One of the common errors made by people who argue we are close to running out of natural resources is failing to realize just how much human ingenuity plays in making “natural” resources available. The amount of wheat that occurs “naturally,” without human intervention, wouldn’t be nearly enough to support many billions of people, but by applying human ingenuity and creating an extended system of agriculture, human beings are able to gain access to far more wheat than just that available “naturally.”
Another example of how natural resources can be limited or expanded purely by human knowledge is titanium. Titanium is extremely abundant on our planet — it is the ninth most common element found on Earth. And yet titanium is extremely expensive, which is why even though it has properties that make it more desirable, steel and other metals are typically used where titanium might be a better choice.
The problem is that even though titanium is abundant, it is mixed with other elements. Separating titanium from the elements it is mixed with involves an expensive, two step process. Recently Nature published an article by Cambridge University’s George Chen suggesting a single step electrolytic process that should be able to extract titanium with a one step process, and, if it can be scaled up, should bring the cost of titanium crashing down over the long run.
Those are some very big ifs, but consider another element that used to be extremely expensive: aluminum. Aluminum used to be more valuable than gold for the same reason — although it was relatively abundant, there was no simple process to extract pure aluminum. Then in the late 19th century a couple scientists developed an electrolytic technique to extract the metal and its production soared while its cost declined. In fact this scientific discovery enabled contemporary industrial societies to be the first in world history to see the widespread use of this “natural” resource.
The amount of natural resources available to human societies have as much to do with our own ingenuity and economic incentives as they do with any real natural limit. The current level of technology, for example, is a much better predictor of the availability of aluminum than any laundry list look at the number of aluminum atoms in the universe. By always focusing on such strict definitions of resources and ignoring the way that human invention expands available resources or contracts the need for such resources, many environmentalists and doomsayers only pay attention to half the story.
Source:
Dr Chen and the philosopher’s stone. The Economist, September 21, 2000.