Example submission. This is the standard your design must meet.
The world has a waste problem it calls an inventory problem. Millions of unsold EVs sit in lots depreciating. Billions of smartphones sit in drawers dead. Landfills swallow batteries, circuit boards, steel chassis, copper wiring, rare earths, and plastics that took colossal energy to create in the first place.
The Urban Mine buys all of it at pennies on the dollar. 5 cents on the dollar for unsold EVs. Bulk acquisition of end-of-life smartphones, laptops, appliances. Everything the world is paying to bury or store, we buy, process, and feed back into the platform as raw material for existing verticals.
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).
Buy unsold EVs (dealer overstock, off-lease, damaged, end-of-line) at 5 cents on the dollar. Buy end-of-life consumer electronics in bulk. Buy industrial scrap and e-waste streams that others pay to dispose of. In many cases, the seller pays us to take it (negative acquisition cost).
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 1-cent electrons:
Every output stream feeds an existing vertical at cost. 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.
Order-of-magnitude economics for Year 1. Adjust assumptions as you see fit.
| Acquisition volume | 100,000 vehicles |
| Average original MSRP | $45,000 |
| Acquisition at 5 cents/$ | $2,250 per vehicle |
| Total acquisition cost | $225M |
| Material stream | Yield/vehicle | Total yield | Market value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steel (chassis, frame) | ~900 kg | 90,000 t | ~$54M |
| Aluminium | ~250 kg | 25,000 t | ~$60M |
| Copper (wiring, motors) | ~80 kg | 8,000 t | ~$72M |
| Battery materials (Li, Co, Ni, Mn) | ~400 kg pack | 40,000 t packs | ~$200M+ |
| Rare earths (motors) | ~2 kg | 200 t | ~$20M |
| Plastics | ~150 kg | 15,000 t | ~$8M (eco-blocks) |
| Glass | ~40 kg | 4,000 t | ~$1M (aggregate) |
| Acquisition volume | 50 million devices |
| Average acquisition cost | $0.50 to $2.00 per device (many are free or negative-cost) |
| Total acquisition cost | $25M to $100M |
| Material stream | Total yield | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Copper | ~5,000 t | ~$45M |
| Gold (from PCBs) | ~1.5 t | ~$130M |
| Silver | ~15 t | ~$15M |
| Palladium | ~0.5 t | ~$15M |
| Rare earths | ~50 t | ~$5M |
| Plastics and glass | ~8,000 t | ~$4M (eco-blocks/aggregate) |
| Battery cells (Li-ion) | ~2,000 t | ~$10M |
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.