1. Difference between Reserves and Resources - Resources are finite & decrease. Reserves are what have been discovered and what is permitted to extract.
2. China is lagging behind in semiconductor Tech due to their generation of students learning software from USA versus Taiwan students who learned hardware a generation prior.
3. Sand mining is a major operation for geopolitics - impacts coastline size which influences territorial water claims. Has an impact on local biodiversity.
4. During WWII, Britain and Germany did a rubber for binocular glass trade. Despite Britain earlier being a glass leader, their glass tax scheme destroyed local industries (including their window tax)
5. Gold is not mined from a mineral deposit, it is removed via chemical reaction from mines. 1 bar requires 4 to 20 tonnes of mountain rock removed.
6. Early human settlements were along the coast due to access to salt. Cities like Venice emerged because they were the focal points on the Salt trade route.
7. The UK is famous for its brine mines which occur underground without any notice from public.
8. Copper is only 0.6% pure when pulled from ores hence there is a huge amount of waste material created in the copper mining process
9. CATL is the largest producer of batteries in China, securing mineral deposits across the world
10. We are moving from a world dominated by petrostates to a world dominated by electrostates