Reconsidering Nonrenewability: Minerals and Global Development

The term "nonrenewability" has been used in environmental discourse in a deterministic way that defies chemical and physical principles and also undermines development trajectories of resource-rich countries. This presentation will deconstruct contemporary views of nonrenewability from an integrative lens of industrial ecology and development economics. The importance of materials cycling as a livelihood determinant for generations to come will be considered for specific economies in terms of comparative advantage. The limiting factor of energy that is often presented in terms of resource recovery and reprocessing of particular materials will also be evaluated in this regard. The presentation is an opportunity to cultivate greater interest in collaborative research between development planners and industrial ecologists that has thus far been missing in the literature and has limited the most expedient applications of material science to resource-dependent economies.