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Unrealistic techno-optimism is holding back progress on resource efficiency

Nature Materials volume 17, pages 1050–1051 (2018)Cite this article

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To the Editor — The recent rate of growth in publications on resource efficiency1,2,3,4 seems to be matched only by the rate at which our use of materials keeps growing: political interest in discussing the topic is not translating to meaningful action. Yet resource efficiency matters. It does not matter because we are running out of key resources — critical minerals become ‘critical’ due to a short-term misalignment of supply and demand that can be resolved following investment or political realignment. But it does matter because of climate change. Already, most industrial greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which contribute a third of the world’s non-agricultural emissions, arise in the extraction and production of bulk materials5. However, as our response to resource shortages is to use more energy — whether in desalinating and moving water, processing lower grade ores or in more intensive agriculture — and as, on a global scale, most energy comes from fossil fuels, this response acts to accelerate climate change.

Reviewing the four options in turn, we currently produce ~1,500 Mt yr–1 of steel and ~4,200 Mt yr–1 of cement and there are no plausible substitutes available at this scale (option 1). Global competition for biomass excludes the replacement of steel with timber and stone does not deliver the advantages of concrete. Substituting gas for coal (option 2) reduces electricity emissions by 50% but renewable generation scales badly as it must be deployed over massive areas6. Furthermore, deployment rates for renewables are constrained by legal, contracting and infrastructural issues. For example, the maximum rate at which new renewable generation has been added to the UK grid (expansion of wind and solar power from 2003–2016) is 0.5 GW yr–1 against a total UK power requirement (across all energy sources) of around 260 GW (ref. 7). Carbon capture and storage or utilization (option 3) has long been hailed as the technology to allow continued use of fossil fuels without emissions, yet total global capacity (meaning the potential for storage, not actual storage) is currently 37 MtCO2e yr–1 (ref. 8) against total anthropogenic emissions of ~50,000 MtCO2e yr–1. Finally, recycling end-of-life materials in a ‘circular economy’ (option 4) receives powerful marketing attention. However, as shown in Table 1, only a few materials can be recycled. Doing so remains energy intensive and currently leads to downgrading of material quality.

Table 1 A summary assessment of the ‘circular economy’ for recycling major material groups
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Fig. 1: Techno-optimistic and physically realizable options for delivering resource efficiency.

References

  1. Resource Efficiency: Potential and Economic Implications (International Resource Panel, 2017); https://go.nature.com/2NVsJTB

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  3. More from Less — Material Resource Efficiency in Europe (EEA, 2016); https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/more-from-less

  4. Towards the Circular Economy: Accelerating the Scale-up Across Global Supply Chains (World Economic Forum, 2014); https://go.nature.com/2R6scQD

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  1. Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Julian M. Allwood

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Allwood, J.M. Unrealistic techno-optimism is holding back progress on resource efficiency. Nature Mater 17, 1050–1051 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-018-0229-8

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