Resources

WHAT'S NEXT?: The world is depleting its natural resources at an alarming rate due to population growth and over consumption. Increased competition for ever-diminishing food and water resources may amplify socio-economically motivated armed conflicts and causing quests for more efficient resources on and beyond Planet Earth.

• [New] In a world of increasing demand for depleting natural resources, from minerals to water to fish, coming decades will see a focus on resource use efficiency and a major global effort on extracting more from less.
• [New] China aims for complete military modernization by 2035 and DoD reports that the PRC has marshalled the resources, technology, and political will over the past two decades to strengthen and modernize the PLA in nearly every respect.
• While the US is putting fewer diplomatic resources in the Middle East and Europe, US leaders will devote more energy to the Indo-Pacific region.
• The demand for water from the private sector is expected to drastically increase in coming decades - especially in agriculture, manufacturing, and energy production and distribution - whilst reliable water resources are under threat from pollution, overexploitation and climate change.
• The race to production for commercial electric vehicles was given fresh impetus in June when the California Air Resources Board approved a groundbreaking policy to wean its trucking sector off diesel fuel by requiring manufacturers to sell a rising number of zero-emission vehicles, starting in 2024.
• The European Commission suggests the development of circular economy to reduce pressure on natural resources, stop the biodiversity loss, and reach the climate-neutrality targeted by 2050.
• The significant contraction of the Mexican economy projected at between 4.6 and 8.8% in 2020 could leave the Mexican government with little resources to robustly invest in alternative livelihoods while criminal groups will capitalize on the economic downturn.
• California could get 90% of its electricity from climate-friendly resources by 2030 while reducing energy prices, even if the costs of solar power, wind power and batteries do not decline as quickly as they have in recent years.
• Despite Minnesota's poor solar resources depicted below, Xcel Energy wants to spend billions of dollars building 4,000 megawatts of solar power not because it is the most productive way to generate electricity, but because it will obtain the most government-guaranteed profits.
• Demand for resources is projected to double by 2060 and is driving the intensification of the search for new mineral resources by global mining companies, and with it inevitable environmental pressures.
• If all goes according to plan, humans will be visiting - and developing - the moon and its resources well before the decade is out, following multiple nations ramping up their lunar-exploration efforts.
• If China uses the most cost-effective renewable energy resources, it could generate more than 60% of its electricity from non-fossil sources by 2030 - including wind, solar, hydro and nuclear - at a cost that is around 10% lower than under business-as-usual.
• Within the next 10 years - we could see costs of key technologies fall by 10 times or more, production processes become 10 times more efficient, all while using 90% fewer natural resources and producing up to 100 times less waste.
• Permian-based energy producers including Diamondback Energy, Cimarex Energy, Concho Resources are all going to invest a lot less money into the Permian in 2020 in the face of low prices.
• A draft rule issued by the California Air Resources Board in April would require 5% of new Classes 7-8 tractor sales to be zero-emission vehicles such as electric or fuel cell trucks by the end of 2024.
• Following Water UK's calls to action, the Environment Agency has released its National Framework for Water Resources - a series of proposals for improving water efficiency through to 2050, in line with megatrends such as global temperature increase and population growth.
• Jordan also has extremely limited primary energy resources and is forced to depend on the imported petroleum and natural gas from neighbouring countries: the rapidly increasing population, energy demand is expected to rise by at least 50% over the next 20 years, aggravating the existing shortage.
• The California Air Resources Board unanimously voted on a plan to require manufacturers to produce more electric trucks, which would put 100,000 zero-emission trucks on roads by 2030 and produce 300,000 by 2035.
• The California Air Resources Board adopted a first-in-the-world rule requiring truck manufacturers to transition from diesel trucks and vans to electric zero-emission trucks beginning in 2024.
• While upstream oil and gas production and development in Texas and around the U.S. has taken a substantial hit in the first and second quarters of 2020, so too have opportunities for energy companies to export U.S.-produced resources abroad.
• With a global population projected to reach nine billion by 2050 and freshwater resources under threat from climate change, pollution, salinization, and depletion, producing more food using less water is critical to human survival.
• By 2030, China's economy will outgrow the US, and China plans to use its vast economic resources to project its presence deep into space in ways that may lead to escalating military confrontations with the newly created US Space Force.
• In case of the virus outbreak returning in Slovenia later in the year, the second lock-down will have a lasting negative impact on businesses, leading to relatively large shares of underutilized resources at the end of the projection period.

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Last updated: 16 September 2020