The World3 nonrenewable resource sector is the portion of the World3 model that simulates nonrenewable resources. The World3 model is a simulation of human interaction with the environment that was designed in the 1970s to predict population and living standards over 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 are resources that there are 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, . 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 , or abbreviated . The way this variable is used is in the equation that calculates industrial output. Basically, it works as . 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 , or abbreviated . This variable is the current amount of non-renewable resources divided by the initial amount of non-renewable resources available. As such starts out as 1.0 and decreases as World3 runs. Fraction of capital allocated to obtaining resources is dependent on as interpolated values from the following table: Qualitatively, this basically states that the relative amount of non-renewable resources decreases, the amount capital required to extract the resources increases. To more deeply examine this table requires examining the equation that it comes from, So, if industrial capital and the other