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converge with developed nations. All
rm what Nicholas
Georgescu-Roegen wrote many years ago in Energy and Economic Myths:
these studies reaf
“
Now
Economic history con
the fact that great strides in
technological progress have generally been touched off by a discovery of how
to use a new kind of accessible energy. On the other hand, a great stride in tech-
nological progress cannot materialize unless the corresponding innovation is
followed by a great mineralogical expansion. [
rms a rather elementary fact
—
…
] This sort of expansion is what
.
14
The failure to explain how the growth engine actually works is relevant from an
environmental standpoint because the energy
has happened during the last one hundred years
”
ows or material throughputs moved
by the economy all over the planet are put aside. The principal ways through which
the economy affects the ecosystems are exactly these same energy and material
fl
fl
ows. Moreover some recent developments made by Robert Ayres and Benjamin
Warr seem to open a promising new way to address the unsolved problem of the
long-term growth accounts, without encountering the Solow residual.
15
This
approach considers economic growth as an open multi-sector processing system of
materials, energy and information, which moves forward in a perpetual disequi-
librium, beginning with the extraction of natural resources and ending with the
consumption and disposal of wastes. Since the Industrial Revolution, radical
innovations in energy conversion technology have been among the most potent
drivers of growth and structural change, which have put in motion much positive
feedback by means of reducing energy costs. The substitution of increasingly cheap
mechanical,
) for increasingly
expensive human labour and capital has played a key role as a driver of economic
growth (Fig.
2.2
).
Considering that this evidence strongly suggests that
thermal and chemical useful work (or
'
exergy
'
(or the useful work
actually performed by all energy converters which empower human labour and
capital goods at its disposal) should be taken as a factor of production, Ayres et al.
have been able to almost
'
exergy
'
t the empirical GDP historical series of the United States,
Japan and other countries during the 20th century by including the useful work
performed by all energy converters after discounting energy loses, together with the
standard labour and capital factors, either in a conventional Cobb-Douglass or in a
linear-exponential (LINEX) production function where all factors become mutually
dependent, and where empirical elasticities do not equal cost share (Fig.
2.3
).
14
Georgescu-Roegen (
1976
).
15
Ayres and Warr (
2005
).
