Abstract
So far the flow of environmental goods (or the negative flow of entropy) from the ecological system into the economic system has not been closely specified. In the following we want to show how the problem of resource scarcity can be specified within the entropy approach. We start by taking note of the fact that the flow of environmental goods, carrying with it a negative flow of entropy into the economic system, contains also the raw materials needed for the manufacturing of the consumption and capital goods in the production sector. The supply of the economic system with raw materials from the environmental sector can therefore only be secured if the ecological system possesses the long-run capability of providing a negative flow of entropy into the economic system. This negative flow of entropy must correspond to the desires of the economic agents.
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Notes
In reality a 100% concentration of a mineral which is extracted from an ore is not feasible.
In reality, as a rule, it is hardly feasible that a perfect separation of the desired type of particles is achieved after a few processes. In the enrichment of uranium with the gas centrifugue procedure, for instance, several thousand extraction processes are necessary in order to win fissionable material.
This information is due to Dipl.-Ing. H.P.Lauff, Stahlwerke Peine-Salzgitter A.G., May 1981.
The first postulate describes that there is a linear relationship between the volume of a solid body and its mass (which is given by the specific density). The second postulate is known in gas theory as the Rule of AVOGADRO. According to this rule a given volume of gas always contains the same number of mols regardless of which gas is chosen and provided that conditions are the same.
A similar formula is derived by Chapman and Roberts (1983:91) for metals. The two authors also discuss the difficulties of applying this formula in practice.
This confirms the first derivation of equation (4.10) with regard to the initial concentration. For
We remind the reader that according to our comment on formula (3.8), the correct relationship should be TdS = dU-|∂A| instead of (4.13). |A here is the work which has been performed on the corresponding system. Since we have assumed, however, that the total energy is used to change the order of the system only, |∂A| = 0. We employ this simplified relationship since we are mainly interested in qualitative results.
An empirical illustration of some micro-and macroeconomic aspects of the relationship (4.19) and (4.21) is given by Faber and Wagenhals (1987, Sect. 3), who analyze data of a single copper mine in Chile and the total copper mine production of the United States.
It may be tempting to argue that resources which cannot be substituted are essential, i.e. that F (K, L, R = 0) = 0. As Dasgupta and Heal (1979:196ff.) show, however, this would be a mistake.
In a more detailed investigation — which would, however, considerably complicate our derivations above — this statement only holds if we take into consideration that the resources will be diffusely distributed in the environmental sector after having been used in the economic system. This relationship was already noted above in the context of our second example in Sect. 3.6.
This Section is based on parts of Sect. 3.2 of Faber (1985).
While we have concentrated on exhaustible resources, Murota (1984) has made an attempt to develop a framework for renewable resources, in particular with regard to water and forests.
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© 1995 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Faber, M., Niemes, H., Stephan, G. (1995). Using the Entropy Approach to Characterize the Environment as a Supplier of Resources. In: Entropy, Environment and Resources. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-57832-8_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-57832-8_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-58984-6
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