Difference between revisions of "Material/Intro"

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−	[[Image:Air sea and land.jpg|right|120px|Atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere (a.k.a. air, sea and land)]] Air, water and the twenty most abundant elements in the earth's crust give us practically all of the raw material needed to create the machines and goods that mankind requires, such as:	+	[[Image:Air sea and land.jpg|right|180px|Atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere (a.k.a. air, sea and land)]] Air, water and the twenty most abundant elements in the Earth's crust provide almost all the material needed to create the multitude of machines and goods that mankind requires: food, drugs, houses, vehicles, robots, industrial machinery, computers, consumer goods and so on.
		+	<p>
		+	Extracting these plentiful elements (and their compounds) to create useful material essentially involves [[Fundamental resources/Energy|energy]] (which is also plentiful) and the right processing methods. From a technical point of view there is practically no limit to the volume of material we could extract and make use of, if we so wished, even while minimally disrupting complex and fragile ecosystems. The reserves of raw materials needed to sustain civilisation are simply not going to run out, because the entire {{wp|Lithosphere|Earth's crust}} is made up of them. However this is no excuse to be unnecessarily wasteful in our consumption. Advanced [[recycling]] will reduce the need to extract material from the ground and more efficient design will allow us to {{wp|Ephemeralization|do more with less}}.</p>
−	*Buildings and construction materials	+	The point is that any existing material scarcity actually has little to do with the reserves at our disposal.
−	*Cars, trains, ships and aircraft	+
−	*Industrial machinery	+
−	*Robots	+
−	*Computers and electronic products	+
−	*Food	+
−		+
−	Extracting these plentiful elements and creating useful compound materials just involves [[Fundamental resources/Energy|energy]], which is massively abundant, and the right processing. From a technical point of view there is practically no limit to the volume of material we could extract, if we so wished. This is a simplistic picture of course, and does not take into account the damage wrought to the environment in the process. The point is that these reserves of material are not going to run out, and there is no reason for people to go without unnecessarily.	+
−		+
−	However no-one, or at least no sensible person, would advocate wasteful processes just because material and energy are plentiful, and the biosphere must be considered; but one aspect of technological progress is the increasing efficiency of design and manufacturing {{en}} i.e. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephemeralization doing more with less].	+

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Latest revision as of 12:47, 18 July 2010

Air, water and the twenty most abundant elements in the Earth's crust provide almost all the material needed to create the multitude of machines and goods that mankind requires: food, drugs, houses, vehicles, robots, industrial machinery, computers, consumer goods and so on.

Extracting these plentiful elements (and their compounds) to create useful material essentially involves energy (which is also plentiful) and the right processing methods. From a technical point of view there is practically no limit to the volume of material we could extract and make use of, if we so wished, even while minimally disrupting complex and fragile ecosystems. The reserves of raw materials needed to sustain civilisation are simply not going to run out, because the entire Earth's crust  is made up of them. However this is no excuse to be unnecessarily wasteful in our consumption. Advanced recycling will reduce the need to extract material from the ground and more efficient design will allow us to do more with less .

The point is that any existing material scarcity actually has little to do with the reserves at our disposal.