Peak Everything: Learn About Peak Metal

This post is part of a series in which we look at why those basic things that we take for granted--such as water, food, and fuel--are getting expensive and scarce, all at once.

When my dad was a teenager, his first job at the in-law's family auto parts company was to retrieve the batteries from cars that they bought before they were stolen for their lead content. A generation later, you had to pay an extra tax to the government to get rid of the batteries. Now, we are back to a time my late father would recognize- that metals are too scarce and too valuable to just leave around unprotected.

They just built a new soccer stadium in Toronto, Canada, with lovely aluminum bleachers; before the stadium even opened, someone unbolted the seats and carried them away. In Scotland, the "Great Drain Robbery" involves shipping manhole covers to China. In India, eight people have died, falling into open manholes after their covers were stolen. In Baltimore, thieves cut down and carted away 136 aluminum lamp posts. In California thieves can remove a platinum-filled catalytic converter in ninety seconds. Copper? Stealing it is a growth industry all over the world, as it hits four bucks a pound- two years ago it was a buck and a quarter.

We used to get this stuff out of the ground, and it was cheap. What happened?

Blame China. They can't get enough of the stuff and they don't care where it comes from- in Shanghai, 24,000 manhole covers were stolen in 2006. The United States now exports $61 Billion in scrap to china each year, now the second biggest export. India and Russia are also net importers now.

Blame Growth. Demand for products made from metals is exceeding production capacity; copper mines are expensive and environmentally controversial and consumption is outstripping supply.

Blame M. King Hubbert. He was talking about oil, but the Hubbert's Peak theory applies to any resource- as supply gets scarce it gets more expensive to get it out, and in some cases the resources are running out. Lester Brown predicts that there is less than a 25 year supply of copper. Chile, which produces 1/3 of the world's copper, should see production declines starting this year.

However, there is a good side to all of this: when prices rise for materials, people start getting smarter about design to use less of it, and previously uneconomic sources become viable.

More local Jobs: In Sudbury, Canada, the nickel capital of the world, "Everybody's happy," says miner Jack (Coco) Simons to the Star. "It's been a long time since we've seen this." When prices for resources were low, North Americans couldn't compete; now they can.

More Producer Responsibility: Companies didn't want to take back things that they sold; now they are getting valuable enough as scrap they are having an incentive to do so.

Better Design: Designers are beginning to think about how you take products apart to recycle their contents more easily. Nokia imagines a phone which you soak in a bucket of water and the connectors all dissolve, letting you take it completely apart. We are also just at the tail end of an extraordinary burst of economic growth around the world that spiked demand for everything far beyond normal. The American housing boom consumed massive resources, as does the Indian and Chinese boom. While nobody believes recessions are good things, they certainly cool demand, and many might have called the last boom "irrational exuberance."

Metals are almost all infinitely recyclable; it is not such a terrible thing for them to be too valuable to just throw away.

Read the rest of the "Peak Everything" series here on Planet Green

Peak Everything: Learn about Peak Corn
Peak Everything: Learn about Peak Rice
Peak Everything: Learn about Peak Rice
Peak Everything: Learn about Peak Water
Peak Everything: Learn About Peak Oil
Peak Everything: Learn about Peak Dirt
Peak Everything: Learn about Peak Electricity
Peak Everything: Learn About Peak Gas

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