Stories tagged with "minerals"

Mining the Oceans: Can We Extract Minerals from Seawater?

Posted by Ugo Bardi on September 22, 2008 - 4:15pm in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: minerals, mining, nuclear energy, original, seawater, uranium [list all tags]



Figure: Japanese researchers testing uranium extraction from seawater using a braided adsorbent fiber (JAEA 2006). Is this the way of mining of the future?

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The Universal Mining Machine

Posted by Ugo Bardi on January 24, 2008 - 9:49am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: energy, minerals [list all tags]



The coal mine of Garzweiler, Germany, in a Google Earth image. The satellite has caught two giant mining machines at work. Measured with the google ruler, each "arm" of the machines measures about 120 m (ca. 400 ft). These are not universal mining machines, but give some idea of the scale of modern mining operations. The Garzweiler mine is said to hold more than a billion tons of coal reserves.

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Peak Minerals

Posted by Chris Vernon on October 15, 2007 - 12:00pm in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: aspo, m. king hubbert, minerals, peak, reserves, usgs [list all tags]

This is a guest post from Ugo Bardi and Marco Pagani. Ugo Bardi teaches chemistry at the University of Florence, Italy. He is the president of the Italian section of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO) (www.aspoitalia.net). Marco Pagani is a physicist presently teaching and physics in secondary schools. He is a member of ASPO-Italy, a social and environmental activist, and the blogger of ecoalfabeta. (ecoalfabeta.blogosfere.it)
    Abstract: We examined the world production of 57 minerals reported in the database of the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Of these, we found 11 cases where production has clearly peaked and is now declining. Several more may be peaking or be close to peaking. Fitting the production curve with a logistic function we see that, in most cases, the ultimate amount extrapolated from the fitting corresponds well to the amount obtained summing the cumulative production so far and the reserves estimated by the USGS. These results are a clear indication that the Hubbert model is valid for the worldwide production of minerals and not just for regional cases. It strongly supports the concept that “Peak oil” is just one of several cases of worldwide peaking and decline of a depletable resource. Many more mineral resources may peak worldwide and start their decline in the near future.
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Jubak: More Peak Everything! (and an open thread)

Posted by Prof. Goose on April 18, 2006 - 5:16pm
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: everything, metals, minerals, oil, peak oil [list all tags]

Jubak uses a nice discussion of peak oil to explain "peak metals" in this article:
Call the theory Peak Metal. The price of gold and other metals, and related stocks, will keep rising as finding new sources gets harder and more expensive.[...]But I find the mechanisms that Peak Oil theory has developed to explain the direction of oil prices and the operation of the oil market immediately applicable to the metals sector.
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