Yes.

You are just not considering all the options freediver.

What makes you think that?

Once all the minerals, coal and gold is all gone from the holes.
Dig more holes.

Depends how you want to define sustainable. Most environmentalists make the mistake of assuming conservation means sustainability, yet this is a fatally flawed assumption that sustainability has anything to do with conserving the present situation.

To be fair, I have just finished a couple of modules on sustainability. The way they define sustainability technically is not the usual 'preservation of the environment' line per se, sustainability means: "the preservation of the conditions that are necessary for life to continue, without threatening those conditions at any time in the future through actions in the present". So in that respect, mining could be considered sustainable (despite what I said in another thread ). The question however is how do you define that statement? What exactly are the conditions you want to preserve? Life can continue under some pretty harsh conditions. Also, of exactly what aspect of mining are you asking the question? Mining itself or its impact on the environment or its impact on human society?

What I would say is the mining industry is not a sustainable industry, nor is mining itself a sustainable practice, however, if the question is: will mining threaten the sustainability of the planet, or our society even, the answer is probably no. However, how much we  depend on mining for our society could effect the sustainability of our society. If for example we set ourselves up so that we can only operate at economic outputs that require the burning of fossil fuels for energy (lets say wind and solar just don't work for the sake of the argument) then I would say it is not sustainable for us to base our power source on mining. A more interesting question though is that of steel. I don't think many people really appreciate how much our entire society is based on steel mining and the use of steel in manufacture and construction. There is nothing that can compare to steel for usefulness. Steel is not so bad since it is easily recycled, however the smelting of steel requires coal, coal is certainly not going to be pulled out of the ground forever.

It is a complex issue, and depends entirely on what exactly you are questioning is sustainable? (systems approach - first define the system!) I mean Humans could wipe themselves out, but life will likely continue, that is sustainability if you are simply talking about the continuation of life. Sustainability of human society? Well that is again dependant on many things, it is most likely though that mining will not end our society when mining itself ends.

Mining however?? In no way could you consider mining sustainable, that is if you draw a little box around mining and ask the question is mining sustainable. That is like saying: you have one tomato vine, it is loaded with tomatoes, can you pick tomatoes from that vine forever (assuming it never produces new ones)?

freediver wrote on May 15^th, 2007 at 6:31pm:

That is a dry technical definition of sustainability, one that you will find in textbooks (like my own). There are conceivable situations that would end life altogether on this planet I think. It is a bland definition that requires application to some predefined system, note that there is no mention in that definition about the size and location of the system in question (ie it can be just as accurately applied to a pond as it can the entire biosphere), as such it is a useful and accurate definition of 'sustainability'.

This is why it is important to define the system, and in the context of stating this from within a human society, I think the human society is probably the best definition of the system in question.

Mining itself however, remains an extremely unsustainable practice. The question was after all "is mining sustainable". Perhaps you should say "is mining conducive to a sustainable society"

http://www.smh.com.au/news/breaking-news/report-calls-for-iron-ore-mining-ban/2007/05/15/1178995143194.html

Miners won't be able to touch iron ore deposits potentially worth billions of dollars in Western Australia's wheatbelt if the state government accepts recommendations from its environmental watchdog.

The environmental watchdog says the area contains rare flora and exceptionally high landscape diversity.

It wants an existing reserve there doubled in size and to include an A-Class high-conservation reserve where no mining would be allowed.

"In the absence of secure protection, exploration and mining impacts represent a significant threatening process to species that only exist on one or two small Banded Ironstone Formation ranges," EPA deputy chairman Andrea Hinwood said.

Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (AMEC) chief executive Justin Walawski said the EPA's ruling continued the "gross imbalance" towards conservation in WA, with 12 per cent of the state's land mass set aside for conservation but only 0.6 per cent for mining.

I'm pretty sure that isn't a copyright issue.

Also, if I can make a correction, you said:

They claim that if we keep on consuming at today's rate, we will exhaust our supplies of

What you should have said is:

They claim that if we keep on consuming at today's rate, we will exhaust the known supplies of

This is common knowledge in the mining industry. It is a reflection of the value of exploration. Once you get more than 30 years supply, then looking for more is no longer financially viable. When the known supplies start to run out, we will just look for more. If there really is a supply problem, the price will go up and the 'known' but unviable sources will become viable.

While I admire New Scientist's efforts to make science interesting to a broader audience, they are journalists, not scientists, and certainly not engineers. They make the same technical mistakes that all journalists make.

At least they were honest enough to admit that their calculations were 'crude.'