“The wealth of our planet has limits”

You present the future of natural resources as “ a challenge for humanity ». For what ?

Quite simply because, whether fossil or metallic, they make our world go round and fuel its perpetual growth. Our future depends on their “stock” which is limited and is only replenished at the pace of the planet’s geological and biological activities – that is, tens, even hundreds of millions of years. However, the level of our consumption in relation to this reality is a question that has long remained absent from public debate.

How big are our needs?

If we continue the current trend, by 2050, humanity will extract more metals from the subsoil than it has since its origins. It’s dizzying.

Will she be able to do it?

Technically, probably. But at what environmental cost? We are rushing forward towards economic growth perceived as infinite, when, in fact, the resources on which it relies have a limit. In the minds of American entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley (California) and part of the political class, the dominant vision is Promethean. Everyone believes that by relying on the strengths of technology, humanity will succeed in freeing itself from the physical constraints that the world imposes on it, but nothing is less certain.

This belief is old. Where does she come from?

His supporters are called “cornucopians”, in reference to cornu copythe cornucopia of Greek mythology. Zeus, as a child, accidentally snatches him from his foster goat. And he gives the horn the power to always abound in flowers and fruits. From the 17th century, observing the technical development of human societies since the Middle Ages, scientists and philosophers bet on technological progress to guarantee the salvation of humankind. We can cite René Descartes and his “extension of the human empire”, or the Englishman Francis Bacon and his novel The New Atlantisto whom the famous maxim “Knowledge is power” is attributed.

So far, this worldview has coincided with greater progress and human comfort. Why worry?

Because our technologies are always more resource-intensive. If we talk about minerals, more precisely, it is essential to distinguish resources and reserves. Tomorrow, if you dig into your grandmother’s garden and grab a handful of soil, you will pick up, in tiny quantities, almost all the chemical elements present on our planet. These are resources. But we are not going to extract metals in your grandmother’s garden to build rockets or batteries… We are going to concentrate on specific places, the mines, where we find deposits sufficiently concentrated for their exploitation to be profitable. These are reserves.

Which metals are you most worried about in the future?

Copper, the king metal of the electrification of our societies (cables, electronic components, photovoltaic panels, etc.), or nickel, used in the batteries of electric vehicles and especially in stainless steels. To extract the same quantity of these metals, we must dig ever deeper and consume ever more water and energy.

If these resources run out, Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX or Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, suggest going to look for them in space. What do you think?

This space conquest would require enormous consumption of resources and energy to manufacture the rockets, orbital stations, lunar bases and other devices necessary for the extraction of extraterrestrial minerals. Elon Musk’s recent successes with his company SpaceX and its reusable rockets are certainly technically impressive, but we are far from a materially credible horizon. What we observe is that we are hitting planetary limits (climate disruption, loss of biodiversity, pollution of hydrological systems) more quickly than the Earth’s geological limits. In the event that we agree to screw up everything, then yes, there would be enough ores…

However, we hear that with digital technology, our world is becoming “dematerialized”…

Absolutely not, and the smartphone is emblematic of this paradox. Calculator, compass, camera, weather station: with a smartphone in our hand, we have the feeling of having an object that replaces many others and saves resources. In fact, it is an error of perception. To function, this connected object requires a network of high-speed antennas, routers, submarine cables through which 98% of the world’s internet traffic passes, and data centers where servers are stacked with very high air conditioning. to cool this electronics. Today, the digital system as a whole consumes 10% of the world’s electricity and produces CO2 emissions higher than those of air transport.

Are our recycling systems efficient?

Alas, no. Globally, we use around 60 metals in our industrial system, and half have a recycling rate of less than 1%, according to the United Nations Environment Program. Around forty-five metals make up a smartphone; their total value, at the “exit” of the mine, amounts to two or three euros per telephone. At such a price, recycling is not profitable: you cannot pay someone for hours with tweezers to separate all the components.

What is our individual responsibility in this waste?

Mining is one of the most polluting and environmentally destructive human activities. Therefore, we must question our daily metal consumption and design less complex objects when technology provides little – in a logic of “techno-discernment”.

What examples of unnecessary use of our resources can you give us?

Nano-silver in hiking socks or washing machine drums, because its antibacterial properties help combat foot odor in mountain huts or in laundry; kibble dispensers equipped with facial recognition to avoid feeding the neighbor’s cat… This is the “law” of Dennis Gabor (Hungarian engineer and physicist, Nobel Prize 1971): everything that can be technically done will actually be made… and there will always be people to buy it

Does the solution lie in degrowth?

Reducing our material flows is essential to preserve our environment and its biodiversity. In this sense, I find myself in decline when the term is not caricatured. It is possible to imagine an abundance of consumption with reduced flows, because they are better organized. But all this requires a paradigm shift, as with every technological breakthrough. When a major innovation occurs (machine tools and automation yesterday, digital technology and artificial intelligence today), economists and politicians seize the concept of creative destruction from Joseph Schumpeter (economist of the first half of the 20th century). ) to explain that, if jobs are going to be destroyed, it does not matter, because others will be created. They are making this paradigm shift. On the other hand, as soon as we consider more radical ways to protect the environment, we remain at the first phase – destruction – without thinking about the second – creation. We observe this phenomenon with the plastic bottle or private jet industry: we talk about the positions that have been eliminated, and not the new ones that could result from them.

On what can we base hope?

Humanity is making incredible technological progress, but remains unable to capture these technical improvements to reduce its environmental bill. What motivates my hope is that our room for maneuver is immense, quite simply because our waste of resources is enormous.