Decoupling Status of Metal Consumption from Economic Growth

Abstract

The decoupling statuses of the consumption of 22 kinds of metal with economic growth were analyzed. Metals were Fe, Al, Cu, Cr, Zn, Mn, Pb, Ni, Co, Sn, Sb, Si, Mo, W, Li, In, Ga, Ag, Au, Pt, Pd and rare earths. The relations of the annual consumption per capita of each metal to GDP per capita were approximated into two steps of liner formulas;, where y M is the annual consumption of the metal M per capita, X is GDP per capita. The metal which has only single relation of y M ＝a M, 1 X was judged to stay in the state of coupling. When a M, 1 ＞a M ,2 , the state was judged to be decoupling. Furthermore, it was judged to be the status of an absolute decoupling when a M, 2 ＜0. The metals which have attend to absolute decoupling are Au, Sn, Zn and W. Cu and Pb are at the border of the absolute decoupling. While Fe, Al, Ni, Mo, Sb, Ag, Pd are decoupling to GDP per capita, Si and Pt are still in the status of the coupling with economic growth. In the case of Co, Li, In, Ga and rare earth, new coupling relation with economic growth have developed in these several years.

Metal scarcity and sustainability, analyzing the necessity to reduce the extraction of scarce metals

“…Points of departure are a sustainability period of 1000 years and EGRs of 0.01% of the amount in the top 1 km of the earth's crust. Halada et al (2008). When no data were available, the world average consumption has been multiplied by 5; (c) Extraction in 2010 (according to USGS data) divided by 7 billion; (d) 1 − (a)/(b); (e) 1-(a)/(c); (f) For copper, lead and gold a 2.5 times the USGS Reserve Base has been taken as starting point instead of the EGR.…”

“…If -and as far as -consumption data in the industrialized countries are not available, we have taken the average annual world consumption per capita multiplied by 5. This is the approximate average difference between the world average consumption and the consumption in industrialized countries as provided by Halada et al (2008).…”

“…The present consumption of the 17 metals in industrialized countries is included in Table 5 (mainly based on Halada et al, 2008). If -and as far as -consumption data in the industrialized countries are not available, we have taken the average annual world consumption per capita multiplied by 5.…”

Simulation of water resource and its relation to urban activity in Dalian City, Northern China

“…OECD (2002) analyzed temporal changes in the relationship between environmental pressures and economic growths in OECD countries. Furthermore, the decoupling analyses between economic growth and environmental pressures, such as energy use (OECD, 2003a;Brown-Santirso and Thornley, 2006), transport demand (Schleicher-Tappeser et al, 2000;OECD, 2004;Tight et al, 2004), carbon dioxide emissions (Annabelle, 2007;Lua et al, 2007), and metal consumption (Halada et al, 2007), were conducted in many developed countries. Tachibana et al (2008) conducted a case study for the material flow in regional-scale at Aichi prefecture in Japan.…”

A Proposal on a Resource Efficiency Index for EEE

“…In addition, demands for natural resources are rapidly increasing because of the growing economies in developing countries. For example, reserves-to-consumption ratios [1] of some critical metals are very short [2]. If we cannot develop technologies to reduce the consumptions of such critical metals or to replace by common metals, modern lives based on such high-tech products will be endangered.…”