Somthing else to worry about

[DaveB]

We arn't just running out of oil, we're running out of rare earth elements as well.

[The Lone Gunman]

We arn't just running out of oil, we're running out of rare earth elements as well.

Of course we are, they arent making any more.
It took millions of years to produce and it has taken us a couple of hundred to use most of it up.
Unless we learn how to synthesise a lot of the stuff we use, future generations are going to be living in mud huts and eating nuts and berries.
I will be long dead so I don't care.

[DaveB]

I will be long dead so I don't care.

Don't count on that, some of this stuff, Indium, Gallium etc could be exhausted in 5 to 10 years. Even copper and zinc could run out in our lifetime.

[shaunbhoy]

future generations are going to be living in mud huts and eating nuts and berries.

And will, in all probability, be every bit as contented as pigs in sh*t.

[ace00]

Don't count on that, some of this stuff, Indium, Gallium etc could be exhausted in 5 to 10 years. Even copper and zinc could run out in our lifetime.

No worries there, plenty more war memorials about.

[The Lone Gunman]

And will, in all probability, be every bit as contented as pigs in sh*t.

I suspect you may have a point there!

[scooby]

Don't count on that, some of this stuff, Indium, Gallium etc could be exhausted in 5 to 10 years. Even copper and zinc could run out in our lifetime.

if thats the case, watch how fast we learn to recycle it fully!

[DiscoStu]

It's OK, the Earth will have been swallowed up by a black hole caused by the Large Hadron Collider long before we start to run out of stuff.

[DaveB]

Thats part of the problem though, there isnt really a huge pool of unrecycled copper, for example, to tap into. Copper pipes and wiring go in and tend to stay in. You dont plumb and wire a building and a year later recycle the pipes or wires. You have to replace them with something else and in the case of the copper pipes that is plastic, made from oil.....