The natural resources (metals -uranium, thorium, gold and precious stones-diamonds, sapphires, topazes), hydrocarbons (gaseous, liquid, solid) and geomaterials (rocks, sands, aggregates) are not renewable. As the international economy is primarily constrained by geology, the result is an unequal distribution of the Earth's wealth and a struggle to appropriate it, requiring technological development to increase recoverable volumes.
Some even bet that future natural resources will be taken on other planets, on asteroids; teams are already working on it. In the meantime, let's take stock of the current situation: are there still enough resources on our planet? For how long? Estimate their ultimate volume is quite easy thanks to more and more efficient exploration, but predicting their duration of the operation is another pair of sleeves as it depends on random economic and political factors as well in the short and medium terms. Reserves can only evolve over time depending on the means and declaring them is a political and economic activity of great importance.
Fossil Fuel Resources
For more than 15 years the oil and gas peaks have been regularly reported as affected by natural disasters. Yet, it is clear that it is not. As proof, proven reserves of both conventional and sub-conventional and unconventional oil and gas are steadily increasing. The same goes for world production, which has always been able to satisfy demand even when it was supported.
Will there be a worldwide peak or a long plateau with or without minor peaks? Is this the right question? Should not we rather speak of adequacy between supply and demand? This problem is of prime importance, we have depended for more than a century on more than 80% of fossil energies and the actors of the energy world do not foresee major modifications by 2030, and even 2050, the period during which the demand of Primary energy will increase.
And again, with the world's population increasing every day by 200,000 people, and the standard of living of emerging countries rising continuously! However, technological progress, energy efficiency, and environmental considerations will, probably in the medium term, lead to a gradual reduction in demand.
Of course, fossil fuel reserves are not infinite, but new reserves are discovered, old fields are optimized, technological progress (prospecting techniques, horizontal drilling, and improvement of the primary recovery rate.) This makes it possible to valorize all hydrocarbon resources. Of a conventional oil resource estimated at 6,000 billion barrels (GB), at least 1,200 GB have already been produced (today at a rate of nearly 32 GB/year, or just over 85 million b/day, or about 1000 b/second - 1 barrel = 159 liters).
What remains to recover? For pessimists, about 1,200 to 1,500 GB, for optimists 2,000 to 3,000 GB, the range is broad and mainly driven by the economy (the price of a barrel) and politics (geostrategy). Added to this are (i) unconventional oil (at least the equivalent of 7,000 GB), including oil shale, oil shale, shale oil or shale oil, tight sands, tar sands, and so on, and (ii) conventional and unconventional gas (shale gas and clathrates), also more abundant than conventional oil.
Also, let us add the most abundant fuel, coal, with reserves proven to be three times higher than those of conventional oil. Excluding environmental considerations, these fuels are still usable for a very long time (at least 70 to 100 years for the whole) and we will leave probably the era of the oil while it will remain, in the same way, that the prehistoric man did not leave the Stone Age for lack of stones.
All the better because we do not have in the short term substitutes for airplanes and carbochemistry, the same goes for uranium! Nearly 100 years of constant consumption reserves, then the possibility of producing nuclear energy from thorium, three to four times more common than uranium.
And Mineral Resources
Metals are everywhere, more than twenty in our smartphone the weight of these extracted resources reaches more than 60 Gt/year, more than all the sand displaced on the planet by rivers. Since their exploitation is linked to the improvement of extraction and purification techniques, it is, therefore, possible to increase reserves since low-grade deposits become profitable.
Of course, we started with natural resources that were both extensive and high-grade. Today, it is mostly small to high-grade deposits and others much larger, but with low grades that are exploited. These deposits require huge capital and heavy investments (evacuation of large volumes of rock and consumption of large amounts of water and energy).
Once again, it is difficult to estimate precisely the reserves of metals or precious materials, especially as for technological reasons. All the deposits were only started in the most superficial part of the earth's crust: the deepest mine in the world mines gold in a 3.5 billion-year-old thin quartz vein at a depth of 3.9 km near Johannesburg.
There are no geological reasons for such gold veins or deposits of other metals not to continue at greater depths. The drainage of volcanic or non-volcanic submarine deposits is under study. As with oil, the environmental impact is important with deforestation, groundwater and so on.
Nature reserves are diversified and still abundant. Their farms, when poorly managed, deteriorate the environment, these reserves actually correspond more to an economic concept than to a physical concept. Their qualification as reserves depends on the prices and efforts we are willing to make to recover them.
Until now we have remained invigorated energy-hungry, what fossil energy and various metals (fuels and materials) in the 24,000 aircraft carrying 500,000 people around the world at any given moment! This is also part of the question. The reserves are classified into three categories according to the degree of knowledge that one has: reserves 1P or proven (90% of probability of recovering them), reserves 2P or probable (50% of probability) and 3P or possible (10% of probability).
Post a Comment