{"id":44940,"date":"2019-04-01T13:33:41","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T18:33:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=44940"},"modified":"2019-05-23T06:50:10","modified_gmt":"2019-05-23T11:50:10","slug":"rare-the-high-stakes-race-to-satisfy-our-need-for-the-scarcest-metals-on-earth-by-keith-veronese%ef%bb%bf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=44940","title":{"rendered":"Rare: The High-Stakes Race to Satisfy Our Need for the Scarcest Metals on Earth by Keith Veronese\ufeff"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rare: The High-Stakes Race to Satisfy Our Need for the Scarcest Metals on Earth by Keith Veronese<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Preface<\/strong>.  Capitalism believes there\u2019s a solution for everything due to Man\u2019s Inventive Brain, but when it comes to getting metals out of the earth, there are some very serious limitations.  In parts per billion, there\u2019s only 4 of platinum, 20 of silver, and less than 1 part for many important metals. Yet they are essential for cars, wind turbines, electronics, military weapons, oil refining, and dozens of other uses listed below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China controls 97% of rare earth metals.   Uh-oh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The overwhelming majority of Earth\u2019s crust is made of hydrogen and oxygen. The only metals present in large amounts within the crust are aluminum and iron, with the latter also dominating the planetary core. These four elements make up about 90% of the mass of the crust, with silicon, nickel, magnesium, sulfur, and calcium rounding out another 9% of the planet\u2019s mass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our civilization is far more dependent on very rare elements than I\u2019d realized, which are extremely scarce and being dissipated since so few are recycled (it\u2019s almost impossible to recycle them though, the cost is too high, and many elements are hard to separate from one another).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So in addition to peak oil, add in peak metals to the great tidal wave of collapse on the horizon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What follows are my kindle notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alice Friedemann   <\/em>www.energyskeptic.com<\/em><\/a>  author of \u201c<\/em>When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation<\/em><\/a>\u201d, 2015, Springer and \u201c<\/em>Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers<\/em><\/a>\u201d. Podcasts: <\/em>Practical Prepping<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>KunstlerCast 253<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>KunstlerCast278<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Peak Prosperity<\/em><\/a> , <\/em>XX2 report<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keith Veronese. 2015. Rare: The High-Stakes Race to Satisfy Our Need for the Scarcest Metals on Earth. Prometheus books.
<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scientifically,\u00a0metals are known for a common set of properties. Almost all metals have the ability to transmit electricity and heat\u2014very useful properties in the world of electronics. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rare: The High-Stakes Race to Satisfy Our Need for the Scarcest Metals on Earth by Keith Veronese Preface.  Capitalism believes there\u2019s a solution for everything due to Man\u2019s Inventive Brain, but when it comes to getting metals out of the earth, there are some very serious limitations.  In parts per billion, there\u2019s only 4 of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[11836,111,150,25480,25481,25484,617,20113,25483],"class_list":["post-44940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-environment","tag-alice-friedemann","tag-capitalism","tag-collapse","tag-keith-veronese","tag-metals","tag-peak-metals","tag-peak-oil","tag-rare-earth-minerals","tag-rare-minerals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44941,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44940\/revisions\/44941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}