What Is This Book About

Humankind has relied on the extraction of different raw materials for centuries, starting with iron, copper or gold to a large number of metals and fossil fuels currently used in multiple sectors, thanks to technological development. Still, this change has also led to other issues, such as increasing CO2 at a global level and climate change. One way to mitigate these problems is to rely on renewable energy sources that use the Sun or wind to generate electricity instead of burning fossil fuels. However, these technologies need certain elements that are scarce on the planet or very complicated to extract. To assess our planet’s mineral loss, in this book, we will use thermodynamics, specifically its second law, that will allow us to explain this degradation process physically. Using Thanatia as a baseline, a hypothetical land where all concentrated materials have been extracted and dispersed, and all the fossil fuels have been consumed, we can assess the cost of replacing minerals through a grave-to-cradle approach and combine it with the more traditional cradle-to-grave approach.