Resource Depletion

1. Resource Depletion and the Energy crises

2. Resource depletion Its simple logic, if you take something, and cannot return it, it’ll be gone. One cannot for example, continuously mine things like gold, silver and coal and expect there to always be some. We will run out eventually. Resource depletion is just that, in that eventually, we will deplete, or use up all the resources. We use resources in our daily lives, be it in silver dining ware, drinking from an aluminum can, we even have to mine salt for us to use. Everyone uses them, so the demand on materials is high, and is slowly increasing from our exponential growth. So what happens when we start running out of certain materials? Well, we do one of the following: • Mine/drill in hard to reach areas • Mine/drill really, really deep undergound/sea • Mine in areas that haven’t been depleted yet, which are either really deep underground/sea, or are on nature reserves or are in undeveloped countries. • Import more of it, in which case eventually the suppliers will do A, B, or C to meet the ever growing demands.

3. As people attempt to get at harder to reach unearthed materials, more often then naught both environmental problems and endangerment of human lives are caused. Recent examples of this is the Chilean mine collapse and the Gulf of Mexico Oil spill. Things like this can cause both immediate and eventual health problems.

4. As resources become rarer and more sought after, prices will rise exponentially due to supply and demand, and, depending on the item, we could even be forced into rationing the material to help it last until an alternative is found or delay the inevitable depletion. A good example of resources being more expensive as they become rarer (otherwise what is to come) is the 1973 Energy Crises, which was caused by the Embargo of Oil Trades by OPEC. This embargo caused a massive oil shortage, skyrocketing the price, leading to rationing of oil and otherwise very high prices.

5. The Energy Crisis In reality, the Energy Crisis is just a smaller part of Resource depletion, more specifically, the depletion of materials used to create energy, such as Coal, Oil, and Gas. Roughly 85% of our energy comes from fossil fuels. This means that should we somehow run out of fuels like coal and such all at once, the United States would only be producing at 15% capacity. More then likely that energy would be used to maintain important government buildings and keep hospitals up and running. However, a situation like that is impossible. However, as fossil fuels get rarer and rarer, energy bills will increase and general living costs will increase. Fortunately situations like that will encourage faster research into renewable resources and conversion of fossil fuel plants into renewable or nuclear plants.

6. How will this affect us? As resources become rarer, they become more expensive, as the resources become more expensive, the end products become more expensive. Also one small resource becoming scarce can often cause other objects to raise in price. For example, if gasoline were to raise to 10 bucks a gallon, it’d cost more for transporting goods. Should that happen, everything from TV’s, to computers, even to Frosted Flakes will cost more, as the cost of transporting the goods will increase and retailers will have to increase the prices to recuperate their losses. Everyone looses.