The power in Iceland to do this is so cheap that it is economical for companies like Alcoa and Alcan to ship the raw materials all the way to Iceland and then ship the final product out it to its customers.

CNN: Can Iceland's geo-thermal power re-heat its economy?

Instead, it's typically a more prosaic end: humanity wiped out because an AI tasked with a simple goal (say, creating paper clips, an example that is often used) requisitions all the energy and raw materials on Earth to relentlessly churn out paper clips, outsmarting and out-maneuvering all human attempts to stop it.

CNN: Is AI a threat to humanity?

That would bolster the global market for these precious commodities, reducing costs from raw materials all the way across the manufacturing supply chain, and ultimately to consumers.

FORBES: Forget the WTO: The Rare Earths Solution Is Right Here at Home

Dutch conservative MEP Peter van Dalen said it was time to "stop talking and move to action", claiming that biodiversity is the basis of all the EU's food products and raw materials.

BBC: Biodiversity debate

TSMC's revenue growth will, sooner or later, lead to higher costs as well, because in the semiconductor business sales, raw materials and capital equipment are all priced in dollars.

ECONOMIST: Confusionism

Neu was enormously successful in hugely growing the value of the privately held family concern, Hugo Neu, from a simple scrap metal trading business into one of the largest automobile crushing operations in the U.S. He then profited from taking all that crushed metal and made it available for the needs of emerging nations for raw materials for their economies.

FORBES: John Neu Was The Master of Recycling and Environmental Philanthropist

All sources of energy and electricity require water in their production processes: the extraction of raw materials, cooling in thermal processes, in cleaning processes, cultivation of crops for biofuels, and powering turbines to generate hydroelectricity.

UNESCO: CULTURE

After all, they are making billions of dollars in selling raw materials and precious metals to the West.

FORBES: Fact and Comment

At some point in the future a situation exists where those world-wide supplies of raw materials start to dwindle and developed countries watch prices go up as they all compete for the same things.

CNN: Just Imagine - Living Space: Your views