(28b) Understanding Sustainability Based On the Thermodynamics of Industrial and Ecological Systems

The overall goal of manufacturing systems is to produce low entropy products from higher entropy resources. The second law implies that any decrease in entropy in one system must result in a larger increase in the entropy of the surroundings. This entropy increase often occurs in the environment, as is common in industrial systems, in the form of environmental harm. Ecosystems are also subject to the same laws of thermodynamics, but seem capable of avoiding such harm due to entropy increase. In this talk, I will introduce the thermodynamics of ecological systems and compare it with that of industrial systems via several examples. The resulting insight is useful for determining what kind of technologies or technological systems may be sustainable.