Natural resource economics - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

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Environment (biophysical)

The biophysical environment is the combined modeling of the physical environment and the biological life forms within the environment, and includes all variables, parameters as well as conditions and modes inside the Earth's biosphere. The biophysical environment can be divided into two categories:...

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Equity (economics)

Equity is the concept or idea of fairness in economics, particularly as to taxation or welfare economics. More specifically it may refer to equal life chances regardless of identity, to provide all citizens with a basic minimum of income/goods/services or to increase funds and commitment for...

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Sustainable development

Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use, that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come...

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Social ecology

Social ecology is a philosophy developed by Murray Bookchin in the 1960s.It holds that present ecological problems are rooted in deep-seated social problems, particularly in dominatory hierarchical political and social systems. These have resulted in an uncritical acceptance of an overly...

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Environmental economics

Environmental economics is a subfield of economics concerned with environmental issues. Quoting from the National Bureau of Economic Research Environmental Economics program:...

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Economics

Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...

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Society

A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...

Natural resource economics deals with the supply

Supply (economics)

In economics, supply is the amount of some product producers are willing and able to sell at a given price all other factors being held constant. Usually, supply is plotted as a supply curve showing the relationship of price to the amount of product businesses are willing to sell.In economics the...

, demand

Demand (economics)

In economics, demand is the desire to own anything, the ability to pay for it, and the willingness to pay . The term demand signifies the ability or the willingness to buy a particular commodity at a given point of time....

, and allocation

Resource allocation

Resource allocation is used to assign the available resources in an economic way. It is part of resource management. In project management, resource allocation is the scheduling of activities and the resources required by those activities while taking into consideration both the resource...

of the Earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

's natural resource

Natural resource

Natural resources occur naturally within environments that exist relatively undisturbed by mankind, in a natural form. A natural resource is often characterized by amounts of biodiversity and geodiversity existent in various ecosystems....

s. One main objective of natural resource economics is to better understand the role of natural resources in the economy in order to develop more sustainable

Sustainability

Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...

methods of managing those resources to ensure their availability to future generations. Resource economists study interactions between economic and natural systems, with the goal of developing a sustainable and efficient economy.

Areas of discussion

Natural resource economics is a transdisciplinary field of academic research within economics

Economics

that aims to address the connections and interdependence between human economies and natural ecosystem

Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....

s. Its focus is how to operate an economy

Economy

An economy consists of the economic system of a country or other area; the labor, capital and land resources; and the manufacturing, trade, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of that area...

within the ecological constraints of earth's natural resources

Natural Resources

Natural Resources is a soul album released by Motown girl group Martha Reeves and the Vandellas in 1970 on the Gordy label. The album is significant for the Vietnam War ballad "I Should Be Proud" and the slow jam, "Love Guess Who"...

. Resource economics brings together and connects different disciplines within the natural and social sciences connected to broad areas of earth science

Earth science

Earth science is an all-embracing term for the sciences related to the planet Earth. It is arguably a special case in planetary science, the Earth being the only known life-bearing planet. There are both reductionist and holistic approaches to Earth sciences...

, human economics

Economics

, and natural ecosystems. Economic models must be adapted to accommodate the special features of natural resource inputs. The traditional curriculum of natural resource economics emphasized fisheries models, forestry models, and minerals extraction models (i.e. fish, trees, and ore). In recent years, however, other resources, notably air, water, the global climate, and "environmental resources" in general have become increasingly important to policy-making.

Academic and policy interest has now moved beyond simply the optimal commercial exploitation of the standard trio of resources to encompass management for other objectives. For example, natural resources more broadly defined have recreational, as well as commercial values. They may also contribute to overall social welfare levels, by their mere existence.

The economics and policy area focuses on the human aspects of environmental problems. Traditional areas of environmental and natural resource economics include welfare theory, pollution control, resource extraction, and non-market valuation, and also resource exhaustibility, sustainability

Sustainability

, environmental management

Environmental management

Environmental resource management is “a purposeful activity with the goal to maintain and improve the state of an environmental resource affected by human activities” . It is not, as the phrase suggests, the management of the environment as such, but rather the management of the interaction and...

, and environmental policy

Environmental policy

Environmental policy is any [course of] action deliberately taken [or not taken] to manage human activities with a view to prevent, reduce, or mitigate harmful effects on nature and natural resources, and ensuring that man-made changes to the environment do not have harmful effects on...

. Research topics could include the environmental impacts of agriculture, transportation and urbanization, land use in poor and industrialized countries, international trade and the environment, climate change

Climate change

Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...

, and methodological advances in non-market valuation, to name just a few.

Natural resource economics also relates to energy

Energy

In physics, energy is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems...

, and is a broad scientific

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

subject area which includes topics related to supply

Energy supply

Energy supply is the delivery of fuels or transformed fuels to point of consumption. It potentially encompasses the extraction, transmission, generation, distribution and storage of fuels...

and use of energy in societies

Society

. Thermoeconomists argue that economic systems always involve matter

Matter

Matter is a general term for the substance of which all physical objects consist. Typically, matter includes atoms and other particles which have mass. A common way of defining matter is as anything that has mass and occupies volume...

, energy

Energy

In physics, energy is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems...

, entropy

Entropy

Entropy is a thermodynamic property that can be used to determine the energy available for useful work in a thermodynamic process, such as in energy conversion devices, engines, or machines. Such devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when...

, and information

Information

Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...

. Thermoeconomics is based on the proposition that the role of energy

Energy

In physics, energy is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems...

in biological evolution should be defined and understood through the second law of thermodynamics

Second law of thermodynamics

The second law of thermodynamics is an expression of the tendency that over time, differences in temperature, pressure, and chemical potential equilibrate in an isolated physical system. From the state of thermodynamic equilibrium, the law deduced the principle of the increase of entropy and...

but in terms of such economic criteria as productivity

Productivity

Productivity is a measure of the efficiency of production. Productivity is a ratio of what is produced to what is required to produce it. Usually this ratio is in the form of an average, expressing the total output divided by the total input...

, efficiency, and especially the costs and benefits of the various mechanisms for capturing and utilizing available energy to build biomass and do work. As a result, natural resource economics are often discussed in the field of ecological economics

Ecological economics

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, which itself is related to the fields of sustainability

Sustainability

and sustainable development

Sustainable development

.

Hotelling's rule

Hotelling's rule

Hotelling's rule states that the most socially and economically profitable extraction path of a non-renewable resource is one along which the price of the resource, determined by the marginal net revenue from the sale of the resource, increases at the rate of interest...

is a 1931 economic model of non-renewable resource management

Resource management

In organizational studies, resource management is the efficient and effective deployment of an organization's resources when they are needed. Such resources may include financial resources, inventory, human skills, production resources, or information technology...

by Harold Hotelling

Harold Hotelling

Harold Hotelling was a mathematical statistician and an influential economic theorist.He was Associate Professor of Mathematics at Stanford University from 1927 until 1931, a member of the faculty of Columbia University from 1931 until 1946, and a Professor of Mathematical Statistics at the...

. It shows that efficient exploitation of a nonrenewable and nonaugmentable resource would, under otherwise stable economic conditions, lead to a depletion

Resource depletion

Resource depletion is an economic term referring to the exhaustion of raw materials within a region. Resources are commonly divided between renewable resources and non-renewable resources...

of the resource. The rule states that this would lead to a net price or "Hotelling rent" for it that rose annually at a rate equal to the rate of interest, reflecting the increasing scarcity of the resource. Nonaugmentable resources of inorganic materials (i.e. minerals) are uncommon; most resources can be augmented by recycling and by the existence and use of substitutes for the end-use products (see below).

Vogely has stated that the development of a mineral resource occurs in five stages: (1) The current operating margin (rate of production) governed by the proportion of the reserve (resource) already depleted. (2) The intensive development margin governed by the trade-off between the rising necessary investment and quicker realization of revenue. (3) The extensive development margin in which extraction is begun of known but previously uneconomic deposits. (4) The exploration margin in which the search for new deposits (resources) is conducted and the cost per unit extracted is highly uncertain with the cost of failure having to be balanced against finding usable resources (deposits) that have marginal costs of extraction no higher than in the first three stages above. (5) The technology margin which interacts with the first four stages. The Gray-Hotelling (exhaustion) theory is a special case, since it covers only Stages 1–3 and not the far more important Stages 4 and 5.

Simon has stated that the supply of natural resources is infinite (i.e. perpetual)

These conflicting views will be substantially reconciled by considering resource-related topics in depth in the next section, or at least minimized.

Furthermore, Hartwick's rule

Hartwick's Rule

In resource economics, Hartwick's rule defines the amount of investment in produced capital that is needed to exactly offset declining stocks of non-renewable resources. This investment is undertaken so that the standard of living does not fall as society moves into the indefinite future...

provides insight to the sustainability

Sustainability

of welfare in an economy that uses non-renewable resource

Non-renewable resource

A non-renewable resource is a natural resource which cannot be produced, grown, generated, or used on a scale which can sustain its consumption rate, once depleted there is no more available for future needs. Also considered non-renewable are resources that are consumed much faster than nature...

Background and introduction

The perpetual resource concept is a complex one because the concept of resource is complex and changes with the advent of new technology (usually more efficient recovery), new needs, and to a lesser degree with new economics (e.g. changes in prices of the material, changes in energy costs, etc.). On the one hand, a material (and its resources) can enter a time of shortage and become a strategic and critical material (an immediate exhaustibility crisis), but on the other hand a material can go out of use, its resource can proceed to being perpetual if it was not before, and then the resource can become a paleoresource when the material goes almost completely out of use (e.g. resources of arrowhead-grade flint). Some of the complexities influencing resources of a material include the extent of recyclability, the availability of suitable substitutes for the material in its end-use products, plus some other less important factors.

The Federal Government suddenly became compellingly interested in resource issues on December 7, 1941, shortly after which Japan cut the U.S. off from tin

Tin

Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...

and rubber

Rubber

Natural rubber, also called India rubber or caoutchouc, is an elastomer that was originally derived from latex, a milky colloid produced by some plants. The plants would be ‘tapped’, that is, an incision made into the bark of the tree and the sticky, milk colored latex sap collected and refined...

and made some other materials very difficult to obtain, such as tungsten. This was the worst case for resource availability, becoming a strategic and critical material. After the war a government stockpile of strategic and critical materials was set up, having around 100 different materials which were purchased for cash or obtained by trading off U.S. agricultural commodities for them. In the longer term, scarcity of tin later led to completely substituting aluminum foil for tin

Tin

foil and polymer lined lined steel

Steel

Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

cans and aseptic

Aseptic processing

Aseptic processing is the process by which a sterile product is packaged in a sterile container in a way that maintains sterility...

packaging substituting for tin electroplated

Tin can

A tin can, tin , steel can, or a can, is a sealed container for the distribution or storage of goods, composed of thin metal. Many cans require opening by cutting the "end" open; others have removable covers. Cans hold diverse contents: foods, beverages, oil, chemicals, etc."Tin" cans are made...

steel cans.

Resources change over time with technology and economics; more efficient recovery leads to a drop in the ore grade needed. The average grade of the copper

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

ore processed has dropped from 4.0% copper in 1900 to 1.63% in 1920, 1.20% in 1940, 0.73% in 1960, 0.47% in 1980, and 0.44% in 2000.

Cobalt

Cobalt

Cobalt is a chemical element with symbol Co and atomic number 27. It is found naturally only in chemically combined form. The free element, produced by reductive smelting, is a hard, lustrous, silver-gray metal....

had been in an iffy supply status ever since the Belgian Congo

Belgian Congo

The Belgian Congo was the formal title of present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo between King Leopold II's formal relinquishment of his personal control over the state to Belgium on 15 November 1908, and Congolese independence on 30 June 1960.-Congo Free State, 1884–1908:Until the latter...

(world's only significant source of cobalt) was given a hasty independence in 1960 and the cobalt-producing province seceded as Katanga, followed by several wars and insurgencies, local government removals, railroads destroyed, and nationalizations. This was topped off by an invasion of the province by Katangan rebels in 1978 that disrupted supply and transportation and caused the cobalt price to briefly triple. While the cobalt supply was disrupted and the price shot up, nickel and other substitutes were pressed into service.

Following this, the idea of a "Resource War" by the Soviets became popular. Rather than the chaos that resulted from the Zairean cobalt situation, this would be planned, a strategy designed to destroy economic activity outside the Soviet bloc by the acquisition of vital resources by noneconomic means (military?) outside the Soviet bloc (Third World?), then withholding these minerals from the West.

An important way of getting around a cobalt

Cobalt

situation or a "Resource War" situation is to use substitutes for a material in its end-uses. Some criteria for a satisfactory substitute are (1) ready availability domestically in adequate quantities or availability from contiguous nations, or possibly from overseas allies, (2) possessing physical and chemical properties, performance, and longevity comparable to the material of first choice, (3) well-established and known behavior and properties particularly as a component in exotic alloys, and (4) an ability for processing and fabrication with minimal changes in existing technology, capital plant, and processing and fabricating facilities. Some suggested substitutions were alunite

Alunite

Alunite is a sulfate mineral that was first observed in the 15th century in Monti della Tolfa, north of Rome, where it was mined for the manufacture of alum. First called aluminilite by J.C. Delamétherie in 1797, this name was contracted by François Beudant in 1824 to alunite.Distinct crystals of...

for bauxite to make alumina, molybdenum

Molybdenum

Molybdenum , is a Group 6 chemical element with the symbol Mo and atomic number 42. The name is from Neo-Latin Molybdaenum, from Ancient Greek , meaning lead, itself proposed as a loanword from Anatolian Luvian and Lydian languages, since its ores were confused with lead ores...

and/or nickel

Nickel

Nickel is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel belongs to the transition metals and is hard and ductile...

for cobalt, and aluminum alloy automobile radiators for copper alloy automobile radiators. Materials can be eliminated without material substitutes, for example by using discharges of high tension electricity to shape hard objects that were formerly shaped by mineral abrasives, giving superior performance at lower cost, or by using computers/satellites to replace copper wire (land lines).

An important way of replacing a resource is by synthesis, for example, industrial diamonds and many kinds of graphite

Graphite

The mineral graphite is one of the allotropes of carbon. It was named by Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1789 from the Ancient Greek γράφω , "to draw/write", for its use in pencils, where it is commonly called lead . Unlike diamond , graphite is an electrical conductor, a semimetal...

, although a certain kind of graphite could be almost replaced by a recycled product. Most graphite is synthetic, for example, graphite electrodes, graphite fiber, graphite shapes (machined or unmachined), and graphite powder.

Another way of replacing or extending a resource is by recycling the material desired from scrap or waste. This depends on whether or not the material is dissipated or is available as a no longer usable durable product. Reclamation of the durable product depends on its resistance to chemical and physical breakdown, quantities available, price of availability, and the ease of extraction from the original product. For example, bismuth

Bismuth

Bismuth is a chemical element with symbol Bi and atomic number 83. Bismuth, a trivalent poor metal, chemically resembles arsenic and antimony. Elemental bismuth may occur naturally uncombined, although its sulfide and oxide form important commercial ores. The free element is 86% as dense as lead...

in stomach medicine is hopelessly scattered (dissipated) and therefore impossible to recover, while bismuth alloys can be easily recovered and recycled. A good example where recycling makes a big difference is the resource availability situation for graphite

Graphite

, where flake graphite can be recovered from a renewable resource called kish, a steelmaking waste created when carbon separates out as graphite within the kish from the molten metal along with slag. After it is cold, the kish can be processed.

Several other kinds of resources need to be introduced. If strategic and critical materials are the worst case for resources, unless mitigated by substitution and/or recycling, one of the best is an abundant resource. An abundant resource is one whose material has so far found little use, such as using high-aluminous clays or anorthosite to produce alumina, and magnesium before it was recovered from seawater. An abundant resource is quite similar to a perpetual resource. The reserve base is the part of an identified resource that has a reasonable potential for becoming economically available at a time beyond when currently proven technology and current economics are in operation. Identified resources are those whose location, grade, quality, and quantity are known or estimated from specific geologic evidence. Reserves are that part of the reserve base that can be economically extracted at the time of determination; reserves should not be used as a surrogate for resources because they are often distorted by taxation or the owning firm's public relations needs.

Comprehensive natural resource models

Harrison Brown and associates stated that humanity will process lower and lower grade "ore". Iron will come from low-grade iron-bearing material such as raw rock from anywhere in an iron

Iron

Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

formation, not much different from the input used to make taconite

Taconite

Taconite is a variety of iron formation, an iron-bearing sedimentary rock, in which the iron minerals are interlayered with quartz, chert, or carbonate...

pellets in North America and elsewhere today. As coking coal reserves decline, pig iron and steel

Steel

production will use non-coke-using processes (i.e. electric steel). The aluminum industry could shift from using bauxite

Bauxite

Bauxite is an aluminium ore and is the main source of aluminium. This form of rock consists mostly of the minerals gibbsite Al3, boehmite γ-AlO, and diaspore α-AlO, in a mixture with the two iron oxides goethite and hematite, the clay mineral kaolinite, and small amounts of anatase TiO2...

to using anorthosite and clay

Clay

Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...

. Magnesium

Magnesium

Magnesium is a chemical element with the symbol Mg, atomic number 12, and common oxidation number +2. It is an alkaline earth metal and the eighth most abundant element in the Earth's crust and ninth in the known universe as a whole...

metal and magnesia consumption (i.e. in refractories), currently obtained from seawater, will increase. Sulfur will be obtained from pyrites, then gypsum

Gypsum

Gypsum is a very soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O. It is found in alabaster, a decorative stone used in Ancient Egypt. It is the second softest mineral on the Mohs Hardness Scale...

or anhydrite. Metals such as copper

Copper

, zinc

Zinc

Zinc , or spelter , is a metallic chemical element; it has the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is the first element in group 12 of the periodic table. Zinc is, in some respects, chemically similar to magnesium, because its ion is of similar size and its only common oxidation state is +2...

, nickel

Nickel

, and lead

Lead

Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...

will be obtained from manganese nodules or the Phosphoria formation (sic!). These changes could occur irregularly in different parts of the world. While Europe and North America might use anorthosite or clay as raw material for aluminum, other parts of the world might use bauxite, and while North America might use taconite, Brazil might use iron ore. New materials will appear (note: they have), the result of technological advances, some acting as substitutes and some with new properties. Recycling will become more common and more efficient (note: it has!). Ultimately, minerals and metals will be obtained by processing "average" rock. Rock, 100 tonnes of "average" igneous rock, will yield eight tonnes of aluminum, five tonnes of iron, and 0.6 tonnes of titanium.

The USGS model based on crustal abundance data and the reserve-abundance relationship of McKelvey, is applied to several metals in the Earth's crust (worldwide) and in the U.S. crust. The potential currently recoverable (present technology, economy) resources that come closest to the McKelvey relationship are those that have been sought for the longest time, such as copper, zinc, lead, silver

Silver

Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

, gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

and molybdenum

Molybdenum

. Metals that do not follow the McKelvey relationship are ones that are byproducts (of major metals) or haven't been vital to the economy until recently (titanium

Titanium

Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. It has a low density and is a strong, lustrous, corrosion-resistant transition metal with a silver color....

, aluminum to a lesser degree). Bismuth is an example of a byproduct metal that doesn't follow the relationship very well; the 3% lead reserves in the western U.S. would have only 100 ppm bismuth, clearly too low-grade for a bismuth reserve. The world recoverable resource potential is 2,120 million tonnes for copper, 2,590 million tonnes for nickel, 3,400 million tonnes for zinc, 3,519 BILLION tonnes for aluminum, and 2,035 BILLION tonnes for iron.

Diverse authors have further contributions. Some think the number of substitutes is almost infinite, particularly with the flow of new materials from the chemical industry; identical end products can be made from different materials and starting points. Plastics can be good electrical conductors. Since all materials are 100 times weaker than they theoretically should be, it ought to be possible to eliminate areas of dislocations and greatly strengthen them, enabling lesser quantities to be used. To summarize, "mining" companies will have more and more diverse products, the world economy is moving away from materials towards services, and the population seems to be levelling, all of which implies a lessening of demand growth for materials; much of the materials will be recovered from somewhat uncommon rocks, there will be much more coproducts and byproducts from a given operation, and more trade in minerals and materials.

Trend towards perpetual resources

As radical new technology impacts the materials and minerals world more and more powerfully, the materials used are more and more likely to have perpetual resources. There are already more and more materials that have perpetual resources and less and less materials that have nonrenewable resources or are strategic and critical materials. Some materials that have perpetual resources such as salt

Salt

In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...

,stone, magnesium

Magnesium

, and common clay were mentioned previously. Thanks to new technology, synthetic diamonds were added to the list of perpetual resources, since they can be easily made from a lump of carbon

Carbon

Carbon is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds...

. Another form of carbon, synthetic graphite, is made in large quantities (graphite electrodes, graphite fiber) from carbon precursors such as petroleum coke or a textile fiber. A firm named Liquidmetal Technologies, Inc. is utilizing the removal of dislocations in a material with a technique that overcomes performance limitations caused by inherent weaknesses in the crystal atomic structure. It makes amorphous metal

Amorphous metal

An amorphous metal is a metallic material with a disordered atomic-scale structure. In contrast to most metals, which are crystalline and therefore have a highly ordered arrangement of atoms, amorphous alloys are non-crystalline...

alloys, which retain a random atomic structure when the hot metal solidifies, rather than the crystalline atomic structure (with dislocations) that normally forms when hot metal solidifies. These amorphous alloys have much better performance properties than usual; for example, their zirconium-titanium Liquidmetal

Liquidmetal

Liquidmetal and Vitreloy are commercial names of a series of amorphous metal alloys developed by a California Institute of Technology research team, now marketed by a firm that the team organized called Liquidmetal Technologies. Despite the name they are not liquid, but solid at room temperature,...

alloys are 250% stronger than a standard titanium alloy. The Liquidmetal alloys can supplant many high performance alloys.

Exploration of the ocean bottom in the last fifty years revealed manganese nodules and phosphate

Phosphate

A phosphate, an inorganic chemical, is a salt of phosphoric acid. In organic chemistry, a phosphate, or organophosphate, is an ester of phosphoric acid. Organic phosphates are important in biochemistry and biogeochemistry or ecology. Inorganic phosphates are mined to obtain phosphorus for use in...

nodules in many locations. More recently, polymetallic sulfide deposits have been discovered and polymetallic sulfide "black muds" are being presently deposited from "black smokers" The cobalt scarcity situation of 1978 has a new option now: recover it from manganese nodules. A Korean firm plans to start developing a manganese nodule

Manganese nodule

Polymetallic nodules, also called manganese nodules, are rock concretions on the sea bottom formed of concentric layers of iron and manganese hydroxides around a core. The core may be microscopically small and is sometimes completely transformed into manganese minerals by crystallization...

recovery operation in 2010; the manganese nodules recovered would average 27% to 30% manganese

Manganese

Manganese is a chemical element, designated by the symbol Mn. It has the atomic number 25. It is found as a free element in nature , and in many minerals...

, 1.25% to 1.5% nickel, 1% to 1.4% copper, and 0.2% to 0.25% cobalt (commercial grade) Nautilus Minerals Ltd. is planning to recover commercial grade material averaging 29.9% zinc, 2.3% lead, and 0.5% copper from massive ocean-bottom polymetallic sulfide deposits using an underwater vacuum cleaner-like device that combines some current technologies in a new way. Partnering with Nautilus are Tech Cominco Ltd. and Anglo-American Ltd., world-leading international firms.

There are also other robot mining techniques that could be applied under the ocean. Rio Tinto is using satellite links to allow workers 1500 kilometers away to operate drilling rigs, load cargo, dig out ore and dump it on conveyor belts, and place explosives to subsequently blast rock and earth. The firm can keep workers out of danger this way, and also use fewer workers. Such technology reduces costs and offsets declines in metal content of ore reserves. Thus a variety of minerals and metals are obtainable from unconventional sources with resources available in huge quantities.

Finally, what is a perpetual resource? The ASTM definition for a perpetual resource is "one that is virtually inexhaustible on a human time-scale". Examples given include solar energy, tidal energy, and wind energy, to which should be added salt, stone, magnesium, diamonds, and other materials mentioned above. A study on the biogeophysical aspects of sustainability came up with a rule of prudent practice that a resource stock should last 700 years to achieve sustainability or become a perpetual resource, or for a worse case, 350 years.

If a resource lasting 700 or more years is perpetual, one that lasts 350 to 700 years can be called an abundant resource, and is so defined here. How long the material can be recovered from its resource depends on human need and changes in technology from extraction through the life cycle of the product to final disposal, plus recyclability of the material and availability of satisfactory substitutes. Specifically, this shows that exhaustibility does not occur until these factors weaken and play out: the availability of substitutes, the extent of recycling and its feasibility, more efficient manufacturing of the final consumer product, more durable and longer-lasting consumer products, and even a number of other factors.

The most recent resource information and guidance on the kinds of resources that must be considered is covered on the Resource Guide-Update http://resourceguide-update.blogspot.com

Transitioning: perpetual resources to paleoresources

Perpetual resources can transition to being a paleoresource. A paleoresource is one that has little or no demand for the material extracted from it; an obsolescent material, humans no longer need it. The classic paleoresource is an arrowhead-grade flint

Flint

Flint is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as a variety of chert. It occurs chiefly as nodules and masses in sedimentary rocks, such as chalks and limestones. Inside the nodule, flint is usually dark grey, black, green, white, or brown in colour, and...

resource; no one makes flint arrowheads or spearheads anymore—making a sharpened piece of scrap steel and using it is much simpler. Obsolescent products include tin cans, tin foil, the schoolhouse slate

Slate

Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...

blackboard, and radium

Radium

Radium is a chemical element with atomic number 88, represented by the symbol Ra. Radium is an almost pure-white alkaline earth metal, but it readily oxidizes on exposure to air, becoming black in color. All isotopes of radium are highly radioactive, with the most stable isotope being radium-226,...

in medical technology. Radium has been replaced by much cheaper Cobalt 60 and other radioisotopes in radiation treatment. Noncorroding lead as a cable covering has been replaced by plastics.

Pennsylvania anthracite is another material where the trend towards obsolescence and becoming a paleoresource can be shown statistically. Production of anthracite was 70.4 million tonnes in 1905, 49.8 million tonnes in 1945, 13.5 million tonnes in 1965, 4.3 million tonnes in 1985, and 1.5 million tonnes in 2005. The amount used per person was 84 kg per person in 1905, 7.1 kg in 1965, and 0.8 kg in 2005. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/coal.html Compare this to the USGS anthracite reserves of 18.6 billion tonnes and total resources of 79 billion tonnes; the anthracite demand has dropped so much that these resources are more than perpetual.

Since anthracite resources are so far into the perpetual resource range and demand for anthracite has dropped so far, is it possible to see how anthracite might become a paleoresource? Probably by customers continuing to disappear (i.e. convert to other kinds of energy for space heating), the supply network atrophy as anthracite coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

dealers can't retain enough business to cover costs and close, and mines with too small a volume to cover costs also close. This is a mutually reinforcing process: customers convert to other forms of cleaner energy that produce less pollution and carbon dioxide, then the coal dealer has to close because of lack of enough sales volume to cover costs. The coal dealer's other customers are then forced to convert unless they can find another nearby coal dealer. Finally the anthracite mine closes because it doesn't have enough sales volume to cover its costs.

External links

There are three journals of energy economics:

There are four journals of mineral economics and economic geology:

Economic Geology http://www.segweb.org
Marine Georesources and Geotechnology
Mineralium Deposita
Ore Geology Reviews

There are several other journals that regularly publish papers on energy economics:

There are some other journals that regularly publish papers on mineral economics:

Geology of Ore Deposits
Lithology and Mineral Resources
Resource Geology (Japan)
Resources Policy

There is also a handbook in three volumes.

Much progress in energy economics has been made through the model comparison exercises of the (Stanford) Energy Modeling Forum

Energy Modeling Forum

The Energy Modeling Forum is a structured forum for discussing important issues in energy and the environment. The EMF was established in 1976 at Stanford University. The EMF works through a series of ad hoc working groups, each focussing on a particular corporate or policy decision...

and the meetings of the International Energy Workshop.

IDEAS/RePEc

Řepeč

Řepeč is a village and municipality in Tábor District in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic.The municipality covers an area of , and has a population of 267 ....

has a list of energy economists and a ranking of the same.

Online articles

Cimbleris, Borisas (1998). Economy and Thermodynamics.
Hubbert, M. King (1974). On the Nature of Growth.

Saslow, Wayne M. (1999). An Economic Analogy to Thermodynamics (PDF). American Association of Physics Teachers.

Schwartzman, David. (2007). The Limits to Entropy: the Continuing Misuse of Thermodynamics in Environmental and Marxist theory (PDF). In Press, Science & Society.

Soddy, Frederick. Encyclopedia of Earth.

Yegorov, Yuri. (2007). Econo-physics: A Perspective of Matching Two Sciences, Evol. Inst. Econ. Rev. 4(1): 143–170 (PDF).
Biophysical economics. Encyclopedia of Earth.
Eco-Economy Indicators. earth-policy.org.

Other online resources

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Areas of discussion

Background and introduction

Comprehensive natural resource models

Trend towards perpetual resources

Transitioning: perpetual resources to paleoresources

See also

External links