I'm completely unconvinced that peak oil is a false idea. We're down to extracting fossil fuels our of sand and rocks, this is crazy. We obviously passed peak in terms of the liquid crude that bubbles out of the ground.
Because it's so inefficient relative to just pumping it out of oilfields, that it only makes sense when the price is quite high (hence the huge production pullback in response to recent price drops). Now I don't think we can just move off fossil fuels tomorrow, but we're clearly into an era of diminishing returns.
IT doesn't but it does mean the days of anybody being able to prospect for gold are long gone. you'll always be able to get more of almost any physical resource, but the notion of Peak ____ is economic rather than purely physical.
Actually, total available gold is quite finite, as are resources of other minerals. I looked into this a few weeks ago.
All the gold mined in all human history amounts to about 175,000 metric tons, or 386 million pounds. And there's 7.3 billion of us humans.
That works out to about 24 grams of gold per person, or 0.84 standard ounces (0.77 troy ounces). At present rates of about $1,200 per ounce ($1,187.47 as I write this), it'd be worth slightly less than $1,000.
For copper, it's a kilo or two.
For numerous minerals and natural resources, remaining supplies range from a few years (antimony, 8), to a few decades (aluminium, 80 years).
As other said, it's crazy because we don't mine fossil fuels and then have them to use and keep and recycle. We go through this intense stuff just to burn it up and it's gone. Not so with those minerals and such you're talking about.
