What about Hubberts peak in NOT oil?

ekaggata · Heavy Crude Joined: Apr 12, 2006 Posts: 126

Referring to the idea in the first post (and the two links therein), the idea of a Hubbert's peak in a metal seems to be off the mark to me.

When we refer to a Hubbert's peak in oil, for example, we are not talking about running out of the material, but running out of the energy which is "contained" within it (in this case, chemical energy).

We could of course, with advanced technology, reconstitute crude oil exactly as it was from its original hydrocarbon constituents - but at great energetic cost. This negates the only reason we ever wanted it, i.e. for its energy content. In that sense, the original resource has genuinely been eliminated.

So if we think about something like silver or copper, at what point have we "used it up"? If it forms oxides, it can always be separated again from the oxygen; again at energetic cost, but this is a bit like "re-mining" it.

Thus if our use of precious and base metals is either as a store of value, or as a constituent in an industrial process/product, and not as a source of energy, I don't see any sense in which there is ever a "destruction" of the resource, just potential for great changes in its price due to the energy cost of isolating it. Uranium is another fish of kettles, of course.

IOW, Hubbert's analysis doesn't apply to metals (ignoring nuclear reactions). So I guess I'm saying Hubbert's concept is deeply tied to the second law of thermodynamics.

Doly · Expert Joined: Dec 03, 2004 Posts: 4041

ekaggata · Heavy Crude Joined: Apr 12, 2006 Posts: 126

Yes, Doly, I agree in practice the two could look pretty similar under certain conditions, in the early part of the process .. e.g. if the metal is relatively cheap to mine, and its uses involve it being locked in permanently to something which made it very difficult to re-extract. Then you could have a situation where the overall production would have to go into decline and not be able to meet demand. But ultimately that decline is not completely permanent in the same way as with an energy resource.

I was just thinking that things like gold and copper can always be melted down or extracted from salts through electroplating etc. .. they won't be "lost to the world" even if the mines stop producing.

(and they won't leak into space like helium Smile

)

What is useful to the world about crude oil, its huge stored solar energy, is lost permanently on first use.

WebHubbleTelescope · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jul 08, 2004 Posts: 911