Report 5; 03/15/2023
Use of Natural Minerals
The dire consequences of using fossil fuel energy has not yet been recognized to the same extent in the use of natural resources used in manufacturing processes. Until now mineral resources, other than some fossil fuels, have been in adequate supply or have found suitable substitutes. Nevertheless, many materials used in modern manufacturing processes have been increasingly consumed since 1900.
The following diagram well illustrates the overall consumption of minerals, especially construction aggregates and minerals used in industry.
Shortages, however, are increasingly found in such minerals as rare earths, which are increasingly used in batteries and high tech industries.
The amounts of materials used in the United States is striking as is shown in this diagram from the Minerals Education Coalition. “Every year, 39,431 pounds of new materials must be provided for every person in the United States to make the things we use daily.”
[The energy to transform these minerals in the U.S. is like having 144 billion energy slaves working eight hour shifts every day o f the week. The total energy used per person in the United States for heating and transportation is like having 150 human slaves working twenty-four hours each day. (visual economics.com)]
Because minerals are a part of most manufactured goods, they are transformed by the use of energy. The diagram of how natural materials are coupled with energy is shown in the diagrams of the ecologist, Howard Odum. Like energy, materials become increasingly concentrated (and joined with other mineral products) as they are processed by increasingly concentrated forms of energy. Many of the unused materials from one step in the manufacturing process may be recycled and used in another form in another manufacturing process. Much of minerals that are not used in production, however are simply wasted and dumped on land, water, or in the air, thus becoming a pollutant. In the diagram below, the materials, as they are manufactured, are shown in green as pyramidal topped semi-circles. (This diagram shows only the flow of one mineral. It may become mixed with other minerals into products, all of whose constituent parts are also being concentrated.) In each stage of manufacture energy is lost and minerals are recycled or become waste products. It should be noted that fossil fuels are mineral resources as well as sources of energy. The gaseous stage of some minerals, such as carbon dioxide derived from petroleum, are simply waste products not, in some ways, unlike the the materials we find in garbage dumps. Plastics, made from petroleum, are composed of minerals that at first are considered “goods”, but later, often seen as one of today’s most widespread pollutants.
As an example of the extraordinary demands on minerals, look at the diagram below. For each of the parts needed to produce a wind tower that will generate electricity, all of the materials listed, whether metal, a petroleum derivative, or a non-metallic construction material, will demand mostly non-renewable energy in their production. The concentration of materials as well as that of energy must be considered in the building of the towers. The site preparation and transportation demands in the assembling all the towers parts mostly depend on fossil fuel energy. The lifespan and energy replacement costs of the towers must also be considered in assessing the overall possible savings in the production of energy from wind.
My next report will discuss the interrelationships and the differences between the natural world and the cultural world.