Book Description

Governance of the World’s Mineral Resources: Beyond the Foreseeable Future provides in-depth information on the geological scarcity of mineral resources. The book demonstrates the urgent need to implement sustainable utilization of mineral resources, in order to ensure that these resources will be sufficiently available for future generations too. The availability of resources, especially for modern technologies, is an increasingly important issue. Some key mineral resources are so geologically scarce that their availability for future generations may not only become substantially less, but also much less affordable than for the current generation unless timely measures are taken. This book provides detailed data and calculations of the availability of mineral resources. The book elaborates on whether and how it is possible to keep providing sufficient mineral resources to a growing world population, and for how long. The book details also how and for how much time it will be possible for all countries, worldwide, to achieve and maintain service delivery of raw materials to their population at levels equivalent to those in developed countries in 2020. Governance of the World’s Mineral Resources: Beyond the Foreseeable Future is therefore an important source of knowledge for postgraduates, academics and researchers in the fields of environmental science, sustainability, and geology, as well as anyone in the field of mining and economics who need to account for sustainable provision of mineral resources. Provides a thorough overview of all considerations related to a sustainable production rate of mineral resources Comprehensively details scarce mineral resources and describes their applications, worldwide in-use stock increases, and sustainable production rates Covers all aspects of a sustainable production rate of mineral resources, detailing the current challenges and possible global solutions, both technically and from a policy point of view Includes detailed studies of thirteen different scarce mineral resources and extensive quantitative data from recent studies and in-depth research