This backgrounder is based on a presentation made by Brian Lee Crowley, the Managing Director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, at a panel convened as part of a Queen’s University program on “Clean Energy Superpower and Environmental Assessment: Canada’s Ambitions and Choices”.
Is it True that Non-Renewable Resources are Finite?
KINGSTON, ON, May 22, 2011/ Troy Media/ – Let me begin by saying that I believe the premise of this question is mistaken. It is quite incorrect to think that fossil fuel resources are finite. It may be true that there is a finite quantity of such resources in the earth’s crust, but that does not mean that we will ever run out. Indeed, I would be willing to place a bet with anyone in this room that human beings will cease using fossil fuels long before we have exhausted the available resource and that this is completely independent of any policy designed to speed up the invention and distribution of alternative “green” sources of energy.
Why? Because human intelligence and ingenuity have consistently and repeatedly unlocked technological and scientific advances that have raised the standard of living of each generation compared to its predecessor, while increasing the ability of human society to support larger numbers of people and increasing the carrying capacity of the planet.
For full article:
Taking a closer look at metal sources:
ReplyDeleteExtraction rates of key metals are rising, not lowering, and though we are not running out quite yet, and detailed data is lacking, the longterm scenario does not bode well.
In fact, the discovery rate for many metals is now less than the extraction rate.
Nevertheless, as currently stocks of ore are large compared with current needs. Prices of these metals do not yet reflect scarcity value as improved extraction techniques have kept the average real prices of these metals roughly steady in the last 30-40 years.
In the meantime environmental destruction is accelerating and our numbers continue to climb.
Where does that leave copper, and other metal resources in the future; well according to Metal Stocks and sustainability, Gordon et al, 2005, Yale & Harvard press:
"Data on the stock of copper used in the U.S. over the past century cast doubt on the idea that demand for metals eventually decreases as incomes rise.
Although the nation’s GDP has increased much faster than the copper stock-in-use, the rate of increase of the per-capita copper stock remains undiminished. We find that the per-capita copper committed to some services has decreased in the 20th century but that this decrease is overbalanced by the provision of new services.
The demand for new services is deeply embedded in a western popular and political culture that sees growth and development as absolutes, quickly converting services originating as luxuries or entertainments for the wealthy into necessities for everyone. Scenarios depicting future use of copper resources anticipate worldwide spread of the metal services enjoyed by the postindustrial nations. These scenarios need to explicitly address the cultural factors that continue to increase the per-capita use of copper in wealthy societies and the use of alternative materials to provide copper services.
Concern about the extent of mineral resources arises when the stock of metal needed to provide the services enjoyed by the highly developed nations is compared with that needed to provide comparable services with existing technology to a large part of the world’s population.
Our stock data demonstrate that current technologies would require the entire copper and zinc ore resource in the lithosphere and perhaps that of platinum as well. Even a lower level of services could not be sustained worldwide because a continuing supply of new metal is needed to make up for inevitable losses in the recycling of the metal stock-in-use. Substitution has the potential to ameliorate this situation, but one should not automatically assume that technology will produce a satisfactory substitute.
The topic of resource constraints inevitably recalls the classic bet between Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich in 1980, in which Ehrlich bet that the prices of five metals would increase by 1990 (36). Instead, the grouped prices fell, and Ehrlich paid Simon $576.07 to settle the wager. Unlike Ehrlich, we do not imply that metal price is a satisfactory measure of the remaining amount of a resource. Rather, we merely point out the present state of affairs: that anthropogenic and lithospheric stocks of at least some metals are becoming equivalent in magnitude, that world- wide demand continues to increase, and that the virgin stocks of several metals appear inadequate to sustain the modern ‘‘de- veloped world’’ quality of life for all Earth’s peoples under contemporary technology. These facts compel us to ask two key questions: Do we really envision a developed world quality of life for all of the people of the planet? and If so, are we willing to encourage the transformational technologies that will be re- quired to make that vision a reality? "