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> because of the easy resources all gone issue. Definitely true for coal and petroleum (and those are big ones), but are other resources much more available? (

• __d 2y ago
  I'm absolutely no expert here, but tin comes to mind. It was a critical ore with limited sources during the bronze age, and required a substantial trading economy to exist to allow bronze-based technology to flourish. Extracting resources from the detritus of the 20th and 21st centuries would surely be a major activity. But to efficiently do so requires a bunch of power and chemistry and reagents/catalysts that are themselves probably a heap of work to acquire. Getting iron and mild steel from rebar, fallen bridges, rail lines, cars, etc, would likely be plausible though. It wouldn't be high-quality steel, but for blacksmithing-type stuff, it'd work ok. Probably sufficient for sand-casting too? Aluminium and copper are probably recyclable too, although I'm not sure how aluminium would work with different source alloys?
• ferguess_k 2y ago
  It would be an interesting research project to focus on one of them, say coal, and gather as much public information about each major coal mines, as possible. Their location, owner, operator, status, estimated amount, residual amount, techniques required, anything, everything.