QLD Mining and Energy Bulletin
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THE WORLD HAS T Professor Michael Hood is the Chief Executive Offi cer of the Pinjarra Hills-based Cooperative Research Centre for Mining (CRC Mining). Prior to joining the Centre in 1993, Michael spent 15 years as a faculty member in mining engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also the former Head of the Division of Mining at the University of Queensland. His research interests include rock mechanics, particularly non- explosive rock excavation, and mine environmental engineering. Michael is also an internationally recognised expert in the field of high pressure water jet erosion. He is a Fellow of both the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM) and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE). he horizontal axis in the fi gure below shows the standard of living (measured as gross domestic product – GDP – in dollars per person) for many countries around the world. Unsurprisingly it shows the so- called developed world as the rich countries on the right-hand end of the scale and the emerging or developing countries as the poor countries on the left-hand end of the scale. The points to note are: 1. The picture is changing and changing rapidly. Ten years ago the developed countries produced more than 60 per cent of the world’s GDP. Last year these countries produced only 50 per cent of global GDP. In 10 years time they will produce only 40 per cent. The rest, obviously is coming from the emerging world. 2. The vertical axis in this plot shows the power consumption per person per day. There is a fairly obvious linear relationship between standard of living and power consumption, admittedly with a fair bit of scatter. In other words, in order to increase a country’s standard of living the power use increases roughly proportionally. 3. Although this graph plots power consumption as a function of standard of living we could have plotted steel consumption, or copper, or almost any commodity. In order to build a country from a low to a high standard of living requires raw materials and energy. 4. Most of the world’s population currently lives in the emerging countries, and, reasonably enough, the people in these countries aspire to a higher standard of living, and, as pointed out above, they are successfully achieving this. A fact for which we should all be grateful. These points taken together explain the huge increase in demand for fuel and mineral commodities that the world has experienced in the past decade or so, the global fi nancial crisis notwithstanding. They also point to the fact that because the populations of these emerging countries are so large they still have an enormous distance to travel to reach a level even approaching the standard of living of the developed countries. This points to an ongoing demand for fuels and minerals commodities on a scale that the world has never before experienced. For mining and energy companies and their suppliers this is fantastic news. Enormous demand, limited supply, high prices, very good ongoing profi ts. Barring a major disturbance, such as a signifi cant war or a global epidemic, this indeed is the future. The problem for the producing companies is supply. Very few Tier 1 resources are being discovered. Those that are are often found in countries that carry high political risk. The existing deposits are being mined at ever greater depths and at ever lower grades, bringing increased mining complexity and introducing additional safety hazards. In my view the industry will need to develop and implement a suite of new technologies to address these problems. The petroleum industry recognised this several decades ago and today this industry is a high-technology business. It continues to invest heavily in R&D. The mining industry is only now starting to recognise the problem that it faces and is coming to grips with the need for signifi cant investment in mining technology. Figure taken from Sustainable energy - without the hot air by DJC MacKay, published by UIT, Cambridge, UK, 2009. QLD Mining and Energy Bulletin Winter 2011 5 FOREWORD