The Crash Course - Chris Martenson [100]
To illustrate the importance of mineral wealth to economic growth, consider what goes into our cars and trucks. Automobiles are a perfect starting point because mobility is extremely important to people everywhere on the globe. We can easily appreciate how economic growth translates into more cars on the road, and cars use up lots of different minerals in their construction and operation.
To manufacture a car or truck, the following mineral elements are needed (Figure 19.3):
Figure 19.3 Types of Metal or Element (by Weight) in a Typical Automobile
Source: McLelland, “What Earth Materials Are in My Subaru?”2
Even if we assume 100 percent recycling of the materials in a car or truck (an impossibility, as some things are lost along the way to rust or just otherwise diluted and dispersed), one thing that we can’t get around is that each year, with economic growth, there are more cars and trucks plying the global highways than the previous year (Figure 19.4).
Figure 19.4 Total Registered Vehicles in the United States
Source: Research and Innovation Technology Administration Bureau of Transportation Statistics.3
More cars and trucks mean that more of those things in the table above must be extracted from the earth. More copper, steel, aluminum, and everything else in that list must come up out of the ground to be converted into vehicles. The same is true for cell phones, computers, televisions, and everything else that includes some form of mineral wealth.
When we look at the world’s undisputed, number one consumer economy, that of the United States, a country enormously well endowed at its inception with mineral wealth, we find that it currently imports 100 percent of its needs for 18 critical, economically important elements or minerals.1 The implication of this is clear: The U.S. economy now requires more mineral wealth than can be secured from within its own borders, and in several cases it has entirely depleted its natural endowment of mineral wealth after only 150 years of running its industrial economy.
The End of an Epoch
Several high-quality studies have already peered into the future of our known mineral resources and determined that some of them are now past peak and that several will be entirely exhausted within just a few decades (Figure 19.5).
Figure 19.5 Known Mineral Reserves and Depletion
Source: Diederen, “Metal Minerals Scarcity and the Elements of Hope.”4
It’s startling to realize that nearly all of these mineral resources were in fully pristine, untouched condition just 150 years ago. Where the earth once spent hundreds of millions of years concentrating these ores into a relatively few seams and pockets around the globe, humans managed to eat through a significant quantity of those in only 150 years. But that, too, underplays the situation. The amounts of minerals extracted each year have been steadily climbing through time. If we assume a 2 percent rate of increase in yearly extraction, this would mean that world extraction and use of mineral resources will double every 35 years.
And we’re continuing to increase the amounts that we extract by a fairly steady 2 percent per year, which means that in just another 35 years, we will be seeking to extract twice as much from the ground as we are today. Thirty-five years after that, we’ll want to extract four times a much. And so on, forever and ever. Or at least that’s the story as it currently stands.
Your job is simply to ask yourself if that seems either likely or doable. If, like me, your answer is, No, this is neither likely nor doable, then it makes sense to begin planning for a future that will be very different from today.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
There can be no doubt that an important tactic of the future is going be careful stewardship of our remaining resources. By reducing, reusing, and recycling