Study: Technological progress alone won’t stem resource use

Thursday, January 19, 2017 - 00:31 in Physics & Chemistry

Are humans taking more resources from the Earth than the planet can safely produce? The answer lies partly in whether we can “dematerialize,” or reduce the amount of materials needed to produce goods and services. While some scientists believe that the world can achieve significant dematerialization through improvements in technology, a new MIT-led study finds that technological advances alone will not bring about dematerialization and, ultimately, a sustainable world. The researchers found that no matter how much more efficient and compact a product is made, consumers will only demand more of that product and in the long run increase the total amount of materials used in making that product.   Take, for instance, one of the world’s fastest-improving technologies: silicon-based semiconductors. Over the last few decades, technological improvements in the efficiency of semiconductors have greatly reduced the amount of material needed to make a single transistor. As a result, today’s smartphones, tablets, and...

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