Abstract
Natural laws and forces have always determined and always
will determine what happens in the duality of cyclic operation and directional development
of all materialistic systems here on Earth
[1].
Constructive and destructive forces act in conjunction during the development
stages of growth, maturity, senescence then, often, demise.
[2] These are irrevocable fundamental physical
principles even though they are not widely recognised by people. And they are
not properly taken into account in the decisions about the operation of
industrialized civilization.
[3].In 1938, Albert Einstein wrote "Physical concepts are free creations of
the human mind, and are not, however, it may seem, uniquely determined by the
external world. In our endeavour to understand reality we are somewhat like a
man t5rying t understand the mechanism of a closed watch. He sees the face and
the moving hands, even hears it ticking, but he has no way of opening the case.
If he is ingenious he may form some picture of a mechanism which is responsible
for all the things he observes, but he may never be quite sure his picture is
the only on that could explain his observations. He will never be able to
compare his picture with the real mechanism and he cannot even imagine the
meaning of such a comparison"..
Time scales of these processes vary tremendously from
seconds for developments in some organisms to millions of years in geological
developments and to centuries in development of the infrastructure of
civilizations. Consideration of the
materialistic operation of the current industrialized civilization needs to
take into account both the temporal and spatial scope of all issues. As a
consequence of this operation of natural forces, a degree of self-organisation
and self-regulation of natural operations and system developments has evolved
over aeons. Industrialized civilization has embraced the duality of operations
and developments in partial emulation of the natural process. However, they
have only an ad hoc degree of organization and regulation defined by human
decisions
[4].
Social scientists have attempted to emulate these natural
operations and sustainable evolution by introducing rapid development of
technical infrastructure with operations governed by physical constraints
[5],
financial considerations, laws and regulations which limit the decisions made
by people
[6].
The introduction of novel materials
[7] conveys the false impression that technology[8]
will always advance the vast infrastructure that society has become dependent
on.
This hubris is the fundamental predicament to be tackled by
all levels of society in the coming decades. Often these decisions have been
made without understanding the unintended consequences, such as climate change,
irreversible
[9]
consumption of natural resources, irrevocable aging of the infrastructure
society has become dependent on and irreparable damage to the environment,
including ocean acidification, pollution
and warming.
[10]
So, there is an unrealistic, egregious belief in an intangible economic growth
that is not possibly sustainable because of the irrevocable loss of tangible
natural environmental and crustal material wealth.
[11]
On the other hand physical scientists and engineers have
gradually gained limited understanding of some of these fundamental
materialistic principles.
[12] The limited ability of mathematics
[13]
to represent some aspects of operations has led to them to using idealizations
of many processes while often not understanding the limitations. Mathematics
deals with the deterministic or probabilistic relations between numerical
variables which sometimes do not accurately represent the physical reality. Fuzzy
logic is sometimes used to deal with circumstances where conventional
mathematics is unrealistic. Mathematical
descriptions of pendulum oscillations do not take use the fact that friction
will always ensure that the oscillations will gradually die down. Topology
[14]
provides a picture of pendulum oscillations at various potential plus kinetic
energy levels but does not take into account the conversion of some of that
energy to heat energy due to the friction that ensures that the pendulum will
eventually stop swinging.
[15]
Physics quantifies
physical energy and what happens as this energy irreversibly flows. This
treatment of physical energy in isolation gives rise to misunderstanding of
what always happens in natural operations and in the operation of technical
systems.
[19]
Focusing here just on the technical systems that carry out so many operations
that provide society with infrastructure, goods and services helps to clarify
the situation. However, the fundamental principles also apply to natural
operations such as the growth of plants, the eruption of volcanos and the
generation over time of mineral deposits.
[20]
Natural and technical systems develop a degree of order
through the input of tangible physical resources (material and associated
energy) . They are dynamical systems whose development is initiated by the
input of information in their seeds.
[21]
This development is an aspect of the constructive force in operation
[22].
One recognised scientific issue is that entropy thermodynamically increases
(order to disorder) in the subsequent operation of these systems as the
irreversible energy flow can do positive work as it seeks equilibrium. This
operation, however, is always accompanied by friction doing negative work in
the operations that transform material to waste (order to disorder) as the
system irrevocably develops and so ages. This dissipation is the destructive
force operating.
[23]
The irreversible capital energy flow (from fossil fuels or
uranium) powering most technical systems is a property of the associated
materials that are transformed into waste during the process.
[24]
These materialistic systems irrevocably age due to friction acting during the
development, so have limited lifetimes, despite the use of energy income or
capital
[25]
and material capital
[26]
for their operation and maintenance.
[27]
This operation and development of technical systems contrasts
to the continuing energy income which
powers the operation of all natural systems and now some technical systems,
misleadingly called renewable energy systems.
[28]
Natural systems often recycle the material they use in operation and
development. Flora and fauna often work in conjunction to recycle materials,
such as nutrients. It is only feasible
for technical systems to recycle some materials at an ecological cost
[29]
that is worthwhile.
[30] The weakness of this energy income limits its
usefulness as an alternative to the strength of the energy capital.
[31]
As a consequence of these fundamental principles, the
operation of the materialistic infrastructure of industrialized civilization is
unsustainable. This means that the global population cannot continue to grow as
sufficient fundamental needs
[32]
will not be available. Understanding of this reality will assist many people to
make the decisions needed for coping with the inevitable powering down. The
delusion
[33]
about the power of the virtual world just hinders that understanding, therefore
coping ability.
Some additional principles are presented here to aid in the
making of sounder future decisions about usage of the remaining natural
resources, coping with the loss of many of the services currently provided by
the ageing infrastructure, while dealing, as much as is possible, with the
devastation of the environment and
species extinctions that have occurred.
[34]
Postulate
The usual discussion of the role of physical energy in the
operations of industrialized civilization does not take into account the fact
that the various relevant forms of energy
(heat, chemical, mechanical, nuclear, kinetic, gravitational potential,
electrical) are invariably a property of the associated materials involved in
the process: for example, the chemical energy in oil.
[35] Energy capital in the fossil fuels is radiant
energy income from the Sun that has been stored as chemical energy
[36]
in regions of the Earth’s crust by natural forces acting slowly for aeons.
Natural forces have also created useful deposits of a wide range of other
minerals
[37]
that are being irreversibly used up by industrialized civilization.
[38]
These are examples of the constructive forces of nature that have created a
degree of order in the deposits which is subsequently transformed to disorder
in the usage of the refined materials in the operation of industrialized
civilization. The mining, processing and using
of these materials in the production of systems is the constructive contribution
of industries to the creation of order in the system but at the cost of the
increase in disorder (entropy increase) in the environment.
[39]
The technical systems of our industrialized civilization
rapidly use this stored energy capital to generate electricity, provide the
liquid fuels used by land, sea and air transportation vehicles and for other
useful, in the opinion of people, purposes. They also produce waste material
with such deleterious consequences as pollution of land, sea, air and
organisms, including people, together with irreversible rapid climate
disruption and ocean acidification and warming.
[40]
Energy capital in uranium is another crustal store of energy that technical
systems (nuclear power stations) use to generate electrical energy (and bombs)
while creating irreparable radioactive waste. Storage of that radioactive waste
is just one of the predicaments being faced.
[41]
The radiant energy income from the Sun continues to power
many natural operations (from the hydrological cycle to plant growth) and is
now powering a range of falsely called “renewable energy” technical systems, including those
based on solar panels and wind turbines.
These technical systems only intermittently supply some electrical
energy: they cannot possibly supply the liquid fuel for internal combustion engines
in land transport
[42],
jet fuel for the gas turbines in aircraft
[43]
or the fuel oil for the massive engines in ships.
[44]These
transportation systems also have limited lifetimes due to the action of various
forms of friction even though energy and materials are used by skilled personnel for their operation and
maintenance.
The usual considerations of the operation of technical
systems include taking into account how the Second Law of Thermodynamics
describe the invariable entropy increase in physical energy flows in isolated
systems.
[45]
The First Law says that energy can be neither created nor destroyed.
[46]Physical
energy flows are always irreversible, just like time. My research provided
understanding that Laws of Massdynamics should also be recognised as they play
an important part in what invariably happens in physical operations and system
development. The conservation of mass is
already recognised in physics but the common transformation of material to
waste in process operation and in system development is not covered by a
recognised law. This Transformation
plays a major role in what always happens in the technical systems as well as
in natural systems.
[47]
The term “mentropy” could be used to describe the transformation of material in
conjunction with using “entropy” to describe what happens in energy flow.
[48]
The operation of a
system, technical or natural, entails the input of material with associated
energy and the output of the resultant mix of energy and material. This process
underpins the associated , irreversible development of the system. The
operation and development of a human body is but one example of the duality of
the irreversible operation of systems through the input and output of gaseous,
liquid and solid material and the associated forms of chemical energy. Another
example is a coal-fired power station. An eco-costly system combined with human
expertise mines the coal and supplies it, together with cooling water, to the
power station where furnaces, turbines and generators transform some of the energy in the coal into
electricity while exhausting water vapour and greenhouse gases. Energy and
materials are used to maintain the power station, its machinery, associated
transmission lines and transformers as they age due to forms of friction.
[49]
The life story of a
tree is no different in principle other than the fact that its wastes serve a
useful purpose while most wastes from technical systems do not.
[50]
In fact, many of the wastes from technical systems are toxic so pollute land,
sea, air and organisms, including people, as well as fostering the
environmental disruptions such as climate change, ocean acidification and
warming together with species extinctions. The life story of buildings, cars,
airliners, ships and goods, including the popular electronic items, is also no
different in principle, other than the fact that they will invariably end up on
the scrap heap with little material recycling after using vast amounts of
irreplaceable liquid fuels or other natural resources.
[51]
Clearly, there is a profound difference between the
operation of natural and technical systems. Natural systems have always been
characterised by recycling of materials in conjunction with reproduction. The
hydrological cycle is one example of recycling (of water) that most people are
familiar with but there are many others.
[52]
However, technical systems do not inherently recycle material as they
irrevocably age, while the energy they use cannot possibly recycle. Industry
does worthwhile recycling of some materials by using a separate recycling
system. However, even some materials cannot possibly be recycled. The
hydrocarbons in oil and gas are prime examples.
[53]
The proposal here of the Laws of Massdynamics covers that aspect. The First Law
is the conservation of mass. The Second Law covers the irreversible
transformation of material in operations and system development to waste: order
leading to disorder. This occurs in both the operational process and in what
happens to the system as it ages. The engine in a car is a familiar example.
The exhaust as it operates is making a contribution to global warming with its
greenhouse gases while the engine ages due to friction. It is order transforming to disorder in a
manner analogous to entropy increase in energy flow but it is applying to
material flow of liquid to gaseous in the exhaust case. Natural forces
operating over eons have created the order in natural resources, such as iron
ore and oil. A range of technical systems use energy and material to transform
iron ore into steel is increasing the order while later the operation of technical systems,
such as cars, reduces the order in steel to disordered waste. Ironically, most
people do not consider this natural process of the development of order
followed by the transformation to disorder. Yet that is what has happened to
their bodies as they grew up, reached maturity and then they have to cope with
the disorder that comes with aging. Constructive forces overrule the
destructive forces in the early stages but eventually the latter take over.
This is a pervasive natural law even though it has not received the recognition
of the Laws of Thermodynamics
The work done in an energy flow is a term in common use in
engineering. The reality is that energy flow does positive work while the associated
operation of friction always does negative work in transforming material to
waste. Engineers are used to allowing for the effect of friction even though
positive and negative work is not common terminology. However, they generally
only consider what happens in one stage, say the operation of a jet engine,
although the entire irreversible flow of resources from source to sink always
happens, even when the materials and energy
was in store for aeons, as, for example the chemical energy in oil. Some
of the energy income from the sunshine source goes in the production of the
food that gives people the energy to operate their metabolism as well as
conduct activities, such as their physical or intellectual work. However,
energy capital now plays the dominant role in most food production in view of
its impact on such operations as soil preparation and produce reaping,
transportation, storage and cooking.
[54]
The idealisation of considering the nature of the process
without consideration of what is irrevocably happening to the containing system
leads to misunderstanding of the consequences. The nature of the process
changes as the system ages.
[55]
Summary
Consideration of only some of the processes involved in
physical operations leads to misunderstanding of the invariable consequences of
the operations and the associated development of the systems. What happens in
the process and what happens to the system should always be taken in
conjunction. Both the Laws of Thermodynamics and the Laws of Massdynamics are applicable
in the operation and development of
natural and technical systems. However the natural law embracing the combined
impact of constructive and destructive forces over time is the fundamental
governing principle. Understanding of that operation of natural forces will
lead to sounder decisions about the implementation and operation of
technological systems as they irrevocably age. Technical systems irreversibly
use up limited natural material resources, including those resources supplying
energy capital, while irrevocably producing waste, much of it toxic. They are
also damaging the environment during their limited life times.
[56]
Society will inevitably have to try to cope with this
materialistic reality predicament
[57]
as well as over population, influence of the growing divergence of the rich
from the poor, deterioration of the vast infrastructure, degradation of
biodiversity together with declining
food production, transportation and communication capabilities. Global trade will be devastated as the
availability of fuel oil for container vessels drops off. So will business and
tourist airline travel as jet fuel supplies die off. However, the loss of online
communications and basic living services (water and food supply, sewerage ,
heating, cooling, lighting) will quite likely be the hardest predicaments to
live with, especially in those regions hardest hit by climate change and
associated predicaments such as sea level rise and more storms, floods,
droughts and wild fires.
References
3.
Clugston,
C . “Scarcity – Humanity’s Final Chapter”
[1]
Consideration of the operation of the current industrialized civilization needs
to take into account both the temporal
and spatial issues as natural systems evolve very slowly compared to the rapid development of
industrialization
[2]
This collaboration between operation and development is recognised as a natural
law in the Postulate.
[3]
These decisions are often based on the intangible financial cost without regard to the tangible ecological
cost.
[4]
The decisions made by people are often based on biased understanding due to
manipulation of terminology. Advertising is a major example that fosters
unreasonable consumption of, often, irreplaceable materials.
[5]
Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, an economist, noted in publications decades ago that
Earth’s mineral resources will eventually be exhausted. He is quoted as saying
“matter matters, too”. His dose of realism did little to cure society of its
delusion about fostering economic growth without paying the ecological cost.
This is still a rampant disease of society.
[6]
While the irreversible dissipative flow of tangible, physical energy governs
what happens in physical operations, intangible intellectual energy of people
grows due to research, education and experience. Of course, all organisms have
intellectual energy that governs their behaviour to a large extent and has
since long before the industrial revolution! Yet society wonders at how minke
whales know to travel vast distances from the Antarctic waters with their
calves to take advantage of what the Great Barrier Reef has to offer. The
organisation of vast colonies of ants is another example of the vast number of
natural operations that are beyond the ken of humans.
[7]
graphene and
molybdenum disulfide are the latest additions to the list of
approaching one hundred materials, led by oil, being irreversibly used up by
doomed technical systems after temporarily providing society with living,
communication and transportation systems
they have become dependent on. There may be a role for advanced
materials but using them in productive devices requires the use of material
resources and the devices will still age.
[8]
Which is never creative and always comes at an ecological cost
[9]
The irreversible passage of time is common knowledge while the irreversible
flow of physical energy is one of the basic principles of science but the
irreversible transformation of many materials to wastes during industrial
operations and during usage is not being sufficiently taken into account due to
lack of understanding.
[10]
The proposals to mobilize technology to overcome some of the emerging
predicaments do not take into account that technical systems are not creative.
They just make use of natural resources and use some of the natural forces
while they irrevocably age and produce material waste while causing ecological
damage as they temporarily provide systems, goods and services. On the other
hand, many innovative chemical reactions make use of natural materials in
technical systems to produce novelsubstances, such as pharmaceuticals, that are
often, but not always, beneficial while often generating toxic wastes. Plastics
in the oceans is one of these unintended but irreversible consequences. But
even the beneficial products come at an irreparable ecological cost.
[11]
Ironically, some commentators focus on the failing ability of the carrying
capacity of natural replenishing resources to meet the needs of the growing
population. They do not take into account how technical systems are
irreversibly using up many irreplaceable natural resources, such as oil, coal,
iron ore, from the crustal stores.
[12]
The Club of Rome published in “The Limits to Growth” in 1972 the results of a
mathematical model that indicated that the operations of technological
civilization would decrease in the future as the availability of natural
resources declined. Whilst this dose of realism has had little impact on the
following of money in the vain pursuit of continual economic growth, recent
assessments of these early predictions have shown that they were reasonable and
the consequences are coming in to play now..
[13]
.Analytical solutions to linear differential equations conveyed a false
impression of many processes for decades. Solution by numerical methods of the
more realistic, non-linear differential equations overcame that problem in some
circumstances. However, lack of
understanding of the circumstances where non-linear differential equations
describe natural operations has led to the ridiculous comment about the
butterfly effect. Einstein’s relativity theories are based on mathematics that
are applicable in cosmology because of the absence of the effect of friction
out in space. Newton’s laws of motion are applicable here because the speeds
involved are very low compared to the speed of light. But the forces involved include
the drag due to friction. It is common knowledge that a ball dropped in a
liquid will fall more slowly than when it is dropped in air. Yet this invariant
influence of friction in operations is often not taken into account in
mathematics. Hamiltonian mathematics is a game played by mathematicians while
non-Hamiltonian mathematics is a tool for realists. .
[14] Topologists
define objects according to certain unchanging properties, such as the number
of holes something might have. Topology is a mathematical concept that has
applicability to only a limited number of physical operations.
[15]
Carnot efficiency is an idealization of the operation of a heat engine. The
lesser actual efficiency can be estimated by taking into account real effects
such as that of friction by taking measurements rather than by using
mathematics.
[16]
Theoretical distributions only give rough estimates of the outcome of a series
of tossings. The outcome of a single tossing is always unpredictable even if a
mathematical model provides information of what happens during the spinning and
the dropping to the ground. The unknowable initial impetus means the model is
useless.
[17]
Ian Stewart in “Does God play Dice: The new mathematics of chaos” provides
details of many cases where mathematics provides insight into what happens. But
it is very selective. The view that there are ‘equations for everything’ is, to
say the least, very misleading.
[18]
Climatologists have employed appreciable skills to provide a number of models
of how the climate changes as the result of greenhouse gas emissions from the
combustion of fossil fuels. They have been validated to a high degree against
measurements and by comparison of the results of models devised by different
groups around the globe.
[19]
Appreciable financial, intellectual and natural resources are being ploughed
into ITER in the attempt to provide a system (made of materials) to emulate the
nuclear fusion in the Sun in providing energy. Surprisingly, the scientists
involved say they hope to create energy, contrary to the First Law of
Thermodynamics. What nuclear fusion does in theory is transform material to
energy as described by e=m.c squared. The Sun has done this naturally for aeons
.ITER does this artificially for microseconds with a low efficiency!
[20]
Appreciable understanding and skill has been used and continues to be used to
find out where there are crustal stores of a wide range of minerals that can be
mined and processed for useful purposes. However, how and why these deposits
were created is one of the multitude of issues beyond our understanding. Why
are there ninety six chemical elements? We have learned a lot of the roles of
elements and how they can combine in reactions
[21]
Medical science has provided insight into
deoxyribonucleic acid, a self-replicating
material which is present in nearly all living organisms as the main constituent
of chromosomes. It is the carrier of the genetic information that governs most
of the development of the organism. Botanists understand the influence of the
information in seeds in the subsequent development of the vast variety of
plants.
[22]
Trees grow through the input of carbon dioxide in air, of water and of
nutrients. Skyscrapers rise up through the use by skilled workers and machinery
of energy and materials to transform steel, concrete, glass etc. into the
structure.
[23]
The trees senescence then die as the result of this process if they are not cut
down for use by society. The skyscrapers have a similar destiny even though
this fact is not widely recognised yet even though many past edifices are now
ruins because natural resources were not irrevocably used to maintain them. The
Taj Mahal is an aged ionic Indian structure that was falling down until the
government decided centuries ago to allocate the financial, skilled personnel
and materials for its maintenance as it was, and is, such a tourist attraction
as well as having religious significance
[24]
The combustion of coal in a power station produces exhausts containing a mix of
carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxides and water vapour that depends
on the quality of the coal. This emission of carbon dioxide is disrupting the
natural photosynthesis, respiration carbon cycle.
[25]
The differentiation between physical energy income and physical energy capital
is used to emphasise the difference between the strength if the irreplaceable
capital compared to the weakness of the ongoing income in sunshine.
[26]
The presence of concentrations of a vast range of minerals in Earth’s crust has
provided the materialistic input into the existing technical systems. These ore
bodies are irreplaceable capital because they have a degree of order due to
geological forces over aeons. Mining and processing these ores increases the
order but subsequent use increases the disorder. This is an example of the
holistic role of constructive and destructive forces in industrial operations
over time. Natural operations are at a much slower pace in many circumstances with the constructive
forces being dominant.
[27]
Maintaining the lengthy power lines from the hydro power station down to
Montreal is not an easy task in the Canadian winter but the destructive nature
of winds and low temperatures combined with the aging of the system have to be
overcome as long as possible by using helicopters and snow mobiles.
[28]
‘renewable energy’ is short hand for systems that use physical energy income.
Unfortunately, many in society (and in government) do not understand the
physics of irreversible physical energy flow. Solar systems inefficiently use a
little of the sunshine when it is out. Wind farms inefficiently harness a
little of the winds when they are blowing. Providing some electricity intermittently
does not solve many problems. In fact, it generates base load problems. Using
batteries for storage can overcome that problem to a limited extent but is eco
costly and the batteries have limited lives and are made of irreplaceable
materials.
[29] The quote: “ this efficiency progression could help to
lower carbon emissions by lowering the price of base-load electricity from
renewable energy.” is a
common view. It is an example of looking at only one side of the non-renewable
natural resources (NNR) balance sheet.
[30]
Sewerage systems make a major contribution to the irreversible transportation
of nutrients in soil to create dead zones in rivers and oceans.
[31]
It cannot provide the liquid fuels required for the operation of land, sea and
air vehicles. Electric cars will only fill a niche role but will require a
major infrastructure transformation with battery recharging replacing filling
fuel tanks in many service stations.
[32]
Food, potable water, shelter, sanitation, health and carer services
particularly for the increasing proportion of the aged in the population.
[33]
Most of society is addicted to the variety of virtual services temporarily
provided by the wide range of electronic devices from huge computers to
personal smart phones.
[34]
Many environmentalists warn that what is happening is nature’s way of warning
of the harm industrialized civilization is doing. This is an anthropocentric
view that does not help people to understand the reality.
[35]
The internal energy of water is only relevant when considering the situation
where electrolysis is to be used to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen. On the other hand, the gravitational
potential energy of water is relevant to consideration of hydro power schemes.
The thermal energy in the ocean is considered by marine scientists,
oceanographers and climatologists but
only by engineers in those few circumstances
where systems are installed to extract a little of that energy to supply
electricity to remote island communities.
[36]Internal
energy in the hydrocarbons of oil and gas and in the carbon of coal
[37]
Including uranium which provides radioactive energy in power stations (and
bombs)
[38]
There is about ninety minerals that are being irreversibly used up by the
operation of the technical systems. Many of them, including the fossil fuels
and iron ore deposits, are being used up to mine others in the list.
[39]
Society appreciates this noticeable increase in order of the services provided
by industries while only slowly understanding the unintended increase in some
aspects of natural disorder.
[40]
Dealing with climate change is receiving some attention while the bigger
problem of what is happening in the oceans due to the great amount of heating
and acidification is being ignored by all except the knowledgeable specialists.
The associated devastation of the marine environment and the consequential
impact on the provision of the proteins in fish to the diets of numerous people
is another of the predicaments to be faced.
[41]
Numerous proposals for long term underground storage of radioactive wastes in
desert regions have been discussed in a number of countries for years.
Governments weigh up the economic advantages of taking on this activity against
the ecological, including the seismic risks as best they can. This is only one
of the predicaments that society will have to try to deal with as the available
services decline.
[42]
EV cars are becoming quite popular by using electric motors with batteries
supplying the energy. However, the installation of recharging stations to
replace the multitude of refuelling stations will continue to limit their use.
The demise of the many millions of internal combustion cars and trucks in the
near future is certain.
[43]
Research over a number of decades has not come up with a viable alternative to
oil as a source of the fuel for jet engines. Bio fuel can only fill a niche
role as they depend on a weak source of energy, sunshine. The Airlander airship
being developed in England, with the support of the U.S. Department of Defense,
is an indication that some experts are developing alternative aviation to meet
some of the demand as the conventional aviation inevitably declines.
[44]
The many thousands of cargo vessels consume a high proportion of the production
from oil fields. This unsustainable operation will have a profound deleterious
impact on world trade as no reasonable alternative has been proposed. Using LNG
(liquefied natural gas) to power some ships will do no more that ease this
predicament slightly. The return of the use of sailing vessels to carry cargo
between Boston and New York just show that some people have insight into what
lies ahead for shipping but this initiative will not ease the inevitable loss
of global trade predicament.
[45]
It is common in engineering to idealize by considering the energy flow alone.
Society at large, however, views energy as a commodity even though, personally,
they have to live with the reality that physical energy and materials controls
how their bodies operate and what they are able to do.
[46]
That law does not take into account thermonuclear reactions that transform
material into energy: the way the Sun produces the radiant energy that drives
so many operations here on Earth.
[47]
Ironically, the economist, Georgescu-Roegen said, decades ago, that “Matter
matters too”. But that understanding has been ignored as society continues to
pursue progress without meeting the ecological cost.
[48]
The term “exergy” is often used by engineers to describe the capability of
energy to do useful work in a flow process because it contributes to
understanding of the consequences. The implied energy (and material) costs in
supplying the exergy is not taken into account in using that term.
[49]
These are inputs to the constructive process offsetting the destructive effect
of the various forms of friction such as winds on the power lines and friction
in the turbine and generator mountings as well as the electrical losses.
[50]
The thousands of wrecked ships on the ocean floor is but one example of the
waste of the product of the iron ore supplied by nature.
[51]
Essentially slave labour in undeveloped countries is used for some recycling of
selected materials but that will continue only so long as the collection and
transportation of the wastes can continue.
[52]
Bears and salmon combine to recycle nutrients from the ocean for use by the
rivers in west Canada. This is but one example of the effectiveness of the
natural self-organization and self-regulation that has evolved. Humans,
however, are not so clever, as their sewerage systems flush nutrients into
rivers and oceans in a one way flow that has deleterious consequences at both
the start and end of the process, until the sewerage systems inevitably fail.
[53]
Carbohydrates cycle naturally in plant production but hydrocarbons do not.
Proposals to store hydrocarbon emissions underground are not ecologically sound
even though they may be financially sound in the views of the proponents.
[54]
Studies have established that about 30 calories of energy are used in providing
1 calorie in food in developed communities. Clearly that is but one of the
unsustainable processes.
[55]
For example, sports people have to deal with that reality when their
performance drops off due to the aging of their bodies. Governments and
corporations generally discuss the financial backing for system development
with the presumption that the necessary skilled work people and natural
resources will continue to be available. They do not assume any responsibility
for the inevitable aging and demise of the system. That is for others to deal
with when the time comes. Historians have provided details of the collapse of a
number of civilizations due to this failure of understanding.
[56]
The many waste land- fills outside cities are just one of the growing
intractable environmental problems, especially where they pollute ground water.
Plastics in the oceans are probably even more irrevocably devastating.
[57]
Clugston provides authoritative assessments of eighty nine natural materials
resources that are being irrevocably used up by the operations of
industrialized civilization.
