Mineral Resources: A System Analytical and Functional Approach [antikvár]

Foreword Since 1973, when the publication of D.Meadows Limits to Growth coincided with the first oil crisis, the scientific literature 011 questions of mineral resource supply has dramatically increased internationally. Within this development, the present work deserves a key position. It fills existing gaps, particularly in the connection between resource related areas of generál economics on the one side and classical mining/mineral economics on the other. Both fields furnish the hasis for decision making in a particularly sensitive area of the economy. Classical mineral economics have been fostered for over 200 years in the Danubian countries. Published in 1773 in Vienna (Anleitung zu der Bergbaukunst) and again in 1778 in Paris (Traité sur la science de l'Exploitation des Mines), the book on mining sciences by Chr.Tr.Delius, Professor at the Royal Hungárián Mining Academy Schemnitz/Selmec Banya (today Banska Stiavnica in Czechoslovakia), encompassed chapters on both micro- and macro-economics of mining. This fundamental work by L.Kapolyi stands in this tradition. The reason for the early start of mineral economics as a largely independent scholarly discipline lies in the importance assigned to the mining industry during the Mercantile Era and the Early Industrial Revolution. That this special position is still largely preserved today is due to the singularities of the mining industry as primary production. These singularities are revealed in specific ways in each of the three sub-processes which make up mining and which are the theme of this book: exploration, exploitation and processing of the mineral resources taken from the earth's crust. In generál economic studies which deal with the availability of mineral resources, the above mentioned sub-processes are often treat ed only subordinately. The resources are viewed as a given category and many im-