resource depletion – Desdemona Despair

Oil production from the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, 2012-2019. New drilling in Eagle Ford only replaces production declines from old wells. Data: BloombergNEF. Graphic: Bloomberg

December 7, 2019

Faded Texas oil field offers austerity lesson for U.S. shale – “There’s an inflection point coming here because production growth is going to slow down massively”

By Kevin Crowley 2 December 2019 (Bloomberg) – At EOG Resources Inc.’s Francisco lease in the heart of the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, a half dozen cows laze in the shade of a tree next to black oil-storage tanks. A small flare burns atop a steel pylon, like a memorial to the boom […]

An oven at Buffalo Engine Components. Aluminum melts at a temperature of roughly 1,220 degrees. Photo: Gregory Halpern / Magnum / The New York Times

August 25, 2019

The big business of scavenging in postindustrial America – “The city has survived, in part, by devouring itself”

By Jake Halpern 21 August 2019 (The New York Times Magazine) – Adrian Paisley spends his days hunting for scrap metal: aluminum, brass and (holy of holies) copper. At 42, Paisley, who weighs just 135 pounds, is wiry and muscular. I once saw him move an old refrigerator by himself, hurling it onto his pickup […]

June 9, 2019

Leading scientists set out resource challenge of meeting net zero emissions in the UK by 2050: Twice the total annual world cobalt production and at least half of the world’s copper production

5 June 2019 (NHM) – A letter authored by Natural History Museum Head of Earth Sciences Prof Richard Herrington and fellow expert members of SoS MinErals (an interdisciplinary programme of NERC-EPSRC-Newton-FAPESP funded research) has today been delivered to the Committee on Climate Change. The letter explains that to meet UK electric car targets for 2050 […]