October 21 2018
Recently finished reading 'Extracted: How the Quest for Mineral
Wealth Is Plundering the Planet'[1] by Ugo Bardi.  Bardi is an
Italian chemistry professor and one of the original 'Limits of
Growth'[2] researchers.  He also blogs regularly about many of the
issues revolving around humanity's current predicament at Cassandra
Legacy[3].

Extracted is a fairly easy read and presents a good introduction
into how many of the minerals we mine were formed, the geological
processes that migrate them from the earth's core to the surface,
and the general history of mining, both by humans and plants.  It
also explores the practical limits of mineral extraction, both in
terms of Energy Return of Investment (EROI) and the environmental
impacts as the quality of ores continues to fall since humans
invariably pick the low hanging fruit first.  There are also some
attempt to correlate historical shifts in world powers with the
growth and decline of various mineral deposits.  Overall well worth
reading as it clearly illustrates that humanity is facing much more
than Peak Oil, it's really Peak Everything. For example, take
Uranium[4]; apparently a significant switch to nuclear energy would
deplete economically recoverable deposits in just a few decades -
not really the salvation for this wired world that proponents of
nuclear power make it out to be.

[1] https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/extracted/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth
[3] https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com
[4] http://energyskeptic.com/2017/peak-uranium-from-ugo-bardis-extracted/

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