Energy, Complexity and Wealth Maximization

Robert Ayres (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

XXV, 593 Seiten

2016 | 1st ed. 2016
Springer International Publishing (Verlag)
978-3-319-30544-8 (ISBN)

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This book is about the mechanisms of wealth creation, or what we like to think of as evolutionary "progress." The massive circular flow of goods and services between producers and consumers is not a perpetual motion machine; it has been dependent for the past 150 years on energy inputs from a finite storage of fossil fuels. In this book, you will learn about the three key requirements for wealth creation, and how this process acts according to physical laws, and usually after some part of the natural wealth of the planet has been exploited in an episode of "creative destruction." Knowledge and natural capital, particularly energy, will interact to power the human wealth engine in the future as it has in the past. Will it sputter or continue along the path of evolutionary progress that we have come to expect? Can the new immaterial wealth of information and ideas, which makes up the so-called knowledge economy, replace depleted natural wealth? These questions have no simple answers, butthis masterful book will help you to understand the grand challenge of our time.
Praise for Energy, Complexity and Wealth Maximization:
"... people who run the modern world (politicians, economists and lawyers) have a very poor grasp of how it really works because they do not understand the fundamentals of energy, exergy and entropy ... those decision-makers would greatly benefit from reading this book ..." - Vaclav Smil, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of Manitoba
"... A grandiose design; impressive, worth reading and reflecting!" - Prof. Dr. Ernst Ulrich von Weizäcker, Founder of Wuppertal Institute; Co-President of the Club of Rome, Former Member of the German Bundestag, co-chair of the UN's Resource Panel
"... The book is a must read for concerned citizens and decision makers across the globe." - RK Pachauri, Founder and Executive Vice Chairman, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and ex-chair, International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

Professor Ayres holds a PhD in Mathematical Physics from Kings College, University of London, a MSc in Physics from the University of Maryland and a BA, BSc from the University of Chicago. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Economics and Political Science and of Technology and Operations Management at INSEAD, the international graduate business school.He joined INSEAD in 1992, becoming the first Novartis Chair of Management and the Environment, as well as the founder of CMER, Center for the Management of Environmental Resources. He directed CMER from 1992-2000. Since retirement he has been a visiting professor at Chalmers Institute of Technology in Sweden (where he was also a King's Professor) and Institute Scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria, He remains active, producing publications on topics ranging from Industrial Metabolisms and Industrial Ecology, through Environmental Policy and Environmental Economics, to Energy. Professor Ayres is the author or coauthor of 21 books, most recently including The Economic Growth Engine (2009, with Benjamin Warr), Crossing the Energy Divide (2009, with Edward Ayres) and The Bubble Economy (2014).

Preface.- Glossary of Terms.- Glossary of People.- Part I..- A Brief History of Ideas: Energy, Entropy and Evolution.- The Cosmos, the Sun and the Earth.- The Origin of Life.- Energy, Water, Climate and Cycles.- Summary of Part I: From the "Big Bang" to Nutrient Cycles.- Part II.- Energy and Technology.- The New World - and Science.- Energy, Technology and the Future.- Part III.- Mainstream Economics and Energy.- New Perspectives on Capital, Work, and Wealth.- Epilogue.- Appendix. Energy in Growth Theory.- References.

"Ayres does a great job in 'explaining energy or entropy to otherwise educated people' ... which was the starting point of this book. He not only illustrates the physical basics of thermodynamics in a very comprehensible way for non-physicists, but also points out the importance of energy for the evolution of mankind. Therefore, (energy) economists as well as people interested in the interdependency between physics, technology and economics will certainly enjoy reading this book." (Daniel Nachtigall, Journal of Economics, Vol. 121, 2017)

Erscheinungsdatum	24.08.2016
Reihe/Serie	The Frontiers Collection
Zusatzinfo	XXV, 593 p. 121 illus., 120 illus. in color.
Verlagsort	Cham
Sprache	englisch
Maße	155 x 235 mm
Themenwelt	Mathematik / Informatik ► Informatik ► Theorie / Studium
	Naturwissenschaften ► Physik / Astronomie ► Theoretische Physik
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Empirische Sozialforschung
Schlagworte	circular economy and limits to growth • Data-driven Science, Modeling and Theory Building • Economic Systems • Energy and Climate Change • energy and technology • energy, complexity, and economic growth • Energy Policy, Economics and Management • environmental effects of consumerism • exergy, entropy, and work • information, technology, and wealth creation • natural resource depletion • Natural resource economics • natural wealth depletion • Physics and Astronomy • Socio- and Econophysics, Population and Evolutiona • Steady-State Economy • the end of economic growth • thermodynamics • wealth and evolutionary progress
ISBN-10	3-319-30544-1 / 3319305441
ISBN-13	978-3-319-30544-8 / 9783319305448
Zustand	Neuware