Example submission. This is the standard your design must meet.
The world has a waste problem it calls an inventory problem. Disposed vehicles and electronics are treated like junk even though they are concentrated stockpiles of steel, aluminium, copper, battery metals, catalysts, and rare materials that took enormous energy to produce.
The Urban Mine turns that disposal stream into feedstock. Supply is sourced from auctions, fleet liquidations, insurers, and yards. Pricing is condition-based and anchored by scrap-value floors. Disposed EVs contribute battery packs, motors, wiring, and high-value electronics. Disposed ICE vehicles matter too: they carry large steel and aluminium mass, copper wiring, and catalytic metals that remain economically recoverable at scale.
This is not recycling. Recycling is a cost centre that loses money and produces downgraded material. The Urban Mine is a profit centre that produces spec-grade feedstock at below-virgin cost, because the energy to process it costs 0.08 cents per kilowatt-hour ($0.0008/kWh).
Acquire disposed EVs and ICE vehicles through real-world distressed channels: auctions, fleet liquidations, insurer write-offs, and yards. Pricing is condition-based and anchored by scrap-value floors, with battery packs treated as cores priced by state-of-health and recoverable metals. Extend the same acquisition logic to end-of-life consumer electronics, appliances, and industrial scrap through take-back programs, recyclers, and regulated e-waste streams. The rule is simple: anything the world pays to store, bury, or write down, we acquire, process, and return to spec-grade feedstock.
Automated and semi-automated disassembly lines powered by platform electricity. Every vehicle, phone, or appliance is stripped to component level. Battery packs separated. Motors separated. Chassis separated. Circuit boards separated. Plastics sorted by polymer type.
Each stream goes to the appropriate processing line, all powered by 0.08 cents/kWh electricity:
Every output stream feeds an existing vertical on a published cost-plus basis. Steel to Green Steel. Copper to Green Copper. Plastics to eco-blocks for Housing. Battery precursors to the Molecules platform. Glass to Green Concrete. Nothing goes to landfill. Zero waste by design.
This public build shows the logic, not a procurement or revenue plan.
Baseload electricity at 0.08 cents/kWh ($0.0008/kWh) (for shredding, smelting, electrolysis, pyrolysis). Process water from Desalination. Green H2 from Molecules (for hydrometallurgical processing). Logistics infrastructure from Ports vertical.
Curated steel scrap to Green Steel (provenance-locked, chemistry-windowed). Copper cathode to platform wiring and HVDC. Aluminium to Housing and structural. Battery-grade precursors to Green Molecules. Eco-blocks (recycled plastic construction blocks) to Housing. Glass aggregate to Green Concrete. Rare earth oxides to Turbine and motor manufacturing.
Pyrolysis syngas from contaminated plastics feeds Green SNG or is burned for process heat. Slag from smelting goes to Green Concrete. Acid wash residues are neutralised and the metals precipitated for further recovery. Waste heat from smelting and refining cascades to drying, preheating, and adjacent industrial processes. Nothing goes to landfill.
If Urban Mine is delayed or shut down: Green Steel loses its curated scrap stream (must rely 100% on DRI, which still works but at reduced throughput). Housing loses eco-block supply. The platform loses a feedstock diversification layer. External: millions of tonnes of toxic e-waste continue to landfill or ship to developing countries for informal processing with severe health consequences.
The Urban Mine is shown here to demonstrate the level of rigour required. Your submission must cover the same ground: thesis, logic chain, arithmetic, platform interfaces, failure modes, circularity, governance.
You do not need to submit an Urban Mine. You need to submit something as good as the Urban Mine. Or better.