Matt Tilleard

You burn it, it's gone.

But we don't burn technology.

We use it.

And so over 90 percent of renewable energy technologies can be recycled.

By 2050, there could be so much recycled supply

that demand for new input materials could actually begin to decrease.

But it gets better than that, because technology is also more fungible.

Now, I'm not actually talking about mushrooms here, but the effect is magic, because almost every input into this energy transition can be substituted for another abundant material.

Copper can be replaced by aluminum.

Cobalt can be replaced in batteries by iron.

And those substitutions have already happened when temporarily prices spiked.

So even without access to a specific critical mineral, the power of fungibility means that you can continue to grow.

Now, hopefully you're beginning to feel somewhat convinced that demand for new material will be fundamentally different in this transition, because it is less extantial, more circular, more fungible.

And those things together mean that it is more flexible.

It is more elastic.

But we do still have a lot of energy transitioning left to do.

So we do need new supply.

And so here is my final piece of good news.

The materials that we need for this energy transition are abundant.

First, we need less stuff.