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Abstract
The influence of thermodynamics on the emerging transdisciplinary field of 'ecological economics‘ is critically reviewed from an interdisciplinary perspective. It is viewed through the lens provided by the 'bioeconomist' Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1906–1994) and his advocacy of 'the Entropy Law' as a determinant of economic scarcity. It is argued that exergy is a more easily understood thermodynamic property than is entropy to represent irreversibilities in complex systems, and that the behaviour of energy and matter are not equally mirrored by thermodynamic laws. Thermodynamic insights as typically employed in ecological economics are simply analogues or metaphors of reality. They should therefore be empirically tested against the real world.
Highlights
Tribute is paid here to his contributions to the study of energy-matter as part of the economic process, rather different conclusions are drawn about the utilisation of thermodynamic ideas in an attempt to understand natural resource scarcity and substitutability
The thermodynamic improvement potential is around 80%, only about 50% of energy currently used could be saved by technical means and, when economic barriers are taken into account, this reduces to perhaps some 30%
Energy transformations within society have been viewed as mirroring resource depletion and environmental degradation by practitioners in, for example, ecology, economics and engineering
Summary
Thermodynamic concepts or laws underpin the operation of energy systems that heat and power human development Their scientificbeauty‘, depth and generality (identified by C P Snow [1]) has inspired engineers and physical scientists over the last two centuries, including some of the very greatest, such as Albert Einstein. Thermodynamic methods provide an important means of identifying process improvement potential, heuristic developments have arisen in the past without the aid of science; as in the case of Watt's steam engine (which predated the development of the formalLaws of Thermodynamics‘ [2]) They utilise concepts likeenthalpy‘ to represent the quantity of energy consumed, as well asexergy‘ to reflect its quality. Second Law concept of entropy (an extensive property of matter) is not easy to grasp, when it has been so widely used and abused It was originally postulated by Rudolf Clausius Tribute is paid here to his contributions to the study of energy-matter as part of the economic process, rather different conclusions are drawn about the utilisation of thermodynamic ideas in an attempt to understand natural resource scarcity and substitutability
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