At 8:25 PM +0000 8/29/02, olympus-digest wrote:
>Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 11:48:22 -0400
>From: Larry Woods <lmwoods@xxxxxxx>
>Subject: [OM] Is the end of silver film anywhere in sight?
>
>(Was: Re: [OM] Bad processing of film driving people to digital)
>
>To take the question of film's remaining lifespan off on another
>tangent, I recall a book from the early 70's called "The Limits to
>Growth" produced by an organization called the Club of Rome. Its
>thesis was that civilization was using up critical resources at a
>rate that some resources would run out in relatively short times,
>forcing major changes to the way we lived.
>
>The book was later discredited, with its authors conceding that
>consumption rates were much slower than what they had put in their
>computer model.
The flaw was far deeper than that. The model assumed that all the natural
resources available were known, and were fixed with no substitution possible,
and further postulated an exponentially-growing rate of consumption. You don't
need a computer to predict the outcome -- you quickly run out of something, and
everthing falls down, with food riots and revolutions. Doing this on a
computer was purely for public relations. A hand calculator is sufficient, but
not as impressive.
The model denied the existence of progress. But substitution is the norm. An
early crisis of the first industrial revolution was when they ran out of cheap
wood for charcoal in England. Charcoal was used to smelt iron. The solution
was coal, heretofor a novelty of no commercial value. To this day, coal
provides more energy than any other source in the world. I'm not quite sure,
but coal may outweigh all other sources combined.
>I recall that the first resource to run out was going to be
>silver, in about 8 or 12 years from when the book came out. The
>book noted that silver was being consumed faster than it was being
>mined, with the difference coming from reserves.
>
>At the time, the only substitute I knew of was a non-silver
>reprographic film with a single-digit ASA speed. I recall thinking
>that things could get very interesting if the predictions
>were true. But of course the predictions weren't.
>
>Digital photography (and videotape) have probably cut significantly
>into silver consumption for photographic uses - or at least limited
>its upward curve. I would be curious to know if statistics are
>available on present-day silver production, consumption, and
>reserves, and if they indicate any end-of-life point for photographic
>film as we know it beyond the current speculation about it becoming
>obsolete for reasons of convenience or uneconomic because of low
>volume.
Present-day silver film has far less silver in it than twenty years ago.
What would really happen is that the price of silver would rise until marginal
uses were enough squeezed out to match supply to demand. Film doesn't have
that much silver in it, so the cost of photographic materials would rise only a
bit. The price would rise far more, as it makes a good excuse
This may never happen, as digital replaces silver, freeing up silver..
Joe Gwinn
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