:

Basically, this is the same tired old "limits to growth" political
bull****. One reason I quit subscribing to SciAm.

There are plenty of raw materials available for just about any
conceivable future economy on earth.[1] For obvious economic reasons,
mining cos. don't explore a given resource past a 10-20 year supply. And
all the historic trends of declining real metal prices continue.


Yes, but - there are too ways to running out or having insufficent
availability, possibly for extended periods of time. The first of which
is actual depletion and the second of which is chronical
underinvestment in infrastructure and production capability. The second
is already affecting the availability and pricing of oil and will
likely continue to do so and similar is starting to affect the price
and availability of several metals. Increasing mining and refining
output is often a long-lead item.

Peter D. Tillman
Mining Geologist, Tucson & Santa Fe (USA)

"Sander Vesik" wrote in message
oups.com...

Basically it says that the current supply of copper, platinum and zinc
is in short supply.


What it is, sadly, is pure economic illiteracy. No, we aren't going to
run
out. Ever. The market won't let it happen. The scarcer it gets, the
more
expensive it gets, the better substitutes become, until the substitutes
are
superior and extraction stops. It doesn't run out, it just becomes
uncompetitive.

This is *SO* much more illeterate and naive economics wise that the
original crappy article


Gee, where do I start?

My undergrad degree in economics? My four years of graduate study in
economics?

Or with your utter failure to actually present an argument?

It doesn't take much thought to deduce that raw materials can't appreciate
at a different rate than everything else in the economy (if it did the price
would be bid up or down as appropriate until it didn't), and so the
consumption path *must* be smooth. There can be current shocks to the
system, but not future ones like "we're going to run out in 20 years!".

Economic illiteracy isn't just sad, it is a real burden on society.



It is especially ridiculous to claim we'll 'run out' of metals, since
they
can be recycled infinitely many times.

Leading on to pure bull****.


Are you claiming that metals can only be recycled finitely many times? Do
you think the molecules magically disappear? Or do they magically transmute
into something else?

So, in addition to economic illiteracy, you are also illiterate about the
basics of recycling.

And you decided to share your illiteracy with us.

How special...

Shawn Wilson wrote:


Are you claiming that metals can only be recycled finitely many times? Do
you think the molecules magically disappear? Or do they magically transmute
into something else?



They do transmute into other things in a lot of cases- either oxides or
alloys.
And it takes energy to get them back into their pure forms again for re-use.
Plus a lot of metal can't be recycled, as it's still in use as buildings
and tools, component parts of alloys that are in existing things, or
diluted into forms that are uneconomical to extract it from.
The Titanic is going to by and large vanish into rust in another hundred
years or so, and whereas the iron that made it up is still going to be
on the planet, you'd need to filter a lot of seawater to get it all back.
It's not a matter of it still being there, it's a matter of how to
economically get it back for recycling.
Now the solution is simple- we drill a hole in Tanganyika that goes down
to the molten nickel-iron of the outer core, and bring it up to the
surface in a molten form. Then we can easily and economically separate
it into its component elements and use the leftover heat to drive
electrical power plants.
Now, I'm not saying that drilling such a hole will be easy; the rock of
the lower mantle may prove tough indeed, but I am fairly sure that a
nuclear device would be able to breech the hardest rock in a completely
risk-free manner.

Dr. Stephen Sorenson
Project Inner Space

On Fri, 20 Jan 2006 16:49:01 -0700, Shawn Wilson
wrote:

It is especially ridiculous to claim we'll 'run out' of metals,
since they can be recycled infinitely many times.

According to http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi...ull/2006/117/2
they did the analysis in tems of the total amount of copper in use
in North America instead of merely the amount mined per year.

On the other hand, they apparently did not pay enough attention to
low-grade ores or using substitutes.

--
http://hertzlinger.blogspot.com

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...
Now the solution is simple- we drill a hole in Tanganyika that goes down
to the molten nickel-iron of the outer core, and bring it up to the
surface in a molten form. Then we can easily and economically separate
it into its component elements and use the leftover heat to drive
electrical power plants.
Now, I'm not saying that drilling such a hole will be easy; the rock of
the lower mantle may prove tough indeed, but I am fairly sure that a
nuclear device would be able to breech the hardest rock in a completely
risk-free manner.

Actually you're better off flying to the South Pole in my Atomic Airplane
and digging there.

Dr. Tom Swift Jr.



Dr. Stephen Sorenson
Project Inner Space