SOCIETY OF ECONOMIC GEOLOGISTS DISTINGUISHED LECTURE: HUMANITY'S GREATEST RISK IS RISK AVOIDANCE

As geologists, our challenge is to provide the ultimate world population of 10.5 billion with the energy and materials needed to sustain a European standard of living indefinitely. Any other goal has almost unthinkably negative implications. Can we do it? Of course! Considering the oceans, the world is a planet awash in energy with ample material resources. Raising energy consumption to the current European level of 7 kW/p would require increasing total (electricity, heating, transportation) energy production from 15 to 45 TW, and a 60% increase in the human population that will require 72 TWe. Growing from 15 to 72 TW over 100 years represents a modest compound growth rate of 1.6%/yr. With breeder technology, the 4.6x10⁹ tonnes of U dissolved in the oceans (not to mention Th which is a better nuclear fuel) can sustain a 72 TW production for 78 centuries. With energy all else is possible. The oceans represent an unexplored area equivalent to the land surface of two moons and two Mars, and there is reason to expect that the oceans contain resources of Cu, Zn, Li, and phosphate sufficient for at least 33 centuries. If we tap the oceans, humanity will have the resources needed for a sustainable future. There is of course some risk, but humans are tremendously good at solving problems once they have been identified, and this means to me that we will be able to recover resources from the oceans with minimal and ever-diminishing risk, as we are currently doing. The greatest risk seems to be the timidity bred of specialization (no one being sure what someone else is doing). Rather than fearing what our neighbor is doing, we should have confidence that we and our neighbors can fix whatever goes wrong. We will have oil spills and tsunamis but we will become ever better at cleaning up and avoiding risks. We should engage the next generations by moving forward with a positive, world-inclusive agenda and impressing them, not with the immensity of future pain, but by the immensity of future gain (everyone indefinitely at a European standard and huge opportunities to increase scientific understanding of how natural, including resource, systems work). If we do this, the future of our profession and humanity will be very bright indeed.