Resource Concepts and Terms

1. Resource Concepts and Terms • resources: all materials/forces in the environment that can be used. • reserves: quantities of resources that are known and are legally and economically extractable with current technology. • projected reserves: current reserves plus all resources that may become reserves due to improved technologies and changing prices. • renewable resources: such as farmland soil, water, solar, forests, and fisheries, where the sustainable rate of use can be no greater than the rate of regeneration. • solar-based renewable energy resources are ultimately powered by the sun: solar, wind, hydropower, wave and biomass

2. Resources (con’t.) • non-renewable resources: substances such as fossil fuels, high grade mineral ore, and fossil groundwater. Can these have a sustainable rate of use? • one view: their sustainable rate of use can be no greater than the rate at which a renewable resource can be substituted for it (eg. oil, where part of the profits are invested towards the development of renewable resources, so that renewables can eventually substitute for oil) • another view: libertarian

3. A problem with the libertarian view is externalities: costs of an economic activity that are not directly paid for by the buyers and/or sellers of the activity, but rather by other people or industries, in the present generation or the future. Libertarians have no evidence-based argument for this problem.

4. Resource concepts (con’t) • sustainable rate of emissions (pollutants): max. rate at which it can be recycled, absorbed, or rendered harmless by the environment.

5. The Human Command of Energy Through Time • In the distant human past, pre-fire and pre-agriculture, humans would have done all work with their own bodies. In such a setting, each human would need about 100 watts of power for sustenance. (2400 watt-hrs/day or 2.4 kWh, which is 2064 food calories) • But eventually, humans figured out how to accomplish more with their efforts: • fire for cooking and hunting • tools, domesticated animals, and agriculture • By 1800 the world average per person power utilization had quintupled to ~500 watts, (5 energy “servants”): • water and wind power, some coal • By 2000, global average was 20 energy servants, in the US, 100+: • combustion of fossil fuels (~87% from fossil fuels) • Are the global and US rates and sources sustainable? (fossil fuel combustion and climate change) • concept of anthropocenehttp://www.anthropocene.info/

6. Review of Carrying Capacity & Society • Interaction between carrying capacity & size of physical economy (graphs) • limits • the sensing of signals (scientific community) • forces shaping the nature and timing of responses: • science • media • capitalism, society, politics • public perception case study of climate change science:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxyQNEVOElU distortion of science:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX3y6BQd4LI story of Richard Muller: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/8/2/climate_skeptic_koch_funded_scientist_richard

7. Power and Energy • Power: rate of energy use through time (common measurement is watts) • Energy: the capacity for doing work (but this def. is too vague). Some common measurements: calories, kilowatt-hours, BTUs, joules energy = power x time (1 watt hour = 1 watt of power flowing for 1 hour) • Some common forms of energy: heat (thermal energy), motion (kinetic or mechanical), light (electromagnetic), chemical (of fuels and foodstuffs). • energy or power density (areal production): watts per square meter. (for fuels): expressed in energy units per unit mass