Sustainable development thermodynamics

Thermodynamic principles can be used to assess, design and improve energy and other systems, and to better understand environmental impact and sustainability issues. For the broadest understanding, all thermodynamic principles must be used, not just those pertaining to energy. Thus, many researchers feel that an understanding and appreciation of exergy is essential to discussions of sustainable development. 

Dincer, I., and M.A. Rosen, 2005. Thermodynamic aspects of renewables and sustainable development, Renewable Sustain. Energy Rev., 9 (2), 169-189. 

Comelissen, R.L. Thermodynamics and sustainable development. PhD thesis, Twente University, Enschede, the Netherlands, 1997. 

Ayres, R.U. Kneese, A.V. Externalities Economics and thermodynamics. In Economics and Ecology Towards Sustainable Development, Archibugi and Nijkamp (eds.), Kluwer Academic Publishers Dordrecht, the Netherlands, 1989. 

Cornehssen RL. Thermodynamics and sustainable development [Ph. D. thesis]. The Netherlands University of Twente 1997. 

Addressing the second question first leads to a critical constraint when thinking about new, more sustainable, technological developments, that is, the universal applicability of the laws of thermodynamics to aU physical, chemical and biological processes. A central and inescapable fact is the inevitability of waste formation. One statement of the second law of thermodynamics says that heat cannot be converted completely into work. Or, in other words, the energy output of work is always less than the energy transformed to accomplish it. A consequence of this is that, even in principle, it is impossible for any real process to proceed without the generation of some sort of waste. 

Reactions such as the above have been used for the large-scale commercial production of WC by Kenna-metal, Inc. in a process called the Macro Process [28]. Thermodynamics for the analogous molybdenum reaction show that the reaction is highly exothermic (Table 3). The solid reactants are metered into a carbon-lined kiln to develop a self-sustained exothermic reaction. The reaction occurs in a pool of molten metal at temperatures above 2800 K. At the end of the run the kiln contents solidify into a lower heavy layer of carbide crystals and an upper slag layer of oxides. 

An equally remarkable feature to whidi we shall turn now is the fact that confined fluids may sustain a certain shear stress without exhibiting structural features normally pertaining to solid-like phases that is, they do not necessarily assume any long-range periodic order. We tacitly assumed this from the very beginning of this book in our development of a thermodynamic description of cuiifiiied fluids, wliich closely resembles that appropriate for solid-like bulk phases (see Section 1) (12). 

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