The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand

Ugo Bardi produced a rather grim look into the future with his recent piece on the Universal Mining Machine, and the various considerations of what we are going to do as the major mining sources of the different ores that are required start to run out.

I would rather like to take another tack, and comment instead on the need that the mining industry will face, at some point soon, in having to significantly change the way in which it mines and processes ore. Whether it is in the mining of the large volumes of rock that yield the coal and oil from tar sands for the fuels industry, or the deeply won gold, from narrow veins found miles underground, the current energy cost of those operations is starting to come into conflict already with other needs, in a time of shorter energy supply. One has only to look at the stories that Leanan has been catching that have reported on the energy shortage in South Africa, to begin to see the start of the conflict. And although the current mine problems may have been overcome in South Africa itself, the “knock-on” effect in countries such as Botswana continues, with doubts as to where they will now get power.