Going where no man (or woman) has gone before

Though this may sound strange, there are basically three ways resources can be used up - the first is obvious, the cupboard is empty and there is just no more to be had, the second is technological - there are more resources available, but beyond present technology, so, therefore, unavailable.  The third, related to the second, is financial.  The resources are there, but the cost of acquisition is greater than the potential income.  Of course, if technology improves, this may become more viable, or, if consumers are willing and able to pay more, the incentive to extract may be there.

Technology can allow the extraction of resources from new locations, such as deep-water drilling for oil and gas (remember the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, which, I suspect, was working at the limits the technology would allow at the time).  Even if we accept the need to exploit such resources, the inevitable will happen - when it's gone, it's gone!

The NERC has identified 15 potential problems for 2012:

• Warming of the deep sea
• Mining in the deep ocean
• Methane venting from beneath the ocean floor
• Climate-driven colonisations in Antarctic waters
• Increases in pharmaceutical discharges as human populations age
• Sterile farming to increase food safety
• Transferring nitrogen-fixing ability to cereals
• Increased cultivation of perennial cereals
• Rapid and low-cost genomic sequencing
• Electrochemical sea water desalination
• Rapid development and extensive application of grapheme
• Nuclear batteries
• Effect of increased cement demand on karst forest and cave ecosystems
• In-stream hydrokinetic turbines
• Burning of Arctic tundra

http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/news/story.aspx?id=1122

I would argue that some of these are related to the perceived need to go where we have not gone before (or not for long, anyway).  For example, mining the deep oceans and colonisation of the Antarctic.  The second of these may be as much about changing climate as technology, of course, but then things are rarely so simple that one issue is involved.

I would also argue that the concerns associated with genetic manipulation are over-played as this may be a technology that could support populations during the transition from over-exploitation to living within our means - a topic for another post.

If you are not already a subscriber, I would recommend the NERC as a source of many interesting topics related to the natural world.