There have been several stories in the media of late predicting a doomsday scenario where we have run out of non-energy resources, metals and oil. But how close to the truth are these predictions?
Many of the estimates are based only on the reserves we know about, but what about the resources we don't know about?
A shortage of anything would no doubt spur on more exploration, and there is also talk of mining rare earth elements from the moon, or even removing them from sea water, but these techniques would cost a lot of money.
So what about recycling? If we recycled everything 100% and perfectly we wouldn't have a shortage of anything, but that would put a hell of a lot of geologists out of a job.
One other thing we need to remember is that yes we are using these resources, but they are also being formed in the Earth all the time, and at the moment technology only allows us to drill so deep but in the future we will be able to drill down further.
So Mr Scare mongering journalist please get your facts right and look at all the angles before you continue to keep coming out with this dribble!
GF
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