Mining Supports Industrialisation
• Manufacture and application of technology at all scales makes
up the industrial grid
• That technology allows us to live in the numbers we do and in
such densely populated cites
• Big agriculture (thus our food) depends on industrial services
• Industrial grid heavily dependant on raw materials from
mining
• Mining is the exploitation of a non-renewable natural
resource
The impact of mining and processing minerals
“consumes close to ten percent of world
energy, spews almost half of all toxic
pollution from industry in some countries,
and threatens nearly 40 percent of the
world’s undeveloped tracts of forests—
while generating only a small share of
jobs.”
Payal Sampat in a Worldwatch Institute
report (State of the World 2003)
Mining empowers everything
else by supplying raw
materials for manufacture
and energy
40% Decrease in Multifactor Productivity
Well, GOLLY! We aren’t growing new deposits are we?
Driven by increasing demand
Economies of Scale Has Carried the Industry
Ore has been progressively getting harder
Comminution Impact Breakage A*b
Softer
75.0
73.0
71.5
Average A*b
71.0
69.0
67.0
65.0
62.3
63.0
61.6
61.0
59.0
Harder
57.0
55.0
1980's
1990's
2000's
~3000 Drop Weight Tests
What does this
mean?
More power draw is required
to break the rock
Target Grind Size is Decreasing
Ore grain size becoming more disseminated
1 mm
Target ore P80 = 150mm
10 mm
Target ore P80 = 4mm
General form of the Energy-Size relationship
Energy, kWh/t
Hukki 1962
A decrease in
metal grain size
=
A decrease in =
plant final grind
size P80
An exponential
increase in power draw
Economic goal posts are shifting for future
deposits
• Huge low grade deposits
• Penalty minerals more prominently present in deposit
that prevent efficient processing
• Ever decreasing grind sizes (close size 5-20mm)
• Operating on an economy of scale never been seen
before (4MT blasted rock a day, 40% of which is ore!)
• To stay economically viable, economics of scale have to
be applied. Operations will double and triple in size.
All of this based on the assumption that there is no energy or water shortage
Copper Demand Outlook
17Mt
World
Cu grade
1.6%
3400Mt of Rock
World Cu grade 0.5%
With current estimations the demand for
copper will increase to ~100Mt by 2100
With a continuing grade of 0.5% this
will require 20000Mt of Rock
With a decrease of grade to 0.2%
this then requires 50000Mt of Rock
Is this sustainable?
Eventually the cost of dealing with the wastes will exceed the value of the metal…
Source: Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) 2008
Energy consumption in mining increased 450% in the last 40 years
Peak Gas
Year 2018
Zittel, W. et al, Fossil and Nuclear Fuels – the supply outlook Energy Watch Group March 2013
CSG and shale gas has pushed this date back from approx. 2011
Peak Oil - conventional and unconventional
Year 2012
Source: The Oil Drum
Tar and oil sands have pushed back the peak of total oil
supply back 6-7 years
Peak Coal
Year 2020
Zittel, W. et al, Fossil and Nuclear Fuels – the supply outlook Energy Watch Group March 2013
This should frighten the hell out of any thinking politician
World supply of fossil fuels and uranium
Peak energy approx. 2017
Zittel, W. et al, Fossil and Nuclear Fuels – the supply outlook Energy Watch Group March 2013
Dynamic Interaction and Exacerbation
• Power & water shortages
• Decreasing grade requires more tonnes of rock extracted for the
same resulting amount of target metal.
– More energy is needed (diesel and electrical power draw) per unit of
extracted metal
– More potable water is needed per unit of extracted metal
• Increasing ore hardness requires more power draw to crush and
grind the ore
Dynamic Interaction and Exacerbation
• Decreasing grind size due to finer mineral grains requires more
power draw to crush and grind the ore
– More water is needed per unit of extracted metal
– Water recycling is more difficult
– More disseminated finer grained rocks are usually harder to crush and grind
• Exponentially more energy demand from shrinking energy sources
• To remain economically viable operation scale has to double/triple
in size
• Metal demand is growing fast
What we must choose to do to, if our
industrial sector is to survive
Leadership & Vision
Mounting Drift
Stress
Early
Crisis
Trapped Transition
Inelastic oil
supply 2005
Early
Crisis
Drift/
Decline
Understand
true implications
Decay/
Collapse
Existential
Crisis
Drift/
Decline
Trapped Transition
Mounting Drift
Stress
We are here
Fundamental Reform
Room to Manoeuvre
Existential
Crisis
Write-off & Reset
Decay/Collapse
Peak Total Energy
2017
The Industrial Big Picture
Expansion of production needed to stay viable
Peak
Mining
=
Decreasing Decreasing Increasing
Peak Fossil
+ Grind size + Depth +
Grade
Fuel
Peak
Finance =
Peak
Manufacturing
Expansion of money needed to service debt
Sovereign Debt
FIAT
+ Credit + Structural
+
Default
Currency
Inflation
Freeze
Devaluation
The End of the
Industrial Revolution
Peak
Industrialisation
The End of Materialism
The fate of the current system of industrial
management
This is not the end of industrialization but the end of the
current way of doing this.
A new system will be developed through necessity.
Population Overshoot
Financial
Systemic
Meltdown
Energy supply
disrupted then
unavailable
Natural raw materials
unavailable for
industrialisation
Systemic environmental
disruption
•
•
•
Reset all FIAT currencies – asset based
Restructure all debt
Need to grow into new system
•
•
Change to alternative energy system
Rebuild all infrastructure to meet
requirements of new energy system
•
Cannot supply raw materials for
construction or manufacture at needed
rate or volume, if at all
Need to reassess what is really needed
Mine our rubbish dumps
Are these issues really
unknown to the senior
• Cannot sustain growth
global
decision makers?
• Cannot grow economy system
What happens to due
•process and democracy
•
when there is not enough
to support everyone?
•
•
•
•
Puts pressure on all other sectors except finance
Most people of which have few relevant skills
outside existing paradigm
Wilful ignorance & aggressive apathy
•
•
Cannot run any existing system for
very long
Resilience and redundancy required
on all fronts
Practical carrying capacity vastly
reduced
The ethics of what gets used and for whom
becomes relevant
• Person A and Person B want the same pallet of
aluminum ingots
• Person A wants to build a roof over his swimming
pool at his holiday home
– has lots of $$$
But money has become really unstable
• Person B wants to build a series of bore water
pumps in a region with drinking water shortages
– represents a nation state government where resource is
situated
The ‘have-nots’ vastly outnumber the ‘haves’
grab your pitch forks and burning torches,
its time for a visit to the castle…
Personal epiphany after a 15 year
professional career
You can’t make a system change that doesn’t want to,
that also regulates its own authority
and has its own political power source
You can be at the right place at the right time,
when that system breaks…
Conventional thinking has no hope for the future.
Unconventional thinking and asymmetrical strategy
is the way forward
Timing is the key to everything
Questions???
Peak mining & implications for natural resource management Simon Michaux
Type in ‘peak mining Simon Michaux’
Developing a Sustainable Community - Simon Michaux
Type in ‘Developing a Sustainable Community’