Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 BioPhysical Economics and Resource Quality (2018) 3:11 https://doi.org/10.1007/s41247-018-0041-8 ORIGINAL PAPER Modelling Global Mining, Secondary Extraction, Supply, Stocks-in- Society, Recycling, Market Price and Resources, Using the WORLD6 Model; Tin Anna Hulda Olafsdottir 1  · Harald Ulrik Sverdrup 1 Received: 10 April 2017 / Accepted: 13 July 2018 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018 Abstract The extraction, supply, market price, and recycling of tin (Sn) were modelled using the WORLD6 model. The model used estimates for primary resources of tin and secondary production from copper, zinc, lead, and wolfram. The resource estimates made resulted in significantly larger estimates than earlier studies for tin. Ultimately recoverable resources amount to 87 mil- lion tons, where 20 million tons is primary and the rest are secondary as by-products from refining of wolfram, copper, zinc, and lead from primary mining. The model is able to reconstruct the observed mining, extraction rates, recycling degree, and price histories well. The model outputs illustrate that tin is a finite resource and that there is a risk for supply scarcity unless the degree of recycling will be significantly improved. Soft scarcity for tin will develop around 2050, i.e. when demand exceeds supply resulting in higher price and then decreases because of higher prices, and convert into hard scarcity around 2150 AD, where the amounts demanded simply cannot be delivered. For tin, there are good substitutes for many uses, but some of them imply some loss in functionality. Keywords Tin · System dynamics · Mining · Extraction Introduction This paper covers production and cycling of tin in society based on outputs from the WORLD6 model. Tin, zinc, cop- per, lead, and wolfram occur partly together in deposits, and this was the main reason for modelling these otherwise very different metals extraction and supply together. Tin has a limited production, and market price for tin is high enough that it is not used in large amounts. Tin is used in mass mar- ket products like electronics, in bronze alloys, as chemicals and to a dwindling degree, tableware items. Objectives and Scope The goal was to develop a model for the production and cycling of tin in society and to include this as a module in the WORLD6 model. The objective is to use the validated systems dynamics model to explore the system and explore what it would take to make the global supply system more sustainable. The consumer side is out of the scope of this study and not needed at this point. Therefore, there is little emphasis on to the consumer side in this stage of the devel- opment of WORLD6, that will follow in later studies, once the supply simulations have been developed. The Element Tin (Sn) Tin is a rare metal and it was always in short supply and expensive. It is the 49th most abundant element in Earth’s crust, representing 2 ppm (parts-per-million, 10 −6 ) compared with 75 ppm for zinc, 50 ppm for copper and 14 ppm for lead (Emsley 2001). It was first discovered around 2000 BC, in Mesopotamia and the Zagros mountains. It is necessary for making bronze out of copper, bronze being harder than pure copper and easier to work and with a slightly lower melting * Anna Hulda Olafsdottir annahulda@hi.is Harald Ulrik Sverdrup hus@hi.is 1 Industrial Engineering, University of Iceland, Hjarðarhagi 2-6, 107 Reykjavik, Iceland