From Thermodynamics to Economics and Ecology - Thanatia: The Destiny of the Earth's Mineral Resources - page 80

served in naturally occurring processes. When energy degrades in quality, exergy
quantitatively decreases simultaneously and, each time exergy is destroyed entropy
is generated since the Gouy-Stodola equation advises that exergy destruction is
equal to ambient temperature (K) times entropy generation. Thus, a conceptual
jump from the qualitative to the quantitative description of systems is made. Dis-
cussions can and will now move from the better/worse to the plus/minus arena.
It is the authors' opinion that Thermoeconomics must be the basis for a General
Theory of Useful Energy Saving, where conservation is the cornerstone. Conserva-
tion means improving the e ciency of production processes, recycling materials and
the substituting of one resource for another. Recycling and the full exploitation of
raw materials requires increasingly complex productive structures. The greater the
knowledge or information contained in systems, the better their e ciency. The
three pillars on which to base the theory are Resources, Structure and E ciency.
The theory can contribute to quantitative solutions in industrial processes such
as the synthesis and evolution of structures, the search for production costs and
the alleviation or even removal of the perturbations in a whole system caused by a
malfunction in one of its subsystems. It could also play a key role in the areas of
environmental interaction and decision making in energy and resource management.
The topic now turns to the branch of Thermoeconomics, Physical Geonomics,
that the authors believe can contribute to the rational quantification and challenge
of mineral resources depletion.
3.4 From Thermoeconomics to Ecology: Exergoecology and
Physical Geonomics
Daily life is immersed in economy. Human society tends to substitute human and
natural values with economic ones, i.e. prices. But monetary capital is not the
only resource. Stating otherwise is an arrogant way of reducing Nature and society
into almost nothing. So whilst one may put prices on almost everything it does
not mean that one knows or even considers their true value. So, what could be the
alternative? Why not instead make an estimation of the value of things and living
entities, as if one were tasked with the job of reproducing or replacing them? Only
by doing this, would one realise how di cult it is. How many resources -of any kind-
are needed to obtain them? How much knowledge is required to understand the
mechanisms by which resources can be converted into entities? Such questions give
a sense of the ethics behind conservation because arguably one should not destroy
what one does not know how, or is not prepared to construct.
That is why it is so important to account for costs measured as a general sacrifice
of resources, independently of the yardstick (numeraire) used to quantify them. This
is in effect what Valero (1998) proposes in the Exergoecology method. Exergoecology
is derived from Thermoeconomics. Its aim is to assess the exergy of natural resources
from a defined dispersed state of the Earth.