How sustainable is the minerals industry?

One of the major themes of next year’s SRCR ’11 conference is sustainability from an industrial as well as consumer point of view.

According to the biennial Living Planet Report mankind is plundering the Earth’s natural resources at 1.5 times the rate it can replace them and by 2030 the equivalent of two planets will be needed to produce enough food, materials and water.

It is pretty clear that, in order for the minerals industry to remain sustainable, new technology has to be developed to deal with ever more complex and refractory orebodies (another theme of the conference).

In my posting of 30th August I asked the question ‘is minerals engineering the world’s most important branch of technology?’ Considering that civilisation as we know it is completely dependent on a continuous supply of metals and minerals, then perhaps it is.