We have millions of cars, planes, rebar, jewelry, bullets, boats, phones, wires, etc. How is there still metal being made? Are we projected to run out anytime soon?
In: Other
There is lots of metal in the ground and we keep digging it up.
Also used metal can somewhat easily be reused (compared to other materials)
We have roughly 80 billion metric tons of iron ore in deposits, and over the last 15 years that actually increased because we discovered more deposits than we mined. Per year we mine about 2.5 billion tons, so if we discover no more iron we’d run out in less than 40 years (but it slows down as recycling rate increases)
Apart from spaceships etc everything that was ever on earth is still on earth. Scarcity is typically down to cost of extraction as opposed to actual scarcity.
Realistically – we will never run out of anything on earth.
By mass there’s more iron on earth than pretty much any other element (though a lot is in the core). In the crust, aluminium/aluminum is the most abundant element followed by iron, oxygen and calcium…so there’s plenty of the most commonly used metals.
There’s 1.4 x 10 to the power 21 tonnes of iron in the earth’s crust. If we can access 1 millionth of this, we can mine another 1000 billion tonnes.
There’s a lot of them.
Especially iron and aluminum, which are both in the top 5 of the most abundant elements on Earth.
But we also recycle much of what is being used, and pretty much all scrap from metal-working factories ends up melted and reused. Metals are very easily recycled.
Musicians are talented and can make unique metal songs. Cars planes etc. don’t affect the metal songs
Steel and aluminum are some of the most recyclable materials available. Not running anytime soon.
We’re actually far closer to running out of coke quality coal for steel production than we are running short of iron for said production.
Something I don’t think many people realize is that we’re living in the *steel age*. It’s everywhere, it’s ubiquitous, and we’re inescapably dependant on it. Yet there’s a very real risk that at some point in the coming century production may wane. If we don’t find suitable alternatives it could cause problems with our global economy.
This is an example of what I mean when I say “even if everything goes right this century, we *still* have major issues to deal with.” Yet we *still* have people arguing over ACC legitimacy, or whether or not it should be permissible to be gay.
We have real adult problems, and we’re collectively still behaving like children. It’s really depressing.
These things might seem like it would use a lot of metal, but they are much smaller in volume than you would think. Imagine a car completely crushed flat. That’s essentially how much metal in volume is used for a car.
The only issue we reasonably face is the consumption of copper vs the production capacity. Not the reserves of ore, there’s reasonably decades of known deposits. But the smelting capacity is what limits production. A new copper smelter is an incredibly expensive thing to build and repays the investment very slowly. I know there was some concern at the log rhythmical growth in demand from BRICs economies causing a squeeze at some point.
Latest Answers