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Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy

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01.03.2003 | Original Paper

The limits of technological solutions to sustainable development

verfasst von: Michael H. Huesemann

Erschienen in: Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy | Ausgabe 1/2003

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Abstract

Sustainable development has been defined by political and corporate leaders as the combination of environmental protection and economic growth. As a result, the concept of eco-efficiency has been promoted as the primary tool for achieving industrial sustainability.

However, there are at least four reasons why technological improvements in eco-efficiency alone will be insufficient to bring about a transition to sustainability. First, considering that the very foundations of western industrial societies are based on the exploitation of non-renewable minerals and fuels, it will be extremely difficult to switch to an industrial and economic system based solely on renewable resources. Clearly, the continuing use of non-renewables is inherently unsustainable because of finite material supplies and the fact that 100% recycling is impossible. Second, given the limited supply of non-renewable fuels, long-term sustainability can only be guaranteed if all energy is derived directly or indirectly from the sun. However, if the current U.S. energy demand would have to be supplied solely from solar sources, a wide range of serious and unavoidable negative environmental impacts are likely to result. Third, even the best of human ingenuity and the greatest technological optimism are bounded by the second law of thermodynamics, which dictates that all industrial and economic activities have unavoidable negative environmental consequences. Finally, improvements in eco-efficiency alone will not guarantee a reduction in the total environmental impact if economic growth is allowed to continue. Unless growth in both population and consumption is restrained, these technological improvements only delay the onset of negative consequences that, as a result, will have increased in severity, thereby reducing our freedom to choose satisfying solutions.

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It is clear from historical evidence that all civilizations and cultures have only a limited life span (Tainter 1988). Nevertheless, the two sustainability conditions probably need to be satisfied merely to assure the continued existence of industrial societies for the next hundred years. In addition, the "ad infinitum" time horizon forces one to think about all potential consequences of present economic activities and to design sustainability criteria that do not transfer costs into the distant future.

The main reason that substitution of non-renewables with renewables has not occurred to a significant degree is that market prices, which are often kept artificially low by subsidies and cost externalization, currently favor the use of non-renewables over renewables. In order to promote substitution with renewables, economic policies will have to be put in place that, at a minimum, reflect the true cost of non-renewable resources by considering all social and environmental externalities and by eliminating all subsidies to special interests, and that ideally also tax the use of non-renewables to hasten the transition to renewables.

This equation applies only to ideal mixtures. Considering that many minerals are not found in ideal mixtures, this equation should be used only as an approximation under these circumstances.

For a discussion on how potential entropy increase is related to negative environmental impacts, see also Ayres and Martinas (1995), and Huesemann (2001).

The fact that there is not just one fixed sustainability state but probably many different ones is also reflected in the analysis by Davidson (2000) who questions that there is a fixed environmental limit to economic growth. Instead, it is more reasonable to assume that environmental destruction occurs along a continuum and that, to use Davidson's tapestry metaphor, the beauty and functioning of the tapestry (i.e., biological systems) are gradually diminished as individual threads (i.e., species, beautiful places, and life-support services) are removed as a result of increasing economic growth.

The fact that almost all present-day economic activities could continue unabated at night is evidence that they are almost completely uncoupled from the inflow of solar energy. Nevertheless, the conclusions reached in Eq. (7) also hold for open systems see Eq. (5).

According to Rifkin: "Each technology always creates a temporary island of order at the expense of greater disorder in the surroundings." (Rifkin 1980, 123).

It should be noted that the correlation between entropy increase and environmental damage is currently a hypothesis that requires verification using field and laboratory data. For a more in-depth discussion of this topic, the reader should refer to Cleveland and Ruth (1997), Connelly and Koshland (1997), Glasby (1988), Huesemann (2001), O'Connor (1994), and Ruth (1993, 1995, 1996).

For comparison, energy intensity is defined as energy use per unit of GDP (Graedel and Allenby 1995, p. 19).

As a first order approximation, it is assumed here that P, A, and T are independent variables that exhibit no significant interactions among them. However, as has been pointed out by Holdren (1991) and has been discussed in detail by Gaffin (1998) and O'Neill et al. (2001), these three variables are likely to influence each other, often in unexpected and complicated ways. Nevertheless, in order to obtain an approximate estimate of the total environmental impact (I) in terms of the separate contributions of P, A, and T, most investigators for simplicity assume that P, A, and T are independent of each other.

For comparison, it took ca. 25 years (1959–1984) to reduce the energy intensity (energy use per unit GDP) of the U.S. economy by 50% (Graedel and Allenby 1995, p. 19).

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Titel: The limits of technological solutions to sustainable development
verfasst von: Michael H. Huesemann
Publikationsdatum: 01.03.2003
Verlag: Springer-Verlag
Erschienen in: Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy / Ausgabe 1/2003
Print ISSN: 1618-954X
Elektronische ISSN: 1618-9558
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-002-0173-8

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