INFOGRAPHIC: A forecast of when the world’s resources will run out

Cecilia Jamasmie | September 7, 2014 | 12:23 pm Base Metals Battery Metals Energy Precious Metals Africa Asia Australia China Europe Latin America Coal Copper Gold Rare Earth Silver Uranium Zinc 

How many times have we heard humans are “using up” the world’s resources, “running out” of oil, “reaching the limits” of the atmosphere’s capacity to cope with pollution or “approaching the carrying capacity” of the land’s ability to support a greater population?

Studies there are many, but this infographic, by Visual Capitalist, shows you just how much is left.

INFOGRAPHIC: Here is when the world's resources will run out

(Click to expand)

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10 Comments

  • Malthus was wrong

    Shame on you, Mining News! It might be OK to report that yet another misguided group has divided reserves by production, and has predicted that lead will run out in 20 years time. The same prediction was of course made 50 years ago by the Club of Rome (or some 250 years ago by Malthus). The simple fact is that companies only need to find reserves for the next 1-2 decades of production – it makes no sense for them to spend the money needed to find more.
    A journal like yours should have known this and, if you choose to publicize “Malthus 2014”, then explain why it is wrong, not simply say “Here is when he resources will run out”!!!

  • Regis

    Can you comment on the silver and copper ratio ? It seem that we will run out of silver before we run out of copper.

  • Matt

    Gold is certainly not going to run out in 2030

  • Ken

    Why don’t you save this type of hilarity for April Fools’ Day?

  • Aurum Minerali

    I think most of us in the mining industry know that this is bogus information, based on production and limited reserve data only. Really misleading. Run out of lead, zinc, antimony, silver and gold before 2040??? Geez, what a load of BS.

  • xxx

    We will run out of minerals when we run out of rocks, which is sometime around when the sun becomes a red giant about 10 billion years from now.

  • Angela

    yeah, the comments are right. We probably just have infinite resources.

  • Alex Mezei

    No surprise that mining-investor sentiment is bouncing cyclically from paranoia to panic (or from famine to feast). And yes, the end result is still 3/1000 success rate, with metallurgical risk as main culprit. Reality is that most of the focus is on the resources (including NI 43-101), with the implied key-assumption that everything available can be exploited at the same cost and risk.

  • Tariq

    The information seems quite useful but it needs some good references to verify these digits

  • Aeon

    The infographic was really well made but the statistics are dubious at most. It still achieved the effect intended by conveying the scarcity of resources to readers.

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