Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
It must be stated however that the minerals listed are not the only ones extracted
in Australia. Other non-fuel minerals including uranium, alumina, manganese, tin,
diamonds and industrial sands are also produced. Furthermore limited information
is the major barrier preventing their complete analysis.
13.4 Conversion of exergy costs into monetary costs
The conversion of exergy costs into monetary costs is a rather simple task using
conventional energy prices. It must be stated though, that this activity should not
be necessarily the final objective, as the physical information is valuable in and of its
own right. The monetary value of fuel minerals, can be thus directly calculated by
their corresponding prices in the year under consideration. The example provided
in this section is the principal mineral reserve depletion suffered at the hands of
Australian extraction in 2007. For non-fuel minerals, two boundary conditions are
considered. The lower bound is calculated assuming that the exergy replacement
costs, i.e. the energy required to restore the mineral capital extracted with current
technology, is in the form of coal. The upper bound considers that this same activity
is carried out with electricity at a price of 55 A$/MWh
10
.
According to ABARE (2010), the average price of thermal coal in 2007 was
70.7 A$/t or 134.4 A$/toe, if one considers the specific exergy of coal. The same
report includes the following oil price: 518.4 A$/toe. BP (2010) reports meanwhile
a natural gas price
11
of 231.1 A$U/toe.
Table 13.2 shows an estimation of the monetary costs associated with the de-
pletion of the main Australian mineral reserves due to mineral extraction in 2007.
Table 13.2 Monetary costs of the principal mineral reserves depletion suffered in
Australia due to mineral production in 2007
Mineral
Exergy
extracted,
Mtoe
Mineral's
price,
US$/toe
Monetary
cost, Billion
A$
% GDP
Coal
251.9
134.4
33.8
2.9
Oil
26.5
518.4
13.8
1.2
N. Gas
37.5
231.1
8.7
0.7
Non-fuels
133.8
134.4 - 639.65
18.0 - 85.6
1.5-7.2
TOTAL
449.7
74.3 - 141.9
6.3-12
According to the results obtained, Australia would have lost in 2007 between
A$ 74.3 and 141.9 billion of its mineral capital, due to resource extraction. This
corresponds to an equivalent of 6.3 and 12% of Australia's 2007 GDP (A$ 1,182
10
Source: http://d-cyphatrade.com.au/products/overview_of_the_australian_el. Accessed Jan.
2014.
11
The natural gas price corresponds to USA Henry Hub.
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