Robert Pore's Ag Blog

PHILADELPHIA – If you think the world is on the verge of running out of oil or other mineral resources, you've been taken in by the foremost of seven myths about resource geology, according to a University of Washington economic geologist.

"The most common question I get is, 'When are we going to run out of oil.' The correct response is, 'Never,'" said Eric Cheney. "It might be a heck of a lot more expensive than it is now, but there will always be some oil available at a price, perhaps $10 to $100 a gallon."

Changing economics, technological advances and efforts such as recycling and substitution make the world's mineral resources virtually infinite, said Cheney, a UW professor emeritus of Earth and space sciences.

For instance, oil deposits unreachable 40 years ago can be tapped today using improved technology, and oil once too costly to extract from tar sands, organic matter or coal is now worth manufacturing. Though some resources might be costlier now, they still are needed.

"Mineral resources are vitally important to our industrial and service economy," he said.

Cheney will discuss myths about mineral resources Sunday during a talk at the Geological Society of America annual meeting, a presentation prepared in collaboration with Andrew Buddington of Spokane Community College.

It might seem that oil supplies are running low in a time when gasoline has reached $3 a gallon. But Cheney – who has been on the UW faculty since 1964 and has consulted extensively for government and industry – notes that gas prices today, adjusted for inflation, are about what they were in the early 20th century. Today's prices seem inordinately high, he said, because crude oil was at an extremely low price, $10 a barrel, just eight years ago and now fetches around $58 a barrel and has been as high as $78.

As major economies, such as those in China and India, develop and are on the verge of greater demand for mineral resources, he said, it is an opportune time for universities to train a new crop of resource geologists who can understand the challenges and help find solutions. He believes that popular but misguided notions about mineral resources might be hampering students from entering the field.

Other myths that he wants to dispel include:

* Only basic extraction and processing costs affect economic geology. That fails to account for such costs as exploration, transportation, taxes and societal and environmental programs.

* Production always damages the environment. Accidents do happen, Cheney said, but much of the perception is based on problems of the past and don't reflect current reality. "It's inevitable that there are going to be oil spills, just like tere are traffic accidents on the freeway," he said. "We hope we can manage them, but nothing is risk free."

* Mineral deposits are excessively profitable. Despite widely reported huge oil company profits in the last year, Cheney notes that as a percentage of company revenues oil profits lag far behind those of some major software and banking companies.

* Transportation costs are trivial. In fact, the retail cost of building materials such as sand and gravel are largely driven by the cost of moving them from one place to another, particularly in crowded urban areas. Moving quarries and pits farther away from where people live only increases those costs.

* Ore deposits are uniform. While a valued ore can be found in a large continuous deposit, often it is mixed with other kinds of minerals and extraction becomes more expensive.

* Resources are randomly distributed and so, if human population encroaches, a mine or quarry should simply be able to relocate.

Cheney does not discount serious issues involved with the use of natural resources. For instance, continuing to burn fossil fuels will pump more carbon dioxide into Earth's atmosphere, adding to the already worsening greenhouse conditions. Those fuels still will be available to those who can afford the price. "We're still going to have to use fuels, but we have to manage that use better."

"The point is that we have to have members of the public who are not geologists and who know something about mineral resources. There are going to be some important policy decisions in the next decades, so we need to have some smart voters," he said. "We can start in colleges by dispelling myths in courses for students who are not going to become professional geoscientists."

BOULDER — Recent episodes of deadly heat in the United States and Europe, long dry spells across the U.S. West, and heavy bursts of rain and snow across much of North America and Eurasia hint at longer-term changes to come, according to a new study based on several of the world's most advanced climate models.

Much of the world will face an enhanced risk of heat waves, intense precipitation, and other weather extremes, conclude scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Texas Tech University, and Australia's Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre.

The new study, "Going to the Extremes," will appear in the December issue of the journal Climatic Change.

Many previous studies have looked at how average temperature or rainfall might change in the next century as greenhouse gases increase. However, the new research looks more specifically at how weather extremes could change.

"It's the extremes, not the averages, that cause the most damage to society and to many ecosystems," says NCAR scientist Claudia Tebaldi, lead author for the report. "We now have the first model-based consensus on how the risk of dangerous heat waves, intense rains, and other kinds of extreme weather will change in the next century."

The study is one of the first analyses to draw on extensive and sophisticated computer modeling recently carried out for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC's next assessment report will be released early in 2007.

Tebaldi and colleagues based their work on simulations from nine different climate models for the periods 1980–1999 and 2080–2099. The simulations were created on supercomputers at research centers in France, Japan, Russia, and the United States. Each model simulated the 2080-2099 interval three times, varying the extent to which greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere. These three scenarios were used to account for uncertainty over how fast society may act to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases over coming decades.

From the model output, the scientists computed 10 different indices of climate extremes, with 5 related to temperature and 5 to moisture. For instance, a frost days index measures how many days per year temperatures dip below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, while a dry days index measures the length of each year's longest consecutive string of days without rain or snow. Because the impact of a given index can be stronger in one climatic zone than another, the authors expressed the results in terms of statistical significance at each location.

For all three greenhouse-gas scenarios, the models agree that by 2080-2099:

* The number of extremely warm nights and the length of heat waves will increase significantly over nearly all land areas across the globe. During heat waves, very warm nights are often associated with fatalities because people and buildings have less chance to cool down overnight.

* Most areas above about 40 degrees north will see a significant jump in the number of days with heavy precipitation (days with more than 0.40 inches). This includes the northern tier of U.S. states, Canada, and most of Europe.

* Dry spells could lengthen significantly across the western United States, southern Europe, eastern Brazil, and several other areas. Dry spells are one of several factors in producing and intensifying droughts.

* The average growing season could increase significantly across most of North America and Eurasia.

Most of these trends are significantly weaker for the lowest-emission scenario than for the moderate and high-emission scenarios. Thus, the authors add, lowering the output of greenhouse gases over the next century should reduce the risk that the most severe changes will occur.

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, which is NCAR's primary sponsor, as well as by the U.S. Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency.