[ Thermodynamics, Gravity and Economics - the A3 Crude Tables and Does a Potato Work page ] [ Experiment 1 ] [ return home ]
"There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he
doesn't mind who gets the credit."
God or no God - there is a fundamental mechanism
in the universe.
An organising power, which in itself is The Source of All Life on
Earth.
And the opposing force, which messes things up through mixing them up, we
call the devil.
Read more:
On Minds: 10 points on creation, ongoing as it is.
On
Gravity vs.  Thermodynamics |
allows for different formulations; one statement is that a temperature
difference in a thermodynamic system can only ever equalize, but
never spontaneously develop or increase.
However, since such temperature differences, which cannot arise thermodynamically, in reality not only exist, but are a precondition for the running of a thermodynamic process, this necessarily requires a mechanism existing outside of thermodynamics and its laws, which spontaneously forms or increases these necessary and existing temperature differences; the same can be said for differences in energy and entropy.
This force outside the laws of thermodynamics, which provides for temperature, energy and entropy gradients, and thus enables thermodynamics, is called gravity.
As necessary as the thermodynamic conversion of energy is, without gravity
it would not exist, nor would there be material bodies to implement it; there
would also be no order or negentropy, without which life is
not possible.
It thus forms the prerequisite of all that exists beyond pure matter; and
is - directly and indirectly - the basis of any movement.
Maybe not everything. But still, it might be wise not to try to work against
it.
To avoid this, we must know how the second law of thermodynamics can
be used to test the validity of our actions. And there are signs that, some
thousand years ago, people, through instinct, experience,
religion or science, were more prone to obey it than we are
today.
Some of these insights may have even engrained themselves into our
mythology.
HOWEVER:
On the other hand, and contrary to much popular belief, the human economics even of today are not really a science: apart from perhaps some very simple truths, there is no scientific proof that certain economic assumptions are valid.
In fact, the results of some economic experiments in recent history have shown vast aberrations from the predicted outcome and indeed from the results of similar experiments. It seems fairly safe to say that few economic experiments in history have been able to meet the prime criteria for scientific validity: consistent, reproducible results; this perhaps except in failure.
Were this otherwise, a great deal of policy-making would disappear from politics and economics would become an engineering profession with largely predictable results. Betting on the outcome of economic decisions on the stock exchange would loose its importance.
As it is, economics present themselves as more of a religion based on certain beliefs and values and depending on others believing in it as well to keep it going, notwithstanding periodic system flame-out. According to the economists themselves, "trust", belief ('credit'), and "psychology" play a major part in the game. It is a game, and a game of chance at that.
Whatever the reason for this, it is therefore disputed that economics are a science at all, and as it seems, the Nobel Prize for economics is not a real Nobel Prize either. All of this puts economical theories in line with mediaeval alchemy rather than with post-gallilean science; calling some of it "voodoo-economics" therefore does not really qualify as an insult. However, this shall not be the prime subject of this page.
It may be that the following is a bit jumpy and sketchy, but this is my first,
in itself perhaps somewhat crude and alchemistic stitching together of three
seemingly complete separate subjects:
I. Thermodynamics
(We cannot live by our own
effort),
II. Gravity (The
second principle)
and
III. Human Economics (The
law of insufficient
returns).
There will be no calculations put forward, just some global observations
and an attempt of logic.
In the end, the answer to "Life, the universe, and everything" may
not be "42", but
"gravity".
Bluntly, the second law of thermodynamics seems to
stipulate that:
However, life goes on regardless of what humans do, it has gone on
and - if we are not careful - will go on without any human action
to further or disturb it.
This is not trivial; there is a human misconception that life will not go on if we do not make it go on. Even the Bible states that differently.
This misconception is based on, and is expressed in, the popular belief
that:
One could hold against this that, in reality,
Does it do so by work?
This is a question of definition.
Is 'order' defined by a state of everything being spread out evenly
in a hazy cloud of everything, or is 'order' defined by a state of
everything being sorted out and separated as far apart as possible? In the
first case, even hydrogen atoms would be a disturbance of order, since defining
order is a question of definig entities. The second definition seems more
viable.
One could also describe any difference in temperature as 'disorder' - or as 'order'. Usually, 'entropy' is used to describe the amount of temperature indifference. Taking into account the above said, an indifferent cloud of everything at the same temperature would be a description of greatest disorder - and it would be a neat description of the beginning of the universe (by Christian religion and by scientific description). The next split second, order began to grow with the universe, by the separation and aggregation of matter, by expansion (creating time and space) and by the separation of different velocities and temperatures from each other.
The result, at this momentary point in time, is a highly ordered transitional state of things, with high differences in temperature, in matter concentration, and in all of the rest, therefore low entropy. It seems to be still evolving in that direction, and certainly has done so without human influence whatsoever.
One could say that the conception that humans think they have to work
to clear up the mess they see surrounding themselves is caused by the very
fact that this is because that is where the mess always is - it is always
right where we are.
We carry disorder around with us. In fact, we create it. Wherever we are, we make a mess. We would die if we did not, and therefore not be there to observe it. Creating a 'mess' or disorder in this case means, by above definition, a degradation of order, i. e. an overall leveling of temperature differences and a decrease of the arrangement of matter. It may not seem so at first glance, but a camp fire does just that. So does the digestion of food, or the operation of a diesel engine.
Every form of work or turnover of energy, almost by definition, follows the laws of thermodynamics in this way.
If in doubt, you may ask yourself for what you would be willing to pay more for: economically diesel fuel or exhaust fumes, nourishment or body waste, wood or ashes and smoke. This is where we may catch a first glimpse of the connection between thermodynamics and economics: Not the work done is valuable, but the work not yet done, i.e. the energy to do work. Work done leaves a mess which has to cleared up by yet more work, and so on.
What we decline to see is that this disorder we create tends to disappear
by itself, to clear itself up, as soon as we are gone - albeit that
it might take some time for it to do so.
We can notice this phenomenon only if we move fast and far enough - i. e. if we are able, for a moment, to outrun the mess we have created wherever we happen to be. In a picture, the still morning lake will calm itself only after we have left it; no amount of active "calming" will achieve that as long as we are still in it.
Like the sonic boom trailing an aircraft, the faster we move, the more terrifyingly the disorder we create will build up and overtake us form behind the minute we slow down again - thus causing us, in panic and fright, to move at ever increasing speed to outrun the consequences of what we are doing. But as we know, there is an end speed to everything. When that has been reached, economic, ecologic or thermodynamic collapse occurs.
This prevails until whatever degraded has had time to regenerate itself (not: be regenerated by the degraders), new and greater sources of energy, new and deeper waste deposits or new places to degrade have been found.
This is seen not from an arbitrary, moralistic point of view, but from an inevitable, physical one. One could see it as a description of the collapse of ancient European, South American, or other empires; the deforestation of the Mediterranean area during the Roman Empire for fuel could be seen as one example.
From the other perspective, there is hardly a greater human pleasure
than to be the first to ski on a slope of freshly fallen snow, to dig up
oil, gold and diamonds which have taken millions of years to form and accumulate
(a form of creating order in the above definition), to view a landscape untouched
by human hands, to build their house on a green field, to visit the desert,
the arctic, uninhabited new places in the universe and on this planet, and
so on - in other words: to enjoy what we have not created, and which
has not already been used, messed up and left disorderly up by others. And
there is nothing more rewarding - in an emotional, and, this
is the important correlation, in the financial sense as well.
As has otherwise been stated, the stark beauty of the North American wild
led to the insight in Europeans fleeing Europe that maybe there should be
places, called nature or national parks, where nature is left to itself and
where no human is allowed to live and work (and "create wealth") beyond the
absolute necessary (and even that is very difficult to realise, as the debate
about regulating wild forest fires has shown). The wealth is there to
behold - but, in this case, not to take.
We humans crave order, and we instinctively know that we cannot create
it.
What we have not yet understood - or what we have once more
forgotten - is that we live off and live by destroying order, and nothing
else.
Maybe this is the Original Sin, with which we are plagued ever since we had
to leave paradise, where there was abundance, that we are forced - perhaps
by our own actions - to live by work, and therefore create a mess of
things; and that we can never achieve the status of creator of things, no
matter how we try.
In fact, the more we try, the worse it gets, for the more we try, the further we distance ourselves from creation by trying (if one discounts creating a mess from creation itself, which is not at all a trivial distinction).
However, this is not religion; it is religion borne out by the physics, i. e. the workings of the universe, therefore of creation itself. Humans, however much they may try, cannot put themselves outside of creation, as they are part of it. Even attempting to do so can be labeled an act of blasphemy, and there will be merciless punishment of such action in consequence - God or no God.
That, too, is borne out by the laws of thermodynamics.
To understand this, one must understand where the boundaries are between
what we may and what we may not do.
Returning to pure physics once more, the laws of thermodynamics state (as can be seen below), among other things, that nothing ever runs by itself (and they do not state that nothing ever runs without humans to keep it running). However, there seem to be some processes which augment themselves, like a forest catching fire or an avalanche rolling down the mountain. What about them? Can we not tap those?
First, a self-augmenting process of the first kind is simply a leveling
out of potentials.
Like in lightning, avalanches, forest fires or other runaway processes, these do not really run away. They do not augment themselves forever, but from a state of inertia start quite slowly, build up speed and momentum, but then come to a halt again, sometimes abruptly (thereby usually causing damage or at least change), to then remain inert again in the new state until enough new potential has accumulated for the process to repeat itself. Like ocean waves hitting the shore, they are simply a jerky state of equilibrium or motion.
Second, a self-augmenting process of the second kind, which truly feeds
itself, would never stop. It would therefore ultimately destroy not only
itself, but everything else within reach.
Maybe black holes in space can be seen as such truly self-augmenting processes, although even this is doubtful, although they might give us a clue on what may ultimately be the cause of that order in the universe which the laws of thermodynamics seem to abhor.
One thing, though, is quite certain: life, in speciality human life, is quite impossible in their presence. Therefore, whatever the consequence, we will have to face our life without them; and so without the prospect of eternity in our lives - if one can call the complete disappearance of everything 'eternity'. And it is no wonder that we came upon the stage only when everything else was ready and order had been created.
However, since something, for the moment at least, obviously does exist, and since we, for the moment at least, obviously do exist, let us look at the details - if only for recreational purposes:
The laws of thermodynamics, which govern all creation (at least all
that we know of), state that, since the creation of the universe,
In more detail, the first and second law of thermodynamics therefore stipulate:
This implies that, left to themselves,
And so on.
Whether the universe will dissolve or collapse, whether the universe will
suffer from a heat death or a cold death in the end, whether it will burn
up or freeze over and whether the heat will ever be distributed evenly, is
still an open question - just as open as the question whether one should
describe the latter as 'heat' or 'cold' and if such a name makes any sense
in this context.
However, if all of this is true - if everything in the universe
is self-degrading, does not get done by itself, slowly comes to a halt, get
more disorderly over time and does not sort itself out - then where
does the potential come from, by which we live? The original order?
How can anything self-degrade, which has not been graded, how can anything exist, which did not get done in the first place? How can something which the Bible so aptly calls "chaos", come to a halt, if it never got moving? How can complete disorder become even more disorderly over time without first sorting itself out?
But even putting aside the theoretical problems of comprehension - one look at your surroundings, at Heaven and Earth, indeed at one's own self, in one word: at creation, at the things that be, will show anyone who believes that he or she is not under delusion of existence (which then would render any thought about said existence superfluous), that the universe, since the days of its creation, is not a chaos, but the complete opposite of chaos.
In Fact, the universe is a veritable parade of gradation, of
self-organisation, of energy potential, of order and is characterised by
a clear separation of things that are and those that are not (this self-organised
order, as it follows possible paths, not pre-determined ones, is what
we now call "chaos" - order is chaos and chaos is order).
Furthermore, the universe is clearly and distinctly in motion and as it seems to us, possibly even simultaneously expanding, sorting itself out, picking up momentum and cooling off, in any way seeming to defy the most fundamental laws of thermodynamics which are supposed to govern it.
If these laws, which should govern all creation, have governed it (at least) from the beginning of time (and they would not be the universal laws they are otherwise), then clearly they have not been very successful in doing what they should have done and at what they are so good at when it comes to governing life on Earth.
One solution to this dilemma can be stated thus: Obviously, there are other forces at work in the universe which seem to counteract the laws of thermodynamics or at least balance them out.
Taking up the old Yin - Yang - idea of necessary complementaries,
one could construct a table of opposites which would seem to
correspond:
Crude Table 1
| State caused by the universal working of thermodynamics: | The opposing state, in existence or at work at this same moment in time: | |||
| Disorder (disorganisation) | - | Order (organisation) | ||
| Entropy (loss of potential) | - | Negentropy (gain of potential) | ||
| Self-diminishing processes | - | Self-augmenting processes | ||
| Dissipation of energy | - | Concentration of matter | ||
| Consumption of energy | - | Release of energy | ||
| Source of motion: | Source of motion: | |||
| Energy | - | Gravity |
Crude as this may be, this brings to mind that there
is something which is at least as fundamental and powerful in ruling the
universe as are the laws of thermodynamics: gravity.
Maybe this could be called the second
principle.
Gravity is a
property of all matter. It is not driven by energy, though it
can, and does, accelerate bodies.
This process is self-augmenting, at least as long as there is enough matter
to feed it, and possibly even beyond that. Therefore, other than in processes
ruled by thermodynamics, in processes ruled by
gravity (and even possibly some others, such as electrostatic,
magnetic or some forms of subatomic forces; the latter may even be the secret
to life itself, but shall not be a matter of discussion here):
There is even creation of energy by motion - this in fact could be
seen as the source of all energy. Furthermore, this process is
self-accelerating.
In consequence, there could - in principle - be perpetual motion if there was a perfect balance and no creation or release of energy (which is fictional).
Left to itself, gravity creates a higher state of order by separating
matter from non - matter, and while thus concentrating and compressing
it, creates or releases mechanical heat and energy, which grades this matter
even further (if so by chemical reaction; in this there is a certain order
of sequence), possibly even igniting the matter itself to turn it into energy,
which then dissipates and is ruled by the universal laws of thermodynamics,
or rather, calls them into being - or better still, interaction.
Further concentrations of gravity may or may not then even trap this self - released energy (again), but this need not be a matter of discussion here, as there are even more unanswered questions: The universal laws of thermodynamics rule an expanding universe. Would they rule a collapsing one? If an expanding universe is an open system, however uselessly producing eternity by making time and space travel ever more impossible, and a static one is a closed system prone to thermodynamic heat death, what would we call a once again collapsing one? Is there a third state of being after 'open' and 'closed'? 'Negative'?
This motion is not ruled by the laws of thermodynamics, as there are no
thermodynamics involved.
This motion does not need or consume energy.
It creates and releases energy, first by accelerating matter,
then by destroying it - while by the way creating waste product matter that
constitutes this planet, ourselves and everything in the solar system apart
from the Sun (which strangely enough concentrates the lightest and most
primordial of all matter in the center of the system). Thermodynamics become
involved only in the result of that primary motion.
Apart from the interesting and romantic fact that we are indeed made of stardust, gravity in stars causes the lightest and simplest of matter or element (hydrogen) to gradually turn into they heaviest and most complex one (matter or element, not material), while destroying some of it and releasing it (not using it!) as energy, and that heavy matter at the end of the chain (uranium, plutonium) is so instable as to in itself spontaneously release energy (the question, if the reverse is possible, i. e. the construction of matter by the trapping of energy, shall not be discussed here).
Given what we know, gravity can be looked upon as that source of negentropy
which allows the laws of thermodynamics to be and rule the flow of energy.
These intricate interactions of thermodynamics and gravity can be observed
in our own solar system: the concentrated mass of the Sun keeps the planets
revolving around its center by its very gravity, while on the other hand
the energy generated by that same gravity and particles accelerated by this
energy released and dissipating from the solar center (what we call 'solar
wind' and 'light'), for one thing, by its pressure, keeps a cloud
of interstellar dust and debris outside of the planet's paths, thus allowing
a time of somewhat undisturbed life on them (if at all possible) and at the
same time delivering the energy for that very life exist to by.
Gravity may be at the root of energy, but that is then ruled by the laws
of thermodynamics.
The opposite pairs in that first crude table describe the universal preliminaries we live and exist by. (Which, one day, may too be set into some beautifully neat little formula like E = mc2. This would not necessarily make us mightier. We cannot bend the laws of thermodynamics, which rule our life, and we most probably could not control gravity, a property of sheer existence.)
With that mental stumbling block (where does everything come from?) somewhat out of the way, we can now take a closer look at the workings (how does it work?) of thermodynamics:
We are part of a thermodynamic system, consisting of the Sun as a
source of energy, dissipating that into the universe surrounding the solar
system which acts as an energy sink, and our comparatively small wet twirling
granite marble bathing in that energy flow, absorbing a little bit of that
energy mostly on the sunlit side and dissipating it again mostly on the unlit
side (mostly, since weather and reflection account for the rest).
Anyone who has had the fortune to witness a solar eclipse knows what it feels like when that benign dynamo is taken off the power line. The lights are snapped off, and a veritable cloth of death spreads itself over the face of the Earth. The darkest of nights cannot compare to that deep, eternal, cold, darkness. Our dependency becomes very clear, and medieval people would rightly have been frightened to death by such an experience.
The solar energy pouring out of the Sun accounts for life on Earth past and present, it accounts for the surplus of energy we are firing and for almost all energy-driven motion (it does not, for instance, move the tides or tidal power plants; that is down directly to gravity).
The question may be if this is necessarily so.
No, it is not.
The planet Earth itself, being hotter than the surrounding space by its own gravity, could, for instance, account for a thermodynamic energy source, and nuclear energy of any kind puts the copy of an energy source driven by the destruction of matter into the hands of man. That would be a different world, but a possible one.
Would things be very much different otherwise?
Putting aside the problems which such use of energy might create, a simple change in the source of energy would not change much, since either which way, humans and their economy are driven by energy, not gravity itself. So is every other form and action of life on Earth as well as of most of the inanimate motion and deformation on the surface of the Earth (that begins to change a few feet below the surface).
It does not matter if we do not - yet - understand how this happens in detail (and therefore cannot - yet - copy it).
It suffices to say that these are the processes governed by the universal laws of thermodynamics which we can neither change, bend, staple, mutilate or escape from.
Applied to life, in speciality animal life, in even greater speciality human
life, on Earth or otherwise, this means, without any possibility of escape:
The second law of thermodynamics tells us that furthermore, in order not
to come to a standstill and, if alive, thereby die:
For living and active systems, there is a third:
In everything we do,
And therefore:
It is astounding how often these simple and known facts are put out of the
human mind.
As a human being:
In fact,
And so on.
But as we do not like it, we tend to twist the truth to suit our need
for self-esteem.
Twisting it back again, we would find that, notwithstanding the fact that
the provision and turnover of work is absolutely necessary to survive
as energy-driven thermodynamic entities,
Crude Table 2
| the words: | in effect really mean: |
| That person is a source of energy | That person consumes a lot of energy |
| That person is a creator of things | That person destroys a lot |
| That person is orderly | That person hides his mess well |
| That person is a hard worker | That person is a great consumer |
| That person does a lot of work | That person consumes a lot of work |
| That person feeds him - or herself | That person is sponging somewhere |
| That person feeds a lot of people | That person may be starving a lot of other people |
| That person can sustain him - or herself | That person most certainly cannot sustain him - or herself |
This may sound quite silly at first, and it is only a crude allusion.
But since most people are deeply convinced that not only do they sustain
themselves by their own work, but whole families and communities, it is sometimes
necessary to remind them that they do not.
No thermodynamic entity in the universe could to so.
Any number of humans put in an enclosed space left to fend for themselves
and "sustain themselves by their own work" will inevitably die, and
will die even faster for so trying, as, without an external energy source
and an external energy sink, the thermodynamic entity called human being
will, by working, only use up its reserves faster. But die it will,
in any case.
The illusion that humans sustain themselves by their own work is created
by happily forgetting the fact that every one of us alive has to have an
energy source and a sink, and through the inevitable thermodynamic heat loss
will have to consume far more energy than he or she can turn into useful
heat and motion, and therefore most certainly will consume more energy than
he or she can put to use.
In fact, we put out energy in the dimension of a few percent of the energy we consume. This can not only be measured, but seen in the many tons of biochemicals we have to force through our intestines and turn into waste just to form and keep alive a hundred kilos or so of living matter for as long as we are able to do so. When we cannot any more degrade, i. e. digest, we die.
This, too, is a manifestation of the second law of thermodynamics.
To make another point clear: Not even a farmer can feed himself, let alone feed others.
No person in the world, furiously pedaling on a bicycle-driven dynamo
feeding at best a 100 watt light bulb, can even dream of coming anywhere
close to producing enough light to grow the very food to keep him or herself
pedaling, not even under the most sophisticated circumstances. He or she
will miss that goal by several orders of magnitude - and perish.
The impossibility of this feat in principle, too, is stipulated by
the second law of thermodynamics. It is universally impossible.
What goes for the single person, goes for society as a whole, as numbers do not alleviate the problem.
So let it be said, for once and for all, that, for the reasons described
above, no society in the world is able to "sustain itself".
Any economic system conceivable that postulates self-sustainability and more is, has been, and will be doomed to fast and utter failure.
The consequence of such an attempt usually has been mass death by starvation.
And what goes for the single economy, goes for the world as a whole,
as, again, numbers do not alleviate the problem.
This, by the way, does not touch the issue of what is termed 'sustainable development' or the like, as that does not mean self-sustainability in the physical sense, but quite the opposite.
What it does touch upon is the issue that, caught in a strait, real or imagined, humans will automatically assume that they can pull themselves out of the swamp by their own hair, as in Muenchhausen's Tales, and tend to propagate this idea to others - blindly overlooking that fact that, even in that context, this was a lie. It is a feat completely impossible, and therefore has never been performed.
Archemedes, to be able to move the world, needed not only a fixed point, but it had to be outside of this world. Just as an engine will not run in a sealed compartment, nor a human live, all thermodynamic entities need an open system to perform, with sources and sinks outside of themselves. The idea that this can be short-circuited to become self-sustained is completely false.
From the eremite to the world economy: What
sustains you is the fact that you use up far more energy than you put out
(even if this is the wrong expression, because the energy is always balanced),
that you have an external source for this energy that you do not have to
fill, and that you have a place to get rid of your mess that you do not have
to empty, and that it had in certain circumstances better not be the same
place.
It is a
* kWh = kilowatt-hours, a measure for physical energy (potential work) and / or work performed. In thermodynamics, the input of energy in a work process is always higher than the resulting output of work; the difference has to be lost as heat to the environment (the energy sink). One kWh equals 860 kcal (kilocalories) or 3400 BTU (British Thermal Units) and will bring about ten liters of water to boiling point.
Even if the material or ideal work output can be deemed as economically
more "valuable" than the input (as in "shoes are more valuable than
their leather" or "a solved problem is more valuable than an unsolved
one"), there is always a loss of energy which has to be replenished by
an external source which in turn suffers a loss. Furthermore, no work process
comes without an added loss in itself: there is always wasted material or
wasted energy (such as heat through bending a wire). Without this loss no
work would have been performed (maybe even wasted time should be considered,
but its passage seems to be undisturbed by a work process; strangely enough,
though, while the momentum gained by a body through a certain drop in
gravitational altitude depends on that difference in altitude, the time it
takes to achieve that momentum does not).
This way, in human economics, (only) a real, physical loss or destruction of energy potential is turned into or calculated as an economic gain. This may be all right - as long as there is something left to destruct.
We pride ourselves in our constructions and the amount of exertion that goes into them. That the destruction of order is an arduous task is no contradiction to the fact that it is a heavily loss-making process; it is important that we cannot (re-)produce the order we destroy in the process of construction, and that, according to the laws of thermodynamics, the original order is worth more than the result of this construction. Our constructions are secondary constructions and on balance constitute a process of destruction.
And as we turn over as much energy as never before, we can imply that thereby as much work is being performed as never before, even if not always by human beings; and that by doing so we are destroying as much as has never before been destroyed in a like space of time.
Crude Table 3
| Rough period of time: | Human thermodynamic activity: | Highest or sole source of energy: |
| 10 000 years | Hunting, fishing and gathering | Recent solar energy |
| 5 000 years | Intensified hunting and gathering (herding and agriculture) | Recent solar energy |
| 2 000 years | Agriculture and charcoal forging | Recent and stored solar energy |
| 200 years | Coal-driven industry and farming | Fossil solar energy |
| 100 years | Oil- and gas- driven industry and farming | Fossil solar energy |
| ? years | Nuclear-driven industry and farming | Artificial solar or planetary energy |
The only thermodynamic difference between individual people and individual
societies which are beyond starvation and have not yet suffered waste congestion
is the amount of energy they consume, the magnitude of their energy
source and the magnitude of their energy dump.
This energy, regardless in what form it is consumed, is measured in calories, kWh, BTU... and other thermal units. For humans, it is usually provided for by nature or agriculture. However, the same fat, oil, corn, rice or wheat we consume can be - and sometimes is - burned to fire a steam turbine.
The great feat of modern agriculture is
to have reversed this by turning petroleum (or petra-oleum,
rock or mineral oil) back into vegetable oil via synthetic
nitrogen compounds, heating and other forms of energy input with the added
help of some solar energy.
It is said that modern agriculture thereby consumes more energy than it actually puts at our disposal.
Strictly speaking, it has always done so; following the laws of thermodynamics (at least in this point), only a small part of the solar energy that hits an agricultural field is finally stored in carbohydrates.
Modern agriculture now only uses up more chemical energy resources than it puts at our disposal. From a source of carbohydrates it has turned into a sink for carbohydrates while producing more carbohydrates than ever before. This is one example of what is expressed in the second crude table.
We cannot create.
We can only destroy.
THAT is the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Two things should be noted: Up to now, the periods in which a certain energy
source remained the primary one and the human thermodynamic activity concentrated
on a certain method of turnover seem to be becoming shorter (with no claims
to the future).
But of more importance is the fact that to remain stable over a long period of time, growth had to remain at a minimum.
[In fact, a study of the OECD for the year 2000 seems to come to the
result that 'economic growth' is quite a young phenomenon in the history
of mankind. Looking at the economic growth of the years 0 to 1998, it came
to the conclusion that the income per head stayed more or less stable world-wide
until about 1800, economic growth keeping more or less in step with the growth
of the world population. After about 1780, economic growth becomes independent
and increases by a yearly average of about 2%. This is interpreted as an
enormous acceleration through the industrialisation of production on the
basis of fossilized energy.
It has been calculated that, up to the year 1800, people lived on an average
of $3 a day per head, worldwide, and this virtually
unchanged for more than 10,000 years ever since humans settled down to farm.
In advanced civilizations, as in ancient Rome or the ancient Chinese Empire,
this could increase to $6 or $7, only to fall back to $3, or even less, once that
had collapsed.
In other words, people lived on the edge of subsistence, and that everywhere.
This did not change until the eighteenth century - coinciding with the invention
of the steam engine. Since then, the average income in OECD countries has
risen to about $100 per day per capita, an increase of an incredible 2,900
per cent. Such an increase has never happened before in the history of the
world].
Human society, as are all societies depending on a natural environment, is
an ecological system which will expand until it reaches its optimum (just
below maximum) and stays there as long as there is no change in thermodynamic
activity.
Perhaps, also, the period of long-term equilibrium was already cut short
during the coal age and will therefore never be reached during the fossil
fuel age as a whole; but this is a field of speculation, as we are still
in that period and have in our history hardly ever been in true conscious
control of our energy consumption.
However, it should safe to assume that by the time these fossil fuels have replenished themselves (if ever), so little will be left of what humans had accomplished by their depletion that terming that achievement "growth" might be called somewhat euphemistic.
In fact, judging from their relative rate of decay, the Egyptian pyramids, built almost solely with recent solar energy, may remain the most reliable sign of human activity on this planet for some time yet.
Apart from the simple and easy, if perhaps romantic proof of human
destructiveness in any landscape now uninhabited by humans - even in
those places devoid of all life:
Do we not create houses, buildings, cities, bridges, cars?
Indeed we do, and very much more. And so, in their own way, do many
other living beings. And maybe even, by now, some inanimate machines.
But whatever we (and they) create, we (and they) leave a pile of mess, waste or disorder behind which is greater than the pile of order we (and they) created - and which has then to be taken care of.
This is not only in form of waste material, but in form of used up, degraded or dissipated energy (which in itself of course is never lost in the momentary phase of creation; it therefore hangs around, making life more difficult, and causing us to use up even more - a self-augmenting process of the first kind).
To stay alive, and to be able to work, people must, by this very
work, tap into an energy source which delivers more energy than the work
needed to gain this energy.
If the person uses up more energy by working than he or she gains by this work, that person starves.
Cynically speaking, this would not really help, since even while slowly starving that person has been using up energy to the detriment of his or her surroundings. To keep from starving, he or she must use up far more energy, to the even greater detriment of the surroundings.
This may be why, in modern times, the purposeful extermination of people usually begins with their internment in "labor camps", only to be starved to death without further ado or forcefully killed there a short time later. Working people to death is costly; the "labor" in "labor camp" is just an excuse. For the same reason, forced labor is forbidden in societies that value human life (although it tends to creep in).
What is positive for the individual, is negative for the environment.
What is negative for the individual, is possibly only less negative
for the environment. You cannot escape.
And, again, it does not matter if you count the single person, a single society,
or the world population as a whole.
Considering or even not considering the undiscussed added net degradation
of materials caught up in the process of human creation:
And there is more:
However,
And this is not negotiable.
That is the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
It does not matter either whether gravity sets the thermodynamic preconditions
for work on Earth via the Sun, or otherwise, whether by water or wind power,
or bioenergy, whether via mills or working beasts or humans, or via gasoline
or diesel engines, or aircraft turbines, or steam engines: the result is
always the same. Only the form changes, in which energy from gravity
is thermodynamically transformed; like the chemical form of the carbohydrates
(even though fodder can be converted to gas and burned like mineral oil,
and mineral oil biochemically transformed into fodder). It really makes little
difference whether an animal or a human is treading the mill - or an engine
is running it.
In particular, the issue of "growth" has to be addressed. There has been no overall "growth" on this planet since billions of years, and therefore none in the last hundred.
There has been change, but the overall sum of all changes most probably
amounts to zero. The assumption that there have been gains, is just as valid
as the one that there have been losses.
It may not even be sure if the overall amount of living matter, or biomass, has risen or fallen, depending on whatever space of time is being examined.
Balanced systems do not grow. An individual tree may grow in a forest,
the forest itself, once grown, does not, if circumstances remain constant .
Not only does one thing grow at the expense of another, the growth of a tree,
for instance, may be influenced by, but is completely independent
of, the "work" of a thermodynamic entity such as a human being - but not
of the energy produced in the Sun through gravity.
On the other hand, the growth of a thermodynamic entity such as a human being, again for instance, is completely dependent on the previous growth of entities such as trees or potatoes.
Does a potato "work"?
With all these things in mind, the concept of economic growth,
founding on the work of the individual members of that economy, begins
to falter somewhat.
Of course, there is no question that things do happen, and that things are
done, and successfully so. This is not a question of fantasy or reality.
But what does "economic growth" really mean?
Our lives may be more complicated than that of a zebra, and our actions be on a larger scale than that of corals, ants and termites (even if that were doubtful - this is a question of principle, not of magnitude) but in effect we do little else.
Even a wandering, grazing zebra works; it moves, and its muscles consume energy, in the end just to rebuild itself. If it did'nt, it would die and decompose. The same is true, mutatis mutandis, for amoeba and bacteria - perhaps not for viruses. Or sometimes even for them? Sceptics may replace zebra with cow.
How would a zebra, an ant, a termite, or a coral define "economic growth"?
Or a potato?
And what would be the consequences?
Throwing a stone into the sky is work. That stone falling from the sky is not work. Carrying a brick up some stairs is work. Carrying it down again is work as well: both use up energy potential. Letting that brick drop from the high-stair window is not work, but generates energy potential (as can be observed by the ensuing hole in the ground).
Evaporating water is work. That water falling from the sky to run our power stations is not work. Sunlight falling from the sky is not work, but the opposite of work. Both enable work to be done, the latter for example by evaporating the water.
Running mechanical appliances powered with electricity generated by falling water, again, is the performance of work.
Digging a hole is work. Filling that hole again (i.e. undoing it ) is work as well, albeit perhaps less than digging it - it does not replenish the resources consumed by digging it, but consumes further resources. The only consequence of tracelessly opening and closing a hole in the ground is the irretrievable depletion of resources.
Leaving it to forces driven by gravity to, within the passage of time, level the ground again (or in general destroy the artifacts of man, usually erected against the force of gravity, which in turn indirectly delivers the thermodynamic power to do so) reduces the work load by achieving the same effect without thermodynamics.
It seems that, directly or indirectly, all work is performed against the force of gravity. In a way, (constructive) gravity can be looked upon as the one agent which generally tends to destroy work or the result of (destructive) work (or entropy): gravity destroys work and thus enables it to be done, by giving it new room.
Even the clearing of a muddy puddle by the clay sinking to the ground is a result of gravity, and may have given some ancient observers some food for thought about creation and the force that divided the Earth from the waters - or today, when looking at the spontaneous separation, stratification and clarification of water, mud, sand and stones stirred under the influence of gravity in a glass jar. The order is increased without an energy supply; more so, only if energy is not introduced by shaking or stirring the mixture. The process of separation must therefore be actively prevented, i. e. thermodynamically, by an input of energy. Now, is this formation of order, under the influence of gravity, necessarily accompanied by a release of energy? Not as much as a meteorite impact, certainly - but could it still be experimentally measured?
Following the laws of thermodynamics, heated air expands and rises
against the force of gravity; gravity on the other hand compresses
the atmosphere from top to bottom irrespective of temperature. Air, according
to the laws of thermodynamics, should be cool and compressed at ground level
and warm and decompressed at high altitudes. As anyone knows, this not
necessarily the case. Even if the universe had a common average temperature
throughout, the atmospheres would still be seeming to defy the laws of
thermodynamics by having, through the forces of gravity, various degrees
of pressure at a common temperature.
The one thing that gravity does not directly generate is
money - though strangely enough this money, while being the most
immaterial of all commodities, tends to self-aggregate like matter: money
comes to money, as it is said.
Our economy is driven by
thermodynamics.
Only the depletion of energy resources generates
(monetary) wealth and debt at the same time, regularly making the country
with the highest efficient thermodynamic energy consumption not only
the most powerful, but simultaneously the richest and most in debt.
Debt and wealth are generated in equal magnitude by working - although perhaps unevenly distributed, overall they amount to zero.
The intricacies of modern economy on which the adepts capriciate
themselves hide one simple fact: To reap gains, the producer has to pass
his debt (the original credit) on to his customer, and that is where it usually
stays, albeit perhaps parked in the public domain.
One detail of this mechanism is that in an allegedly labour-wage driven market economy, no matter on what scale, the consumer (who else?), through the price of the product and out of his wages, has to pay for his own wages plus overhead and gains. As this is mathematically impossible, it leaves a difference to be covered by debt and insolvency. Of course, the overhead and gains constitute income as well; but that part of them which constitute monetary wealth, constitute monetary debt to the same extent. In a true economy, the paycheck, the bank note or bank account is a loan which has to be destroyed, nullified or written off in the end.
This is not a minor problem, as it forms the backdrop of financial congestion and in-fighting; the inevitable writing off of such debt automatically writes off credit, i.e. monetary wealth in equal magnitude. However, it is a secondary one. Material wealth will remain untouched, if it is not materially destroyed, for instance in an ensuing war.
The real problem is calling this mechanism "economic growth" - by
first ignoring debt, and, furthermore, ignoring the laws of thermodynamics
it is embedded in.
One of the signs that economics have thermodynamic preconditions is the fact that even economists know the "law of diminishing returns", which states that profits are easiest achieved in new markets, where new sources exist and the costs have not yet built up. The plundering of natural gold deposits and oil fields accumulated over time is much more rewarding than costly mining. This corresponds to the depletion of the energy source and sink in a thermodynamic process.
In fact, the postulation of economic growth tends to ruin financial
systems. It does so by inflating (monetary) surplus and deficit.
The winner may be the one who first (or again) constructs an economic system that does not depend on growth or at least accounts for the losses that balance out the gains, i.e. describes and controls change, not growth. In the end, the customer (the consumer) has all, and pays all.
Our balance sheets do not describe the material change or material wealth
generated by applied thermodynamics, but monetary wealth, and tend to
forget, for instance, to consider the monetary debt generated in equal amount.
In short, they describe inflation. They should describe zero-growth, i.e.
balance out to zero.
This change, over time, is only a forced change in the extent and method thermodynamics are applied on this planet. All forced change is temporary. Of course, for that period of time, it makes a noticeable difference if and how for instance fossil or nuclear energy is released.
The trouble with financial systems that concentrate on
percentage and growth is that they strangely tend to overlook the absolute,
and consequently call relative and temporary developments absolutes in
themselves.
However, the "law of diminishing returns" only applies to the economic, i.e. balance sheets concentrating on the relative; an economic system relying on internal profits will stop before it reaches a return of zero. This does not stop the thermodynamic entities within it, who rule their lives by economic balance sheets, from consuming to stay existent, and therefore going into (economic) debt. In fact, this discrepancy (and the debt) is built in from the very beginning, but seems negligible as long as profits outrun the costs, which then accumulate and grow over time, finally overtaking the profits. This stems from the fact that there is no net profit in a thermodynamic process, and work is a thermodynamic process. Therefore, the "law of diminishing returns" should be replaced or supplemented by a Second Law of Economics: The "Law of Insufficient Returns":
No economic system based on work can ever sustain itself, or produce a net gain.
Humans, whatever they do, are always net consumers. Singled
out or in their multitude, they are not needed to keep the thermodynamic
processes on this planet in action. In fact, they are not even needed to
keep their own thermodynamic processes alive.
The inability to accept this constitutes one of the greatest problems of human society and leads to recurring crisis. Human existence can not be justified by its necessity, and it is useless to try to work yourself out of that dilemma.
If this were otherwise, there would be no poverty or starvation in the
world, as every exertion would necessarily reap rewards, and the
countries with the highest populations would indeed be the wealthiest;
in fact, children (or slaves) would be a true source of commercial wealth.
Alas, this would constitute a perpetuum mobile forbidden within the laws of thermodynamics; world population, instead of being fed by ever higher and more efficient use of external energy, would feed itself, with every consequence conceivable.
As it is, human labour is not an asset, but a cost, always has been,
and always will be. It is only then economically justified if employing it
is to secure access, directly or indirectly, to sufficient external energy
resources.
In fact, the underlying cost of human life stems from the fact that the vitally necessary steady work performed by the human body, and be it only the beating of the heart, comes at a price.
Seen economically, humans are indeed "costs on two legs"; seen from the physics point of view, they can even be described as "losses on legs". But then, so are animals and machines; with or without legs.
Following the laws of thermodynamics, no economy can survive that depends
solely on service, or, indeed, any other form of human or other labour. No
such economy could even come into being. The idea that such an economy ever
existed is aroused by ignoring the energy supplied by its surroundings.
Completely ruled by and dependent on thermodynamics as we are, half of
what we live by does not constitute "work", and the other half seems to be
instigated by something other than work - "work" meaning a thermodynamic
turnover of energy.
Apart from the political and sometimes deadly, indeed murderous consequences
of the misconception of work as an instrument to ensure a net gain, the
thermodynamic turnover of energy instigated by humans has reach a dimension
where it is beginning to affect the global energy balance and interfere with
the conditions of human existence in itself.
Time has come to sort these things out, to define the meanings of unclear
terms and to re-address our balance sheets.
© JHR 01/2005
Last revised:
23.11.2018
Go to my guestbook / further readings
^ Mythology:
Sysiphos (the impossibility to achieve the end of it), and maybe in future,
Chernobyl (what happens if we try).
The beginning of everything
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Everything has become by the Word, and without the Word nothing has become."
Thus it is in one of the oldest writings of mankind. But what does it mean? Let us look at the following in summary:
In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth; but the Earth was desolate and confused. God separated the light from the darkness; and God separated the water below the vault from the water above the vault. Then God said, "The water below the sky shall gather together in one place, so that the dry can be seen". The dry he called land, and the gathered water he called the sea. God saw, it was good.
The history of creation, in one of the oldest writings of mankind, is the description of the creation of all that is, through order; in which God, or whatever, separates things from each other, sets them apart from each other, and thus defines them and allows them to be named. The power that accomplishes this in the universe is called gravity.
And the opposition to the creator of order we call diabolos, the devil, "he who messes things up". Or Lucifer, the light-bringer: As in thermo-dynamics.
^ Further insights and discussions:
Entropy and economySo, I am asking you to follow me with this idea; that the bell curve is a "natural" behavior of production for non renewable or slowly renewable resources. With "natural" I mean that it is the way the system is expected to behave when there are no strong interferences from political or other kind of perturbations. Then, I said that we should look at the inner mechanisms that make the economy behave in this way. I believe that we don't need to invent a brand new law, as Newton did for gravity. We already have the laws we need - even though so far we failed to apply them to this case. These are the laws of thermodynamics. Here are the three laws in a simplified form:
- You can't win
- You can't get even
- You can't quit the game
That is, of course, very simplified! There are even simpler versions. For instance, for economists it would be just a blank slide (sorry, I said no economist-bashing!). Before going on, let me tell you that this is a new idea that is moving forward nowadays- the idea of applying thermodynamics to the economy. More exactly, to apply "non equilibrium thermodynamics" (NET) to the economic system. It is a work in progress. So, what I'll be telling you is still tentative, but I do believe that we are on the right track.
Now let me show you this image of a waterfall:
And now let me ask you a question: what makes water fall? You'll say it is gravity; and that is correct. But there is a deeper factor here - this movement is eventually generated by the laws of thermodynamics. Nothing escapes thermodynamic laws. It is a question that I ask to my students, sometimes: how do you explain that water flows down in thermodynamic terms. It is difficult for them to find the answer right away, and yet they have studied thermodynamics. So, let me tell you; water flows down because of the second law - the entropy one.
- End of citation -
^ Negentropy (a personal
comment):
This idea seems to have been originally expressed by the Austrian physicist Erwin Schroedinger in chapter VI in a book called "What is Life", published 1944, in which he also states the Sun to be the source of that order (he does not, however, state gravity as the source of that order within the Sun).
There seems to some agreement that, in order to be able to explain why living beings are highly ordered entities and have, with time, become more and more ordered and complex throughout evolution, one has to state a "local exception" from second law of thermodynamics somewhat along the following lines:
"The Sun produces positive entropy ("disorder") over there, therefore we can have negative entropy ("order") locally over here on Earth"
No. There are no exceptions. The Sun itself, through its very own gravity, produces a higher order (negative entropy), for instance in forming many discreet chemical elements out of just one, hydrogen; and, as Schroedinger suggests, it dissipates this "order" into the surrounding space in the form of electromagnetic waves and particles, where it is intercepted by the planet Earth and locally used by its living beings.
Therefore, with its help, so it is said further, we can produce order (negative
entropy) - as long as the Sun does so: all our energy comes from the Sun.
However, this is not quite true: we, nature, and therefore evolution,
do not produce order or negative entropy; we simply consume and
store it. Our genes, for instance, are a small cupboard of stored order,
accumulated over a billion years - and without our doing, it could be added.
Indeed, looking at what distinguishes crystals from living matter (both are able to grow and, in a way, reproduce their own pattern) it may be that crystals represent a saturated, rather tight-fitting, low-energy composition by precipitation of molecules or atoms, while living matter on the contrary can only move and reproduce itself by "never being satisfied", i. e. always having a "hole" or "gap" or energy deficiency somewhere in its molecular chain, which, when filled or completed or complemented, rips open a (similar or different) hole, gap, or deficiency somewhere else, at best the same one further up the chain, thus reproducing itself endlessly by what we may deem as "hunger".
In fact, should a newly docking molecule NOT produce or leave another deficiency,
the "living molecule" is probably energetically smothered once and for all
by having its "hunger" satisfied and would instantly be reduced to dead organic
material (alternatively, decomposing by falling apart is another form of
death). A "living molecule" has therefore to be sufficiently complicated
and twisted and so under tension as to never be "satisfied".
I do not know how far Schrödinger extended his view to cover fossil fuels as well. But as we ourselves produce or rather exude CO2 when metabolising, or, indeed, decomposing, this can be used to measure the amount of disorder on this planet.
It seems to me that, over time, only a finite amount of order has accumulated on this planet, and we are possibly destroying it by consumption faster than it can be replenished, and this by several orders of magnitude.
But even if both plants and humans were to turn over and release the respective energy received to 100% (an impossible feat), humans would still only able to just sustain themselves by working day and night without the chance of even clothing themselves with anything else but their own hair. They would not even be capable of reproduction, as any loss of substance or energy - or, indeed, the need to grow - would require extra resources surpassing 100%.
As this extra energy is our real source of income, losing our access to highly concentrated mineral oil by global depletion and / or its substitutes will cut our income greatly on a world - wide basis, as many alternatives may have been depleted by that time as well - so I suppose. And it may come as a blow.
As we live by wasting, roughly calculated, something like 99 % of the energy we receive on our behalf, taking account of the millions of energy units of stored solar energy we are now releasing (ultimately into the atmosphere and then back into outer space), and looking back to the hard-working days of purely agrarian society, we probably stand to lose, equally roughly calculated, about 90 % of our income; and that world-wide and for a very long time.
We could not generate our present income relying on human labour, not even by enslaving all of humanity.
^ Comment 1:
Who knows? Maybe they even actively cool the planet by doing so, and maybe that is their primary role: to cool the planet while and by stuffing carbohydrates (hydrocarbons) underground. When these are burned by foolish humans, that energy is on the whole released as long-wave infrared heat radiation of lesser energy potential (as so happens by eating them), so overall there seems to have been no violation…
It may be that not life depends on plants doing what they are able to do (ours does up to now), but that plants depend on life in doing what they are able to do.
As it seems, plants were not the first form of life on this planet, but rather a follow-up, evolving out of what ever there was there before; and that the first degradation of energy potential to turn a matrix of molecules in a warm muddy clay puddle into living matter was not of sunlight, but of lightning and volcanic heat, and that this continued for quite some time, until the first complex green chlorophyll molecule finally evolved that could catch and trap the energetic photons of the sunlight beating on the waters of the primary ocean, but that in itself certainly seems not to have been the first living matter on Earth - it does not even live by itself; so, even if life did develop in the sunlight, it did so without green plants at first and so obviously did not depend on that specific mechanism.
Green chlorophyll in itself seems to be an end product of molecular evolution, having, once evolved into its effective form, quite rapidly invaded every wet or moist place on the planet and proceeded to break down millions of megatons of carbon dioxide over more than a billion years, for ever changing the surface of the Earth while in itself hardly or not at all changing over that period of time.
If industry could find some way of for turning mineral water into soda pop by exposing it to energy over an inanimate catalyst, it would probably do so immediately.
Especially if that would violate the second law, as this would open an access to unlimited energy potential.
^ Comment 2:
This relation becomes even worse when turning from physical labour to routine evaluation, representation, accounting or the like. Anything else, even human interaction, seems to be up for grabs.
Of course, this average human physical working week of about 1 kWh is
somewhat fictional and it describes the sheer mechanical work output; the
necessary energy intake is given at about 20 times that amount (20 kWh
per week), which leaves an efficiency of about 5%; machines run at 30%. The
maximum turnover for athletes is given at about 10 kWh per day, the
maximum steady output of hard labour at about 1 kWh per day.
[ This amount seems comparatively tiny; and it is. For on the other hand, one square meter of soil in central Europe receives enough sunlight to technically harvest roughly 1000 kWh per annum; which would equate to one square meter of farmland being able to keep one human alive in central Europe. Of course, this is not true; in reality, it takes about 1000 square meters, so it is said; and that to generate the necessary food only. If you divide the amount of arable land on this planet by the number of people on it, the result is said to be 2000 square meters available per person, so we already in the region of the limit - if theses numbers be true. If your labor does not give you access to the products of 1/4 acre of sunlit arable soil at least for the food alone, you are only working yourself to death. But, as is mentioned further on, external energy is already being employed to pick up the tab ]
Turn it which way you will: no human is able to feed himself, and may not
even do so according to the laws of thermodynamics without freezing to death
instantly (and all of these calculations even depend upon everybody working
flat out, including newlyborns).
But there is yet worse to come: this does not influence industrial work alone, but the external energy needed to keep living beings alive, which has been provided by the Sun for millennia, has for the last century partly been replaced by fossil fuels, causing, among other things, world population to jump by roughly doubling the supply of food in the so-called 'green revolution'.
Farming, in the developed world, has turned from a net provider (or consumer) of solar energy -in which land ownership was and is crucial- to a net consumer of fossil fuels; some sources put the relation at one to five, i.e. five times more wh of fossilized energy than is provided by direct solar energy is contained in every kWh provided by the food in highly industrialised agriculture, others at one to ten; but even one to one would be worrying. It is estimated that in pre-industrialised societies humans used about four to five times the amount of external energy needed to feed themselves; now it is forty to fifty times that amount.
Having reached peak oil and gas production, this supply will begin to wane, while the world population will probably continue to rise for some time. What we have come to term "economic growth" is largely due to and has developed parallel to the consumption of fossil fuels, first coal, then oil and gas. Putting economic growth down to growth in consumption of energy is probably not wrong. In other words, a drop in the consumption of energy will probably lead to economic regression.
Already today, some countries in the so-called developing world, far from developing, are unable to generate enough income to pay for their energy imports, rendering them chanceless.
This is enhanced by the fact that energy is energy, which creates
a tendency for nations or corporations to subsidise their agriculture as
soon as they are able to so. This cheapens the food for their own people
or customers by subsidising, more or less directly, the diffuse and limited
solar energy with concentrated fossil or nuclear energy, making it impossible
to compete for those who are not able to do so.
And, of course, our cities will fall into disrepair, as industrial nations are currently using the equivalent work force of ten to thirty times their own population to build and maintain them.
And this has happened before: the ancient Roman Empire, having no access to or concept of fossil fuels, once it had de-forested most of mediterranean Europe, lost its prowess for steel and mortar production, was overrun by primitive swamp dwellers and woodland tribes, and all but disappeared from the face of the Earth, leaving goats to graze amongst its ruins on the hills of Rome for nearly a thousand years and the inhabitants of Europe slowly to work their way out of the proverbial and very real dark ages, while biofuels were equally slowly replenishing themselves around them.
^ Comment 3:
Some undigested thoughts on cryptocurrency, 2017/18
Read more:
On Minds: 10 points on creation in the universe, ongoing
as it is.
More on
Minds:
[ They have difficulty on some applications, as it would seem ]
(Alexis de Tocqueville, 1805 - 1859) - a contemporary of
Charles Robert Darwin, 1809 - 1882
Karl Heinrich Marx, 1818 - 1883
Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius, 1822 - 1888
Note
the dates
/ All
PDF Downloads
Thermodynamics, Gravity and Human Economics:
This
page as
PDF
How the world was laid to order:
Science,
Economy & Religion
[PDF]
Man is a creature, not a creator:
The
Physics of Theology
[PDF]
See also: The
Gravity 'Time Machine'
Go to :
The Encyclopedia of Human Thermodynamics
discussion forum
BBC Archives: Comments on the second law of thermodynamics (Forum)
Listen to:
The Second Law of Thermodynamics - the most
important thing you will ever know
From the BBC In Our Time Series on Thursday, 16. December 2004; Comments:
"Gravity produces negative entropy or order out of disorder"
"Energy and Gravity in the universe add up to Zero"
"Gravity stores negative energy"
- so I gather this is not entirely unknown... -
© JHR 01/2005
Last revised:
23.05.2020
(Of course, this is not TOE -the Theory Of
Everything- but A3, the Absolute
Answer to All :-))