Economy
The cost of transformation
A tonne of steel costs 1.92 t CO₂, a tonne of aluminium 14,100 kWh. Only 10% of the energy spent becomes useful work; 6.9% of the matter re-enters the cycle.
The dispersed matter Layer 0 extracts does not reach the end user as it is. Oil gains form and purity in a refinery, ore in a furnace, sand in a cement plant. The bill per tonne is paid in energy, CO₂ and water, and globally only a small share of the energy spent becomes useful work.
The transformation bill per tonne
The per-tonne energy and carbon bill of primary production (from ore or feedstock) for the core materials. The rows are compiled from different system boundaries; they are for orders of magnitude, not for summing or a like-for-like comparison.
| Material | Energy | CO₂ | Also |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crude steel | 21,3 GJ/t | 1,92 t/t | |
| Primary aluminium | 14.100 kWh/t | 14,80 t/t | |
| Cement clinker | 3,5 GJ/t | 0,83 t/t | 0,53 t kalsinasyon |
| Primary copper | 22,2 GJ/t | 2,60 t/t | 70,4 m³ su/t · 190 t cevher/t |
| Ammonia (Haber-Bosch) | 41,0 GJ/t | 2,40 t/t | en iyi teknoloji 28 GJ |
Embodied-resource example. Production + use chain for a 2 g, 32 MB DRAM chip, roughly year-2000 technology. Secondary materials (fossil fuel + chemicals) are about 630 times the chip's mass; water alone is 16,000 times. Semiconductor-grade silicon crystal takes about 160 times the energy of metallurgical-grade silicon.
How much of the energy does useful work
The global exergy efficiency from fuel to useful work (motion, heat, light). The rest dissipates as friction, waste heat and poor design.
- Apply theoretical efficiency limits to conversion devices and the same services could be delivered with only 11% of global energy.
- Practically achievable redesign of buildings, vehicles and factory systems could cut it by up to 73%.
How much of the matter re-enters the cycle
How much of the processed material entering the world economy each year comes from a secondary (recycled or reused) source.
Trend: %9,1 (2018) → %7,2 (2023) → %6,9 (2025)
If everything not recycled today were recycled, the rate would still only reach 25%, the real issue is the sheer size of the 107 Gt/yr absolute material flow.
Adding value is not a physical miracle: it is creating local order by consuming exergy. Every unit of value produced leaves behind irreversible waste heat, CO₂ and disorder in the environment.
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