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Last login: 2 hours agoLaodan: laodan is a 56 year old guy from Wisconsin, USA.; Likes 1,596 pages, 24 videos, 8 photos • 220 fans • Received 65 reviews; Member since Aug 08, 2005

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The Oil Drum: Europe | Peak Minerals: Oct 24, 2007 2:05pm 3 reviews •http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/3086; Peak Minerals
in The Oil Drum Europe by Chris Vernon

We examined the world production of 57 minerals reported in the database of the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Of these, we found 11 cases where production has clearly peaked and is now declining. Several more may be peaking or be close to peaking. Fitting the production curve with a logistic function we see that, in most cases, the ultimate amount extrapolated from the fitting corresponds well to the amount obtained summing the cumulative production so far and the reserves estimated by the USGS. These results are a clear indication that the Hubbert model is valid for the worldwide production of minerals and not just for regional cases. It strongly supports the concept that \u201cPeak oil\u201d is just one of several cases of worldwide peaking and decline of a depletable resource. Many more mineral resources may peak worldwide and start their decline in the near future.

Peak Minerals

My personal interest resides essentially in understanding the production of the future of humanity. In sum my understanding goes something like this:

- Several determinant factors are emerging simultaneously and in parallel: peak resources (oil, minerals, metals) + a series of side-effects of modernity (poisoning of air and water, reduced diversity of species, over-population, climate change and so on) + economic globalization + atomization of modern societies. The present article focuses on one aspect of peak resources the peak of minerals.

- Those determinant factors are having direct effects upon one another and their inter-relations are intensifying by as much the effects that each of those factors are imposing on human societies and more largely on the principle of life on earth.

It's time we awoke to the horrors that late-modernity is unleashing...