We all know about agricultural products. They are purchased as such and usually consumed as such whether they be fish or fowl, potatoes or pretzels. Most of us know the approximate cost of a pound of coffee or beef. Few indeed are those among us who can come up with the cost of a pound of lead, copper, steel or zinc. We don’t often use them in their form of origin. We buy a new battery for our car, a new electric fan, or a car or barn roofing.

These and almost all products of mining are generally in some combined form. Petroleum by the barrel of crude is a far different item than the gasoline that powers our cars. A few items like coal and crushed stone are used as is but, for the most part, the products of mining are used in some combined form.

Groceries are a big item in our cost of living. The most expensive vehicle we drive is that grocery store push cart. Assume we live 75 years or close to 28,000 days. Let’s estimate that we use 5 pounds of food a day. At that rate, we consume about 138,000 pounds in a lifetime - less than the load of a single 100-ton freight car like those we see rolling through Luray in coal unit trains.

Those grocery numbers are small when compared with our lifetime per capita usage of more than 2,000,00,000 pounds of minerals and metals, including 1,200,000 pounds of sand and gravel, 500,000 pounds of coal, 91,000 pounds of iron and steel, 27,000 pounds of clay, 26,000 pounds of salt, 800 pounds of lead, 28,000 pounds of phosphate and potash, 3,200 pounds of aluminum, 1,500 pounds of copper and 840 pounds of zinc. That is enough stuff to fill ten 100-ton freight cars.

Let’s take a look at our usage of mined products from a different perspective- What do we need to produce every day to maintain our standard of living?

• In one day, 18,000,000 tons of raw material must be mined, cut or harvested -about 150 pounds for each US resident.
• In one day, 625 acres of land is disturbed by mining and 327 acres are reclaimed and replanted.
• In one day, 1,500 tons of lead (a 16’ cube), 3,400 tons of copper (a 23’ cube), 7,560 pounds of silver (a 27“ cube), and 272 pounds of gold (a 7.5“ cube) are mined and refined.
• In one day, 3,000 new homes and 650 mobile homes are completed using concrete and asphalt, iron and zinc nails, copper and aluminum wiring, window glass, steel beams and window frames, asphalt roofing, clay, feldspar, talc and silica in sinks and commodes; iron, brass and aluminum in plumbing fixtures; carpeting, plastics, etc.
• 640 acres, one square mile of carpeting is woven using barite and calcium carbonate.
• 9.7 million square feet or about 223 acres of plate and window glass is used-enough to cover 200 football fields.
• In one day, 2,750 acres of pavement are laid-about four times the acreage mined. Enough concrete and asphalt are used to make a 7’ wide bicycle path from coast to coast.
• In one day, 15,000 lead-acid car batteries are replaced.
• 4,000,000 eraser-tipped pencils are purchased-enough to correct all the goofs on 1,500 miles of notebook paper or about 129 acres of goofs, on paper that took kaolin and pumice to produce.
• 426 bushels of paper clips about 35,000,000. Only a fifth of these are used. the balance being lost or twisted by nervous fingers.
• 650,000 acres of X-rays are snapped. Lots of lead shielding for the operators. Lots of silver on the film.
• 164 square miles of newsprint is used to print 62.5 million newspaper, enough to line a bird cage 12 miles wide and 13 miles long.
• In one day, 250,000 tons of steel are used-enough to make a spike as big as the Washington monument.
• 3,000,000 gallons of paint are used-enough to spruce up 200,000 homes.
• 187,000 tons of cement are used, enough to build a four foot wide sidewalk from coast to coast.

Federal restrictions and the pressures of environmental concerns that are often based on misinformation have resulted in our increasing reliance on imports. No modern nation is likely to be completely independent for all minerals and raw materials but substantial foreign dependency is both an economic and national security issue.

Mineral supplies are driven by consumer demand. Before processing, raw, non-fuel minerals contribute more than $30 billion per year to the US economy. Another $300 billion is added when the minerals are processed to produce steel, copper, aluminum, copper, brick and glass. When used to make products such as automobiles, TVs, microwave ovens, computers etc., more than $5 trillion is added to our economy because we are able to mine and process our mineral resources.

Mining is generally viewed in a bad light environmentally. Damage to the land surface in usually cited or the introduction of heavy metals into surface water. The facts don’t support this view. Between 1930 and 1980, the latest period for which data are available, the mineral industry used 5.7 million acres or 0.25 of the nation’s land area. In the same period 47% of that area was reclaimed and put to a higher use. There is abundant data on what the mineral industry does to protect surface runoff, but the few bad cases that exist seem to stick out like a sore thumb.

Each year mining uses less surface area than is paved over with supermarket parking lots and less than is dedicated (no pun intended) for graveyards. Whoever heard of a graveyard being reclaimed?

Since 1980 the number of automobiles registered in Northern Virginia has trebled. Road mileage has not increased in proportion but traffic problems have multiplied to become a day and nightmare.

Nationally, our 3,536,000 square miles has a population density of 71 persons per square mile. France has 276; Germany 608; Japan 867, and 632 in the UK.

What is the portent of these figures? The world population of 5.85 billion is forecasted to double in 50 years. The population of the United States is forecasted to double in 116 years. Can the mineral industry continue to supply the materials vital to our standard of living? Can agriculture continue to provide the food for an increased populace? The pressures and conflicts of today may be expected to increase proportionately with the population. Food is scarce now in many areas as is water. With every acre added to those under cultivation, there remain fewer acres to feed future generations. Is this a problem?

• Tertullian, second century A. D: “Our numbers are burdensome to the world which can hardly support us.”
• St. Jerome, fourth century A. D.: “The world is already full, and the population too large for the soil.”
• Reverend Thomas Malthus, 1798 A. D.: “Do not feed the poor! It will result in an exponential increase in population! Society will be destroyed.”
• Paul Ehrlich, 1968 A. D.: “The battle to feed all humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines-hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now...Food production programs will only provide a stay of execution...We can no longer afford merely to treat the symptoms of the cancer of population growth; the cancer itself must be cut out. Population control is the only answer.”