Abstract 20 years ago, in 1998, Scientific American published a paper by Colin J. Campbell
and Jean H. Laherrère titled “The End of Cheap Oil”[1], starting a debate on oil depletion …

This paper reviews different approaches to modelling the energy transition towards a zero
carbon economy. It identifies a number of limitations in current approaches such as a lack of …

“The Limits to Growth”(Meadows, 1972) generated unprecedented controversy with its
predictions of the eventual collapse of the world's economies. First hailed as a great …

The books in this collection are devoted to challenging and open problems at the forefront of
modern science, including related philosophical debates. In contrast to typical research …

The concept of recovering minerals from seawater has been proposed as a way of
counteracting the gradual depletion of conventional mineral ores. Seawater contains large …

Numerous recent studies discuss phosphate rock extraction, and some even propose that a
peak in production could be reached in coming decades. This would have great …

A small number of nations control the vast majority of the world's coal reserves. The
geologically available amounts of coal are vast, but geological availability is not enough to …

Humanity is using mineral resources at an unprecedented level and demand will continue to
grow over the next few decades before stabilizing by the end of the century, due to the …

Mitigating the adverse effects of global climate change and limiting global warming to 1.5° C
requires a complete transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. Despite …

The reserves, production from mines, supply of aluminium to society and mass fluxes of
aluminium in society was assessed using an integrated systems dynamics model …