Indeed the issue is about supply and demand but with an added bonus. As long term prices go up average cut off grades go down and reserves expand. Great thing about this relationship is that it is not linear. If you double the long term price of copper for instance you expand mining reserve by a much large multiple, maybe 10X in some cases. On the other hand the actual cost of refined copper in end products is often as low as 25%, which means that doubling the price only increases the cost of items by 25%, sometimes less because producers cannot always transfer costs to customers. This means the positive impact of higher prices is 3 to5 times larger than the negative impact to most consumers.
Along this line of tought any geologist knows that most undeveloped copper deposits are in fact not economic at current prices (long term not the high spots prices we've seen lately) but together they nevertheless represent by far the largest copper resources in the world. You could even mine copper from the ocean if the price was high enough.
Finally, copper, like gold is infinitely recyclable and most of the copper ever produced is still around in one concentrated metallic form or another. It is generally quite cheap to recycle this metal and this is a vibrant industry.
For these reasons it is unlikely that the world will run out of copper. More likely that because of environmental reasons there will be fewer and fewer deposits put into production in the future. But hey, I'm not complaining as this will only push prices up higher.
Zince is a bit trickier because it is not recyclable for a number of technical reasons. However, contrary to copper, a number of different materials can substitute for many zinc applications. Except for galvanized steel, which admittedly is not small change, the world will certainly get along quite well when really cheap zinc runs out.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed the issue is about supply and demand but with an added bonus. As long term prices go up average cut off grades go down and reserves expand. Great thing about this relationship is that it is not linear. If you double the long term price of copper for instance you expand mining reserve by a much large multiple, maybe 10X in some cases. On the other hand the actual cost of refined copper in end products is often as low as 25%, which means that doubling the price only increases the cost of items by 25%, sometimes less because producers cannot always transfer costs to customers. This means the positive impact of higher prices is 3 to5 times larger than the negative impact to most consumers. Along this line of tought any geologist knows that most undeveloped copper deposits are in fact not economic at current prices (long term not the high spots prices we've seen lately) but together they nevertheless represent by far the largest copper resources in the world. You could even mine copper from the ocean if the price was high enough. Finally, copper, like gold is infinitely recyclable and most of the copper ever produced is still around in one concentrated metallic form or another. It is generally quite cheap to recycle this metal and this is a vibrant industry. For these reasons it is unlikely that the world will run out of copper. More likely that because of environmental reasons there will be fewer and fewer deposits put into production in the future. But hey, I'm not complaining as this will only push prices up higher. Zince is a bit trickier because it is not recyclable for a number of technical reasons. However, contrary to copper, a number of different materials can substitute for many zinc applications. Except for galvanized steel, which admittedly is not small change, the world will certainly get along quite well when really cheap zinc runs out.