What is the difference between fossil fuels and minerals

Scientists at both Stanford and the University of Bath in the United Kingdom are trying something completely new by using carbon dioxide and sugar to make renewable plastic. Oils can be processed from plants, animal fats, minerals, and man-made substances. The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit.

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You cannot download interactives. However, over time, there has been a shift in demand for cheaper and cleaner fuel options, such as the nonrenewable energy source of natural gas, and renewable options like solar power and wind energy.

Each energy resource has its advantages and disadvantages. Explore nonrenewable and renewable options with this collection on energy resources. Nonrenewable energy resources include coal, natural gas, oil, and nuclear energy. Once these resources are used up, they cannot be replaced, which is a major problem for humanity as we are currently dependent on them to supply most of our energy needs.

In the EPS method Steen , future extraction costs in combined characterisation and weighting factors ELU per kilogram were calculated using future sustainable production technology costs. EPS covers a total of 69 resources, 65 mineral and 4 fossil Roerbech et al. For a specific resource, the SCPs here derived can be up to 2 orders of magnitude larger for cesium and 5 orders of magnitude lower e.

The characterization factors for resources expressed as surplus costs, expressed in US dollars from base year , in ReCiPe were compared to both sets of SCPs derived in this paper. ReCiPe covers 20 mineral and 5 fossil resources. There were 20 resources covered by both methods. When comparing the values from ReCiPe and the SCPs here derived, there is a maximum of 2 orders of magnitude difference. Although both ReCiPe and the surplus cost method here proposed both assess the extra costs to be paid for extracting future resources, there are key differences between both methods.

Our SCP calculations apply mine-specific data for determining relationships between the extraction of resources and the increase in production costs, whereas ReCiPe adopted one constant value. Another important difference is the discounting of future costs applied in the ReCiPe method.

In the method applied here, it was chosen not to apply discounting because, according to Hellweg et al. The surplus cost values derived in Ponsioen et al. These SCP values are in the same order of magnitude as those obtained in this paper.

The difference in the SCPs obtained can be explained by the difference in modelling approach average vs marginal and by the use of more recent data in this paper compared to Ponsioen et al. Our analysis is not without uncertainties which are further discussed below. First, we assumed that cost increases are expected from future extractions following the cumulative cost curves derived from current practice.

Although there are several effects of resource extraction leading to cost increase, such as the need to use lower ore grade, more remote and more difficult to process deposits, new technology and innovations and new discoveries can lead to cost decreases Humphreys ; Svedberg and Tilton ; Tilton and Lagos ; Yaksic and Tilton For fossil resources, future technology development is accounted for in the estimates made by the International Energy Agency For mineral resources, technological innovation, economies of scale and new discoveries may partly offset higher costs of extracting resources Crowson ; Curry et al.

Reserves beyond 20—30 years of consumption are rarely identified Yaksic and Tilton , meaning that new mining projects with lower costs than other running mines in the future may occur. For instance, over the past 30 years, copper resources have more than doubled Tilton and Lagos However, over more than a century, copper extraction costs show neither great rise nor fall Svedberg and Tilton Despite these observations, potential cost reductions due to new technology development were not included in the SCP calculations of minerals because this is unpredictable Tilton and Lagos ; Yaksic and Tilton Neglecting these potential future cost reductions in the mineral SCP calculations implies an even lower contribution of mineral resources to the electricity resource footprint.

For the calculation of SCPs for fossil resources, future cost and production estimates from the International Energy Agency were used.

Of course, these are forecasts determined on basis of the depletion of current basin sites and the development and use of new technologies for each specific fossil fuel, both of which are uncertain International Energy Agency The choice to integrate until MFE supposes that all the resource is consumed in the end, although there will be exponentially rising costs.

This may not be realistic for resources that can be substituted by more abundant alternative resources. For mineral resources, this assumption can be tested by considering two types of reserve estimates: 1 reserves, which include only identified reserves that are presently economically viable and are likely to be consumed in the short-term future, and 2 ultimate recoverable resource URR , which is by definition the ultimate quantity of economically viable reserves over all of human time.

However, it should be noted that this estimate is highly uncertain because of unknown future circumstances that will continue to influence and modify economic viability and so the final URR estimate. SCPs derived with URR as reserve estimate are on average a factor 3 higher with a maximum of a factor of 5. For fossil resources, only one reserve estimate was used, based on International Energy Agency estimates. Depending on climate policies and the future development of renewable energy resources, it is unclear whether all the fossil reserves will be actually consumed by society.

In Vieira et al. To allow the applicability of the SCP method within LCA practice, SCP values were derived for over 60 metals, minerals and mineral resource groups extrapolating from price data from Prices were used because a good correlation was found between the 13 SCP values explicitly derived in Vieira et al. However, we would like to emphasize that this does not imply that there is a causative relationship between current price and SCP.

Also, despite the high correlation found, some of the metals deviate from the regression line. For instance, the SCP derived empirically for zinc for reserves is 9.

This implies that metals which are co-mined predominantly in zinc deposits, as is the case for indium, may also be underestimated when their SCP values are derived on basis of the price correlation.

Also, there are various limitations with using prices. Prices fluctuate due to factors other than mining and milling costs, which are the ones considered in the SCP approach. For instance, if demand rises much faster than the production capacity of mines, prices increase even with constant production costs because of lack of equilibrium between supply and demand.

The price data used for extrapolation is average data for global trade of that metal or mineral. This means that price of both primary as well as secondary material, when applicable, is considered. This is particularly relevant for metals where supply from recycling and the difference between the prices of primary and secondary sources are large Reck and Graedel Finally, using the average prices of instead of long-run trend prices as a predictor for mineral SCPs is also a point for discussion.

Prices reflect market and geopolitical conditions and policy, thus other than resource scarcity, at a certain moment in time. Yaksic and Tilton argue that long-run trend prices offer the most useful insights regarding mineral depletion, and Tilton and Lagos state that the long-run future equilibrium price can be assumed to converge toward production cost all other things being equal. For this reason, the correlation between SCPs and long-run trend prices was analysed as well see Electronic Supplementary Material.

According to Rossen , the long-run price trend lasts longer than 70 years so average prices for a period larger than 70 years were used, whenever available. This means that the SCP is typically a factor of 3 10 0. S 2 in the Electronic Supplementary Material. The datasets used for the electricity production technologies are from ecoinvent v3. In life cycle inventory libraries, data for capital goods is only roughly modelled and thus incomplete and of relatively poor quality so the surplus costs here calculated may be underestimated Arvesen and Hertwich Also, in the calculation of the surplus costs, SCP values for lignite and peat were set at zero because there was no data to derive specific SCP values for these fossil fuels.

The Surplus Cost Potentials calculated for fossil and mineral resources in our study can be considered as a useful step toward a coherent comparison of resource scarcity caused by renewable and non-renewable electricity production technologies. Of course, SCP is an extra life cycle impact assessment indicator next to others that cover other environmental effects, when comparing different electricity production technologies.

Fossil and mineral resources have been assessed in the same way, both based on cost-cumulative production relationships as basis to derive SCP values.

There are, however, two main differences between them: 1 the SCPs for fossil resources have been derived using past as well as future costs whereas the mineral SCPs have been derived by using current cost data of individual mines only, and 2 for minerals, two reserve estimates were used whereas for fossils only one estimate for future production was used. Fossil fuels always dominate surplus costs of electricity production compared to mineral resources, even for renewable technologies that do not require burning of fossil fuels to produce electricity.

The electricity production technologies fuelled by fossil resources result in the largest surplus costs and hydropower from reservoir and run-of-river have the lowest surplus costs per megawatt hour produced.

This case study shows that the surplus cost method facilitates the evaluation of trade-offs between mineral and fossil resource use in life cycle assessment. Ecol Indic — Article Google Scholar. Arvesen A, Hertwich EG Assessing the life cycle environmental impacts of wind power: a review of present knowledge and research needs. Renew Sust Energ Rev — CPI Inflation Calculator. Accessed 9 July Crowson PCF Mineral reserves and future minerals availability.

Miner Econ —6. Crowson P Some observations on copper yields and ore grades. Resour Policy — J Int Money Finance — Miner Eng — Environ Sci Technol — Accessed 1 July Int J Life Cycle Assess — Ecoinvent centre ecoinvent v3.

Accessed 6 May Accessed 3 June European Union. Accessed 4 November Report I: characterisation factors, first edition. Google Scholar. Environ Prog Sustain Energy. Deposits of fossil fuels depend on the climate and organisms that lived in that region millions of years ago, and the geological processes that have since taken place.

For instance, while coal reserves are found in every country, the largest reserves are found in the United States, Russia, China, Australia, and India. Millions of years ago, these areas were lush, swamp forests with many trees that provided the organic material to make coal. Oil and natural gas are also found worldwide, but most of the oil and natural gas reserves are in Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United States, and Iran.

Despite this, the United States uses more oil than it produces—more than any other country in the world in fact—and so it must import oil from other counties, including Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico. Most countries that have large deposits of fossil fuels have economies that depend on extracting the fossil fuels. The economic benefits of these resources include jobs for extracting and transporting the resources as well as money from selling the fossil fuels.

Additionally, countries with plentiful natural resources may not need to spend as much money importing fossil fuels and can instead put that money toward other goals. Some countries do not have the resources to extract their own fossil fuels, so they depend on international companies to do the work. In this case, the country gains some economic benefits but most of the benefits go to the company that does the work.

Unfortunately, countries without access to fossil fuels, or the means to obtain them, are often left lagging behind other countries, which are able to progress and flourish. The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit.

The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited. Tyson Brown, National Geographic Society. National Geographic Society. For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format.

When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource.