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I got to the plan section and was mighty disappointed. This is simply a treatise on how bad humans and civilization are in the eyes of the new age Gaia religion

I got to the plan section and was mighty disappointed. This is simply a treatise on how bad humans and civilization are in the eyes of the new age Gaia religion. All problems and very few “pro human” solutions.

Animats 4y ago
That's a problem with this article, and too many like it. OK, we're going to run out of various natural resources over the next 100-200 years, let alone the next 1000-2000. We will have a mostly sustainable society, like it or not. But it need not be a low-tech one. Energy probably won't be a problem. We have so many low-cost renewable sources now that the fossil fuel industry has trouble getting capital. The energy situation may look bad for another 10-20 years, but not for much longer than that. What looks like a problem? The US Geological Survey has studies for all the major useful minerals.[1][2] Some minerals are recycled easily because they're used in their elemental form. Copper and aluminum are good examples. Others get used up by being combined with other minerals in a way that's hard to undo. Manganese and vanadium are good examples, because they go into steelmaking. It's hard to un-make steel, although you can recycle it as steel. Something to expect is metal scrap sorting that does a quick spectrographic analysis on each item and routes it to the appropriate bin for re-melting. There's probably a startup opportunity there. Expect lithium battery recycling to be a major industry. Lithium batteries are a far higher grade source of lithium than ores or brines. Biologic systems are more recyclable. Biology is mostly C, H, O, and N, assembled in different ways. This doesn't necessarily mean "natural". We can expect to see a bigger role for semi-biological processes such as fermentation, synthetic enzymes, and such. The Impossible Burger uses a synthetic enzyme to produce the taste of blood people want in a burger. This sort of thing is probably enough to get through the next 100-200 years. The next 1000-2000 years will be tougher. But more technology will be available. [1] https://www.usgs.gov/programs/mineral-resources-program https://www.usgs.gov/programs/mineral-resources-program [2] https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2022/mcs2022.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2022/mcs2022.pdf
- dane-pgp 4y ago
  > the taste of blood people want in a burger. To be clear, (most) burgers do not have noticeable blood in. The red juice that comes out of them that makes them "bleed" is in fact myoglobin, a protein found in animals’ muscle tissue. https://sage-answers.com/why-is-my-meat-bleeding/#Should_a_burger_bleed https://sage-answers.com/why-is-my-meat-bleeding/#Should_a_b...
- sbierwagen 4y ago
  >Something to expect is metal scrap sorting that does a quick spectrographic analysis on each item and routes it to the appropriate bin for re-melting. Steinert has a product line that uses XRF to sort different alloys in mixed aluminum scrap: https://youtu.be/td8IDt2ke1E?t=96 https://youtu.be/td8IDt2ke1E?t=96
  - Animats 4y ago
    Nice. An air-jet sorting machine controlled by X-ray spectrometers. That's impressive. No robotic arms required. Apparently, already cost-effective. Mixed metal recycling can now achieve very high recovery rates. Air-jet sorters with vision systems have been around for decades, usually for agricultural products. Throughput is huge and cost is low. It's possible to sort individual rice grains.[1] Most vegetables in US supermarkets today have been through an automatic sorter. So now this has made it to metals. [1] https://www.sgsorter.com/rice-color-sorter/ https://www.sgsorter.com/rice-color-sorter/
- kragen 4y ago
  Recycling steel as steel is a pretty widespread thing to do, and steel accounts for almost 90% of manganese consumption. If you want manganese for some non-steel purpose, A36 structural steel (like girders) is 1% manganese, which admittedly is less than ideal; manganese nodules are up to 30% manganese, and in the US people mine manganese ores of less than 5% manganese content. (The ores sell for about US$7 per tonne, and given that manganese is the 12th most abundant element in the Earth's crust, they might always be cheap.) But if you're looking for ores, well, discarded non-rechargeable alkaline batteries are more than 30% manganese, so you're probably better off digging through landfills than diving to the bottom of the sea. I think X-ray fluorescence scanning is a thing that minimills have been doing for decades. Overall I think we should expect recycling to be a major industry. Your point that lithium batteries are a far higher grade source of lithium than ores or brines is a good one, and applicable to many products, though I'm not sure if it's literally true in this case. Given lithium-ion batteries' energy density of about 500 kJ/kg as against the 13901 coulombs per gram of the lithium ions themselves, working out to 51 MJ/kg Li at 3.7 volts, the batteries can't be much more than about 1% lithium, and I think there actually are Bolivian brines that are richer than that, certainly if you omit the water. But for many resources, deposits found in landfills will be the richest available terrestrial resource for a long time. For many minerals the USGS Yearbooks from four years ago give a more complete picture than the MCS, which are indeed great: https://www.usgs.gov/centers/national-minerals-information-center/minerals-yearbook-metals-and-minerals https://www.usgs.gov/centers/national-minerals-information-c... The Murphy et al. article points out that we can get through the next 1000+ years at current growth rates without even expanding beyond the solar system or unlocking new sources of energy such as Hawking radiation, though for some reason it's pessimistic about our chances of doing so.
brutusborn 4y ago
I interpreted the PLAN section as a call for more interdisciplinary study, and a focus on complexity rather than traditional academic reductionism. What makes you interpret it as 'how bad humans and civilization are'? It's going to be difficult to implement their PLAN without humans or civilization.

Animats 4y ago

That's a problem with this article, and too many like it. OK, we're going to run out of various natural resources over the next 100-200 years, let alone the next 1000-2000. We will have a mostly sustainable society, like it or not. But it need not be a low-tech one. Energy probably won't be a problem. We have so many low-cost renewable sources now that the fossil fuel industry has trouble getting capital. The energy situation may look bad for another 10-20 years, but not for much longer than that. What looks like a problem? The US Geological Survey has studies for all the major useful minerals.[1][2] Some minerals are recycled easily because they're used in their elemental form. Copper and aluminum are good examples. Others get used up by being combined with other minerals in a way that's hard to undo. Manganese and vanadium are good examples, because they go into steelmaking. It's hard to un-make steel, although you can recycle it as steel. Something to expect is metal scrap sorting that does a quick spectrographic analysis on each item and routes it to the appropriate bin for re-melting. There's probably a startup opportunity there. Expect lithium battery recycling to be a major industry. Lithium batteries are a far higher grade source of lithium than ores or brines. Biologic systems are more recyclable. Biology is mostly C, H, O, and N, assembled in different ways. This doesn't necessarily mean "natural". We can expect to see a bigger role for semi-biological processes such as fermentation, synthetic enzymes, and such. The Impossible Burger uses a synthetic enzyme to produce the taste of blood people want in a burger. This sort of thing is probably enough to get through the next 100-200 years. The next 1000-2000 years will be tougher. But more technology will be available. [1] https://www.usgs.gov/programs/mineral-resources-program https://www.usgs.gov/programs/mineral-resources-program [2] https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2022/mcs2022.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2022/mcs2022.pdf

dane-pgp 4y ago
> the taste of blood people want in a burger. To be clear, (most) burgers do not have noticeable blood in. The red juice that comes out of them that makes them "bleed" is in fact myoglobin, a protein found in animals’ muscle tissue. https://sage-answers.com/why-is-my-meat-bleeding/#Should_a_burger_bleed https://sage-answers.com/why-is-my-meat-bleeding/#Should_a_b...
sbierwagen 4y ago
>Something to expect is metal scrap sorting that does a quick spectrographic analysis on each item and routes it to the appropriate bin for re-melting. Steinert has a product line that uses XRF to sort different alloys in mixed aluminum scrap: https://youtu.be/td8IDt2ke1E?t=96 https://youtu.be/td8IDt2ke1E?t=96
- Animats 4y ago
  Nice. An air-jet sorting machine controlled by X-ray spectrometers. That's impressive. No robotic arms required. Apparently, already cost-effective. Mixed metal recycling can now achieve very high recovery rates. Air-jet sorters with vision systems have been around for decades, usually for agricultural products. Throughput is huge and cost is low. It's possible to sort individual rice grains.[1] Most vegetables in US supermarkets today have been through an automatic sorter. So now this has made it to metals. [1] https://www.sgsorter.com/rice-color-sorter/ https://www.sgsorter.com/rice-color-sorter/
kragen 4y ago
Recycling steel as steel is a pretty widespread thing to do, and steel accounts for almost 90% of manganese consumption. If you want manganese for some non-steel purpose, A36 structural steel (like girders) is 1% manganese, which admittedly is less than ideal; manganese nodules are up to 30% manganese, and in the US people mine manganese ores of less than 5% manganese content. (The ores sell for about US$7 per tonne, and given that manganese is the 12th most abundant element in the Earth's crust, they might always be cheap.) But if you're looking for ores, well, discarded non-rechargeable alkaline batteries are more than 30% manganese, so you're probably better off digging through landfills than diving to the bottom of the sea. I think X-ray fluorescence scanning is a thing that minimills have been doing for decades. Overall I think we should expect recycling to be a major industry. Your point that lithium batteries are a far higher grade source of lithium than ores or brines is a good one, and applicable to many products, though I'm not sure if it's literally true in this case. Given lithium-ion batteries' energy density of about 500 kJ/kg as against the 13901 coulombs per gram of the lithium ions themselves, working out to 51 MJ/kg Li at 3.7 volts, the batteries can't be much more than about 1% lithium, and I think there actually are Bolivian brines that are richer than that, certainly if you omit the water. But for many resources, deposits found in landfills will be the richest available terrestrial resource for a long time. For many minerals the USGS Yearbooks from four years ago give a more complete picture than the MCS, which are indeed great: https://www.usgs.gov/centers/national-minerals-information-center/minerals-yearbook-metals-and-minerals https://www.usgs.gov/centers/national-minerals-information-c... The Murphy et al. article points out that we can get through the next 1000+ years at current growth rates without even expanding beyond the solar system or unlocking new sources of energy such as Hawking radiation, though for some reason it's pessimistic about our chances of doing so.

brutusborn 4y ago

I interpreted the PLAN section as a call for more interdisciplinary study, and a focus on complexity rather than traditional academic reductionism. What makes you interpret it as 'how bad humans and civilization are'? It's going to be difficult to implement their PLAN without humans or civilization.