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This article makes me wonder if we are headed toward a "peak resource" as a civilization. If so when and how would that change society?
by rpedela 11y ago
This article makes me wonder if we are headed toward a "peak resource" as a civilization. If so when and how would that change society?
- Daishiman 11y agoWe sure are. There's been a significant amount of research on this and there's a vas number of mined materials which will peak within this century.
- ph0rque 11y agoThe good news is, we're also approaching (or have already experienced) peak demand for a lot of things. The root cause of demand, population, is set to peak later in the century.
- 13thLetter 11y agoOnly if you assume that accessible minerals are restricted to those that can be found on the Earth, which is not the case.
- Daishiman 11y agoExplain to me how the energy expenditure required to extract minerals from out of orbit will ever be accessible considering the energy cost of exiting the Earth's orbit.
- kryptiskt 11y agoGetting from Earth orbit to Solar orbit is cheap but slow with solar sailing. And the pure energy cost is not that high in getting up to Earth orbit, just 33 MJ/kg (need another 32 MJ/kg to escape Earth orbit). Rockets are of course very expensive, but mass production would change that. And there is the possibility to bring material from the Moon to build stuff in orbit before a metal asteroid is captured, so everything doesn't have to be lifted from Earth.