The main environmental issue that arises from using PAF is the production of fluoride gases.

For example, the authors of The Limits to Growth predicted that before 2013, the world would have run out of aluminum, copper, gold, lead, mercury, molybdenum, natural gas, oil, silver, tin, tungsten, and zinc.

Toothpaste typically has small particles of silica, aluminum oxide, calcium carbonate, or calcium phosphate to grind off stains formed by colored molecules that have absorbed onto the teeth from food.

Indeed, in the United States and other industrialized countries, many applications that rely on fossil fuels (such as air transport or aluminum production) cannot be reconfigured to use electrical power.

Reducing the use of steel by inventing an aluminium engine increasing space by moving the wheels to the edge of the chassis and relying on a modular design that enables the car to be assembled from kits proved conclusively that you could do more with less.

That message still resonates today, though it was spectacularly wrong. For example, the authors of The Limits to Growth predicted that before 2013, the world would have run out of aluminum, copper, gold, lead, mercury, molybdenum, natural gas, oil, silver, tin, tungsten, and zinc.

Indeed, a recent investment report underlined that the fall in prices in the twentieth century for 33 important commodities including aluminum, palm oil, and wheat has been entirely offset in the decade since 2002, when commodity prices tripled.