Page 41 - BBC Focus - August 2017

supplies of lead, zinc, tin, gold and silver by 1990. was “goaded” into taking the bet, while ABOVE LEFT:
Until the late
Two years later a similar prediction, verified by a ungenerously growling about Simon: “The one 1960s, coal
computer model called World3, appeared in a thing we’ll never run out of is imbeciles”. was the UK’s
main energy
best-selling book titled The Limits To Growth. Yet the failure of these doom-mongering
source
The book argued that increasing use could forecasts has not deterred others from making the
exhaust known world supplies of zinc, gold, tin, same mistake. In 2007 New Scientist predicted ABOVE: Oil
pumps at
copper, oil and natural gas by 1992 and would that the world would run short of indium and sunset in
cause a collapse of civilisation and population in hafnium by 2017. It has not happened, and the California
the subsequent century. price of those metals shows no sign of impending
But a quarter of a century after that deadline, scarcity. When I read a story about a mineral
the world is extracting roughly twice as much running out, I look up its price history. If it’s not
zinc, copper and gas as it did in 1992, and almost getting rapidly dearer, then those in the know
1.5 times as much gold and oil. The Limits To clearly don’t think it is running out. The indium
Growth was very influential, however. School price has halved since 2007, while other rare
textbooks were soon echoing its predictions: earth elements have fallen even further.
“Some scientists estimate that the world’s known The mistake was to assume that because the
supplies of oil, tin, copper, and aluminium will reserves of these metals were small, they would
be used up within your lifetime,” said one. not last. But hafnium is produced as a by-product
In 1990 the economist Julian Simon won of zirconium mining – so there are no reserves.
$576.07 from the prominent environmentalist Tim Worstall, a rare-earth dealer, could not
Paul Ehrlich in settlement of a bet. Simon had bet conceal his disgust: “The idea that we’re going to
Ehrlich that the prices of five metals (chosen by run out of hafnium, gallium, terbium, or another
Ehrlich) would fall during the 1980s. Ehrlich had oft-mentioned, germanium, could only be
accepted “Simon’s astonishing offer before other advanced by people wallowing in their own
greedy people jump in” though later claimed he purblind ignorance. There’s not the slightest 2

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