Minerals-Supply Security and Mineral-Use Efficiency: Some Observations from the 1970–2005 Interval

Abstract

Abstract As a consequence of the powerful changes that have occurred over the last three decades in the principal ‘drivers’ of economic change, there have been significant realignments in the global patterns of production and consumption of natural resources, as well as in the intensity of their use, in the quest to raise the level of material wellbeing throughout the world. In this paper, three large minerals-consuming (and -producing) countries are examined – the USA, China and Russia – and the story of a generation's economic progress (or decline, as the case may be) is seen through the lens of resource consumption – the ‘stuff’ that comprises a modern ‘standard of living’. After presenting data on gross domestic product, population, the observed levels and annual growth rates of consumption and production of four non-fuel minerals over a 35-year interval ending in 2005 for these countries and for the world, the paper includes a description of these countries' growing import dependence (or, as the case...