Hello, my name is Darius Mortazavi.
I started writing Feedstockland in February of 2023 to explore the blurry middle region of the economy where raw materials become products.
Why is that worth exploring?
Here’s my big bet: at some point the discussion around climate will shift from renewable energy to the sustainable production of materials, and when it does, pretty much everyone will be confused, because pretty much nobody knows where stuff comes from.
Okay, so what?
Take a look around you. Everything you see had to come from the environment in one way or another—it was made from stuff we found deep underground, at the surface, growing on the surface, or in the air. Okay, now take a look in your trash can. Now everything you see is going back to the environment, in one way or another.
If we’re going to try to make our economy more sustainable, we’re going to need to get clear on three things:
Where stuff comes from
How we convert it into other stuff
Where all of that ends up
The plan:
Feedstockland will cover a mix of basic frameworks, corporate histories, material origin stories, technology breakdowns, and company breakdowns.
And while the primary goal here is education, it’s the second order effects that I’m really after. If enough people know about this stuff we’ll encourage realistic capital and resource allocation, and we’ll discourage wasteful investment.
What can you do?
Right now I work full time at The Diff, and I also write a 3x/week publication about the chemical industry, called The Column. I’d like to write 1-2 essays per week for Feedstockland, but I’m sort of at capacity right now, so 1-2 essays per month will have to do.
In the long run, the only way Feedstockland can survive is with paid subscriptions. Right now there is no difference between the paid and free version, but if you find my writing to be important and well-done, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.
