User:Blobs2/Renewable resources

This page discusses a theory of renewability in Minecraft. If you have any questions or suggestions, please visit my talk page.

Renewability of non-Item Features
Renewability usually refers to an item being infinitely obtainable. However, some unobtainable blocks can be created indefinitely. It is difficult to tell whether many technical blocks are renewable. However, we can consider the following blocks:

Of the above blocks, only chorus plants and Nether portal blocks can be created renewably.

In addition, tall grass can be created indefinitely as a block by applying bone meal to normal grass, but it can only be obtained as an item from savanna village house chests.

Mobs
Most mobs are renewable — i.e., they can spawn indefinitely — with the following exceptions:

Status Effects
All status effects are renewable; they can be applied to the player indefinitely. The exceptions are Health Boost and Fatal Poison, which cannot be applied at all without commands.

Level IV of Regeneration and Absorption are not renewable, since they can only be applied via enchanted apples.

Enchantments
All enchantments are renewable, since librarian villagers can sell any enchanted book. The exception is curses, which are unused.

Other
Experience is renewable.

Renewability Levels
Some non-renewable resources are necessary to obtain another resource renewably. For example, stone is only renewable because it can be created from non-renewable lava (note that some items can be crafted from renewable blackstone instead of cobblestone).

Let’s say that a non-renewable resource is, and a renewable resource that requires a non-renewable resource is. In general, a renewable resource that requires an resource or less is.

The only resource that has  products is the warden/sculk catalyst. This makes darkness and all sculk type blocks (including player-placed sculk shriekers).

Infinite Renewability
Usually, a resource obtainable as a mob drop or related method cannot be described as for any n (or in some sense, it is more than  for every n). We will call these resources infinitely renewable.

Sometimes, a resource is renewable with an initial use of itself. In this case, if the resource were, then the resource would be renewable with an initial use of an resource (namely itself) making it at least. This conflicts with the resource being only, so the resource must be infinitely renewable. We will show some examples.

Lava
Pointed dripstone grows overtime from an initial use of itself and infinitely renewable water. Iron ingots are infinitely renewable, as they can be obtained from zombies or village iron golems, which makes cauldrons infinitely renewable. Combining lava, pointed dripstone, and a cauldron makes lava infinitely renewable. In turn, obsidian and most stone type blocks are infinitely renewable.

Villager Trading
The player can kill vindicators and evokers in raids. This is an initial use of nothing but an infinately renwable patrol, so emeralds are infinitely renewable (including fletchers, since gravel can be obtained from bartering to make flint). The infinite renewability of emeralds implies the infinite renewability of anything that wandering traders sell. In addition, all job site blocks are infinitely renewable.

Quasi-Renewable Resources
Let’s consider blocks and items that would be “renewable” with the initial use of a resource that does not exist in vanilla survival without cheats or NBT editing.

First, consider command blocks, programmed as. This would make the corresponding resource “renewable”, but the command block cannot be obtained legitimately and cannot be programmed in survival.

Command blocks would make almost all resources "renewable", so we will exclude them from the definition of quasi-renewability. There is a similar problem with the following unavailable resources:
 * A structure block in load mode in which the structure contains the resource. This can be used in survival using a redstone circuit.
 * A villager who sells the desired item, since their trading table can be changed through NBT editing.

We will only consider blocks and items that make specific features "renewable".

Chemistry
The element constructor, material reducer, compound creator, and lab table (they can only be obtained in Creative in worlds with “Education Edition” enabled) are necessary to create the following blocks and items "renewably".
 * Balloons
 * Bleach
 * Colored Torches
 * Compounds
 * Elements
 * Garbage
 * Glow Sticks
 * Hardened Glass
 * Hardened Glass Panes
 * Heat Blocks
 * Ice Bombs
 * Medicine
 * Sparkler
 * Super Fertilizer
 * Underwater Torches
 * Underwater TNT

We can show that all of these are quasi-renewable:
 * An element constructor can produce an unlimited amount of most elements, making elements quasi-renewable.
 * The exception is ???, which cannot be obtained using an element constructor. This element can, however, be obtained from renewable netherrack, glowstone, or end stone, using a material reducer.
 * A compound creator can create compounds out of quasi-renewable elements, making compounds quasi-renewable.
 * A lab table can construct bleach, ice bombs, super fertilizer, and garbage out of quasi-renewable elements and compounds, or construct a heat block from renewable and quasi-renewable resources.
 * Medicine can be brewed by adding certain elements to Awkward Potion, making medicine quasi-renewable.
 * The remaining blocks and items can be crafted from renewable and quasi-renewable resources.