Geological resources: there is not only oil that will miss!

[Christophe]

We are being belittled so much with the depletion of energy resources (oil, gas, coal, but also uranium) ... we often forget to talk about other mineral resources, especially metals!

Here is the state of the 2006-2007 mineral resources reserve years for some metals:


Source: next book of Pierre Langlois "Drive without petrol"

These figures need to be qualified since, unlike consumed oil which is "lost", metals can be recycled to a certain extent ... and be looped back as a resource.

Now recycling has its limits too. If someone has specific information above, it would interest me! For example: when I buy 1 kg of aluminum or steel, what is the% recycled.

Here is the excerpt from the text from the book (which will be released early 2009 in Europe) that accompanies this graph.

"Now, even though we've focused a lot on the technologies in this book, the fact remains that it's not very wise to constantly move a 1 500 kg vehicle to carry a person of 75 kg.

It is not only the energy expenditure of the vehicles that must be considered. We will also have to be very vigilant with regard to the consumption of raw materials. Figure E.1 shows the full extent of the problem, presenting the number of years of reserves (before depletion of resources) for different natural resources, assuming that geological 2006 (see the note below). In this figure, the recycling of metals is taken into account since their mining production is considered. And here, we must not forget that our consumption is growing strongly because of emerging countries like China and India entering an intense industrial era. Also, if nothing is done to correct the shot, the years of reserve will be less numerous than those of the figure E.1! Although we may want to introduce rigorous recycling programs, the percentage of recovery will not be 100%. It will therefore be necessary that the vehicles we manufacture are fewer, smaller (taking into account the climate) and last longer.

In the face of this finding on global resources, the author wishes to reaffirm his conviction that a real sustainable development of road transport requires a very important investment in public transport, which our governments have the duty to improve, to attract a larger clientele High-speed intercity monorails will have to be developed quickly, as well as electric city buses with bottle-feeding. Car pooling and electric community cars, such as the MIT City Car (figure E.2), are other very important elements to help us eliminate our dependence on oil while reducing our consumption of raw materials. Cycling and walking complete all these environmentally responsible means.


NOTES

To develop the E.1 graph, the author used statistics from the US Geological Survey, in particular the Mineral Commodity Summaries ( http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/myb ) for metals, to the BP Statistical Review report of World Energy June 2008 (see www.bp.com) for petroleum and natural gas, and, for uranium, to an article by Paul Mobbs entitled Uranium Supply and the Nuclear Option, published in the Oxford Energy Forum, the quarterly journal of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, number 61, May 2005 (see www.fraw.org.uk/mei). For aluminum reserves, they are based on bauxite reserves, the only ore from which aluminum can be produced economically. Clays also contain a lot of aluminum but we do not know how to extract it effectively. For oil and natural gas, the reserves provided by BP are proved reserves, including for oil, the Canadian oil sands. For metal reserves, we considered what the USGS calls Reserve Base, which the organization defines as follows:

"Reserve Base.That part of an identified resource that meets the requirements of the minimum physical and chemical criteria related to current mining and production practices, including those for grade, quality, thickness, and depth. The reserve is the in-place shown (measured plus indicated) resource from which reserves are estimated. It can encompass those parts of the world that have a reasonable potential for becoming economically more efficient than others. The reserve base comprises those resources which are currently economic (reserves), marginally economic (marginal reserves), and some of those which are currently subeconomic (subeconomic resources) ".

"Basic reserves. That portion of the identified resource that meets specified minimum physical and chemical criteria for current mining and operational practices, including those for grade, grade, thickness, and depth. Basic reserves are the proven on-site resource (measured and manifest) from which reserves are deduced. They may include those parts of the resources that have a reasonable potential to become economically available within planable horizons, beyond those that presuppose proven technologies and current economic criteria. Basic reserves include resources that are currently economically profitable (reserves), marginally economic (marginal reserves), and some of those resources that are currently below breakeven (sub-economic resources) "(free translation by the author). »»

ps: Pierre L. is also the author of https://www.econologie.com/forums/synthese-r ... t3797.html

[Gregconstruct]

And where is it recycled?

This is a question not to be overlooked either!

[Christophe]

Yes obviously ... hence my precision "info precise"

Interest in an interesting FR5 doc on Wallmart, a dock manager at a major West Coast US port was interviewed.

She said that the cargo ships that came from Asia (China particularly) stuffed with finished product left with ... recycled materials ... turned there into ... product ends and the loop and buckled!

[Christophe]

Good to refocus a little, I think that P.Langlois is very in tune with us, I asked him if he had figures concerning this the 1er message of this page: https://www.econologie.com/forums/synthese-r ... 97-50.html

[freddau]

I do not know what these numbers are, but under the oceans there must be a lot of raw material so ..... I would not worry about it for that.

No??

And then you have to make more holes in the ground .... with big shovels.

But who makes shovels and other dump trucks work ???

Oil of course.

a+

[dirk pitt]

two remarks about this excellent post on terrestrial resources:

First, I once again warn against the perversity of the reserves counted in R / P ratio. this ratio, which has the sole merit of being simple to understand, divides the reserves (known / estimated / probable or other depending on the resource) by the production at a time T
the biggest omission in it is that the geological resources are not like a reservoir whose tap flows with the same flow until the last liter.
when we say that there is N years of production of such an element, we must not imagine that we will continue at the same pace and that one day: Ah well there is more!
the easiest geological reserves are exploited at the beginning (of course) and most of these reserves show a decline in production when more than half of the ultimate reserves have been extracted.
So, for oil for example, it is now the best-known peak-oil that the production, although possibly lasting 50ans or more, will drop in the very near future, forcing us to reduce our consumption because we consume more than half of the available oil.

for uranium, there is another important factor and I refer to the very good articles of the German EWG (Energy Watch Group)
in short, the problem is that the current world consumption of uranium is ensured by only 2 / 3 through the extraction of ore. the last third comes from existing stocks including the dismantling of nuclear weapons. when these stocks are exhausted (2013 for the huge Russian stock), it will miss 1 / 3 of the necessary uranium and it would be necessary that the mines increase of 50% their extraction !! there is a good chance that the price of nuclear electricity will increase sharply.

last point on the recycling of aluminum:
in 2006 (latest figures I have), about 20% of the tonnage of finished aluminum products came back in the form of recycled finished products. but it is not the biggest by recycling. the largest part is done upstream of the finished product at all stages of the industrial process so that in the basic production of the metal (we call that the primary metal), about 50% actually comes from "new" metal produced at from extraction and 50% comes from recycling the entire industrial aluminum sector.

[Remundo]

Hi Dirk,

In fact, the calculated time must be reduced, on the one hand for the rarefaction / difficulty of increasing extraction (which you explain well), but also by the increasing use of resources: with the Chinese, Indian and South American boom, the stress on the resources increases by 4% / year approximately.

Without recycling, this will not happen in the very short term (15 to 20 years)

[dirk pitt]

increasing use of resources: with the rise in China, India and South America, the stress on resources is increasing by 4% / year.

the increasing use of resources .... must be seen because when a resource decreases in terms of production per unit of time, the only thing we can do is eat it faster.

I like your notion of "stress" on resources because the scenarios which announce increases in productions of this or that, I'm not sure.
the other day, in a report, I heard a guy say:
"China and India sit down to the table when we have already eaten half the cake"
as we are not going to stop eating, it's mathematical: they will not have half

[Bibiphoque]

Hello,
Most metals can be recycled at 100% if they are used.

What causes the numbers not to match is the metals "immobilized" during the life of the "object" made with it.
As a best-known example, copper is systematically purified by electrolysis and then reused in first-melt alloys or as pure copper.
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[Remundo]

Hi Bibi and Dirk,

When I talk about stress over resources, that's another way of talking about resource extraction.

The levy is a notion of debit, in quantity / year.

So we can easily increase the flow, that's what we do elsewhere.

The problem is that if you open a faucet of a tank that is by definition powered by nothing (the fossil and mining resources of the Earth), the tank is empty at all speeds.

In the meantime, we can "binge" for a few years, by increasing the flow by 4% / year. This is the current point of view of all the "big guys" (industrialists, politicians, "GDP" economists) in this world. And of course that is major nonsense.

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