Geology Reference
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Corollary 6: Regulate su ciency if e ciency is not enough to compensate the
rebound effect.
Reflection 1: A malfunction is a state which describes when something does
not work properly or does not work at all. As any productive system is always
interconnected with something else, take care of those components that are most
likely to experience failure, since any chain will always break at the weakest link.
Reflection 2: “A resilient control system is one that maintains state awareness
and an acceptable level of operational normalcy in response to disturbances, includ-
ing threats of an unexpected and malicious nature” (Rieger et al., 2009). Modularity,
versatility and adaptability are major features of resilient systems.
Reflection 3: The rebound effect (see Sec. 14.8) relates to the idea for instance,
that a computerised society, whilst appearing to save energy and resources, may not
necessarily do so. It will however greatly increase the consumption of critical and
hard -to-recycle metals (Maxwell et al., 2011). The rebound effect is also present
in the adoption of compact fluorescent lamps which have resulted in an increase in
the number of garden lights being bought; or the more e cient car engines which
have induced greater sales in heavier sport utility vehicles (SUV); or the fact that
an increase in resource e ciency in a given company often results in a greater
consumption of resources due to the productivity gain as observed by Jevons. The
rebound effect ranges from 0% to >100% and may be expressed as a “ratio of the lost
benefit compared to the expected environmental benefit when holding consumption
constant” (Grubb, 1990). When the rebound effect is greater than 100% it is termed
“backfire” (Sec. 14.7). For avoiding or reducing the rebound effect, Sorrell (2007)
proposed raising energy (and raw material) prices in line with resource e ciency
improvements or imposing absolute caps on emissions to the environment.
Principle 7: The Notary Public Rule
This principle expresses the non-linear link between energy and monetary costs. To
use an example: in the construction of a house, the biggest consumption of energy
takes place in the building materials which cost is the least per unit of energy invested.
At the end of the process, deeds signing presents the highest financial expenditure
per unit of energy effort.
Corollary 1: Energy is cheap because society values products of ingenuity more
than that which Nature provides. Nature does not and cannot ever demand
payment. People pay people, not Nature.
Corollary 2: To save resources, the Notary Curve must be flattened, i.e., society
must pay more for what naturally costs more.
 
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