A CRONYMS AND A BBREVIATIONS
Chapter 6: This Chapter briefly sums up the research and dwells upon the answers to the research questions, lists briefly the policy implications and the new contribution of the study in
3.2 Brief Discussion of methodologies used in 45 Years of Research on NGR
Ecological economics is a post normal inter disciplinary emerging science quarter of a century old drawing very heavily from economics, thermodynamics, ecology, evolution, systems theory, and information theory (see Fig. No. 3.1), as a result of which researchers belonging to different fields bring their strengths through their well established methods and analytical tools but leave general readers and novices in a quandary. The present study would touch upon topics such as laws of thermodynamics, entropy, efficiency, waste heat, ecosystem, ecology, environment, urbanization, energy matter interactions, green house gas emissions and climate change, source and sinks, as well as frontiers of the NCE such as production function and substitutability. The conceptual framework of the study, as to how it organizes and links various themes and topics is depicted in Fig No. 3.2. Moreover, entropy being the central theme of the present research study, it was found that in a heap of more than 550 research publications that reviewed, only 20 odd papers dwelt on entropy calculations in real world economics processes, while the rest dealt with Shanon's Entropy, input-output analysis, exergy analysis, emergy analysis, embodied energy analysis, material flow analysis, maximum entropy production, multi criteria decision making, energy and mass balance calculations, Life Cycle Assessments (which are essentially mass and energy balance calculations) – Cradle to Grave, Cradle to Cradle, Cradle to Gate, ecosystem service valuations, ecological footprints and carbon emission calculations. On entropy topic, maximum papers were encountered on GIS and Shanon's entropy application relating to urban sprawl, forest cover loss etc.
Thus, this research study is unique in proposing a real world development process case study, taking urbanization as a development process, and working out the thermodynamic entropy (as opposed to information entropy) in a number of economic processes.
thermodynamic constraints on economics focusing on the past 40 years of research on NGR in their monumental study entitled “Connecting thermodynamics and economics- Well-lit roads and burnt bridges”. Two different models have been used by various researchers namely
1. Descriptive model: This “relies on words and diagrams to convey simplified version of reality that is a precursor of investigation. This type of model is necessarily qualitative and may also be thought of as the pre-analytic vision”.
2. Mathematical model: This model “transfers the concepts from the descriptive model into mathematical language, which ideally can be used to solve problems quantitatively.
The energy's contribution to the economy still remains to be resolved. For ecological economists, energy is a fundamental factor enabling economic production, and the economic growth and energy use are difficult to decouple solely by developing and deploying energy efficient technologies. The focus needs to be on decarbonizing energy supplies (Ockwell, 2008).
The mathematical model attempts to quantify thermodynamic limits to generate desired output from economic processes and these have been investigated at the level of individual processes.
Application of thermodynamics to systems are system specific and depend upon the actual variables such as temperature, pressure, nature and constitution of the chemical species present in the system, as well as the quantities of heat and work exchanged at the system boundary (Glucina and Mayumi, 2010). Thus, it is difficult to arrive from industry specific analysis to aggregated economy-wide quantification. Very few such studies are available such as by Ruth (1995, 1995a, 1995b), Lozada (1999), Kummel (1989), Kummel & Schussler (1991), Faber, Niemes & Stephan (1995), Rechberger and Gradel (2002), Ayres et al (2004, 2006), Gößling- Reisemann (2001, 2006) , Alvarado (1999).
Econophysics/ Physical Economics Analogies: Applying physical laws to economics has been there for long. This thesis is based on the NGR's criticism of NCE for employing Classical mechanics models (meant for rigid bodies and point objects) to real world economic processes which are thermodynamic in nature. Application of the laws of thermodynamics is yet another example, but can be excused as the two Laws of Thermodynamics are universal laws and apply on all sciences and streams of knowledge that deal with energy and mass interactions and transformations. Besides the application of the two thermodynamic laws, one can find other examples, most famous of which is application of PV=nRT to economics. The most recent and most novel is a complete set of analogous state variables (extensive and intensive) along with the 1st and 2nd laws of Physical Economics42. See the Table below. (Richmond, Mimkes, Hutzler, 2013).
Economics Physics
Name of Variable Unit Name of Variable Unit
M Money Currency Q Heat Joules
K Capital Currency E Energy Joules
P Production Currency W Work Joules
λ Dither Currency T Temperature Kelvin
Se Economic Entropy Dimensionless S Entropy Joules K-1
Π Economic pressure Currency P Pressure Nm-2
A Freedom for action Dimensionless V Volume m3
However, thermodynamic formalism may be of little use in economics. It is also not clear what system specific mathematics are relevant to economics (Glucina & Mayumi, 2010). Given the complexity of the entropy law and its application to economics, no such arithmomorphic approach has been adopted in this study.
42 1st Law of Economics: Equivalence of Monetary (M) and Productive (P) circuits expressed by δM = dK – δP
2nd Law of Economics: δM = λdSe
Entropy Studies by Gabriel Lozada: Lozada completely dismisses the information theory entropy methodology in the context of entropy in which temperature is absent. His studies are based on real world economic processes applied in the extractive metallurgy industry. He asserts that the idea of thermal entropy is related to heat flow. Lozada has also taken into account the configurational entropy which arises due to mixing of matter and changes in concentration of materials (as these also change the chemical potential values of the material in question) specially the Stage I processes in metallurgy that deal with crushing and grinding of ore and its concentration enhancement before proceeding to the next stage of metal separation, and the final stage of high level purification (Lozada, 1999). The total entropy change, thus, is represented as:
ΔS=ΔSconfigurational+ ΔStherma.system+ΔStherma.surrounding (3.1)
for a chemical process of extraction involving a generic equation of two reactants (A & B) and resultant product C:
A+B=2C (3.2)
Using actual values for the reactants and products, Lozada (1999) arrived at the minimum entropy change requirement for copper ore processing at 0.41 MJ K-1 (1000 Kg) -1 of copper.
This entropy change in the system-surrounding universe is under very ideal conditions, and is likely to be many times more for poorer ores. The closer the actual entropy would get to this value of 0.41 MJ K-1 (1000 Kg) -1, the harder it would be to reduce entropy increase as one must approach ever closer to the ideal conditions of zero friction, resistance etc. According to Lozada (1999), this has direct economic significance in the sense that the minimum energy required for the process would be not less than 123 MJ (1000 Kg) -1 of copper. When multiplied by the cost of energy, it would give the direct minimum cost of production in terms of entropy requirements
itself. Lozada (1999) further asserts that as richer ores would get processed, we would be left with poorer ores that would generate many times more entropy. This is a clear indication of degeneration of natural resources. According to Lozada (1999), “The prosperity of future generations depends partially upon the endowment of rich natural resources they inherit”.