The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

the Ultimate RawMaterial__lost from planet earth. 2 There isno such thing as "nonrenewableminerals" even though -rich depositsare exhaustible. Everythingthat is "used up" is still with us,but in altered and diluted form.In this closed system of earth, wecan and will recycle everything.Given enough energy, or thermodynamicfree energy, we can separateand· concentrate any materialsand recombine them chemicallyto form synthetic raw material.All of the precious material containedin the refuse. of our civilizationcollects on our lands,floats in our air, or runs off intothe oceans. They can all be recoveredwith sufficient expenditure ofenergy. From the ocean we are alreadyrecovering freshwater, magnesiurn,bromine - it would beeven easier if we could develop· organismsthat concentrate some elements.Thus we realize that energyis the ultimate raw materialwhich can be used to make food,water, other raw material- aswell· as warming and cooling ourhomes and operating all our machinery.Energy Uses in'the Pas,tThe United States has alwaysbeen blessed with an abundance ofcheap energy to augment humanand animal muscle: from the swiftflowing rivers providing waterpower, and great forests providingfire wood, down to the moderncoal mines and oil gas fields. Today,this underpinning of our entireeconomy and way of life consumesonly 3 per cent of our grossnational product. Energy costforms only 31j2 per cent of the costof average industrial products,ranging from 8 per cent for chemicalsto 0.3 per cent for apparelmanufacturing. 3 The consumercost of energy can be divided intothree shares: production cost underthe supervision of engineers,