Metal: What Will We Do When It's Gone?

[Phrossack]

I've been wondering as of late as to how much metal (i.e., iron, copper, aluminum, though it's a metalloid, titanium, etc.) is known to be left in the earth, and any estimates as to when it will run out. And when, or if, it does run out, what substitutes might be used?

 

[Cutlass]

We won't run out. And we already use substitutes. Take as an example copper, one of the metals that is frequently cited as being in short supply. The inflation adjusted price of a ton of copper in 1998 prices was $7000 in 1900, and $5685 in 2007. Many other comparative prices can be found here. So, the question is, if we're running out, why is the price not so much higher? And the answer is that our ability to produce it is getting better over time.

 

[Phrossack]

Metals will eventually run out, even if it takes a thousand more years of billions upon billions of people using metallic products, right? And what substitutes do you speak of? Could be interesting.

 

[Cutlass]

Define 'run out'? The technology of extracting metals, and recycling metals, is improving all the time. Look up seafloor mining. That's going to provide all the metals we need once the bugs are worked out. And recycling is improving all the time. One day landfills will be strip mined for their metals.

But most things can be substituted for. Plastics are replacing metals in many applications. Like pipes.

 

[ainwood]

Well, I believe that society collapsed when the bronze age finished, shortly after "peak bronze". That was a shame, as the world had only just recovered from "peak stone"


Seriously: Recycling, and maybe mining of asteroids.

 

[Riffraff]

Well it's not as if we would shoot large quantities of metal into space to be lost forever. Recycle and reuse!

 

[Tabster]

We have already run out of technetium, as it has no stable isotopes.

It can be manufactured in a lab, so small amounts of it may exist somewhere.

 

[Cutlass]

There will be a few very rare elements that become near impossible to find. We'll find ways to make other things serve the same job.

 

[Phrossack]

By "run out", I mean reaching the point at which we cannot find useful quantities of metal anymore. I know extraction tech is improving and more metal is being found, but it's not like there's a limitless supply of the stuff, right?

Metal can't be recycled forever. If even minute amounts are lost during the recycling process, it will eventually be gone, even if it takes thousands of years. And plastics are themselves made of nonrenewable materials, and can't completely replace metal as conductors, knives, etc.

 

[Cutlass]

Ok. What's the mass of the metals that have already been mined. What's the mass of the Earth's crust? Bit of a difference? The easy to mine metals are substantially used. But, like with oil, we keep getting better at it. So you look other places.

What makes metals look particularly scarce at the moment is not that they are scarce, but that demand went up very quickly over the past decade or 2.

 

[civ_king]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19426051.200-earths-natural-wealth-an-audit.html

indium
gone: ~5-10 years

Antimony
gone: ~15 years

Silver
gone: ~10 years

Zinc
gone: ~30 years

Terbium
gone: ~3-5

 

[ainwood]

Silver
gone: ~10 years

Not sure about the others, but people have been predicting an iminent running-out of silver for > 100 years!

ANd from that article, Terbium has 0-2 years left, and silver has 8.

According to this site reserves are 300,000 tonnes, yet production is 10 tonnes / year (ie 30,000 years supply)

 

[Cutlass]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19426051.200-earths-natural-wealth-an-audit.html

indium
gone: ~5-10 years

Antimony
gone: ~15 years

Silver
gone: ~10 years

Zinc
gone: ~30 years

Terbium
gone: ~3-5

Current mines and current technology. In 20 years we'll be mining the ocean bottom. In 100 years we'll be mining asteroids.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Er, recycle it? And there are other sources, as Cutlass said.

 

[El_Machinae]

Well, iirc, phosphorus reserves have about 100 years left. Our modern agriculture is completely dependent upon the stuff. Fortunately, lots of people know about the coming peak and so there's already research into recycling, etc. to delay the rise in costs. One big source? Human poop! Sewage treatment plants will be scrubbing phosphorus from poop to give back to the farmers.

 

[Tabster]

One of the main uses of silver was in photography. This has changed with digital photography replacing the old chemical based process.

I expect that as a consequence of this, more silver is being recycled as it is easier to recover now.

There is a whole industry developed around recovering precious metals from old polishing mops, bench skins, fluff from extraction systems and other similar sources, that is connected to the jewellery manufacturing trade. It is still really only gold, platinum, palladium and rhodium that are economically viable to recover in this way. Sometimes the value of the silver recovered is less than the cost of recovery.

Most of the jewellery manufacturers are only concerned with recovery of 'scrap' silver, what I mean is silver dust from sawing and filing and is contaminated or silver which is almost pure any way but may have dropped below 925 standard (or would do if it was used again).

 

[PeteAtoms]

I took the OP to mean that once a metal is "gone" it is being used as something and can't be used for something else. We have finite iron. So we can make finite iron items. If population got out of control, and we started building a lot of buildings with iron, and other iron products, we'd eventually run out of iron. We can't simply tear down a building to recycle the material, because the building is still being used.

I think a lot of synthetic materials could be developed that would take the place of a lot of uses metal currently has. Mankind will just invent alternatives. What that saying about something being the mother of invention? Need/necessity? I can't remember.

 

[Cutlass]

But there are always things made with metals that are being torn down or thrown out. So all of that can be recycled. Most metals recycle very well. They aren't like fossil fuels, which are used up and then are gone. There is some loss all of the time. And a few of the very rare minerals could become so hard to find that they will have to be substituted for. Other things are substituted for simply because the substitutes are cheaper, like plastic plumbing.

But when you say "metals are finite", you're missing the point. Yes, they may be. But it's a really really large planet out there, and we're barely scraping the surface. The easy stuff we've gotten. That doesn't mean there isn't more to get.

 

[dirtyparrot]

In most cases, you can't destroy nor create metals. This isn't like running out of petroleum. That's not to mention that humans have only discovered a very tiny fraction of all the metals on the Earth's crust.

 

[warpus]

When metal is gone, we will cease to rock.