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106 comments on Peak Minerals
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106 comments on Peak Minerals
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There is a difference between something like lead and oil. When oil is used it’s used for good. Lead however is relatively easy to reuse. Lead mined decades or even centuries ago could, if originally used for a bulk application like plumbing, roofing, car batteries etc, be reused. Lead used as a petrol additive or in paint won’t be so easily recovered though!
What it comes down to is that for oil, annual consumption must equal the annual production. For lead however, consumption could be higher than (primary) production due to recycling. How significant a factor is this?
The fact that those minerals haven't been consumed like hydrocarbons doesn't mean that we can get them back:
We've been using more silver than we're producing for years, but unfortunately much of it is widely dispersed in long-lived, low-cost appliances like light switches, from which it will never be economically recoverable. Sure, the silver atoms are all still here, but unless we're talking about concentrated sources like hybrid batteries, the material is so widely scattered that it might as well be on the Moon.
Which brings up the other point, about demand destruction: How do we know what the next hot technology will be? Maybe we'll need that zirconium for fuel cells, or maybe the bottom will fall out of the coltan market, when nobody's buying iPhones anymore. Peak anything depends on projected need, so polish up that crystal ball before placing your bets in the commodity markets.
But never 100% recoverable.
Some is always lost.
That is the price Entropy extracts.
Not true - entropy says disorder increases, but does not say that we cannot recycle 100% of the lead used with sufficient energy input. It's not like it gets destroyed.
At any rate, if mining and recycling will give us enough lead for centuries, it's a little silly to worry about it right now - there are plenty of more pressing problems that actually matter in the short term.
You are in error.
It is impossible to restore the total original content of any given thing once it has been manufactured and put to use.
Atoms fly off, friction, chemicals, the sun, time, what have you degrades every thing, ever made, constantly.
While it may not be destroyed it certainly is dispersed or transformed into forms that can longer be put to their original use.
Please explain how those change one element to another.
If the resource - e.g., lead - is not fundamentally changed - and in the case of lead, that requires changing it to a different element - then all that happens is the resource is dispersed. Re-collecting that resource requires energy - perhaps too much to make it economically viable - but that doesn't mean it can't be done.
Not to mention that you've missed the point, which was that complaining about future lead shortages is nowhere near the most pressing of our problems.
You are confusing loss of usable lead (or other mineral) with the concept of entropy. However, it is an important point you note that all recycling is not 100% efficient and eventually it will be uneconomic or otherwise not feasible to scrap off all the bits of lead that have been strewn about the globe in our growth.
The point I was getting at was that for oil the curve of production and the curve of consumption are the same. For lead the "consumption" curve is higher than the production curve because the lead can be consumed multiple times through recycling. By this mechanism it is theoretically possible to maintain or even increase consumption after production has peaked.