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I just read two accidentally adjacent articles in the New York Times this morning. One was on the doubling of rice prices in the last three months, and what great hardship that is placing on people all over the world who rely on rice for their calories. The other was about thieves not stealing cars anymore, but instead stealing the catalytic converters. They’re easy to steal, you just saw them off, and then the platinum in them (which is now up to $2,300 per ounce, more than double gold) causes them to fetch great value on the black market.
Both of these items point out how scarce all of our commodities in the world are becoming, and will continue to become. Both of these point out how we have to use all of our resources more carefully — not just the ones we usually talk about, like coal and oil. In general, we humans are going to have to get a lot better at “doing more with less” to quote a famous engineering dictum. I believe there will continue to be big rewards to those who figure out how to do to more with less. The more we can achieve our happiness and utility using fewer “atoms,” whatever those atoms may be, the better off humanity will be, and for sure, the less resource wars we will have.
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The state of the world’s energy problem was presented quite well by Bill gross. As a fellow mechanical engineer involved in the energy field I must say the answer is obvious to the world’s energy problem, but it is a hated solution. NUCLEAR. Could there be accidents and 1000’s of people die? Yes, and that is tragic. Could skyrocketing rice prices and wheat prices cause millions to die? YES. Do the math and be rational. (FYI I have no economic investment or interest in Nuclear; many people promote energy solutions where they have a monetary interest).
Talk of precious commodities and running out, esolar ’s CSP towers steal the most precious commoditiy we have WATER. Now top that with 10 acres of land per unit completly leveled and without vegitation, so that wind and rain errosion occurs. Well is that really enviromentally sound? I say nuclear is better.
We have not even scratched the surface of Earths resources, There are huge oceans of Water and oil that are laid all around the globe. Imagine Australia for instane having a basin miles deep of caverns full of water and oil. The Sahara is an ocean of resources just as the rest of Africa is. Mans problem is that he has not a clue as to how to go about sourcing any of it. Consider the mountainouse area of Asia from Afghanistan to Japan. Those valleys are full to the brim of coal ,oil and water. Why do you think that the huge rivers of India, China,S,America and Russia still have the volume of excess water that those rivers do not sink into the ground and stop five miles after the Amazon commences in the western mountains. The ground is so full of water and oil that their is no where for it to sink !. The cetral core of the earth is compacte to hundreds of times the entire size of it.s external measurement and it is metals,minerals and chemicals. A black hole of resources.