News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:High-Tech can’t last: there are limited essential elements by Animats on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @07:13AM (#20163403)
The USGS produces annual reports for each mineral the US uses.[1] This is a lot of material, but it's all online. The rare earths report shows prices declining since 2014.[2] The rare earths aren't really that rare, just found at low concentrations.

Helium, though...

On the scale of a century, though, the reserves don't look that good. Some metals used in bulk, like copper and zinc, don't look so great. Remember that really high volume mining is less than a century old.

[1] https://www.usgs.gov/centers/nmic/commodity-statistics-and-i...

[2] https://prd-wret.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets/palladium...

Re:High-Tech can’t last: there are limited essential elements by pjc50 on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @08:23AM (#20163795)
Copper is highly recyclable. The risk of high copper prices is that it becomes a little too recycleable, and criminals destroy your infrastructure in order to sell it for scrap.
Re:High-Tech can’t last: there are limited essential elements by glaurung_ on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @10:51AM (#20165229)
I suspect that in the not too distant future (perhaps in my lifetime) there will be companies buying up landfills in order to mine them for recyclable materials.
Re:High-Tech can’t last: there are limited essential elements by AnimalMuppet on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @01:08PM (#20166865)
And isn't it helpful of us to have concentrated the recyclable materials in a few locations?
Re:High-Tech can’t last: there are limited essential elements by cosmodisk on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @05:10PM (#20169343)
The future is now!:) Google landfill mining, there are companies that already do it.
Re:High-Tech can’t last: there are limited essential elements by sixhobbits on Thursday June 13, 2019 @12:54PM (#20176620)
Exactly this is already a major problem in South Africa.