IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/bioerq/v1y2016i1d10.1007_s41247-016-0004-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mineral Resource Depletion: A Coming Age of Stockpiling?

Author

Listed:
  • Ugo Bardi

    (Università di Firenze, and Consorzio Interuniversitario per la Scienza e la tecnologia dei materiali (INSTM), Unità di Ricerca di Firenze, Polo Scientifico di Sesto Fiorentino)

  • Rolf Jakobi

    (University of Applied Science Ludwigshafen)

  • Hiroshan Hettiarachchi

    (United Nations University - Institute for Integrated Management of Material Fluxes and of Resources (UNU-FLORES))

Abstract

The gradual depletion of low cost (or “high grade”) mineral ores is generating increasing extractive costs and diminishing economic returns. The market reacts to this situation either with high prices, which depress demand, or with very low prices (as it is happening at present) that reduce or eliminate profits for the extractive industry, which is forced to reduce production. As a consequence, it is becoming increasingly difficult to manage the remaining mineral resources in such a way to ensure a sufficient supply for the economy and to avoid price shocks originated by the vagaries of the market or by social or strategic conflicts. This is particularly important for critical and rare metals, such as those needed by the electronic industry and for vital tasks such as the conversion and the transmission of electrical energy produced by renewable (e.g. photovoltaic) plants. One possible reaction to these problems is stockpiling, that is keeping mineral resources stored above ground and readily available in order to provide a buffer against price and supply shocks. The present paper discusses several ways in which the market of mineral resources could evolve, in particular the concept of a “metal bank” that could be used to manage the supply of rare and sensitive minerals.

Suggested Citation

  • Ugo Bardi & Rolf Jakobi & Hiroshan Hettiarachchi, 2016. "Mineral Resource Depletion: A Coming Age of Stockpiling?," Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 1-9, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:bioerq:v:1:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1007_s41247-016-0004-x
    DOI: 10.1007/s41247-016-0004-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41247-016-0004-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s41247-016-0004-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cristina Constantinescu & Aaditya Mattoo & Michele Ruta, 2020. "The Global Trade Slowdown: Cyclical or Structural?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 34(1), pages 121-142.
    2. Reynolds, Douglas B., 1999. "The mineral economy: how prices and costs can falsely signal decreasing scarcity," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 155-166, October.
    3. Bianciardi, C. & Tiezzi, E. & Ulgiati, S., 1993. "Complete recycling of matter in the frameworks of physics, biology and ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 1-5, August.
    4. David S. Jacks, 2019. "From boom to bust: a typology of real commodity prices in the long run," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 13(2), pages 201-220, May.
    5. Houthakker, Hendrik S., 2002. "Are minerals exhaustible?," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 417-421.
    6. Harold Hotelling, 1931. "The Economics of Exhaustible Resources," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(2), pages 137-137.
    7. Goeller, H E & Weinberg, Alvin M, 1978. "The Age of Substitutability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(6), pages 1-11, December.
    8. Robert Bradley, 2007. "Resourceship: An Austrian theory of mineral resources," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 20(1), pages 63-90, March.
    9. Graham M Turner, 2008. "A Comparison of the Limits to Growth with Thirty Years of Reality," Socio-Economics and the Environment in Discussion (SEED) Working Paper Series 2008-09, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems.
    10. Takashi Kamei, 2012. "Recent Research of Thorium Molten-Salt Reactor from a Sustainability Viewpoint," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 4(10), pages 1-20, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shriram S. Rangarajan & Suvetha Poyyamani Sunddararaj & AVV Sudhakar & Chandan Kumar Shiva & Umashankar Subramaniam & E. Randolph Collins & Tomonobu Senjyu, 2022. "Lithium-Ion Batteries—The Crux of Electric Vehicles with Opportunities and Challenges," Clean Technol., MDPI, vol. 4(4), pages 1-23, September.
    2. Anastasia Ufimtseva & Jing Li & Daniel M. Shapiro, 2024. "US Critical Mineral Policies and Alliance Strategies in an Age of Geopolitical Rivalry," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 12.
    3. Fox, Sarah Jane, 2021. "The nexus between resources and criminal activities: ‘Recycling crimes’ (Metals)," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    4. Robson Mandishekwa, 2021. "Rethinking mining as a development panacea: an analytical review," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 34(1), pages 151-162, April.
    5. Tatiana Ponomarenko & Marina Nevskaya & Izabela Jonek-Kowalska, 2021. "Mineral Resource Depletion Assessment: Alternatives, Problems, Results," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-15, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Seyhan, Demet & Weikard, Hans-Peter & van Ierland, Ekko, 2012. "An economic model of long-term phosphorus extraction and recycling," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 103-108.
    2. Lukáš Režný & Vladimír Bureš, 2019. "Energy Transition Scenarios and Their Economic Impacts in the Extended Neoclassical Model of Economic Growth," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(13), pages 1-25, July.
    3. Jakobsson, Kristofer & Söderbergh, Bengt & Höök, Mikael & Aleklett, Kjell, 2009. "How reasonable are oil production scenarios from public agencies?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 4809-4818, November.
    4. Baffes, John & Kabundi, Alain, 2023. "Commodity price shocks: Order within chaos?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    5. Macías, Arturo & Matilla-García, Mariano, 2015. "Net energy analysis in a Ramsey–Hotelling growth model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 562-573.
    6. Pierre JACQUET & Alexis ATLANI & Marwan LISSER, 2017. "Policy responses to terms of trade shocks," Working Papers P205, FERDI.
    7. Smith, James L., 2012. "On the portents of peak oil (and other indicators of resource scarcity)," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 68-78.
    8. Phoebe Koundouri & Nikolaos Kourogenis, 2016. "On the Use of Quadratic Trends in Natural Resource Prices' Modeling," DEOS Working Papers 1608, Athens University of Economics and Business.
    9. Bardi, Ugo, 2005. "The mineral economy: a model for the shape of oil production curves," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 53-61, January.
    10. Stuermer, Martin, 2018. "150 Years Of Boom And Bust: What Drives Mineral Commodity Prices?," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(3), pages 702-717, April.
    11. Cleveland, Cutler J. & Ruth, Matthias, 1997. "When, where, and by how much do biophysical limits constrain the economic process?: A survey of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's contribution to ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 203-223, September.
    12. Mercure, Jean-François & Salas, Pablo, 2013. "On the global economic potentials and marginal costs of non-renewable resources and the price of energy commodities," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 469-483.
    13. John E. Wagner & David H. Newman, 2013. "The Simon-Ehrlich Bet: Teaching Relative Vs. Absolute Scarcity," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 58(1), pages 16-26, May.
    14. Sam Mitra, 2019. "Depletion, technology, and productivity growth in the metallic minerals industry," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 32(1), pages 19-37, April.
    15. Douglas B. Reynolds, 2024. "U.S. shale oil production and trend estimation: Forecasting a Hubbert model," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(1), pages 468-487, January.
    16. Capellán-Pérez, Iñigo & Mediavilla, Margarita & de Castro, Carlos & Carpintero, Óscar & Miguel, Luis Javier, 2014. "Fossil fuel depletion and socio-economic scenarios: An integrated approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 641-666.
    17. Waisman, Henri & Rozenberg, Julie & Sassi, Olivier & Hourcade, Jean-Charles, 2012. "Peak Oil profiles through the lens of a general equilibrium assessment," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 744-753.
    18. Gregor Schwerhoff & Martin Stuermer, 2015. "Non-renewable resources, extraction technology, and endogenous growth," Working Papers 1506, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    19. Jakobsson, Kristofer & Söderbergh, Bengt & Snowden, Simon & Li, Chuan-Zhong & Aleklett, Kjell, 2012. "Oil exploration and perceptions of scarcity: The fallacy of early success," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 1226-1233.
    20. Magnus Ericsson & Johannes Drielsma & David Humphreys & Per Storm & Pär Weihed, 2019. "Why current assessments of ‘future efforts’ are no basis for establishing policies on material use—a response to research on ore grades," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 32(1), pages 111-121, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:bioerq:v:1:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1007_s41247-016-0004-x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.