Energy Metrics and Sustainability

Early human civilizations developed along water corridors. With increasing dependency of human activities on energy, sustainability of future civilizations would be largely linked to sustainability of energy resources and systems. The tie between energy and socio-environmental sustainability, though obvious remains nebulous mostly because, neither energy nor sustainability are clearly defined. While thermodynamic definition of energy is relatively clear, its nature (as linked to human activities and sustainable development) is not well understood. This paper is an attempt to present a metric for the components and attributes of energy resources and technologies as interfaced with human civilization. A fuzzy logic model is used to scale energy systems based on their valued attributes (such as storability, transformability, quality, transportability, availability, environmental value and resource sustainability). The model is used to predict future energy corridors and their association with economical growth and sustainability. It is shown that green energy systems should be developed not in isolation but integrated in intelligent “synergetic” systems to meet the energy demands of future human civilizations.