Discuss the facets of sustainable mineral use
What will be an ideal response?
Minerals are nonrenewable resources and therefore need to be mined and utilized efficiently. Otherwise, scarce minerals such as indium, copper, gold, and tantalum, will rapidly reach the depletion point, past which their extraction and processing will be prohibitively expensive. A cornerstone of sustainable minerals use is recycling. The greater the volume of recycled scarce mineral and more efficient the recycling process, the longer the supplies will last and the longer we have to discover more available, cheaper, and renewable replacements. Practical goals are those already attained for gold, where more metal is recycled than consumed, and lead, where most of U.S. lead consumed comes from recycled items such as car batteries. Finally, new deposits need to be sought, and more efficient extraction technologies need to be developed.
You might also like to view...
Who was responsible for most of the progress in science and math after the fall of the Roman Empire?
A) Arabs B) Greeks C) Asians D) Vikings
How many different substituent groups can be obtained by removing a hydrogen atom from propane?
A) 1 B) 2 C) 3 D) 4
Three laws of planetary motion were discovered by ________
A) Nicolaus Copernicus B) Johannes Kepler C) Tycho Brahe D) Galileo
What causes the seafloor to deepen across a typical continental slope?
A. thinning of continental crust because of normal faults and a transition from continental crust to oceanic crust B. thinning of continental crust because of normal faults C. deposition of sediment from turbidity currents D. down flexing of oceanic crust because of subduction E. a transition from continental crust to oceanic crust