Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CCXLI
We’re Saved! E-Waste For Empire.
Just as I was putting the final touches on my last We’re Saved! Contemplation regarding the concept of a circular economy (see: Website Medium Substack) I happened across a RealClearDefense article reposted by Zerohedge under the guise of RealClearWire (see: here) that perfectly reflected a particular aspect of a circular economy’s promises: “enhancing resource security and resilience”. This article is stripped of any sustainability rhetoric and is only marginally about e-waste. Given the audience the author pitched the idea to, it’s about using the concept of a circular economy to help ensure that the US Pentagon can continue to project force around the planet and eliminate its dependence upon minerals from competitors (especially China).
Here, the circular economy is being touted as a tool of military hegemony without any concerns for the impacts this project has for the planet’s biosphere. And it’s being pushed by someone with a significant economic interest, that being the president of a recycling technology company that would benefit greatly from a US government contract (having presented his “pitch” before the US Congress).
Let’s now run his article through my techno-salvation lens.
Narrative
The story presented by the author is a perfect example of a salvation tale: a security liability (warehoused classified electronics) can be transformed into a strategic asset (domestic critical minerals) via his company’s modular, fast, and affordable technology. Not a single drawback or any necessary trade-offs are identified. For an empire straining to continue military throughput in a world of finite resources and supply bottlenecks, the tale is almost transcendent. This is the circular economy’s resource-scarcity promise operationalised for the Empire’s desire to project power without supply-chain interference; societal resilience doesn’t even enter into the equation.
Destructive extraction isn’t ever raised as an issue. The task is to layer domestic resource recovery on top of existing mining and resource extraction so that throughput can continue and possibly expand. It would appear that Jevons paradox is the objective here and not considered a risk. The ultimate aim would seem to be to continue manufacturing armaments and other military equipment to maintain global dominance, but simply reduce competitor input.
Without hesitation small-scale benefits are applied on a global scale. The demonstration of a single Hewlett Packer (HP) copper-loop is presented as proof of concept whereby the backlog of classified military hardware to be decommissioned can be cannibalised to provide domestic inputs for more equipment and arms. That there exists a significant gulf between controlled metal recovery of consumer products and the dozens of exotic materials from secret military equipment is conveniently overlooked.
Biogeophysical Reality
There is complete silence on any biosphere impacts of the proposal being offered. Nothing about the water consumption, chemical reagents, and/or the unrecoverable residues and toxic sludges created via the hydrometallurgical processing required. Nowhere is the additional energy–in a world already suffering from significant energy bottlenecks and diminishing returns on investments in energy production–to perform these processes discussed. It does, however, acknowledge that there are massive inputs and upfront extraction needed to create the facilities for this endeavour; and, thus, the notation that significant funding would be required. This requirement is presented as pure opportunity and investment, rather than the risk and sink it actually is.
Such silence regarding environmental impacts is part and parcel of the presentation narrative, not an oversight. The story is about military advantages where ecological concerns are irrelevant. What matters is producing arms and equipment free of Chinese minerals. The tale is not about the planet but about US hegemony and supporting the Pentagon.
The concept of net energy return is also ignored. This is done quite purposely given the punishing energetic needs of the entire project. The process of reclaiming trace amounts of material from complex circuit boards that tend to be designed to prevent tampering requires massive energy inputs; and as currently configured, this will depend mostly upon hydrocarbon-fuelled energy generation. Nevermind that we are already witnessing concerns over how data centres will be powered, we now have to contemplate the system drain of these military reprocessing centres. Nowhere are there discussions about energy-return-on-investment, comparison to virgin extraction, or that this touted “strategic advantage” rests almost entirely upon an energy (i.e., hydrocarbon) foundation.
Then there are the ecological blind spots, or should I say total and deliberate omission of ecological impacts. Resource tunnel vision is plainly evident where the only thing that matters are the metal yields and supply-chain sovereignty. The negative aspects of the necessary chemical processing–freshwater ecotoxicity, biodiversity loss, and novel entity pollution–are left off the ledger completely, mostly because they are irrelevant to national security.
Viability
That this is a subsidy pitch camouflaged as a strategic memo seems self-evident. The presenter is president of the company that would construct the needed facilities. And apart from the seed funding to do this, his business case requires a variety of government interventions in order to support the argument from an economic perspective. There are sourcing restrictions to overcome, a recycling fund to access, export restrictions on e-waste to implement, and guaranteed Pentagon contracts to sign.
A massive continental-scale reverse-logistics infrastructure buildout is required to achieve this dream. Nearly a thousand e-waste recyclers need to be connected to modular processing plants located on military bases and equipped with mobile and secure destruction units all using real-time chain-of-custody auditing.
Breakthrough technology is presented as proven. But recovering copper from HP circuit boards in a controlled setting is not the same as recovering rare earths from heterogeneous electronics under military-operational conditions. Scale is important and quite problematic, yet the pitch assumes it is a foregone conclusion.
Social Aspects
Consideration of this facet demonstrates some significant revelations regarding the entire narrative.
The perpetual-growth model is actively armed in this story, not simply enabled. The ability to support the projection of force around the planet by the US without dependence upon a competitor is the rationalisation for the proposed material loop. This is not a path to sufficiency; it’s a logistics strategy to help maintain the Empire. A circular economy in this tale is about providing a means to continue the US’s hegemonic endeavours free of supply-chain vulnerability.
Both promoters and profiteers are clear in this fantastical narrative. The author’s company hopes to access not only the stockpile of electronics to be cannibalised but, more importantly, the US Department of Energy’s funds to support the venture. Beneficiaries range from domestic metal processors to military contractors to the national-security state itself. Not only does the apparatus of State violence gain a domestically-sourced base, but both wealth and power concentrates further. Contrast this with a community nutrient loop or local repair café.
The power of the status quo is strongly reinforced within this story. The mineral dependency of the military is framed as a technical procurement challenge rather than an opportunity to question and reconsider the size and scope of US military entanglements. Assumptions about force posture, consumption, or planetary limits are never questioned; rather, the “solution” is to extend centralised control into the afterlife of classified military hardware to shift a security liability into a strategic resource stream.
It’s completely unthinkable within this framing to discuss fundamental change to military projection. There’s no consideration of reducing military engagements or the material throughput required for these. Not building such weapons systems never enters the psyche of those involved. The only alternative offered to dependence upon Chinese supplies is to recover the minerals the US already has in their hands. The concepts of degrowth, simplification, or sufficiency do not exist in this narrative.
Conclusion: The Circular Economy as a Tool of Hegemony
The article that formed the basis of this analysis demonstrates that an industrial circular economy project is not an environmental one. In this particular case it is an instrument of military dominance. It’s not about community self-sufficiency; it’s about ensuring the continuation of industrial processes (e.g., armament production) to support status quo arrangements (e.g., US hegemonic endeavours).
It’s not an oversight by the author to ignore biosphere impacts; it’s a feature of the framing he uses. By definition, national security concerns make ecological impacts irrelevant. What matters most is not where the metal comes from, what it costs to recover it, or what happens to all the e-waste, it’s whether more weapons can be produced without dependence upon competitors.
The article could be considered a confessional: those benefitting from status quo arrangements don’t give a shit about breaching planetary boundaries or exacerbating ecological overshoot; we are going to protect business-as-usual arrangements by offloading material and social debts upon the future for as long as we possibly can–damn the consequences, even if they’re existential. National security and supply-chain sovereignty (that maintains the power and wealth structures of our State) trump biosphere health and long-term survivability of our species.
Post-Script
It’s important to note–as with virtually every narrative that is supportive of Empire–the connections of the storyteller/publisher/narrative amplifier within society’s power and wealth structures. RealClearDefense (and the media group it is a part of) has close, multifaceted connections to the military-industrial complex. There exist an array of financial, personnel, and editorial relationships between the Empire and the media group. For RealClearDefense these are: direct financial ties via sponsored content; a network of interests courtesy of “revolving doors” and think tanks as content amplifiers; role as an industry platform beyond paid sponsorships; and strategic editorial alignment whereby the articles mirror without fail US national security objectives. This is not a coincidental overlap but a deep alliance with the publication generating revenue from the industry as it amplifies the industry’s perspective. As I’ve noted in previous work: rackets are everywhere and this is yet another example of the narrative management carried out by the ruling elite to maintain and/or expand status quo power and wealth structures. In this particular example we see the leveraging of the notion of a circular economy in support of the military-industrial complex–and further pillaging of the national treasury…a phenomenon that is not unique to the United States of America but occurs in virtually every nation state.
What is going to be my standard WARNING/ADVICE going forward and that I have reiterated in various ways before this:
“Only time will tell how this all unfolds but there’s nothing wrong with preparing for the worst by ‘collapsing now to avoid the rush’ and pursuing self-sufficiency. By this I mean removing as many dependencies on the Matrix as is possible and making do, locally. And if one can do this without negative impacts upon our fragile ecosystems or do so while creating more resilient ecosystems, all the better.
Building community (maybe even just household) resilience to as high a level as possible seems prudent given the uncertainties of an unpredictable future. There’s no guarantee it will ensure ‘recovery’ after a significant societal stressor/shock but it should increase the probability of it and that, perhaps, is all we can ‘hope’ for from its pursuit.
If you have arrived here and get something out of my writing, please consider ordering the trilogy of my “fictional” novel series, Olduvai (PDF files; only $9.99 Canadian), via my website or the link below — the “profits” of which help me to keep my internet presence alive and first book available in print (and is available via various online retailers).
If you are interested in purchasing any of the 3 books individually or the trilogy, please follow the link below indicating which book(s) you are purchasing.
Costs (Canadian dollars):
Book 1: $2.99
Book 2: $3.89
Book 3: $3.89
Trilogy: $9.99
Feel free to throw in a “tip” on top of the base cost if you wish; perhaps by paying in U.S. dollars instead of Canadian. Every few cents/dollars helps…
https://paypal.me/olduvaitrilogy?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_US
If you do not hear from me within 48 hours or you are having trouble with the system, please email me: olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com.
You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially William Catton’s Overshoot and Joseph Tainter’s Collapse of Complex Societies: see here.
Just remember that added shareholder value is always the primary motivator in these capitalist boondoggles.
https://kevinhester.live/2024/08/26/is-capitalism-by-definition-an-extinction-event/