Now, prices are increasing sharply And thats exactly what we are seeing: During the past five to ten years the prices of all mineral commodities have skyrocketed and show no signs of decreasing. For instance, crude oil now costs at least five times more than ten years ago. Prices might collapse because of a strong recession as it happened in 2008-2009, but production would also collapse and that would be much worse for the economy. In other words, from now on, depletion may be winning over technology. Or, your cake is now getting smaller the faster you eat it, and you have to chew harder before you can swallow each bite. This is also the finding of a recent study by Professor Charles Hall and his coworkers (Lambert 2014) who examined the energy yield (EROI) of crude oil. Their conclusion is clear: Depletion is a more powerful force than technological innovation. The law of diminishing returns This conclusion is valid for practically all mineral resources and not just for mining: the principle that depletion causes diminishing returns is very general and also concerns the other side of mineral extraction, that we usually call pollution. In this case, we are gradually running out the ability of the ecosystem to absorb our waste products. Consider the atmosphere: as the IPCC reports have been telling us, the fossil carbon that we have been extracting and burning has not disappeared, it has been accumulating in the form of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2). So far, we had been thinking of the atmosphere as a free resource, in the sense that we could dump into it whatever we liked at no cost. But, as we keep burning fossil carbon, we are discovering that this resource is running out and it has a cost in terms of the effects of climate change. Even here, these costs are increasing and technology can help us only up to a certain point: the efforts to increase the efficiency of the use of fossil energy show diminishing returns. Still fighting for a sustainable world So the Cassandras of depletion appear to be winning over the Sirens of abundance, but its a hollow victory and one where its unlikely well see a banner claiming Mission Accomplished. Humans are not fighting a battle against the Earth to deprive her of her mineral riches and - if they were - they would be fighting a losing battle. What we need to fight for is a world that does not consume more than the Earth can recreate. It is called a sustainable world.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 17:51:32 +0000
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