If fossil fuels are to be substituted for solar and wind, they'll need to massively scale up. It turns out that this uses far more metals than was thought. And we're not discovering new metals.
I find it beyond baffling that politics as we have it today simply refuses to acknowledge physical limits of our resource constraints. I know some people will say that this,is just neo-malthusian fear mongering, but as you laid it out, yhese issues will not go away.
The logical solution would be, unironically, to retain our reliance on fossil fuels and perhaps looking at ways of generating synthetic fuels with whats available. It does, by default, put a hard barrier on our civilisation either way.
Yesterdays tailings are tomorrow's ore. Still, even as efficiencies build for metallurgical extraction, there's hard limits to how many metals are left in the ground, and harder limits to what's economical to produce. I think a lot of nations are starting to feel the squeeze. We'll be transitioning into a scarcity-industrial base where resources are inherently limited. Nations that already have strong militaries (the US) will be able to use trade concessions and threats to bully their way into resource surplus. Most nations are falling into resource shortages... maybe that's a reason for so many resources in Ukraine: if we can cripple the Russian military now, they might not be able to rebuild it in the foreseeable future.
Let's chat, you run a podcast or want to run a podcast? This article has certain insights in it that most people are lacking.
The only way this can change is if/when we start mining the asteroid belt.
Also, trees are the original renewable. A single family home needs about 3-5 cords of firewood for heating and cooking per year. This can be provided by a ten acre wood lot indefinitely.
"Reserves" for any given mineral commodity are only a temporary number or marker that conveys how far ahead the mining industry has conducted mineral exploration for that commodity in anticipation of future demand and subsequent mining development. It in no way represents "how much metal is left" in the earth. In actual fact, historical and ongoing mining are still pretty much just working over near-surface ores (i.e., low-hanging fruit) and only very rarely has metals exploration examined the earth below a rock depth of 300-500 feet. So, suggesting that renewables development will be stopped in its tracks by a dearth of metals is an assumption based on an incomplete understanding of the "reserves" mining term. The more likely limiting factor to renewables development remains fossil fuels depletion -- although in the past a whole lot of mining was carried out with much less petroleum product utilization than is presently the case because the first ores to be mined during modern industrialization were quite high grade (rich) and could be mined and processed into usable form with relatively little aid of fossil energy. It is probable that once mineral exploration gets better at searching at depths below 300-500 feet (and it already can, but the exploration industry is a bit ossified [functionally-fixed] in the head about the methods it employs), high quality ore like that mined some 120-150 years ago will once again start being made available for human use.
Do you think this essentially means a government driven reduction in western / european energy usage to meet targets then? In other words, government mandated impoverishment and wealth inequality on a huge scale?
It doesn't need to be government mandated. Energy and energy intensive products become more expensive so people don't buy/use them. This does mean that people will become poorer. As for wealth inequality that really depends on what the elite class' wealth is based on.
I find it beyond baffling that politics as we have it today simply refuses to acknowledge physical limits of our resource constraints. I know some people will say that this,is just neo-malthusian fear mongering, but as you laid it out, yhese issues will not go away.
The logical solution would be, unironically, to retain our reliance on fossil fuels and perhaps looking at ways of generating synthetic fuels with whats available. It does, by default, put a hard barrier on our civilisation either way.
Yesterdays tailings are tomorrow's ore. Still, even as efficiencies build for metallurgical extraction, there's hard limits to how many metals are left in the ground, and harder limits to what's economical to produce. I think a lot of nations are starting to feel the squeeze. We'll be transitioning into a scarcity-industrial base where resources are inherently limited. Nations that already have strong militaries (the US) will be able to use trade concessions and threats to bully their way into resource surplus. Most nations are falling into resource shortages... maybe that's a reason for so many resources in Ukraine: if we can cripple the Russian military now, they might not be able to rebuild it in the foreseeable future.
Let's chat, you run a podcast or want to run a podcast? This article has certain insights in it that most people are lacking.
>Yesterdays tailings are tomorrow's ore.
That's a good way to put it.
>Let's chat, you run a podcast or want to run a podcast?
I'm definitely open to the idea of going on other people's podcasts in the near future, although I need to read and write a bit more first.
The only way this can change is if/when we start mining the asteroid belt.
Also, trees are the original renewable. A single family home needs about 3-5 cords of firewood for heating and cooking per year. This can be provided by a ten acre wood lot indefinitely.
"Reserves" for any given mineral commodity are only a temporary number or marker that conveys how far ahead the mining industry has conducted mineral exploration for that commodity in anticipation of future demand and subsequent mining development. It in no way represents "how much metal is left" in the earth. In actual fact, historical and ongoing mining are still pretty much just working over near-surface ores (i.e., low-hanging fruit) and only very rarely has metals exploration examined the earth below a rock depth of 300-500 feet. So, suggesting that renewables development will be stopped in its tracks by a dearth of metals is an assumption based on an incomplete understanding of the "reserves" mining term. The more likely limiting factor to renewables development remains fossil fuels depletion -- although in the past a whole lot of mining was carried out with much less petroleum product utilization than is presently the case because the first ores to be mined during modern industrialization were quite high grade (rich) and could be mined and processed into usable form with relatively little aid of fossil energy. It is probable that once mineral exploration gets better at searching at depths below 300-500 feet (and it already can, but the exploration industry is a bit ossified [functionally-fixed] in the head about the methods it employs), high quality ore like that mined some 120-150 years ago will once again start being made available for human use.
Do you think this essentially means a government driven reduction in western / european energy usage to meet targets then? In other words, government mandated impoverishment and wealth inequality on a huge scale?
It doesn't need to be government mandated. Energy and energy intensive products become more expensive so people don't buy/use them. This does mean that people will become poorer. As for wealth inequality that really depends on what the elite class' wealth is based on.