Why do you mock Samuel Warren Carey's work? Have you actually done any real research on it? If planets arent growing, then try explaining this video. I've said it a million times, put your money where your mouth is. At least have the intellectual honesty to try and explain Neal Adam's videos. There are a dozen more that are equally convincing.

I find it ironic that you'd say "We are doomed and nothing can save us." The solution lies along the same path as expansion tectonics. There are whole avenues of science that remain closed off to the scientific community. From the insights revealed by Kirlian photography to the beautiful simplicity of the WSM, the possibilities are amazing. Maybe if you took a little time away from all your doom and gloom...

If people continue to allow themselves to be manipulated into a very limited scientific paradigm, then yes we are doomed. The "powers that be" today are even more powerful that the "powers that were" hundreds of years ago that had everyone convinced the earth was flat. Why people choose to be enslaved by these same forces throughout history is something that I may never understand. But if we are doomed, it is only due to a failure to use our brains.

Anywhere from 50 to 100,000 tons of mass is added to the earth each year. Though this does not appreciably increase the size of earth, it does increase the radius. There is no fixed earth. I thought fixed earth ideas went away with Aristotle's death over 2000 years ago?

The scientific community has dismissed the "Expanding Earth Theory". The following details are from the Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expanding_earth_theory

"Modern measurements have established very stringent upper bound limits for the expansion rate, which very much reduces the possibility of an expanding Earth. For example, paleomagnetic data has been used to calculate that the radius of the Earth 400 million years ago was 102 ± 2.8% of today's radius.[6] Furthermore, examinations of earth's moment of inertia suggest that no significant change of earth's radius in the last 620 million years could have taken place and therefore earth expansion is untenable.[7]

The primary objections to an expanding Earth have centered around the lack of an accepted process by which the Earth's radius could increase and on the inability to find an actual increase of earth's radius by modern measurements. This issue, along with the evidence for the process of subduction, caused the scientific community to dismiss the theory of an expanding Earth."

Oh, boy.... so often I find myself confronting this unbelievably naive argument: "we'll just dig deeper". Do you realize how expensive it is to dig holes miles long? Besides; go back to your geology books. "Ores" are the result of the combination of geological and biological factors and these interactions take place at or near the surface of the planet. Even if you could dig a 50 miles deep hole, you won't find anything interesting in there.

Yes, and he forgot to mention all the metals in the Moon and other planets and asteroids, and all the metals in planets circling other stars, and all the metals constantly being formed in stars by fusion reactions and super-explosions. How could he possibly have been so derilict in his duty to preach abundance?

What is not said is why copper is cheaper now mining 0.2% ores than it was 100 years ago mining 5% ores?

I certainly haven't done the research but I strongly suspect by looking at the video of the Bingham Canyon mine with those giant trucks looking like tiny ants in a crater, where there used to be a mountain, that the true costs of energy and ecological destruction are not being accounted for. I also suspect that if we continue on our the present path, even the costs as calculated by currently accepted accounting practices will probably not stay cheap for long. Just a hunch.

It is not cheaper in terms of energy required.

We took the hit of declining copper quality early in the 20th century. Going forward we can mine 0.8% copper as far as the eye can see.

Yeah, you're probably right, the only thing is, some of us are not particularly pleased with the view.

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Robert - Not sure where you are getting 0.8% copper from, especially as far as the eye can see. The web site lists reserves of 0.54% copper and a deep resource of 0.7%. Typically, the deeper ore is not reserves (cannot be mined at a profit)because mining it is too expensive in terms of waste rock that must be moved to access it (too high a stripping ratio). And that's at today's energy prices. Keep in mind that Bingham is a very old, comparatively high grade open pit mine (mined in the early days with rail cars, inamuch as trucks were not yet available). It and Freeport's Morenci, Arizona are the two ancient U.S. super-giants of copper. New U.S. open pit mines (e.g., mines near Safford, Arizona recently opened by Freeport) are typically much lower in grade (0.1-0.2% comes to mind).

In any case, I agree with you that we are not likely to run out of most metals before we run of cheap energy to mine them in increasingly low-grade or deep deposits. We are also likely to run short of demand, if expensive energy causes the world economy to suffer more than it already has. That web site mentions that Bingham Canyon, despite its relatively high grade ores, was driven out of business in the 1970's by unexpectedly high costs and low demand (and copper prices). And that oil crisis was ephemeral. Peak production of copper could be caused by a variety of factors other than declining ore grade. It will still be peak, though.

Finally, I caution you about obtaining all your data from company web sites. These generally do not state explicitly the future straight-line assumptions (regarding all types of costs, metal prices, government regulations, etc.) built into their projections.

By "Somebody is trying to open a new 1.5% copper mine here in Santa Rita" I presume you mean the proposed Resolution Mine more than a mile roughly beneath the old mining town of Superior, Arizona (Santa Rita being an old mining town in New Mexico, now mostly swallowed by an open pit copper mine of the same name).

The Resolution company web site is here:
http://www.resolutioncopper.com/res/whoweare/1.html
The proposed underground mine would be about 7000 feet deep, where, according to a talk I heard, temperatures are not far short of boiling (owing to the high regional heat flow in central Arizona). A major expense will therefore be air conditioning and backup, because a failure could cause the heat death of all miners within minutes. In the overlying, now virtually exhausted Magma Mine, where the shaft was about half a mile deep, the rocks were notably hot to the touch when I was underground there, like standing next to a furnace. (It was the first mine in the USA to install chilled air conditioning, in the 1920's.) Ground control (prevention of rock bursts and slabbing) and high-volume hot groundwater pumping will presumably also be headaches. (Note: the Magma Mine, where I believe copper grades reached 10%, permanently closed somewhat earlier than planned owing to a water pump failure, and resultant catastrophic flooding.) Deep production at Resolution is optimistically planned to begin in 2020, if all of the feasibility tests turn out favorable.

The fact that this is considered a feasible mine for copper, not gold or platinum or diamonds, may be telling us something about the inferred future status of shallower copper orebodies.

Since phosphate mine often yield recoverable thorium and/or uranium at ERoEI levels that are highly favorable there would be no problem with the energy expendatures required to recover the phosphate, because the energy return from the thorium and/or uranium would be far greater.