Earth as a magic pudding

Cornucopians – those who believe the Earth


An example of this would be digging large gold nuggets out of riverbanks in the Victorian goldfields in the 1850s or mining phosphate-rich guano on the Pacific island of Nauru by simply scooping it up and bagging it. However, as you probably know, the alluvial gold of Victoria and the guano on Nauru were both mined out many years ago.

You might think that this would lead to a severe shortage of these materials but this is where the resource pyramid works it magic. As these resources begin to become scarce their price rises. The higher price now makes it economically viable to extract the substance from a less accessible and/or less concentrated source. Amazingly, the total amount of the substance present in this lower-grade resource is greater than in the original, most concentrated resource. This pattern repeats. As the less concentrated resource begins to be mined out the price of the substance rises ever higher so that extracting it from an even lower grade/less accessible source becomes economically viable.

The total amount of the substance present in the lowest grade of resource is greater than previously. By this argument we can never run out of a substance because the more we use, the more becomes economically viable to extract. Our planet truly is a magic pudding!

Energy Bulletin