Entropy, Environment and Resources

Abstract

In this book the authors analyze environmental protection and resource use. Not only economic but also natural scientific aspects are taken into consideration. With this interdisciplinary procedure an attempt is made to incorporate the irreversibility of economic processes. The special features of the book are that the authors utilize a natural scientific variable, entropy, to relate the economic system and the environment, that environmental protection and resource use are analyzed in combination, and that a replacement of techniques over time is analyzed. A novel aspect is that resource extraction is interpreted as a reversed diffusion process. Thus a relationship between entropy, energy and resource concentration is established. The authors investigate the use of the environment both as a supplier of resources and as a recipient of pollutants with the help of thermodynamic relationships.