I’ve found this review (2015) of “critical metals”—roughly, those metals that are most needed and we’d likely to see a short in supply. And this recent review (2020) of studies on likely future (2050) demand for these metals. I’m not that sure whether these would be crucial in their impact on economic growth, even if they’d have limited supply; What would be the problem of having fewer jet engines?
Regarding solar energy, I haven’t checked the calculations or extrapolated to the future, but taking a look at this I feel optimistic. They say that the Sahara dessert, for example, would be enough space to supply energy to the whole world 20 times over (although they didn’t take into account loss of energy in transition and naturally it’s not that practical).
I’d love it if someone would take a deeper dive into this topic. Toby Ord talks a bit about related issues of resource scarcity in The Precipice (Chapter 4, “Anthropogenic Risks”, Section “Environmental Damage”) and also thinks further research is needed (from an x-risk point of view, though).
More concerning than jet engines might be the high efficiency natural gas turbines for generating electricity. However, it looks like Ruthenium is even better than Rhenium for these applications. And in general, you can avoid rare earth metals and just accept slightly lower performance for combustion turbines, wind turbines, electric car motors, LED lights, solar cells, etc.
That’s great, thank you!
I’ve found this review (2015) of “critical metals”—roughly, those metals that are most needed and we’d likely to see a short in supply. And this recent review (2020) of studies on likely future (2050) demand for these metals. I’m not that sure whether these would be crucial in their impact on economic growth, even if they’d have limited supply; What would be the problem of having fewer jet engines?
Regarding solar energy, I haven’t checked the calculations or extrapolated to the future, but taking a look at this I feel optimistic. They say that the Sahara dessert, for example, would be enough space to supply energy to the whole world 20 times over (although they didn’t take into account loss of energy in transition and naturally it’s not that practical).
I’d love it if someone would take a deeper dive into this topic. Toby Ord talks a bit about related issues of resource scarcity in The Precipice (Chapter 4, “Anthropogenic Risks”, Section “Environmental Damage”) and also thinks further research is needed (from an x-risk point of view, though).
More concerning than jet engines might be the high efficiency natural gas turbines for generating electricity. However, it looks like Ruthenium is even better than Rhenium for these applications. And in general, you can avoid rare earth metals and just accept slightly lower performance for combustion turbines, wind turbines, electric car motors, LED lights, solar cells, etc.