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generation. But the question of absolute scarcity, of the optimal sustainable scale
of the economic subsystem as a part of the overall ecosystem, cannot be understood
without some help from Thermodynamics”.
Meanwhile, thermodynamicists throughout the 20th century developed a new
property of matter: exergy, which is the minimum amount of work needed to form
a system from its constituent elements taken from a given reference environment 6
(see Sec. 2.6.3). Two important facts took place during the 80s and 90s in the
thermodynamicist community. First, the appearance of the concept of exergy cost,
or embodied exergy, and its linkage with the concept of irreversibility, explained
in detail in Chap. 3. There can be many costing indicators, but exergy is more
than an indicator, it is a physical property that can universally be defined for any
piece of matter. Moreover, its loss measures degradation. From that moment on
in science, costing became a synonym of irreversibility accounting, rather than a
mere economic technique. The cost concept entered into the Physics realm and
was measured in S.I. 7 related units, kWh or Joules, and not in subjective monetary
units. This is how the new discipline Thermoeconomics came into birth. The
second fact was the realisation that the Input-Output analysis first developed by
Leontief was isomorphous with the Thermoeconomics superstructure. Exergy links
thermofluid dynamic properties such as enthalpies or entropies with cost accounting
methodologies in a continuous field. This is a significant contribution of economists
to the advance of Physics. Unfortunately, this was done originally by engineers
more interested in optimising and diagnosing processes than in making conceptual
bridges with ecological economists.
Hence, even though Thermoeconomics was su ciently developed by the end of
the millennium, no systematic application was undertaken in the field of evaluating
natural resources. In fact neither the statement of Clausius that the Universe tends
towards a thermal death, nor the Reference Environment by Szargut (1987) was
enough to evaluate the natural capital on Earth (see Sec. 10.4). The evidence of
finiteness was never converted into systematic accounting. This is simply because
there were no techniques available.
Unfortunately, after four decades since the birth of the Ecological Economics
school, Thermodynamics still remains isolated from mainstream economy, and vice
versa perhaps.
For neoclassicals Thermodynamics is simply ignored. For environmental or eco-
logical economists it is poorly understood or in the most promising case scenario,
it lacks the quantitative instruments to convert economic statements into global vi-
sion and policy, such that would allow for a sound management of planetary natural
resources.
6 Exergy and system analysis were not su ciently developed when Georgescu-Roegen wrote his
topic. In fact it took almost two decades to develop the Reference Environment and Thermo-
economics. But they were developed independently from the ecological economics mainstream
thinking.
7 SI: System of International units.
 
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