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Unrealistic techno-optimism is holding back progress on resource efficiency

Unrealistic techno-optimism is holding back progress on resource efficiency correspondence Unrealistic techno-optimism is holding back progress on resource efficiency To the Editor — The recent rate of growth in inconvenience of climate change. However, (ref. ) against total anthropogenic emissions 1–4 –1 publications on resource efficiency seems to these techno-optimistic options cannot of ~50,000 MtCO yr . Finally, recycling 2e be matched only by the rate at which our use deliver rapidly enough and at sufficient scale end-of-life materials in a ‘circular economy’ of materials keeps growing: political interest to provide the levels of mitigation agreed by (option 4) receives powerful marketing in discussing the topic is not translating to national laws and international declarations. attention. However, as shown in Table 1, only meaningful action. Yet resource efficiency Reviewing the four options in turn, we a few materials can be recycled. Doing so –1 matters. It does not matter because we are currently produce ~1,500 Mt yr of steel remains energy intensive and currently leads –1 running out of key resources — critical and ~4,200 Mt yr of cement and there to downgrading of material quality. minerals become ‘critical’ due to a short-term are no plausible substitutes available at this The dream that new technologies will misalignment of http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Nature Materials Springer Journals

Unrealistic techno-optimism is holding back progress on resource efficiency

Allwood, Julian
Nature Materials , Volume 17 (12) – Nov 23, 2018
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References (6)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by Springer Nature Limited
Subject
Materials Science; Materials Science, general; Optical and Electronic Materials; Biomaterials; Nanotechnology; Condensed Matter Physics
ISSN
1476-1122
eISSN
1476-4660
DOI
10.1038/s41563-018-0229-8
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

correspondence Unrealistic techno-optimism is holding back progress on resource efficiency To the Editor — The recent rate of growth in inconvenience of climate change. However, (ref. ) against total anthropogenic emissions 1–4 –1 publications on resource efficiency seems to these techno-optimistic options cannot of ~50,000 MtCO yr . Finally, recycling 2e be matched only by the rate at which our use deliver rapidly enough and at sufficient scale end-of-life materials in a ‘circular economy’ of materials keeps growing: political interest to provide the levels of mitigation agreed by (option 4) receives powerful marketing in discussing the topic is not translating to national laws and international declarations. attention. However, as shown in Table 1, only meaningful action. Yet resource efficiency Reviewing the four options in turn, we a few materials can be recycled. Doing so –1 matters. It does not matter because we are currently produce ~1,500 Mt yr of steel remains energy intensive and currently leads –1 running out of key resources — critical and ~4,200 Mt yr of cement and there to downgrading of material quality. minerals become ‘critical’ due to a short-term are no plausible substitutes available at this The dream that new technologies will misalignment of

Journal

Nature Materials – Springer Journals

Published: Nov 23, 2018

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