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Created with Fabric.js 1.4.5 in China *resources - State of the World 2013 Conserving Nonrenewables There are more concerns on common resources such as phosphorus, a mineral critical to agriculture, and metals like copper and gold than those "rare earth elements" (dysprosium andneodymium) because those common resources are nonrenewable. A growing chorus of analysts worries that nonrenewable resources will not be as cheap and easy to get as they were in last centry, Demands on nonrenewable are increasing: Resources in the U.S. Most materials flowing through in- dustrial economics are nonrenewable. Nonrenewables 88% 95% The economy is growing rapidly.Since 2000, the economic growth inemerging economies in Asia and Latin America has accelerated. Although the economic increasingslowed in 2009 because of the globalrecession, the trend of increasing didn't reverse the use of nonrenewables.The pace of usage quickly resumed once the global output recovered. Many developing industrial econo-mics are moving into a resource intensivephase of industrialization as they build many works of infrastructure that requires enormous volumes of energy, metals, minerals, and other nonrenewables. Roads Buildings Airports Water andSewage system Power grids Irrigation canals Railways Despite the run-up in resource demand, industrial nations continue to build up throw away economies. Whether measuring the share of discarded metal that gets recycledor the share of newly manufacturedmetal that is recycled metal, recyclinglevels are mostly poor. recyclingrate less than 1% recyclingat 50% ormore others Question: Will the market supply of nonrenewable resources be plentiful and afforadable enough to meet human need in the decades ahead? Market Scarcity Rapidly rising price for nonrenewables Declining quality of resources and difficulty accessing them rising cost ofinputs to mining and oil drilling Growing environmental burden ofextractive activity U.S. Geological Survey(USGS) data for 86 metals and minerals show an average price decline of 0.9% annually between 1900 and 2001; for metals, a sub setof the 86, the average annual decline was 1.4%. But between 2002 and 2-10, prices of the 86 resour-ces increased annually by 6.4%, and those for metals went up 11%. Rapidly rising prices fornonrenewables There is an inverse relationship between declining oregrades and increased environmental impacts. Increasing inaccessible minerals are driving a trend toward larger mines and greater tonnages of waste rock. We start to get concerned for energy as the input for extracting minerals because there is the awareness of the finite natural of fossil fuels. Experts expect that the global peak in the net energy production by the mid 2020s will also bring about the peak of globalminerals production.Many minerals are going to be too energy-intensive at that time to get access to. The situation is getting worse because of the declining ore grades.More energy is needed to find, extract, and process minerals.Mineralogical barrier: The energy needed to continue mining becomes prohibitively expensive. Energy return on energy invested: If the energy required for extraction is greater than the energy extracted, it will be unreasonable to keep drilling for oil or digging for more coals. Creating a Circular Economy The challenge is to increase resource productivity, which is the concept of "circular economy", and the key is to decouple resource use from economic growth. A circular economy reduces the need forvirgin resources and the environmental degradation associated with extractive activities. To create a circulareconomy, it is necessary to have resource policies designed to converse nonrenewables as we as policiesthat generate more-intelligent patterns of production and consumption. There are many actions which can be taken by the governments, such as taxing on mining and extractions, set up conversations based on the situation. The most important thing is to reverse incentives, rules and other structures that cause us to use nonrenewable resources. We should a leave a better future to the next generation. The declining quality of resources is a world-wide trend. The downward trend in ore quality is not a new problem.The possibility is fairly small for usto discover new mining techniques which lead to ore grades.
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