Modelling the Skinner Thesis: Consequences of a Lognormal or a Bimodal Resource Base Distribution

Modelling the Skinner Thesis: Consequences of a Lognormal or a Bimodal Resource Base Distribution

Auping, W.L.

Technology, Policy and Management

Multi Actor Systems

2014-07-20

The copper case is often used as an example in resource depletion studies. Despite these studies, several profound uncertainties remain in the system. One of these uncertainties is the distribution of copper grades in the lithosphere. The Skinner thesis promotes the idea that copper grades may be distributed with a bimodal distribution instead of a lognormal distribution. This paper presents a System Dynamics implementation of both the lognormal and the bimodal distributions. By simulating this model for different demand scenarios, it was demonstrated that in case of a bimodal distribution, a slower degradation of copper grades is to be expected. This is in contrast with the common believe that the bimodal distribution, and the ‘mineralogical barrier’ between the two modes, limit the availability of affordable copper.

resource base
skinner thesis
resource depletion
copper
uncertainty

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:ab3704e2-a84e-41f6-9cd6-8c0c7e468f05

System Dynamics Society

32nd International Conference of the System Dynamics Society, Delft, The Netherlands, 20-24 July 2014; Authors version

Institutional Repository

conference paper

(c) 2014 Auping, W.L.