The Insights of Industry – How Do You Find a Natural Resource?

Humans are very good at accumulating resources that are useful for a particular goal. Whether mining coal for use in steam engines in the 1800’s or coltan for use in electronics in the 2000’s – we find a way.

Industry has been continuously the source of human achievement in terms of economic growth and the development of new technologies. These technologies have taken us from steam powered trains to smartphones in as little as 100 years – as a result it is arguably one of the most important contributors to the advancement of civilisation as a whole.

These days technologies are being developed that include renewable energy technologies and those which are designed to mitigate the effects of industrial processes that are harmful to the environment. One era of industry owes a lot to the other – we could not be able to go green with renewable energies without the progress that dirty industries gave us.

Natural resources have helped us immensely. It’s an amazing process, but how do you find a natural resource in the first place?

In the earliest days of industry, the era around the turn of the 20th Century where the ‘There Will Be Blood’ style industrialist tycoons were in control of extracting natural resources from the Earth, it was a lot easier to find sites that might be prime for exploitation.

Coal could be found in the mountains under thin layers of rock, some segments of which were exposed by natural occurring geologic phenomena like earthquakes. Indeed, even oil could be seen seeping through the earth to the surface above. If you couldn’t do it by sight, you could do it by cursory examination or investigation.

As the natural resources began to be accumulated and used, the challenge of finding them became much more difficult and natural oil seeps in particular became increasingly rare.

These days finding a natural resource involves a little bit more precision, as there are few obvious places where their presence is discernible without a significant amount of testing. Determining where a natural resource is requires geotechnical investigation to analyse the properties of soil and rock.

In addition to this, the feasibility of extraction needs to be accounted for. Many structures and buildings are required at sites where a resource will be extracted. As a result firms use site investigation services to carry out tests which are necessary to determine whether soil is capable of holding foundations for buildings or if soil has sufficient thermal resistivity in cases of where oil or gas pipelines may be laid.

If a site is deemed unfeasible for use, for example if the land has a propensity for sinkholes or other potentially hazardous geological factors then the undertaking of a project may not be possible. For example the state of Florida recently withdrew permits at a proposed site after geotechnical investigations determined that sinkholes were a risk.

I touched on renewable energy earlier, and it’s quite reasonable to say that the commodities of water, wind and the sun will become much more prominent natural resources as renewable technologies proliferate in the 21st Century.

So, the most prominent natural resources of the future will be renewable resources as opposed to the non-renewable resources we use today. These include;

• Groundwater – Although it is renewable, groundwater supplies are steadily decreasing in regions where average temperatures are high. This will be an important resource for the future.

• Geothermal Energy – Taking advantage of the natural power of the geologic activity of the Earth will be very important for finding renewable sources of heat and power.

• Solar Energy – The amount of power and radiation that is present in the rays beamed onto the planet from the sun is astounding. It is likely that as technologies become more able to store and convert this power into energy it will become a great natural resource for humanity.

A redefinition of natural resources towards renewable resources as opposed to the finite oil, gas, coal, gold and other limited ones is clearly going to be not just a natural progression as industry grows but an absolutely necessary one.

It may be the case that many of the future of humanity’s industrial activities take place on extra-terrestrial bodies such as asteroids and planets; this may redefine how we view natural resources further.

Using the notion of planetary resources, we can see the potential for a new era of untapped prosperity when it comes to both renewable and non-renewable resources. We will have to wait before finding resources in such a way becomes possible, but we know it will eventually be necessary as Earth’s stocks dwindle – so we may not have to wait very long.

Thanks for reading. Please do let me know what you think; I’d love to hear from you. Please do check out the rest of my work on Instructables. I’d especially recommend reading “Taking Care Of Your Elderly Relatives: What Are Your Options?”.

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