Warning of shortage of essential minerals for laptops, cell phones, wiring

[NickB79]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170320110042.htm

An international team of researchers, led by the University of Delaware's Saleem Ali, says global resource governance and sharing of geoscience data is needed to address challenges facing future mineral supply.

Specifically of concern are a range of technology minerals, which are an essential ingredient in everything from laptops and cell phones to hybrid or electric cars to solar panels and copper wiring for homes. However, base metals like copper are also a matter of immense concern.

The research team, which included experts from academic, government and industrial institutions across five continents, the U.S., Europe, South Africa, Australia and South America, reported their findings today in a peer-reviewed paper in Nature.

[Binkie The Clown]

1. This thing we call "civilization" has always been temporary.

We are only just now beginning to run up against the limits that will ultimately spell it's end.

[NNadir]

2. This has been under a lot of scrutiny in the scientific community for some time.

It's the reason why referring to so called "renewable energy" as, um, "renewable" is kind of a joke, not a very funny joke, but a joke all the same.

I've been following this issue for some time. Elements do not, of course, disappear, but they do become diffuse, and the more diffuse they are, the more energy is required to recover them in recycling schemes. (At some point the expenditure of energy to accomplish this task makes the recovery not worth performing.)

This is the very, very, very dirty secret about distributed energy; distribution of materials greatly raises the cost of their recovery.

Nevertheless, future generations - who we've screwed over with our idiot wishful thinking fantasies coupled to our fear and ignorance, greed and outright indifference - will almost certainly be required to engage in "urban mining" whereby they dig up the stuff that we consider garbage and try to get back what they can. Since future generations are sure to be impoverished relative to us, they are sure to have a large number of "disposable people" that they can require to do this irrespective of the health consequences: The coal miners of the future.


The Royal Chemistry Society (UK) also published nice monograph that I have in my files on this topic about 4 years ago: Element Recovery and Sustainability

A whole book on this topic - I'm not sure it's a great book, but it has a certain appeal - was published a few years ago; I have it also in my files: Thanatia: The Destiny of the Earth's Mineral Resources

A nice public access monograph, dating from 2012 is readily accessible on the internet: Simply No Substitute

There are a huge number of papers in the scientific literature, many of which are highly technical.

A nice overview that is not too technical - also from the Royal Chemical Society - from 2011 is available: Critical Thinking.

I like the pun in the title, since "Critical Thinking" is not really a commonly utilized approach when we discuss the very real crises we face; we think we're all going to live in a wind and solar powered nirvana with electric cars that drive themselves to our high paying jobs.

We're clueless.

It's worth pointing out that which particular elements are "critical" is a subject of some debate, depending on how one views the associated process chemistry. Again, elements do not really "go away;" they become diffuse. Some elements have always been diffuse - notably in seawater - and the availability from seawater has not been exploited - though it might be - because of the availability of ores that are much cheaper to exploit, although requirements for them might conceivably make seawater a workable ore. Examples of such elements are gold and uranium.

It's a huge problem; widely addressed. The University of Delaware scientists are to be applauded for their work, but they are only recent participants in a very important topic.

[NickB79]

3. Yes, I recall a lot of old threads about this very topic

Thankfully it's getting more attention as time goes on.