Chapter 1
Introduction
Wojciech Stanek
AbstractOur civilization is based mainly on the non-renewable natural resources.
Depletion of these resources is accelerated by an increasing consumption level of
society. We should aiming at minimization of depletion of non-renewable resour-
ces. Within such minimization an objective criterion based on the physical laws has
to be applied. Such ecological criterion should become more and more important.
Thermodynamics offers as advanced tools to measure the quality of resources as
well as efficiency of resources transformation in local and global scale. Exergy can
be applied both as a measure of quality of resources as well as measure of real
losses appearing in chains of production processes. Exergy analysis integrated with
system approach represents the thermodynamic tool for sustainable management of
natural resources. Within the book a series of advanced exergetic tools for
assessment of efficiency of natural resources transformations are presented. First
part of book (part A) is mainly focused on methodology, while the second part (part
B) includes examples of practical applications in wide range of ecological
problems.
Our civilization is based mainly on the non-renewable natural resources. Depletion
of these resources is accelerated by an increasing consumption level of society.
From the economic point of view the increase of consumption level is the base for
further development. However it has to be taken into account that there are many
examples of ancient civilizations that collapsed because they had exhausted local
natural resources, for example the act of cutting off forests in Easter Islands, the
depletion of fresh water in Central America, the depletion of agricultural area in
South-East Asia. At present, the symptoms of depletion of natural resources can be
also observed it can be concluded that the mentioned above examples of resources
exhaustion should not be underestimated nowadays. Some experts state that in the
future non-renewable resources can be replaced by the renewable ones. However,
W. Stanek (&)
Institute of Thermal Technology (ITT), Silesian University of Technology,
Gliwice, Poland
e-mail:
[email protected]
©Springer International Publishing AG 2017
W. Stanek (ed.),Thermodynamics for Sustainable Management
of Natural Resources, Green Energy and Technology,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-48649-9_1
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