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A very interesting viewpoint on the use and acquisition of natural resources.

Mining for the Next Million Years

by George Reisman

For many years, I've been pointing out that the entire mass of the earth, from the upper limits of its atmosphere 4,000 miles straight down to its core, consists of nothing but solidly packed chemical elements. There is not one cubic centimeter anywhere in the earth's mass that is not some chemical element or other, or some combination of chemical elements. This, I've said, is nature's contribution to the supply of natural resources, along with all of the enormous quantities of energy that go with it, from the energy contained in fossil fuels, uranium, wind, water, and the earth's core to the energy contained in thunderstorms and static electricity.

How much of this immense quantity of matter and energy can be transformed into the narrower category of natural resources that are economically useable by and accessible to man depends on the state of science, technology, and supply of capital equipment. In other words, it depends on the extent of man's knowledge of nature and the degree of his physical power over it. As man enlarges this knowledge and power, he increases the fraction of nature that constitutes economically useable, accessible natural resources. In the process, he transforms what had up to then been mere nature-given things into economic goods and wealth.

I've also always pointed out that up to now our power over nature - our ability to actually get at its contents and direct them to the satisfaction of our needs - has been measured in depths of feet rather than miles and has essentially been confined just to the thirty percent or so of the earth's surface that is land. The clear implication is that we are still at the very beginning of our ability extract economically useable natural resources from nature.

I've now gathered some empirical data that indicates just how modest man's mining activities actually are compared to the size of the earth. For example, total global production of petroleum is approximately 30 billion barrels per year. Each barrel of petroleum measures approximately .16 of a cubic meter. This means that in terms of cubic meters, the physical volume of all the petroleum extracted in the world in a year is .16 times 30 billion, which is 4.8 billion cubic meters. Since a thousand meters equals 1 kilometer, a billion cubic meters translates into a mere 1 cubic kilometer. So the physical volume of total annual global petroleum production is presently 4.8 cubic kilometers. And because 1 cubic mile equals approximately 4.17 cubic kilometers, this means that all of the world's petroleum production in a year represents about 1.15 cubic miles.Read the full linked article