World3 nonrenewable resource sector

The world3 nonrenewable resource sector is the portion of the world3 model that simulates the nonrenewable resources. The World3 model was a simulation of human interaction with the environment designed in the 1970s to predict population and living standards over the course the next 100 years. The nonrenewable resource sector of the world3 model was used to calculate the cost and usage rates of nonrenewable resources. In the context of this model, nonrenewable resources were resources that there is a finite amount of on Earth, such as iron ore, oil, or coal. This model assumes that regardless of how much money is spent on extraction, there is a finite limit for the amount of nonrenewable resources that can be extracted.

Overview

The model combines all possible nonrenewable resources into one aggregate variable, nonrenewable_resources. This combines both energy resources and non-energy resources. Examples of nonrenewable energy resources would include oil and coal. Examples of material nonrenewable resources would include aluminum and zinc. This assumption allows costless substitution between any nonrenewable resource. The model ignores differences between discovered resources and undiscovered resources.

The model assumes that as greater percentages of total nonrenewable resources are used, the amount of effort used to extract the nonrenewable resources will increase. The way this cost is done is as a variable fraction_of_capital_allocated_to_obtaining_resources, or abbreviated fcaor. The way this variable is used is in the equation that calculates industrial output. Basically, it works as effective_output = industrial_capital*other_factors*(1-fcaor). This causes the amount of resources expended to depend on the amount of industrial capital, and not on the amount of resources consumed.

The consumption of nonrenewable resources is determined by a nonlinear function of the per capita industrial output. The higher the per capita industrial output, the higher the nonrenewable resource consumption.

Cost of obtaining nonrenewable resources

The fraction of capital allocated to obtaining resources is dependent only on the nonrenewable_resource_fraction_remaining, or abbreviated nrfr. This variable is the current amount of non-renewable resources divided by the initial amount of non-renewable resources available. As such nrfr starts out as 1.0 and decreases as world3 runs. Fraction of capital allocated to obtaining resources is dependent on nrfr as interpolated values from the following table:

References

*Models of Doom, A Critique of the Limits to Growth, edited by H.S.D. Cole, Christoper Freeman, Marie Jahoda, and K.L.R. Pavitt. 1973 ISBN 0-87663-905-8 (Especially Chapter 3: The Non-renewable Resource Sub-System)
*Dynamics of Growth in a Finite World, by Dennis L. Meadows, William W. Behrens III, Donella H. Meadows, Roger F. Naill, Jørgen Randers, and Erich K.O. Zahn. 1974 ISBN 0-9600294-4-3 (Especially Chapter 5: Nonrenewable Resource Sector)