Posted on 04/27/2010 9:34:19 PM PDT by neverdem
When you really need something, it's natural to worry about running out of it. Peak oil has been a global preoccupation since the 1970s, and the warnings get louder with each passing year. Environmentalists emphasize the importance of placing limits on consumption of fossil fuels, but haven't been successful in encouraging people to consume less energyeven with the force of law at their backs.
But maybe they're going about it all wrong, looking for solutions in the wrong places. Economists Lucas Bretschger and Sjak Smulders argue that the decisive question isn't to focus directly on preserving the resources we already have. Instead, they ask: Is it realistic to predict that knowledge accumulation is so powerful as to outweigh the physical limits of physical capital services and the limited substitution possibilities for natural resources? In other words, can increasing scientific knowledge and technological innovation overcome any limitations to economic growth posed by the depletion of non-renewable resources?
The debate over peak oil is heavily politicized, so let's set it aside and test the idea of imminent resource peaks and their consequences for economic growth on three other non-renewable resources: lithium, neodymium, and phosphorus.
Peak Lithium
Lithium is the element at the heart of the electric car revolution that many green energy enthusiasts are trying to foment. For example, the Chevy Volt, scheduled to be at dealers this fall, will be energized by 400 pounds of lithium ion batteries, plus a gasoline engine to produce electricity to extend the cars range of travel once the batteries are drained. In 2007, William Tahil, an analyst with the France-based consultancy, Meridian International Research, issued a report that alarmingly concluded that there is insufficient economically recoverable lithium available in the Earth's crust to sustain electric vehicle manufacture in the volumes required. Tahil added...
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
Have you not heard of Riordan metal. It is used to make rails superior to steel.
Riordan metal is for making buggy whips...
Build a maglev and we won't need no rusty Riordan rails.
Let us know when you can mass produce thousands of miles of iron free something for your mag-lve to run on.
What are you going on about?
So what does Palladium have to do with Avatar?
I haven’t seen the movie.
So your reference is to a fake mineral in a fake movie, whereas my reference is to a real precious metal that sells for far more than gold. Whatever point you were trying to make is lost in that blurring problem you have with discerning between what is fake and what is real.
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