Resource Security - Water Flashcards
What are resources?
Materials/substances occurring in nature which can be exploited for economic gain.
What is resource security?
Ability of a country to safeguard a reliable sustainable flow of resources to maintain the living standards of its population while ensuring ongoing economic and social development.
What is the difference between a resource and a reserve?
Resource - Entire material (including bits yet to be found and not economically viable to extract).
Reserve - Amount of the resource that is economically viable to extract.
What will determine the reason to commence resource extraction?
- Quantity of the resource found.
- Quality of the resource in the reserve.
- Physical location and accessibility (depth).
- Amount of money received from deposit vs the costs of extraction.
What is the McKelvey box?
A small box (reserve) in a larger box (resource).
Larger box represents entire ‘resource base’ of a mineral.
Smaller box is the actual reserve which is determined by economic recoverability based on access and cost against market price and certainty of its existence.
What is the process of resource exploitation?
Possible Resources - resources thought to exist based on local geological knowledge, but no sampling, and probably not economically viable.
Inferred Resources - Limited geological samples conducted, uncertainty in quality/quantity.
Indicated Reserves - Confidence is sufficient to allow further evaluation into the economic viability of the deposit.
Measured Reserves - Quality and density are well established. They can be estimated with confidence.
What are the physical risks of security and supply of resources?
- Technology available to access the resource economically.
- Quantity of the resource that has been found.
- Quality of the resource in the reserve.
- Physical location and accessibility.
What are the geopolitical risks of the security and supply of resources?
- Confidence any individual country has in trading with producers who will seek to exert their market power.
- Concentration of production in a relatively small number of countries.
- Possibility of conflict, war, or political tension.
- TNCs influencing government decisions.
What is the resource frontier?
An area with natural resources present. Creates a rush of investment and jobs. Social conditions may still be poorly developed.
What are the stages in a resource frontier?
- Core
- Upward transitional
- Downward transitional
What is the core of the resource frontier?
Area that attracts wealth and investment because of its advantageous location and existing resources.
What is the upward transitional area of a resource frontier?
Close to the core, has many natural resources and rising agricultural productions as development spreads out from the core.
What is the downward transitional area in a resource frontier?
Periphery that remains largely undeveloped, it fails to attract investment and growth and lags behind standards of living and other development indicators.
What is a resource peak?
The amount of time of the maximum rates of production of a resource, either from a given reserve or for the resource as a whole.
What is conventional methods of extraction?
Refers to the petroleum, crude oil, natural gases extracted from the ground by conventional means and methods.
What are unconventional methods of extraction?
Hydrocarbon reservoirs that have low permeability and porosity and so are difficult to produce. Require enhanced recovery techniques such as fracking, shale deposits, tar sands, and heavy oils.
What are the stages of the resource peak graph (Hubbert Curve)?
1) Production increases as investment increases, and the most easily accessed parts of the reserve are extracted.
2) Resource peak is point at which maximum amount of a resource is being extracted each day.
3) Production begins to decline as most accessible parts of the reserve have been exhausted, and only harder-to-reach parts remain.
4) Resource runs out, or what remains is too difficult/expensive to extract so production stops.
Why is Hubbert’s Peak Oil concept ok on a local scale but not on a national/global scale?
- Discovery of unconventional reserves.
- Development of renewable/flow resources.
- Motivation of nations through global governance to achieve a move to flow resources.
- Possible reserves become recoverable reserves based on advancements in technology.
What is sustainable development?
Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
What is resource depletion?
Consumption of a resource faster than it can be replenished.
What are the major problems facing resource use?
- As NEEs and LICs become more developed, resource consumption will increase.
- Environmental impact is currently at a rate that will damage carrying capacity.
- Future generations are unlikely to be able to meet expected demand.
Reducing resource depletion: Supply side management
- Increasing exploration efforts for existing non-renewable resources + CCS.
- Increasing research efforts to develop more sustainable alternative resources, and new technologies that are more sustainable with less environmental impact.
Reducing resource depletion: Demand side management.
- Reducing consumption of resources.
- Changing individual behaviour and lifestyle to discourage wasteful use of resources.
- Recycling after use.
- Reducing population growth with population controls and frameworks.
What is an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)?
A process of evaluating the likely environmental consequences (costs/benefits) of a proposed project.
