Modern weapons rely on strategic metals such as germanium, and material destroyed in combat cannot be recovered for future use. Energy writer Kurt Cobb argues this loss adds to a supply squeeze already driven by demand from electric vehicles, renewables and semiconductors, at a time when global extraction rates are already climbing sharply.
Weapons built for modern conflict — night-vision gear, radar, communications satellites, radiation shielding, vehicle armor, submarine hulls and precision-guided munitions — depend on strategic metals such as germanium, energy writer Kurt Cobb writes for Oilprice.com. Unlike civilian devices, which can typically be recycled once scrapped, a weapon that detonates leaves nothing to recover.
A headline Cobb says he cannot verify
Cobb cites a claim he says he cannot confirm. According to a ZeroHedge headline: "Ukraine's Drone Warfare Devouring 4% Of Global Germanium Demand As China Chokes Supplies". He says he cannot verify whether the figure is accurate, but adds that germanium is also being consumed by the Iran conflict with the United States and Israel. The metal also feeds civilian semiconductors, solar panels, autonomous vehicles, scientific instruments, battery technology and healthcare equipment.
Extraction already accelerating before wartime losses
That military draw comes on top of an extraction pace already rising fast for civilian technology. Half of all copper ever mined as of 2018 was pulled from the ground between 2000 and 2018, Cobb writes, citing his own 2022 analysis. The rate of lithium extraction rose 2,539% between 1970 and 2022, a pace he questions can repeat over the next 52 years as lower-grade ores demand more energy to tap.
Entropy, not just economics, sets the limit
Cobb frames the dynamic through Romanian economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's application of the second law of thermodynamics to resources: nonrenewable metals degrade toward unrecoverability over time, and warfare makes that degradation instant and total for every weapon detonated. He argues that the push by the United States and other countries to secure supplies away from rivals will almost certainly fall dramatically short of its stated goals, leaving less copper and other strategic metal available for the high-tech future those supplies were meant to build.
Source: Oilprice.com
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