John Bryant has researched extensively on the relationship between the disciplines of thermodynamics and economics, culminating in the production of a number of peer-reviewed and working papers and two books.
Entropy Man (2015)
A book by: John Bryant
Copyright: John Bryant VOCAT International Ltd
Chapter 1 Setting the Entropy Scene
describes by a series of scenes how entropy affects everything that humans have discovered about the world in which we live.
Chapter 2 A Short History of Human Development
charts the development of human-like primates from millions of years ago to the present ballooning of the human race and its dependence on technology, and the consumption of large amounts of energy and resources to support its style of living.
Chapter 3 Connecting to Economic Value
sets out the key research that links the discipline of economics to the science of energy/thermodynamics, including concepts such as embodied energy, productive content and the source of economic value.
Chapter 4 Economic Stocks and Flows
describes the similarities between thermodynamic representations of gas systems and economic concepts of price and volume flow, the distribution of income and wealth, elasticity and utility, and how the 1st and 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics can be formulated to convey the connections.
Chapter 5 Production and Consumption
constructs a simple thermodynamic representation of an economic production and consumption process, and develops links between economic entropy change, movements in output and the effects of constraints, and how energy and entropy fuel economic development.
Chapter 6 Money
formulates the relationships between economic entropy change, economic output and interest rates, backed up by analyses of quarterly data for the USA and UK economies over more than five decades.
Chapter 7 Labour & Unemployment
illustrates the connections between economic entropy change and unemployment, again illustrated by quarterly data of the USA and UK economies.
Chapter 8 Resource Dynamics and the Economy
describes the connections between economic entropy change and the dynamics of both non-renewable and renewable resources.
Chapter 9 Non-Renewable Resources
illustrates the development of key world non-renewable resources, over the last five decades, including oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear power, steel, cement and aluminium.
Chapter 10 Renewable Resources
similarly describes the development of key renewable resources, including humankind, water, land and soil, and trends in diet, the green revolution, and the production of cereals, meat, fish and renewable energy sources such as hydro-electric, wind and solar power.
Chapter 11 The Atmosphere, Oceans and Cryosphere
is a summary of the key trends in climate change, viewed from the point of view of economic development.
Chapter 12 Economics, Entropy and a Sustainable World
sets out to describe the key forces that will impact on human development and a sustainable world in the coming decades.
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Thermoeconomics - A Thermodynamic Approach to Economics (Third edition 2012)
A book by: John Bryant
Copyright: John Bryant VOCAT International Ltd
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