4. Precious metals.
There's a couple of points I'd like to make on this one. It is important to note that metals aren't some sort of consumable resource that disappears after it is incorporated into some sort of product. Civilization won't collapse just because there is a scarcity of new metal and there is no guarantee that we actually will run out of new deposit discoveries. Even if we did, it would behoove us to get much better at reprocessing metals from old products into new ones (which many major companies have been doing for years). And even if that were to run into scarcity with those factors considered, it would then behoove us to develop the necessary infrastructure for asteroid mining. Virtually all the precious metals in the Earth's crust were deposited there by meteor impacts in the first place since most of the heavier elements sunk to the planet's core sometime after its accretion. Being able to exploit the source of these materials would mean virtually limitless quantities of metals for use in our technology, it's just a matter of making the space-to-Earth transport a profitable endeavor. Any high degree of scarcity, in economics terms, would force us to develop that infrastructure. As with the other problems, the heavier we invest in long-term solutions, the better off we shall be in the future.
Is this the last technologic generation?
What are the metals we can't live without? Not familiar with precious metals at all desu
I should have made the point that there's more metals that are still pretty vital to the functioning of modern tech that don't fit into the category of precious metals. I just mis-typed there. Everything from gold to iridium to neodymium have applications in modern machines. It depends on the demands of the system, but a significant portion of them are used in some way.
From wikipedia:
"A precious metal is a rare, naturally occurring metallic chemical element of high economic value. Chemically, the precious metals tend to be less reactive than most elements (see noble metal). They are usually ductile and have a high lustre. Historically, precious metals were important as currency but are now regarded mainly as investment and industrial commodities. Gold, silver, platinum, and palladium each have an ISO 4217 currency code.
The best known precious metals are the coinage metals, gold and silver. Although both have industrial uses, they are better known for their uses in art, jewellery, fine jewellery and coinage. Other precious metals include the platinum group metals: ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium, and platinum, of which platinum is the most widely traded.[1] The demand for precious metals is driven not only by their practical use but also by their role as investments and a store of value. Historically, precious metals have commanded much higher prices than common industrial metals."
Adapt or die
Peak conventional has already happened in 2012. Sure tar goo will help ease the downslope as will natural gas. Probably will be more dams and nuke plants built. Overall by the end of this century there will either be as many or more people living in absolute poverty, filth and misery or a lot less people living under a totalitarian world police state controlling all energy possibly through some draconian carbon rationing program. These would be best case scenarios though, in all likelihood there will be much war, pestilence and disease on top of energy depletion and the new dark ages as religion and occult control of it is already on the rise again. The enlightenment was so long ago...
Asteroid mining starting to look like a real good idea now assholes?
It is important to remember that it's impossible to do anything about climate change because regulation never works for anything.
Tell that to the ozone layer
Literally what? Do you know how much planet we have left? We aren't going to run out of anything, aside probably fossil fuels.
asteroids are tiny flying pieces of sand compared to our planet
it's not going to save us faggot