The Exergy of the Earth and its Mineral Resources - Thanatia: The Destiny of the Earth's Mineral Resources - page 343

Fig.11.2Exergydecreaseofthedifferenttypesoffuel-oilsasafunctionofatmospheric CO 2

concentration (Valero D. and Valero, 2012)

Fig.11.3Exergydecreaseofnaturalgasasafunctionofatmospheric CO 2 concentration

(Valero D. and Valero, 2012)

11.3.2 The exergy of non-fuel minerals

In contrast to fossil fuels, non-fuel minerals are physically valued not only for their
chemical exergy content, but also for their concentration exergy.
In this section, the total minimum exergy B t of the mineral reserves and world
resources 12 compiled by the USGS (2010) and described in Chap. 6 are calculated
(Table 11.19). The ratio between production and the reserves, expressing years left

12 The reserve base has not been included in Table 11.19 since the USGS has stopped providing
this information.