IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v1y2009i4p1195-1225d6385.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Influence of Thermodynamic Ideas on Ecological Economics: An Interdisciplinary Critique

Author

Listed:
  • Geoffrey P. Hammond

    (Institute for Sustainable Energy & the Environment (I•SEE), University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK
    Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK)

  • Adrian B. Winnett

    (Institute for Sustainable Energy & the Environment (I•SEE), University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK
    Department of Economics, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK)

Abstract

The influence of thermodynamics on the emerging transdisciplinary field of 'ecological economics‘ is critically reviewed from an interdisciplinary perspective. It is viewed through the lens provided by the 'bioeconomist' Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1906–1994) and his advocacy of 'the Entropy Law' as a determinant of economic scarcity. It is argued that exergy is a more easily understood thermodynamic property than is entropy to represent irreversibilities in complex systems, and that the behaviour of energy and matter are not equally mirrored by thermodynamic laws. Thermodynamic insights as typically employed in ecological economics are simply analogues or metaphors of reality. They should therefore be empirically tested against the real world.

Suggested Citation

  • Geoffrey P. Hammond & Adrian B. Winnett, 2009. "The Influence of Thermodynamic Ideas on Ecological Economics: An Interdisciplinary Critique," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 1(4), pages 1-31, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:1:y:2009:i:4:p:1195-1225:d:6385
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/1/4/1195/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/1/4/1195/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. van Gool, W., 1987. "The value of energy carriers," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 12(6), pages 509-518.
    2. Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, 1986. "The Entropy Law and the Economic Process in Retrospect," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 3-25, Jan-Mar.
    3. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    4. Sollner, Fritz, 1997. "A reexamination of the role of thermodynamics for environmental economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 175-201, September.
    5. van Gool, Willem, 1992. "Exergy analysis of industrial processes," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 17(8), pages 791-803.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Malghan, Deepak, 2011. "A dimensionally consistent aggregation framework for biophysical metrics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(5), pages 900-909, March.
    2. David Bristow & Christopher Kennedy, 2015. "Why Do Cities Grow? Insights from Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics at the Urban and Global Scales," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 19(2), pages 211-221, April.
    3. N. P. Hariram & K. B. Mekha & Vipinraj Suganthan & K. Sudhakar, 2023. "Sustainalism: An Integrated Socio-Economic-Environmental Model to Address Sustainable Development and Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-37, July.
    4. Lucia, Umberto & Sciubba, Enrico, 2013. "From Lotka to the entropy generation approach," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 392(17), pages 3634-3639.
    5. Evanthia A. Nanaki & Christopher J. Koroneos, 2017. "Exergetic Aspects of Hydrogen Energy Systems—The Case Study of a Fuel Cell Bus," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-17, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hammond, Geoffrey P., 2009. "Industrial energy analysis, thermodynamics and sustainability," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 84(7-8), pages 675-700, July.
    2. Hammond, G.P.Geoffrey P., 2004. "Towards sustainability: energy efficiency, thermodynamic analysis, and the `two cultures'," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(16), pages 1789-1798, November.
    3. Gómez-Baggethun, Erik & de Groot, Rudolf & Lomas, Pedro L. & Montes, Carlos, 2010. "The history of ecosystem services in economic theory and practice: From early notions to markets and payment schemes," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(6), pages 1209-1218, April.
    4. Fabrizio Pecoraro & Elaheh Pourabbas & Fernando Rolli & Chiara Parretti, 2022. "Digitally Sustainable Information Systems in Axiomatic Design," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-16, February.
    5. Quentin Couix, 2018. "The role of natural resources in production: Georgescu-Roegen/ Daly versus Solow/ Stiglitz," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01702401, HAL.
    6. Nathalia Tejedor-Flores & Purificación Vicente-Galindo & Purificación Galindo-Villardón, 2017. "Sustainability Multivariate Analysis of the Energy Consumption of Ecuador Using MuSIASEM and BIPLOT Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-15, June.
    7. Stephan Bosch & Matthias Schmidt, 2019. "Auswirkungen neuer Energiesysteme auf die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung – Möglichkeiten eines grünen Kapitalismus [Economic development within renewable energy systems – Opportunities for green capit," NachhaltigkeitsManagementForum | Sustainability Management Forum, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 95-111, June.
    8. Quentin Couix, 2019. "Natural resources in the theory of production: the Georgescu-Roegen/Daly versus Solow/Stiglitz controversy," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(6), pages 1341-1378, November.
    9. Proskuryakova, L. & Kovalev, A., 2015. "Measuring energy efficiency: Is energy intensity a good evidence base?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 450-459.
    10. Buenstorf, Guido, 2000. "Self-organization and sustainability: energetics of evolution and implications for ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 119-134, April.
    11. Sollner, Fritz, 1997. "A reexamination of the role of thermodynamics for environmental economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 175-201, September.
    12. Hammond, Geoffrey P. & Owen, Rachel E. & Rathbone, Richard R., 2020. "Indicative energy technology assessment of hydrogen processing from biogenic municipal waste," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 274(C).
    13. CHEN, Helen S.Y., 2020. "Designing Sustainable Humanitarian Supply Chains," OSF Preprints m82ar, Center for Open Science.
    14. Denise Ravet, 2011. "Lean production: the link between supply chain and sustainable development in an international environment," Post-Print hal-00691666, HAL.
    15. Mara Del Baldo, 2012. "Corporate social responsibility and corporate governance in Italian SMEs: the experience of some “spirited businesses”," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 16(1), pages 1-36, February.
    16. Michael Howes & Liana Wortley & Ruth Potts & Aysin Dedekorkut-Howes & Silvia Serrao-Neumann & Julie Davidson & Timothy Smith & Patrick Nunn, 2017. "Environmental Sustainability: A Case of Policy Implementation Failure?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-17, January.
    17. Parnphumeesup, Piya & Kerr, Sandy A., 2011. "Stakeholder preferences towards the sustainable development of CDM projects: Lessons from biomass (rice husk) CDM project in Thailand," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 3591-3601, June.
    18. Chin-Shan Lu & Kuo-Chung Shang & Chi-Chang Lin, 2016. "Examining sustainability performance at ports: port managers’ perspectives on developing sustainable supply chains," Maritime Policy & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(8), pages 909-927, November.
    19. Kebede, Yohannes, 1993. "The Limits to Common Resource Management: The Bypassed Commons or Commons without Tragedy," MPRA Paper 662, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 May 1993.
    20. John Stanley & Janet Stanley, 2023. "Improving Appraisal Methodology for Land Use Transport Measures to Reduce Risk of Social Exclusion," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-18, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:1:y:2009:i:4:p:1195-1225:d:6385. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.