3rd Biennial Emergy Research Conference

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3rd Biennial Emergy Research Conference

INTRODUCTION
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
PROCEEDINGS
Proceedings
Chapters from the Proceedings are available here as individual PDF files. A paperback book
version of the Proceedings is also available. Please contact us for purchasing information.
Emergy Synthesis 3: Theory and Applications of the Emergy Methodology

Contributors, Acknowledgments, Introduction
3rd Biennial Conference

January 29-31, 2004
University of Florida
J. Wayne Reitz Union
Rm. 282
Gainesville, Florida
Theories, Applications, and Comparisons

1. Areal Empower Density, Unit Emergy Values, and Emformation
Mark T. Brown
map | directions
2. An Energy Systems View of Karl Marx's Concepts of Production and Labor Value
Howard T. Odum and David Scienceman
3. Differential Bases of Emergy Algebra
Corrado Giannantoni
Past Proceedings
4. A Linear Optimization Method for Computing Transformities from Ecosystem Energy

Webs
Eliana Bardi, Matthew J. Cohen, and Mark T. Brown
5. Emergy, Transformity and Network Analysis of Everglades Ecosystems
Matthew J. Cohen, Eliana Bardi, Mark T. Brown, and Wes W. Ingwersen
6. Moral Codes II
Dennis Collins
7. How Many "Fourth" Principles Are There In Thermodynamics?
Corrado Giannantoni
7th (2012)
6th (2010)
8. The Rising Value of Water Due to Scarcity in Sao Paulo, Brazil

Maria Silvia Romitelli
9. Protecting Environmental Welfare: Comparison of Emergetic and Economic
Valuation
Tingting Cai, Thomas W. Olsen, and Daniel E. Campbell
Methodology, Theory, and Applications
11. Current Technical Problems in Emergy Analysis
Daniel E. Campbell, Sherry L. Brandt-Williams, and Tingting Cai
12. Emergy "Yield" Ratio - Problems and Misapplications
Marco Raugei, Silvia Bargigli, and Sergio Ulgiati
5th (2008)
4th (2006)
3rd (2004)
2nd (2001)
13. Making Emergy Analysis More Popular for Environmentally Conscious Design and
Manufacturing - Challenges and Opportunities
Jorge L. Hau and Bhavik R. Bakshi
14. Discussion on Emergy Allocation in Joint Production and Wastes
Ricardo Vieira and Tiago Domingos
Environmental Accounting
15. Financial Accounting Methods to Further Develop and Communicate Environmental
Accounting Using Emergy
Daniel E. Campbell
16. Dotting the I's and Crossing the T's of Emergy Synthesis: Material Flows, Information
and Memory Aspects, and Performance Indicators
Sergio Ulgiati, Silvia Bargigli, and Marco Raugei
17. Combining Bookkeeping Techniques and Emergy Analysis
Enrique Ortega, Oscar Sarcinelli, and Paulo Bento Maffei de Souza
http://cep.ees.ufl.edu/emergy/conferences/ERC03_2004/proceedings.shtml[31.07.2013 21:36:00]
18. Vivantary Responsibility and Emergy Accounting

Eldon H. Franz and Daniel E. Campbell
19. Historical Solar Emergy Use in the United States and its Relation to Technological
Development
David R. Tilley
20. Matrix Reloaded: The Emergy View
Antonio L. Philomena and Karla L. Cozza
21. Thermodynamic Input-Output Analysis of Economic and Ecological Systems with
Application to the U.S. Economy
Nandan U. Ukidwe and Bhavik R. Bakshi
22. Emergy Synthesis of Socio-Economic Metabolism
Chun-Lin Lee and Shu-li Huang
Sustainability, Carrying Capacity, and Models
23. Energetic Mechanisms and Development of Urban Landscape System
Shu-Li Huang
24. The Need for Emergy Related Measures of Economic Productivity
Donald L. Adolphson
25. Combined Use of Emergy Synthesis and GIS for Environmental Sustainability
Assessment: The Case Study of the Roccamonfina Natural Park, Italy
Pier Paolo Franzese, Stefano Dumontet, Antonio Scopa, and Sergio Ulgiati
26. An Emergy-Based Model for Diver Carrying Capacity on Coral Reefs
Ramy K. Serour and Patrick C. Kangas
27. Emergy Evaluation of Welfare: A Case Study in Italy
Enzo Tiezzi, Federico M. Pulselli, Fabiana Mapelli, and Laura Fugaro
28. Emergy and Socio-Ecological Principles in Sustainability Assessment: Methodological
Considerations from a Wastewater Treatment Case Study
Erik Grnlund, Anders Klang, Per-ke Vikman
29. The Introduction of Emergy Indices in the Certification of Organic Products: Adaptation
and Potential
Consuelo L. Fernandez Pereira and Enrique Ortega
30. Emergy Assessment for Urban Sustainable Development
Hong-fang Lu, Shen-fang Lan, and Shao-lin Peng
31. An Exploration of the Use of Emergy in Sustainability Evaluation
Ricardo Vieira, Ana Simes, and Tiago Domingos
Case Studies, Theories, and Applications
32. Nested Comparative Emergy Assessments Using Milk Production as a Case Study
Sherry L. Brandt-Williams and Charlotte Lagerberg Fogelberg
33. Investigating a 20-Year National Economic Dynamics By Means of Emergy-Based
Indicators
Catia Cialani, Daniela Russi, and Sergio Ulgiati
34. Emergy Evaluation of the Swedish Economy Since the 1950's
Peter Hagstrm and Per Olov Nilsson
35. Quantifying the Role of Exports in Pennsylvania's Economy Using Emergy
David Riposo and Sherry L. Brandt-Williams
36. It's About Getting Value for Your Money - But How Fair Are the Resource Flows?
Torbjrn Rydberg and Margarita Cuadra
37. Emergy Analysis of Selected Local and National Transport Systems in Italy
Mirco Federici, Franco Ruzzenenti, Sergio Ulgiati, and Riccardo Basosi
38. Emergy Evaluation of Lacandon Maya Agroforestry in Chiapas, Mexico
Stewart A.W. Diemont, Jay F. Martin, and Samuel Levy-Tacher
39. Emergy Analysis of Three Forest Activities in Taiwan
Chung-Hsin Juan and Yu-Fung Chang
40. Jau's National Park, Central Brazilian Amazon. Emergy and Socio-Environmental
Assessment of Resident Riverine Population
Vito Comar
1st (1999)

41. Emergy and Material Synthesis of an Agro-Forest Restoration System in Lower
Subtropical China
Shao-lin Peng, Hong-fang Lu, Zhi-an Li, and Ming-Mao Ding
42. The Use of Emergy Indices in the Environmental Certification of a Territory
Roberto Ridolfi, Valentina Niccolucci, Riccardo M. Pulselli, and Simone Bastianoni
43. Emergy Analysis of the Salt Production Process at the SeOvlje Saltpans, Slovenia
Jana Babi
44. Emergy Evaluation of Air Biofilters for Carbon Monoxide Removal
Priti Ganeshan and David R. Tilley
45. Emergy Analysis of Bolivia's Natural Gas
Jos-Luis Izursa and David R. Tilley
46. Emergy of Algal Systems Revisited
David M. Blersch, Walter Mulbry, and Patrick Kangas
47. Spirulina Economy: A Microcosm Evaluation
Karla L. Cozza, Antonio L. Philomena and Jorge A.V. Costa
Citation
Brown, M.T.E. Bardi, D.E. Campbell, V. Comar, S. Huang, T. Rydberg, D. Tilley and S. Ulgiati (eds). 2005. Emergy Synthesis 3: Theory and
Applications of the Emergy Methodology. Proceedings of the 3rd Biennial Emergy Conference. Center for Environmental Policy, University of
Florida, Gainesville. 652 pages.
Return to top
2003-2013 Emergy Systems | Center for Environmental Policy | University of Florida

102 Phelps Lab | PO Box 116350 | Gainesville, FL 32611-6350
EMERGY
SYNTHESIS
Theory and Applications of the

Emergy Methodology
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Theory and Applications of the Emergy Methodology
Proceedings from the Third Biennial Emergy Conference,
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
University of Florida,
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Narragansett, Rhode Island
Vito Comar
State University of Mato Grosso do Sul
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Huang
National Taipei University
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Centre for Sustainable Agriculture
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
University of Maryland
College Park, Maryland
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005
The Center for Environmental Policy

Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences
Gainesville, FL
ii

P.O. Box 116350
Gainesville, Fl 32611-6350
Fax (352) 392-3624
ISBN: 0-9707325-2-X
This book may be purchased for $30 from:

iii
CONTENTS
Contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction
vii
xii
xiv
Theories, Applications, and Comparisons

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Areal Empower Density, Unit Emergy Values, and Emformation

Mark T. Brown
An Energy Systems View of Karl Marx's Concepts of Production
and Labor Value
Howard T. Odum and David Scienceman
Differential Bases of Emergy Algebra
Corrado Giannantoni
A Linear Optimization Method for Computing Transformities
from Ecosystem Energy Webs
Eliana Bardi, Matthew J. Cohen, and Mark T. Brown
Emergy, Transformity and Network Analysis of Everglades Ecosystems
Matthew J. Cohen, Eliana Bardi, Mark T. Brown, and Wes W. Ingwersen
Moral Codes II
Dennis Collins
How Many Fourth Principles Are There In Thermodynamics?
Corrado Giannantoni
The Rising Value of Water Due to Scarcity in Sao Paulo, Brazil
Protecting Environmental Welfare: Comparison of Emergetic and
Economic Valuation
1
17
45
63
75
93
103
115
133
Methodology, Theory, and Applications

10. Current Technical Problems in Emergy Analysis
11. Emergy "Yield" Ratio Problems and Misapplications
12. Making Emergy Analysis More Popular for Environmentally Conscious
Design and Manufacturing - Challenges and Opportunities
13. Discussion on EMERGY Allocation in Joint Production and Wastes
iv
143
159
165
173
Environmental Accounting
14. Financial Accounting Methods to Further Develop and
Communicate Environmental Accounting Using Emergy
Daniel E. Campbell
15. Dotting the Is and Crossing the Ts of Emergy Synthesis:
Material Flows, Information and Memory Aspects,
and Performance Indicators
16. Combining Bookkeeping Techniques and Emergy Analysis
17. Vivantary Responsibility and Emergy Accounting
18. Historical Solar Emergy Use in the United States and its Relation to
Technological Development
David R. Tilley
19. Matrix Reloaded: The Emergy View
20. Thermodynamic Input-Output Analysis of Economic and Ecological
Systems with Application to the U.S. Economy
21. Emergy Synthesis of Socio-Economic Metabolism
Chun-Lin Lee and Shu-li Huang
185
199
215
229
235
251
259
271
Sustainability, Carrying Capacity, and Models

22. Energetic Mechanisms and Development of Urban Landscape System
Shu-Li Huang
23. The Need for Emergy Related Measures of Economic Productivity
Donald L. Adolphson
24. Combined Use of Emergy Synthesis and GIS for Environmental
Sustainability Assessment: The case study of the Roccamonfina
Natural Park, Italy
25. An Emergy-Based Model for Diver Carrying Capacity on Coral Reefs
26. Emergy Evaluation of Welfare: A Case Study in Italy
27. Emergy and Socio-Ecological Principles in Sustainability Assessment:
Methodological Considerations from a Wastewater Treatment Case Study
Erik Grnlund, Anders Klang, Per-ke Vikman
28. The Introduction of Emergy Indices in the Certification of Organic Products:
Adaptation and Potential
29 Emergy Assessment for Urban Sustainable Development
Hong-fang Lu, Shen-fang Lan, and Shao-lin Peng
30. An Exploration of the Use of EMERGY in Sustainability Evaluation
285
299
311
329
337
345
355
363
373
Case Studies, Theories, and Applications

31. Nested Comparative Emergy Assessments Using Milk Production
as a Case Study
Sherry L. Brandt-Williams and Charlotte Lagerberg Fogelberg
32. Investigating a 20-Year National Economic Dynamics By Means of
Emergy-Based Indicators
33. Emergy Evaluation of the Swedish Economy Since the 1950s
34. Quantifying the Role of Exports in Pennsylvanias Economy Using Emergy
35. Its About Getting Value for Your Money But How Fair Are
the Resource Flows?
36. Emergy Analysis of Selected Local and National Transport Systems in Italy
37. Emergy Evaluation of Lacandon Maya Agroforestry in Chiapas, Mexico
38. Emergy Analysis of Three Forest Activities in Taiwan
39. Jaus National Park, Central Brazilian Amazon. Emergy and
Socio-Environmental Assessment of Resident Riverine Population
Vito Comar
40. Emergy and Material Synthesis of an Agro-Forest Restoration System
in Lower Subtropical China
Shao-lin Peng, Hong-fang Lu, Zhi-an Li, and Ming-mao Ding
41. The Use of Emergy Indices in the Environmental Certification of a Territory
Roberto Ridolfi, Valentina Niccolucci, Riccardo M. Pulselli,
and Simone Bastianoni
42. Emergy Analysis of the Salt Production Process at the SeOvlje
Saltpans, Slovenia
Jana Babi
43. Emergy Evaluation of Air Biofilters for Carbon Monoxide Removal
44. Emergy Analysis of Bolivias Natural Gas
45. Emergy of Algal Systems Revisited
46. Spirulina Economy: A Microcosm Evaluation
Karla L. Cozza, Antonio L. Philomena and Jorge A.V. Costa
vi
385
401
417
435
443
449
465
489
497
503
513
519
535
551
561
569
Contributors
DONALD L. ADOLPHSON, George Romney Institute of Public Management, Brigham Young
University, 760 TNRB, Provo, Utah 84602, USA [donald_adolphson@byu.edu]
JANA BABI, Nova Gorica Polytechnic, Laboratory for Environmental Research, Nova Gorica,
Slovenia [Jana.babic@p-ng.si]
BHAVIK R. BAKSHI, Department of Chemical Engineering, The Ohio State University, 140 West
19th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA [Bakshi.2@osu.edu]
ELIANA BARDI, Center for Environmental Policy, Box 116350, University of Florida, Gainesville,
Florida 32611-6350, USA [elianab@ufl.edu]
SILVIA BARGIGLI, Energy and Environment Research Unit, Department of Chemistry, University of
Siena, Via Aldo Moro 2, 53100 Siena, Italy [bargigli@unisi.it]
RICCARDO BASOSI, Center for Complex Systems Investigation, Univerisity of Siena, Via Tommaso
Pendola 37, 53100 Siena, Italy [basosi@unisi.it]
SIMONE BASTIANONI, Dept. of Chemical and Biosystems Sciences, University of Siena, Italy
Via Aldo Moro 2, 53100 Siena, Italy [bastianoni@unisi.it]
PAULO BENTO MAFFEI DE SOUZA, School of Food Engineering, State University of Campinas
Caixa Postal 6121 Campinas, SP, CEP 13083-970, Brazil.
DAVID M. BLERSCH, Biological Resources Engineering Department, 1457 Animal Sciences/Ag.
Engineering bldg, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
[dblersch@wam.umd.edu]
SHERRY BRANDT, St. Johns River Water Management District, 4049 Reid Street, P.O. Box 1429,
Palatka, FL [watersheds@gmail.com]
MARK T. BROWN, Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences, Center for Environmental
Policy, Box 116350, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611-6350, USA
[mtb@ufl.edu]
TINGTING CAI, US EPA, Office of Research and Development, National Health and Environmental
Effects Research Laboratory, Atlantic Ecology Division, 27 Tarzwell Dr., Narragansett, RI
02882, USA [Cai.tingting@epa.gov]
CATIA CIALANI, Department of Economics, University of Foggia, Via IV Novembre 1, 71100
Foggia, Italy [c.cialani@unifg.it]
DANIEL E. CAMPBELL, Office of Research and Development, National Health and Environmental
Effects Research Laboratory, Atlantic Ecology Division, 27 Tarzwell Dr., Narragansett, RI
02882, USA [campbell.dan@epamail.epa.gov]
vii
YU-FUNG CHANG, Department of Natural Resources, National Ilan University, Taiwan, 1 Section 1
Sheng-Lung Road, Ilan, 26041, Taiwan [f58620011@yahoo.com.tw]
MATTHEW J. COHEN, Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences, Box 116350, University
of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611-6350, USA [mjc@ufl.edu]
DENNIS COLLINS, Department of Mathematics, University of Puerto Rico, Box 9018, Mayaguez,
Puerto Rico, 00681 [d_collins_pr@hotmail.com]
VITO COMAR, State University of Mato Grosso do Sul, UEMS, Brazil [vito@uems.br]
JORGE ALBERTO VIEIRA COSTA, FURG Fundao Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, P. O.
Box 382, Rio Grande, RS, 96201-900, Brazil [dqmjorge@furg.br]
KARLA LEAL COZZA, CORSAN Companhia Riograndense de Saneamento, Rua Vice-Almirante
Abreu, 460 - Rio Grande, RS, 96200-270, Brazil [ karla.cozza@corsan.com.br]
MARGARITA CUADRA, Universidad Nacional Agraria-UNA, km 12 carretera norte, Apdo, 453
Managua, Nicaragua [margarita.cuadra@una.edu.ni]
STEWART A.W. DIEMONT, Ecological Engineering Group, Department of Food, Agricultural &
Biological Engineering, Ohio State University, 590 Woody Hayes Dr., Columbus, Ohio
43210, USA [diemont.1@osu.edu]
MING-MAO DING South China Institute of Botany, CAS Le Yiju, Guangzhou 510650 P.R. China
TIAGO M. D. DOMINGOS , Environment and Energy Section, DEM, Instituto Superior Tcnico, Av.
Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001, Lisbon, Portugal [tdomingos@ist.utl.pt]
STEFANO DUMONTET, Department of Crop Production, University of Basilicata,Via Nazario Sauro
85, 85100 Potenza, Italy [dumontet@unibas.it]
MIRCO FEDERICI, Center for Complex Systems Investigation, Univerisity of Siena, Via Tommaso
Pendola 37, 53100 Siena, Italy [federici2@unisi.it]
CHARLOTTE LAGERBERG FOGELBERG, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala,
Sweden [charlotte.lagerberg@cul.slu.se]
ELDON H. FRANZ, Program in Environmental Science and Regional Planning, Washington state
University, Pullman, WA 99164-4430, USA [franz@wsu.edu]
PIER PAOLO FRANZESE, Department of Crop Production, University of Basilicata,Via Nazario
Sauro 85, 85100 Potenza, Italy [franzese@unibas.it]
LAURA FUGARO, Dept. Of Chemical and Biosystems Sciences and Technologies, University of
Siena, Via della Diana, 2/A 53100 Siena, Italy [fugaro@unisi.it]
PRITI GANESHAN, Biological Resources Engineering Department, University of Maryland, College
Park, Maryland 20742, USA [pganesh@wam.umd.edu]
viii
CORRADO GIANNANTONI, ENEA - National Agency for New Technology, Energy and the
Environment, Research Center of Casaccia - S. Maria di Galeria, 00060 Rome, Italy
[giannantoni@casaccia.enea.it]
ERIK GRNLUND, Div. of Ecotechnics, Mid Sweden University, SE-83125 stersund, Sweden
[erik.gronlund@snf.se]
PETER HAGSTROM, Department of Bioenergy, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P.O.
Box 7060, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden [peter.hagstrom@bioenergi.slu.se]
JORGE L. HAU, Department of Chemical Engineering, The Ohio State University,140 West 19th
Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA [hau@che.eng.ohio-state.edu]
SHU-LI HUANG, Graduate Institute of Urban Planning, National Taipei University, Taipei, Taiwan
10433 [shuli@mail.ntpu.edu.tw]
WES INGWERSEN, Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences, Box 116350, University of
Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611-6350, USA [wwi@ufl.edu]
JOSE-LUIS IZURSA, Marine Estuarine Environmental Science Program, University of Maryland
College Park, Maryland 20742, USA [jlizursa@umd.edu]
CHUNG-HSIN JUAN, Department of Natural Resources, National Ilan University, Taiwan, 1 Section
1 Sheng-Lung Road, Ilan, 26041, Taiwan [cjuan@niu.edu.tw ]
PATRICK KANGAS, Biological Resources Engineering Department, 1457 Animal Sciences/Ag.
Engineering Bldg, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
[pk31@umail.umd.edu]
ANDERS KLANG, Dept. of Natural and Environmental Sciences, Div. of Ecotechnics, Mid Sweden
University, SE-83125 stersund, Sweden [anders.klang@mh.se]
SHENFANG LAN, Life Sciences Department of South China Agricultural University, Wu Shan,
Guangzhou 510642, P.R. China[lanelanyuwen@yahoo.com.cn]
SAMUEL LEVY-TACHER, El Colegio De La Frontera Sur, Division of Conservation and
Biodiversity, Department of Ecology and Terrestrial Systems, Carretera Panamericana y
Perifrico Sur, Barrio de Mara Auxiliadora, San Cristbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico
[slevy@sclc.ecosur.mx]
CHUN-LIN LEE, Graduate Institute of Urban Planning, National Taipei University, Taipei 10433,
Taiwan [hualien_jeff@yahoo.com.tw]
ZHI-AN LI, South China Institute of Botany, CASLe Yiju, Guangzhou 510650 P.R. China,
[lizan@scib.ac.cn]
HONG-FANG LU, South China Institute of Botany, CAS Le Yiju, Guangzhou 510650 P.R. Chin,
[luhf@scib.ac.cn]
ix
FABIANA MAPELLI, Dept. Of Chemical and Biosystems Sciences and Technologies, University of
SienaVia della Diana, 2/A 53100 Siena, Italy [mapelli@unisi.it]
WALTER MULBRY, Animal Manure & By-product Laboratory, USDA Agricultural Research
Center, Beltsville, Maryland, USA [mulbryw@ba.ars.usda.gov]
JAY F. MARTIN, Ecological Engineering Group, Department of Food, Agricultural & Biological
Engineering, Ohio State University, 590 Woody Hayes Dr., Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA
[martin.1130@osu.edu]
VALENTINA NICCOLUCCI, Dept. of Chemical and Biosystems Sciences, University of Siena, Italy
Via della Diana 2/a, 53100 Siena, Italy [vniccolucci@unisi.it]
HOWARD T. ODUM, Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences, Box 116350, University
of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA
THOMAS W. OLSEN, Independent researcher, Kingston, RI 02881
ENRIQUE ORTEGA, School of Food Engineering (FEA),State University of Campinas, Caixa Postal
6121, Campinas, SP, CEP 13083-970, Brazil [ortega@fea.unicamp.br]
PER OLOV NILSSON, Department of Bioenergy, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
(SLU), Sljdgatan 10, SE-776 30 Hedemora, Sweden [spon@telia.com]
SHAO-LIN PENG, Life Sciences Department Zhongshan University Guangzhou 510270, P.R. China,
[lsspsl@zsu.edu.cn]
CONSUELO DE LIMA FERNANDEZ PEREIRA, School of Food Engineering (FEA), Unicamp,
CP 6121, Campinas 13083-970, SP, Brazil [clfp@fea.unicamp.br]
ANTNIO LIBRIO PHILOMENA, FURG Fundao Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, P. O.
Box 382, Rio Grande, RS 96201-900, Brazil [alphilo@mikrus.com.br]
FEDERICO M. PULSELLI, Department of Chemical and Biosystems Sciences and Technologies,
University of Siena,Via della Diana, 2/A, 53100 Siena, Italy [fpulselli@unisi.it]
RICCARDO MARIA PULSELLI, Dept. of Chemical and Biosystems Sciences, University of
Siena, Via della Diana 2/a, 53100 Siena, Italy [pulselli@unisi.it]
MARCO RAUGEI, Energy and Environment Research Unit, Department of Chemistry, University of
Siena, Via Aldo Moro 2, 53100 Siena, Italy [raugei@unisi.it]
ROBERTO RIDOLFI, Dept. of Chemical and Biosystems Sciences, University of Siena, Italy
Via della Diana 2/a, 53100 Siena, Italy [ridolfi@unisi.it]
DAVID RIPOSO, Independent Emergy Researcher, Alexandria, Virginia, USA
[davidriposo@hotmail.com]
MARIA SILVIA ROMITELLI, Secretariat of Environment of Sao Paulo State, Rua Teixeira da Silva
66, ap. 3 A 04002-030, So Paulo, SP, Brazil [sma.msilviar@cetesb.sp.gov.br]
DANIELA RUSSI, Universitat Autnoma de Barcelona, Departament dEconomia i dHistria

Econmica, Edifici B, Campus de la UAB, 08193 Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del V.), Barcelona,
Spain [Daniela.Russi@uab.es]
FRANCO RUZZENENTI, Center for Complex Systems Investigation, University of Siena, Via
Tommaso Pendola 37, 53100 Siena, Italy [ruzzenenti@unisi.it]
TORBJRN RYDBERG, Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CUL), Box 7047, 750 07, Uppsala,
Sweden [torbjorn.rydberg@evp.slu.se]
OSCAR SARCINELLI, School of Food Engineering, State University of Campinas, Caixa Postal 6121
Campinas, SP, CEP 13083-970, Brazil
ANTONIO SCOPA, Department of Crop Production,University of Basilicata,via Nazario Sauro 85,
85100 Potenza, Italy [scopa@unibas.it]
DAVID M. SCIENCEMAN, University & Schools Club, 60 Phillip Street, Sidney 2000, Australia
Fax: +61 2 9247 9570 [reception@usc-club.com.au]
RAMY SEROUR, Marine-Estuarine-Environmental Sciences Graduate Program, University of
Maryland, College Park, MD 20740, USA [rsorour@hotmail.com]
ANA D. C. SIMES, Environment and Energy Section, DEM, Instituto Superior Tcnico, Av.
Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001, Lisbon, Portugal [ana.simes@ist.utl.pt]
ENZO TIEZZI, Dept. Of Chemical and Biosystems Sciences and Technologies, University of Siena,
Via della Diana, 2/A 53100 Siena, Italy [tiezzienzo@unisi.it]
DAVID R. TILLEY, Biological Resources Engineering Department, University of Maryland, College
Park, Maryland 20742, USA [dtilley@umd.edu]
NANDAN UKIDWE, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The Ohio State
University. 140 W. 19th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA [ukidwe@che.eng.ohiostate.edu]
SERGIO ULGIATI, Department of Chemistry, University of Siena, Via Aldo Moro 2, 53100 Siena,
Italy [ulgiati@unisi.it]
RICARDO FILIPE C. S. VIEIRA, Environment and Energy Section, DEM, Instituto Superior
Tcnico, Av. Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001, Lisbon, Portugal [ricardo.vieira@ist.utl.pt]
PER-KE VIKMAN, Dept. of Natural and Environmental Sciences, Div. of Ecotechnics, Mid Sweden
University, SE-83125 stersund, Sweden [per-ake.vikman@mh.se]
xi
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank all the participants to the conference who traveled far to disseminate their findings and
contribute to the information exchange that is so vital to the application of the emergy theory. The
organizing committee members - Daniel Campbell, Vito Comar, Shu-Li Huang, Torbjrn Rydberg,
David Tilley, and Sergio Ulgiati were helpful in all aspects of conference and proceedings
organization, and were an invaluable source of ideas and assistance throughout. Students in the
System Ecology Program at the University of Florida were, once again, involved in welcoming
participants to our campus and providing support during the registration period. Carol Binello
coordinated one of the most important aspects of any conference receptions and food! Betty Odum
hosted the first open house to welcome all participants and set the pace for the friendly atmosphere that
characterizes these conferences. Leah Cohen was invaluable in assisting with editing the proceedings
and setting high standards for this publication. Probably most important is the invaluable and most
capable assistance of Eliana Bardi, the self in self-organizationthe conference and publication of
these proceedings would not otherwise have happened.
Finally, the manuscripts in these proceedings have greatly benefited from the following reviewers,
whose constructive criticism, ideas, and challenges heightened the quality level of this publication.
Tom Abel, National Taipei University, Taipei, Taiwan
Donald Adolphson, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT
Bhavik R. Bakshi, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
Frano Barbir, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT
Silvia Bargigli, University of Siena, Italy
Simone Bastianoni, University of Siena, Siena, Italy
David Blersch, University of Maryland, College Park, MD
Sherry Brandt-Williams, SJRWMD, Palatka, FL
Gran Bergkvist, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden
Johanna Bjrklund, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden
Tingting Cai, USEPA, Narragansett, RI
Catia Cialani, University of Foggia, Italy
Matthew Cohen, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Stewart Diemont, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
Erika Felix, University of Maryland, College Park, MD
Charlotte Lagerberg Fogelberg, Swedish Univ. of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden
Ben Fusaro, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
Priti Ganeshan, University of Maryland, College Park, MD
Mario Giampietro, I.N.R.A.N., Rome, Italy
Corrado Giannantoni, ENEA, Rome, Italy
Amaya Martnez Gracia, CIRCE - Universidad de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Espaa
Erik Grnlund, Mid Swedish University, stersund, Sweden
Charlie Hall, State University of New York, Syracuse, NY
Robert Herendeen, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL
Julie Higgins, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, USA
Chung-Hsin Juan, National Ilan University, Ilan, Taiwan
Daeseok Kang, Pukyong National University, Busan, South Korea
Patrick C. Kangas, University of Maryland, College Park, MD
Klyde Kiker, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Robert King, Good Company Associates, Austin, Texas
xii
Jae-Young Ko, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA

Timm Kroeger, State University of New York, Syracuse, USA
David Maradan, University of Geneva, Genve, Switzerland
Jay Martin, The Ohio State University, Columbus OH
Jesus Ramos Martin, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain
Clay Montague, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Elizabeth Odum, Santa Fe Community College, Gainesville, FL
Enrique Ortega, DEA-FEA-Unicamp, Campinas, Brazil
Nelson John Peet, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
Antonio L. Philomena, FURG, Rio Grande (RS), Brasil
Gonzague Pillet, Ecosys, Inc., Geneva, Switzerland
Marco Raugei, University of Siena, Italy
Mauro Reini, University of Trieste, Italy
Basim Safi, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden
Lennart Salomonsson, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden
Jan Sendzimir, IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria
Kristian Sknberg, Swedish National Institute of Economic Research, Sweden
Jiho Son, Pukyong National University, Busan, South Korea
Wayne Swank, US Forest Service (emeritus), Coweeta, NC, USA
Shang-Shin Ton, Feng-Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan.
Ricardo Vieira, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisboa, Portugal
As I thank all the participants and reviewers for this years contributions, I anxiously await our next
conference; I am sure that our time together and exchange of ideas can only strengthen our work and
commitment to better science.
Mark T. Brown
Gainesville, FL
xiii
Introduction
Emergy Synthesis
Synthesis is the act of combining elements into coherent wholes. Emergy synthesis is a top-down
approach to quantitative policy decision making and evaluation. Rather than dissect and break apart
systems and build understanding from the pieces upward, emergy synthesis strives for understanding
by grasping the wholeness of systems. We have named this series of conference proceedings Emergy
Synthesis to reflect our commitment to building understanding rather than dissection knowledge.
Emergy is the amount of energy of one form used directly and indirectly to make something. Emergy
is context driven. It is a systems concept, and cannot be fully understood outside a systems context.
Scienceman (1987) coined the phrase energy memory which was shortened to emergy as a means of
providing a name for a quantitative concept that was based on energy, but different from energy. More
than an evaluation procedure aimed at just assigning numerical values to processes, flows and
products, the emergy method is a conceptual framework, a window through which systems are
investigated under a donor-side perspective (i.e. the perspective of the environmental work required to
support a systems dynamics). Based on the recognition that value has different meanings depending
on the scale and perspective of the evaluation, the emergy method assigns values according to what it
takes to drive processes and make products, under the constraints of maximum power selection.
The emergy concept and the maximum empower principle constitute powerful concepts, definitions
and tools for investigation of systems at all scales, framing a systems behavior and sustainability
within the biospheres driving forces and evolutionary pattern. By expanding the scope of energy
studies to the biospheres space and time scales, the emergy method is able to:
a) Investigate systems that are outside of human activities (ecosystems, global biosphere
processes).
b) Focus on the role of the environment in support of human dominated processes, both on the
resource supply side and on the sink side (dilution or uptake of pollutants).
c) Perform a donor-side quality assessment as a complement of generally used user-side
assessments. This provides a measure of how much the system relies on the biosphere for
support.
d) Evaluate processes that are directly based on small flows of physical carriers, but supported
by huge indirect flows of resources, such as the creation and processing of information.
e) Expand the time scale of the evaluation, to include the memory of resource flows converging
to the system.
f) Assess the renewability of resources based on both space and time convergence required to
make them. The transformity quantifies this renewability in a continuous form, with higher
values corresponding to higher convergence of environmental work and therefore lower
renewability.
g) Evaluate in a quantitative way the (donor-) quality of those resources flows and storages that
have no market (such as fresh water, biodiversity, fertile topsoil) and cannot be evaluated in
monetary terms.
h) Assess the environmental impact of processes based on matching of high quality and low
quality resources.
i) Include in the evaluation the emergy supporting human labor and services.
xiv
All of these properties provide a powerful and comprehensive tool for the investigation of systems on
the larger scales of the biosphere, and, finally, help with understanding the dynamic interaction
between human dominated processes and resources and services provided for free by nature.
Following are brief definitions of the emergy concepts. For a more complete introduction to the
emergy methodology please refer to H.T. Odums Environmental Accounting (1996) text.
Emergy is the availability of energy (exergy) of one kind that is used up in transformations directly
and indirectly to make a product or service. The unit of emergy is the emjoule, a unit defined as the
available energy of one form. For example, sunlight, fuel, electricity, and human service are all
different forms of energy, but can be put on a common basis by expressing them all in terms of the
emjoules of solar energy that is/was required to produce them. In this case the emergy is expressed in
units of solar emergy and called solar emjoules (abbreviated sej). Most frequently, solar emergy is
used, although other units have been used, such as coal emjoules or electrical emjoules.
Unit Emergy Values are calculated based on the emergy required to produce them. There are three
types of unit emergy values as follows:
Transformity is defined as the emergy per unit of available energy (exergy). For example, if
4000 solar emjoules are required to generate a joule of wood, then the solar transformity of
that wood is 4000 solar emjoules per joule (abbreviated sej/J). Solar energy is the largest but
most dispersed energy input to the earth. By definition, the solar transformity of sunlight
absorbed by the earth is 1.0.
Specific emergy is the unit emergy value of matter defined as the emergy per mass, usually
expressed as solar emergy per gram (sej/g). Solids may be evaluated best with data on emergy
per unit mass rather than as emergy per unit exergy. Because energy is required to
concentrate materials, elements and compounds not abundant in nature have higher
emergy/mass ratios when found in concentrated form since more work was required to
concentrate them, both spatially and chemically.
Emergy per unit money is a unit emergy value used to convert money payments into emergy
units. Since money is paid to people for their services and not to the environment, the
contribution to a process represented by monetary payments is the emergy that people
purchase with the money. The amount of resources that money buys depends on the amount
of emergy supporting the economy and the amount of money circulating. An average
emergy/money ratio in solar emjoules/$ can be calculated by dividing the total emergy use of
a state or nation by its gross economic product. It varies by country and has been shown to
decrease each year. This emergy/money ratio is useful for evaluating service inputs given in
money units where an average wage rate is appropriate.
Emergy accompanying a flow of something (energy, matter, information, etc.) is calculated using a
unit emergy value. The flow expressed in its usual units is multiplied by the emergy per unit of that
energy or material. For example, the flow of a fuel input to a process, in joules per time, can be
multiplied by the transformity of that fuel (emergy per unit energy in solar emjoules/joule), or the mass
of a material input can be multiplied by its specific emergy (emergy per unit mass in solar
emjoules/gram). The emergy of a storage is calculated by multiplying the storage quantity in its usual
units by its unit emergy value.
Unit emergy values can be thought of as a kind of efficiency measure, since they relate all the inputs to
an output. The lower the transformity or specific emergy the more efficient the conversion. It follows
from the second law that there are minimum unit emergy values for processes which are consistent
xv
with maximum power operations. While we don't have a way to calculate them directly, we use the
lowest transformity found in long-operating systems as an approximation.
Empower is a flow of emergy (i.e. emergy per time). In most evaluations and under most
circumstances, emergy flows are usually expressed in units of solar empower (solar emjoules per
time).
In this volume 46 papers are presented that resulted from the Third Biennial Emergy Conference held
in Gainesville, Florida in January 2004. Because of the large numbers of papers, we have organized
them into Themes or sections, spanning from theory, applications and comparisons of the emergy
methodology, to a more in depth analysis of environmental accounting and issues regarding
sustainability and carrying capacity, and ending with a series of case studies in which the emergy
methodology is applied. A quick scan through the Table of Contents demonstrates the varied
applicability of the emergy methodology, with papers addressing network analysis, water resource
allocation, environmental welfare, urban, agroforestry, and transport systems, national time-scale
analysis, and many other subjects.
Held every two years in Gainesville on the University of Florida campus, the Emergy Conference
has grown steadily from about 35 participants in 1999 to over 90 participants in the January 2004
conference. The proceeding of the conference, published by the Center for Environmental Policy at the
University of Florida has increased in size from a book of 26 papers resulting from the 1999
conference to 31 papers published in the 2003 proceedings, and 46 papers in this volume. The
Conference is truly international, bringing together scientists representing over 20 countries from the
continents of Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America.
Mark T. Brown
Sergio Ulgiati
Eliana Bardi
xvi
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
1
Areal Empower Density, Unit Emergy Values, and Emformation
Mark T. Brown
ABSTRACT
This paper presents new thoughts relating to areal empower density, an index of development
intensity called Landscape Development Intensity (LDI), emergy in form as distinct from the emergy
of components that make up the form called emformation and calculation of transformities using
network or matrix techniques. The LDI and areal empower density are used to evaluate the intensity
of human influence in landscapes, and several techniques of calculating areal empower density within
watersheds are demonstrated. The emergy of form is suggested as being lost when the form is
consumed, but the emergy of the substances is maintained during recycle. Finally, the calculation of
transformities using a network or matrix technique which includes feedback leads to differences in
transformities from those calculated using the static emergy algebra technique. Comparisons are
made between transformities calculated using static emergy algebra and network algebra. The
network evaluation of transformities allows exploration of indices of ecosystem health.
INTRODUCTION
We take on three somewhat unrelated issues in this paper: 1) the use of areal empower density
as an index of environmental loading, called a Landscape Development Intensity (LDI) index, 2) the
concept of emformation, defined as the emergy used to create form, and its relationship to the
transformity of recycled matter, and 3) calculation of transformities using the network or matrix
inversion technique first explored by Collins and Odum (2000).
Areal Empower Density

Empower, the use of emergy per unit time, has units of sej/time. Areal empower density is the
use of emergy per time expressed on a unit area basis (areal - of or relating to or involving an area).
Since it is an expression of emergy use over both time and area, it is a measure of both spatial and
temporal intensity. It may be that areal empower density is an index of environmental impact, since the
more intense an activity is, the more likely the waste by-products from the activity will also be intense.
If the by-products are concentrated in space their effect might be large, thus the area required to
minimize negative impacts increases with the intensity of the by-products.
Emformation
The term emformation was first enunciated by Scienceman (1987) as the emergy per bit of
information. In this paper we borrow the term but define it as the emergy required to create form.
Form itself is relative. The same material can take on many different forms, which we might call
-1-
Chapter 1. Areal Empower Density, Unit Emergy Values
parallel forms, and which we define as the reformation of the same material into different forms at the
same hierarchical level (e.g. bottles, bags, pipes or toys made from the same polyethylene plastic).
The same material can also be emformed into new products in a hierarchical sense, which we might
call hierarchical forms (e.g. wood reduced to cellulose, made into paper, then combined into a book).
By hierarchic forms we mean that each form is contained within a scalar hierarchy, wherein a form is
derived from a given form which in turn may give rise to yet another form. Or, looking in the other
direction, each form is embedded in another form, and still others contained within them.
We are implying that all things, or objects, have form that is separate from their
substance.that form and substance are two different aspects of a given object. Least we become
totally entwined in a semantic knot of our own making, let us also mention that all substance in reality
has form. We may, however, add some clarity if we also state that a given objects scalar hierarchy
might be measured by the emergy required to make it.
Unit Emergy Values

Beginning in the early 1970s the concept of emergy, initiated as a means of accounting for
differences in the quality of energy, was proposed by H.T Odum (1973). Using various names and
expressions to refer to energy quality in the 1970s and early 1980s, the term emergy, as suggested by
David Scienceman, a visiting scientist from Australia, became the accepted term and the emjoule the
unit of emergy in 1983. Shortly after emergy was adopted, the term transformity was coined to refer to
what had formerly been called the transformation ratio. The transformation ratio was just that, a ratio
obtained by dividing the emergy used to make something by its available energy. The term
transformity was a contraction of transformation ratio and its units were emergy/energy (when
expressed using solar emergy the units are solar emjoules per Joule, abbreviated sej/J).
Recently we have suggested the term Unit Emergy Value (UEV) be used to describe the
general class of ratios used to describe the emergy required per unit of measure (Brown and Ulgiati,
2004). Further we proposed using Transformity as the term for emergy per unit energy, Specific
Emergy as the term for emergy per unit mass, and Emprice as the term for emergy per unit money. The
following are more complete definitions of each of the UEVs:
Transformity is defined as the emergy per unit of available energy (exergy). For example, if
4000 solar emjoules are required to generate a joule of wood, then the solar transformity of
that wood is 4000 solar emjoules per joule (abbreviated sej/J). Solar energy is the largest but
most dispersed energy input to the earth. The solar transformity of the sunlight absorbed by
the earth is 1.0 by definition.
Specific emergy is the unit emergy value of matter defined as the emergy per mass, usually
expressed as solar emergy per gram (sej/g). Solids may be evaluated best with data on emergy
per unit mass for its concentration. Because energy is required to concentrate materials, the
unit emergy value of any substance increases with concentration. Elements and compounds
not abundant in nature therefore have higher emergy/mass ratios when found in concentrated
form since more work was required to concentrate them, both spatially and chemically.
Emprice is a unit emergy value used to convert money payments into emergy units, expressed
as sej/$. The emprice of goods, materials and energy is the emergy of the commodity divided
by the money paid for it. The emergy of services in an economy depends on the amount of
emergy supporting the economy and the amount of money circulating. An average emprice
for services can be calculated by dividing the total emergy use of a region, state, or nation by
its gross economic product. Emprice varies from country to country and generally decreases
each year as a result of inflation.
-2-
Calculating Unit Emergy Values

Several methods are used to calculate Unit Emergy Values, including: 1) static calculations,
2) dynamic simulation, and 3) network analysis. Most commonly, static calculations are used for
processes where the flows of energy, materials, and services over a particular time period are
multiplied by their UEVs, summed, and divided by the available energy, mass, or dollar value of the
product produced during that same time period. Dynamic simulation has been used for some resources
that require long periods of time to generate, for instance forest wood (Tilley, 1999) or soils (Cohen,
2003). The dynamic method uses rate of change equations for storages that add emergy as long as the
storage of material is accumulating (Odum, 1996). A technique of network analysis using what Collins
and Odum (2000) call a minimum Eigenvalue method built on the earlier work of Patterson (1983).
The Odum-Collins method is further refined using linear equations and the EXCEL solver in this
paper, following methodology outlined in Bardi et al. (2005). Termed Emergy-Network analysis, it
uses a set of simultaneous equations to partition emergy throughout an interconnected network of
components that may include feedback, assigning emergy and calculating UEVs for all flows between
components of the network.
Each of the methods is applicable to different situations and if applied to the same systems
might yield slightly different results. Generally, the static method has been used most widely, with the
vast majority of published transformities having been calculated using this method. Static calculations
are appropriate for relatively established, continuously operating processes, like production of
electricity, where a snapshot in time will produce inflows and outflows that vary little from a snapshot
at a different time. UEVs that result from static calculations do not include emergy used during startup
or early phases of a production process, which may make only minor difference if the process has been
long running and well established.
Dynamic calculation of UEVs is appropriate for processes where the product accumulates
over time and is harvested or used all at once. Since the product is accumulating, the emergy used in
production accumulates. Once the system reaches steady state, where inflows equal outflows, emergy
no longer accumulates 1 . In dynamic calculation, UEVs can be calculated at any time during a
products life, and UEVs will be slightly different with each time period.
The network method incorporates feedback, and thus emergy and UEVs of products are
higher than those calculated using a static algebra method. The calculations in general are carried out
on a system that is assumed to be at steady state, although this is not a requirement. The flows of
emergy are assigned to pathways according to some carrier that is conserved (ie energy or matterin
ecological systems often carbon).
LANDSCAPE DEVELOPMENT INTENSITY

An index of Landscape Development Intensity (LDI) was proposed by Brown and Vivas
(2004) following on earlier work of Brown (1980) and evaluation of relationship of development
intensity to water quality in the St. Marks Watershed in Florida (Brown, et. al, 1998). The LDI is an
index based on nonrenewable areal empower density of land uses (see Table 1). The LDI has been
used as a human disturbance gradient in developing wetland bio-indicators of ecosystem health (Lane
and Brown, 2005; Reiss and Brown, 2005), and in developing a Stream Condition Index (Fore 2004).
Here we propose several methods for evaluating LDI at the watershed scale and demonstrate with a
single watershed in north Florida using a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) approach.
Odum (1996) provides a discussion of the rational for calculating transformities using dynamic simulation.
-3-
Table 1. Areal empower density and LDI coefficients for land uses.
Non-Renewable Non-Renewable Normalized Ln
Empower
Empower
Density
density
Non-renewable
Notes
Land Use
(E14 sej/ha/yr) (E12 sej/m2/yr)
Empower
1 Natural Land / Open Water
0.00
1.00
2 Pine Plantation
5.10
0.05
1.58
3 Low Intensity Open Space / Recreational
6.55
0.07
1.83
4 Unimproved Pastureland (with livestock)
8.00
0.08
2.02
5 Improved Pasture (no livestock)
17.20
0.17
2.77
6 Low Intensity Pasture (with livestock)
33.31
0.33
3.41
7 Citrus
44.00
0.44
3.68
8 High Intensity Pasture (with livestock)
46.74
0.47
3.74
9 General Agriculture
56.11
0.56
3.91
10 Medium Intensity Open Space/Recreational
56.11
0.56
3.91
11 Row crops
107.13
1.07
4.54
12 Single Family Residential (Low-density)
1077
10.77
6.79
13 Recreational / Open Space (High-intensity)
1230
12.30
6.92
14 High Intensity Agriculture (dairy farm)
1349.20
13.49
7.00
15 Single Family Residential (Med-density)
2461.5
24.62
7.59
16 Low Intensity Transportation
3080
30.80
7.81
17 Single Family Residential (High-density)
3729.5
37.30
7.99
18 Low Intensity commercial (Comm Strip)
3758
37.58
8.00
19 Institutional
4042.2
40.42
8.07
20 Highway (4 lane)
5020
50.20
8.28
21 Industrial
5210.6
52.11
8.32
22 Multi-family residential (Low rise)
7391.5
73.92
8.66
23 High intensity commercial (Mall)
12661
126.61
9.18
24 Multi-family residential (High rise)
12825
128.25
9.19
25 Central Business District (Avg 2 stories)
16150.3
161.50
9.42
26 Central Business District (Avg 4 stories)
29401.3
294.01
10.00
Notes to the table:
1 Non-renewable empower density for natural systems = 0
2 Doherty (1995)
3 Average of empower densities of 2 and 4
4 Based on 0.10 steer/ha/yr (13 acres/animal)
Kalmbacher et al. 1984
Empower density to support one steer: 2.12 E15 sej/ha/yr (Brandt-Williams 2001)
= Pine Plantation (2) + 0.29 E15 sej/ha/yr
5 Brandt-Williams (1999)
6 Based on 0.76 steer/ha/yr (3.25 acres/animal)
Arthington et al. (2003)
= Improved Pasture (5) + 1.61 E15 sej/ha/yr
7 Brandt-Williams (1999)
8 Based on 1.4 steer/ha/yr (1.75 acres/animal)
Arthington et al. (2003)
= Improved Pasture (5) + 2.97 E15 sej/ha/yr
9 Average of empower densities of 5, 7, and 11
10 Same as 9, in an urban landscape applies generally to grassy lawns (after Odum 1994)
-4-

Notes to the table continued:
11 Average of empower densities for 11 row crops, based on Brandt-Williams (2001)
12 Based on Parker (1998) and Brown (1980)
13 Based on the emergy evaluation for a golf course (Behrend 2000)
14 Empower density for a dairy farm based on Brandt-Williams (2001)
15 Based on Parker (1998) and Brown (1980). Includes mobile home medium density.
16 Based on Parker (1998)
17 Based on Brown (1980). Includes mobile home high density.
19 Brown (1980)
20 Based on Parker (1998)
24 Brown (1980)
25 Brown (1980)
26 Brown (1980)
Total Watershed LDI

The map in Figure 1 shows land use in a watershed in north Florida, USA (Munson Creek).
Land use categories correspond to those in Table 1 where areas colored in shades of red are urban
lands, yellow are agriculture lands, and greens are natural ecosystems (except for the lightest green
which corresponds to tree plantations). Areal empower densities in Table 1 were assigned to each map
category.
In a GIS environment, the nonrenewable areal empower density (sej/yr) of each land use
within the watershed was multiplied by its area and then summed over all land uses in the watershed,
resulting in total watershed empower. Total watershed empower was divided by watershed area to
yield areal empower density of the watershed and then converted to LDI based on the normalized
values given in Table 1. Table 2 lists total empower, areal empower density, and LDI for the Munson
Creek watershed. While these values provide an indication of the intensity of use on a watershed scale
more information might be gleaned if areal empower density and LDI were calculated on a cumulative
basis.
Cumulative Areal Empower Density

Again in a GIS environment it is possible to accumulate empower along a flow path using a
flow characterization operation. Most GIS packages contain an operation that determines downhill
drainage paths from specified precipitation. The operation generates a map layer with cell values
representing the cumulative flow that has passed through each cell during the drain process. BrandtWilliams (1999) applied a similar technique for several lakes in Florida developing lake trophic index
based on empower density. If the precipitation map is a map of empower per cell, then the operation
will yield cumulative empower along all flow paths, or in other words, each cell will have a value
equal to the cumulative empower upstream from it. In this case, downhill means physically
downhill, as the operation usually requires a topographical map. One could use other slopes to
represent accumulation of empower in a landscape, for instance a unidirectional degradation of
empower from a point source. In our present case, since we are interested in the effect of empower on
water resources, we use a topological map which has slopes draining toward rivers and lakes.
A cumulative areal non-renewable empower map represents the sum of all the up-stream
non-renewable empower at any given point on the map. By using a topographic map (DEM), the
watersheds of each separate lake and stream segment within the larger can be isolated and cumulative
-5-
Figure 1. Land use map of the Munson Creek watershed in north Florida, USA.
areal empower generated for each. If the cumulative areal empower at each lake or stream segment is
divided by its area a cumulative areal empower density results that represents the accumulated
empower along flow paths to that lake or stream segment. The result is a spatially explicit areal
empower density. Figure 2 shows the cumulative areal empower density for lakes and stream
segments in the Munson Creek watershed. Darker shaded lakes and stream segments have higher areal
empower density.
Table 2. Empower, areal empower density and LDI for the Munson Creek watershed
Total Area
Total Empower
Areal Empower Density
Approx LDI
2.38 E4 ha
1.24 E20 sej/yr
52.4 E14 sej/ha/yr
4
-6-
Figure 2. Areal empower density within water bodies of the Munson Creek watershed resulting from intensity of
land use empower in the watersheds of each water body. Compare empower in this figure to the data in Table 1
land use empower densities to evaluate relative intensities.
EMFORMATION
Odum suggested a Sixth Energy Law (or possibly a corollary to his proposed 5th Energy Law)
for material processing as follows: Material cycles are hierarchically organized in a spectrum
measured by emergy/mass that determines mass flows, concentrations, production processes, and
frequency of pulsed recycle (Odum, 2000). In reviewing principles relating energy, emergy, and
materials, Odum states:
any increase in concentration of a material requires an increase in the emergy
per mass (typical units are emjoules per gram). When concentration increases in
some part of a biogeochemical cycle, the emergy per mass increases. When the
material disperses the stored emergy decreases. The amount can be calculated by
estimating what emergy is required to restore its concentration. (Odum 2000)
The important aspect of Odums reasoning was the next to last sentencethe fact that when a material
is dispersed (or recycled) the stored emergy decreases. He suggests that the amount of decrease can be
estimated as the emergy required to concentrate it in the first place.
Figure 3 is an aggregated systems diagram of a material and emergy transformation hierarchy.
Dispersed materials on the left are upgraded at each step in the hierarchy increasing concentration and
-7-
Figure 3. A material and energy hierarchy. Materials are concentrated with each transformation, while
increasing quantities of energy are required, thus emergy gram increases. Two recycle pathways are shown, a
dispersal pathway where the materials carry no emergy, and material recycle pathways where the materials carry
some emergy as they are recycled.
emergy per unit mass. Since at each step in the hierarchy some of the material is dispersed, the
quantity decreases at each step, but its concentration increases. Concentrating the material on the left
requires coupling of the material to some available energy. At each transformation step, more
available energy is degraded than stored. The contributions of the available energy used up at each
transformation step add emergy to the stored material and therefore the emergy of the material at each
step has that of the each preceding step plus the available energy used up at that step. As a result, the
emergy per mass increases with each increase in concentration of material.
There are two pathways of recycle shown, a material recycle and a dispersed recycle. The
dispersed recycle pathway from each transformation step represents the flows of materials that are
collectively dispersed or recycled toward background concentrations in the environment (land, oceans,
or atmosphere) on the left of the diagram. These material flows have little or no availability as they
are very near background concentrations. As Odum (2000) suggests the state of dispersed material on
the right has no availability or emergy (relative to the earth).It is at the lowest energy state in its
biogeochemical cycle. The second type of recycle pathway, material recycle, represents pathways of
recycle where a material still has form and concentration that is distinguishable from background. In
this case, materials have some availability and emergy, but have lost some emergy relative to their
previous state.
If we consider each increase in concentration of a material in a material and energy hierarchy
(Figure 3) as a change in form (ie bauxite, to aluminum, to can) that is equivalent to its change in
concentration, then we have a measure of the emergy of form ie the emergy required to change the
form of a material. We might call this emergy of form em-formation which is short for the emergy
required to concentrate a material from one formal state to another. For instance, the emergy required
to turn bauxite into aluminum. The material (bauxite) has some emergy and the form has all the
emergy used to refine the bauxite into aluminum. The aluminum, when converted into a can, has the
emergy of the material from the previous step and the form of the can has the emergy required to make
the can from the sheet of aluminum.
Figure 4 suggests that the emformation of an object (product) can be evaluated separately
from the emergy of the material. Generally, transformation process require inputs of materials, energy
-8-
Figure 4. Form and matter might be considered separately when evaluating emergy of recycle. When Matter is
used the emergy of the matter and the emergy of the form is used, however when recycled, the emergy of the
matter is recycled, but the emergy of the form is used up.
and information, and the product has the sum of the emergies of the inputs. However, we might
separate the inputs for the purposes of evaluating the emergy in the form, into two flows, the emergy
of the material and the emergy of the energy and information required to create the new form. The
outputs (flows to the right) suggest that the use of the product and the recycle of it have different
effects on the emergy of the form. When used, the product carries the total emergy (that in the
material and that in the form). When recycled, the product carries only the emergy of the material. If
it is a dispersed recycle pathway (ie back to background concentration) then there is no emergy in the
dispersed materials.
The concept of emformation has important implications relative to emergy evaluations of
whole systems that include recycle. When a product is recycled it carries only the emergy of the
material, losing the emergy in its form, and as we suggested in earlier work (Brown and Buranakarn,
2001), the emergy of the material is equal to the emergy of the material it replaces in a recycle system.
So for instance, an aluminum can when recycled carries with it the emergy of the material that is equal
to the aluminum it replaces in the cycle (in this case sheet aluminum). Table 3 lists the material and
form emergy for a few common building materials. The form emergy is the difference between the
total emergy of the product and its material emergy.
Table 3. Material emergy and Emformation of common building materials.

Material
Wood Lumber
Glass
Aluminum
Steel
Raw Material
(E9 sej/g)
Finished Product
(E9 sej/g)
Emformation*
(E9 sej/g)
0.59
1.35
2.16
2.44
2.43
8.66
12.68
3.85
1.84 (76%)
7.31 (84%)
10.52 (83%)
1.41 (37%)
*Emformation is equal to the difference between emergy of the finished product and the raw material emergy.
-9-
NETWORKS and UNIT EMERGY VALUES

Network analysis is a method used to study component parts of systems. It provides a
systems-oriented perspective of interactions between components based on patterns of influence
between components. A flow of matter or energy between any two components within a system
suggests a direct transaction between them. It is assumed that the magnitude of the transaction is
related to the magnitude of influence that one component has on others in the system. The efficiency
with which energy and material is transferred, assimilated, and dissipated between components
conveys significant information about the structure and function networks. A network can be used to
evaluate unit emergy values if input energies are expressed in solar emergy, and as such they become
measures of efficiency.
Network Analysis of UEVs

Shown in Figure 5 is a simplified 5 component network with flows of energy (a), calculated
transformities (b) based on emergy algebra (Odum, 1996), energy intensities (c) based on embodied
energy methods of calculation (Brown and Herendeen, 1996), compared to the network algebra
solution (d). The linear programming matrix solution shown in Table 4 uses the energy flow data in
Figure 5a (note that the transformity for source F is given as 100, therefore the total emergy driving the
system is 30,000 sej). Transformities calculated using this network method differ from the static
calculations (Figure 5b), although all three methods have similar results. The main distinction between
the network algebra and static emergy algebra is that emergy can be counted more than once as it
cycles through the network, while the static emergy algebra does not count emergy a second time
assuming it is used up when ever it passes through a component in a second cycle.
Also included in Table 4 are three indices of system organization that yield information about
the system at different scales. The Pathway Empower is the sum of empower to each component,
since there is cycling in the system and the network algebra allows cycled emergy to be counted more
than once, pathway empower can be greater than the sum of the driving empower. Pathway empower
is calculated as the product of the network transformity and the energy flow (power) at each
component (the diagonals in the matrix). By far the pathway empower points to those components and
their pathways of interaction that are the most influential. Components C and D have the largest
pathway empower totaling 78,000 sej and 89,300 sej respectively. A second index, Component
Cycling Index (CCI), is the ratio of the pathway empower of each component to the total empower
driving the system. The component cycling index is a measure of component influence within the
network. As suggested by the pathway empower, components C and D have the largest CCIs, followed
by component A. The System Cycling Index is the ratio of the sum of pathway empowers to the
empower driving the system. It is a relative system level index that suggests, on average, emergy
cycles 10.7 times through the network.
UEVs and Ecosystem Health

Ecosystems under stress exhibit changed relations among components. Some components
may disappear, others may increase in abundance, flow paths may increase or decrease resulting in
changes to the entire network. The efficiency of a given process may change and some patterns of
hierarchical control of higher to lower levels may diminish or disappear due to a simplified structure of
the system. These changes in organization and performance translate into different values of the unit
emergy values, the variations of which become clear measures of lost or decreased system integrity.
A change in ecosystem health is manifested in changes in structural and functional
relationships within the system. Often the signs are subtle enough that change is difficult to detect or
the indicators used are not sensitive enough to detect change or to discern changes in health from
normal variability. Network analysis of the flows of emergy on pathways of ecological systems may
-10-
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
Figure 5. Energy (a) transformities (b), energy intensities (c), compared to transformities calculated using
network algebra (d). (after Brown and Herendeen, 1996)
-11-
Table 4. Linear programming solution matrix for calculating transformities using the Network
Analysis Method.
From:
S or N
A
B
C
D
E
Y
Z
To:
A
3000
-50
0
10
0
0
0
0
B
7000
0
-100
0
0
5
0
0
C
20000
0
0
-10
10
1
0
0
D
0
50
100
0
-30.0
0
0
0
E
0
0
0
0
10
-7
0
0
Y
0
0
0
0
0
1
-1
0
Z
0
0
0
0
10
0
0
-10
Network Transformity
Brown transformities
Herendeen intensities
Pathway empower
Component cycling index
System Cycling Index 10.7
1
1
1
1501
565
1060
143
185
258
7803
2750
5000
2977
750
2625
4252
3000
3750
4252
7500
3750
2977
3000
2625
7.50E04 1.43E04 7.80E04 8.93E04 2.98E04 4.25E03 2.98E04

2.50
0.48
2.60
2.98
0.99
0.14
0.99
Pathway Empower - sum of the input empower to a component.

Component Cycling Index - empower of component divided by the total empower driving the system.
System Cycling Index - sum of pathway empower divided by total empower driving the system
add insight into detecting and quantifying changes in ecosystem health. Using the data from Silver
Springs in Figure 6, an analysis of changes in emergy flows and cycling that result from the
elimination of top carnivores is given in Table 5. The effect of eliminating top carnivores is to lower
overall cycling emergy by about 12%. Pathway empower of each component is affected differentially,
reducing detritus pathway empower by 12.9% and that of carnivores by 10.9%. Herbivores are
affected only marginally (1.0% while production is affected by only 0.3%. The evaluation of the
changes in pathway emergy using the network emergy technique may provide a tool that can help in
measuring changes in overall ecosystem health with alterations of components or elimination of
trophic levels within the system.
SUMMARY
Spatial evaluation of areal empower density, is demonstrated as a tool for evaluation of
ecosystem health. Areal empower density can be calculated at the watershed scale to rank watersheds
as a Level 1 bio-assessment technique in a landscape level assessment procedure of ecosystem health.
When areal empower density is evaluated cumulatively within watersheds, hot spots are identified
In this demonstration, empower was accumulated along flow paths generated by a DEM of watershed
topography and assigned to lakes and streams at low points of the landscape.
The emergy in form is suggested as being distinct from the emergy of material components
that make up the form. Called emformation and the calculation of emergy associated with form can
be evaluated as the emergy added to a product over and above the emergy of the material. The emergy
of form is the information and high quality flows needed to transform matter into subsequent forms.
-12-
1.06 E9
Solar emjoules/m2/day
1.04 E9
Solar
Energy
1.95 E7
Landscape &
Hydrology
System
14.52 E4
Spring Run
Kinetic Energy
1.17 E4
3.35 E4
4.71 E6
Plants
2.39 E5
1.51 E1
4.19 E3
1.67 E5
1.01 E5 Herbivores
Carnivores
1.51 E2
Top
Carnivores
Gross
Photosynthesis
5.78 E4
Detritus
Used Energy
Joules/m2/day
Silver Springs Ecosystem
Figure 6. Systems diagram of Silver Springs ecosystem showing the energy hierarchy and flows of carbon
(expressed as joules per day). From Collins and Odum (2000).
Table 5. The effect of changes in system organization resulting from loss of top carnivore (Silver
Springs, Florida data).
Item
Solar Energy
Kinetic energy of spring flow
Gross plant production
Net plant production
Detritus
Herbivores
Carnivores
Top carnivores
Transformity
(seJ/J)
1
7170
1135
2130
6030
55200
1641000
16520000
Pathway empower Pathway empower

with top carn.a
without top carn.b
2
(seJ/m /da)
(seJ/m2/da)
--NC---NC-2.72E+08
3.56E+08
2.21E+08
2.32E+08
2.58E+08
2.58E+08
--NC---NC-2.71E+08
3.55E+08
1.93E+08
2.30E+08
2.30E+08
0.00E+00
Percent
Change
--NC---NC-0.3%
0.2%
12.9%
1.0%
10.9%
100.0%
a.- Emergy on pathways of the system depicted in Figure 5.

b.- Emergy on pathways of the system depicted in Figure 5 when the top carnivore is excluded.
The emergy of form is suggested as being lost when the form is consumed, but the emergy of the
substances in maintained during recycle.
Transformities using network or matrix techniques also referred to a network algebra differ
from transformities calculated using emergy algebra (or static algebra). The network algebra takes
into account emergy in feedbacks thus empower on pathways is higher than that assigned in the static
-13-
calculations. Several indices of network organization are introduced that measure network
performance and individual components influence within networks: Pathway Empower, Component
Cycling Index, and System Cycling Index. The network emergy algebra may provide a sensitive
measure of changes in ecosystem health with changes in network flows and components. It is
suggested that after perturbation, change in pathway empower is a measure of the impact on individual
components and that change in a cycling index is a measure of impact on overall organization.
REFERENCES
Arthington, J., P. Bohlen, and F. Roka. 2003. Effect of Stocking Rate on Measures of Cow-Calf
Productivity and Nutrient Loads in Surface Water Runoff document is AN141. IFAS
University of Florida, Gainesville.
Bardi, E., M.J. Cohen, M.T. Brown . 2005. A Linear Optimization Method for Computing
Transformities from Ecosystem Energy Webs. This volume.
Brandt- Williams, S. 1999. Evaluation of watershed control of two Central Florida lakes: Newnans
Lake and Lake Weir. PhD Dissertation. University of Florida, Gainesville.
Brandt-Williams, S. 2001. Emergy of Florida Agriculture. Folio #4 Handbook of Emergy Evaluation
A Compendium of Data for Emergy Computation Issued in a Series of Folios. Center for
Environmental Policy, University of Florida, Gainesville.
Berhend, G. 2000. Carrying Capacity of the Florida Keys. MS Thesis. Department of Environmental
Engineering Sciences. University of Florida. Gainesville.
Brown, M. T. 1980. "Energy Basis for Hierarchies in Urban and Regional Systems." Ph.D.
dissertation, Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences, University of Florida,
Gainesville.
Brown, M.T. 2003. Spatial Modeling of Empower and Environmental Loading,. in M.T. Brown ed
Emergy Synthesis 2: proceeding of the conference on emergy analysis held at Gainesville FL.
September 2001. Center for Environmental Policy, University of Florida, Gainesville.
Brown, M.T and V. Buranakarn, 2001. Emergy Evaluation of Material Cycles and Recycle Options.
p.139-152 In Brown, M.T. (ed). Emergy Synthesis: Theory and applications of the emergy
methodology. Proceedings of a conference held at Gainesville, FL September 1999. The
Center for Environmental Policy, University of Florida. Gainesville. 319 p.
Brown, M.T., N. Parker, and A. Foley. 1998. Spatial Modeling of Landscape Development Intensity &
Water Quality in the St. Marks River Watershed. Final Report to Florida Department of
Environmental Protection,. Center for Wetlands, university of Florida, Gainesville, FL
Brown, M.T. and S. Ulgiati. 2004. Emergy and environmental accounting. In C. Cleveland. (ed)
Encyclopedia of Energy. Elsevier. New York
Brown, M.T. and M.B. Vivas. 2004 A Landscape Development Intensity Index. Environmental
Monitoring and Assessment 101: 289309
Cohen, M. 2003. Dynamic Emergy Simulation of Soil Genesis and Techniques for Estimating
Transformity Confidence Intervals. Pp 355-370 in Brown, M. T. et al (eds) Emergy Synthesis
2; proceedings of a conference held in Gainesville Florida, September 2001. Center for
Environmental Policy, University of Florida, Gainesville.
Collins D. and H.T. Odum. 2000. Calculating transformities with an eigenvector method. pp 265-80 in
Brown, M. T. et al (eds) Emergy Synthesis 1; proceedings of a conference held in Gainesville
Florida, September 1999. Center for Environmental Policy, University of Florida,
Gainesville.
Fore, L.S. 2004. Development and testing of biomonitoring tools for macroinvertebrates in Florida
streams. Final report to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Tallahassee,
Florida.
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Kalmbacher, R.S, K.R. Long, M.K. Johnson, and F.G. Martin, 1984. Botanical Composition of Diets
of Cattle Grazing South Florida Rangeland. Journal of Range Management Vol 37 No4 : 334340.
Lane, C.R. and M. T. Brown. 2005 Energy-based abscissa assessment: proximal and ultimate
relationships between environmental variables and benthic diatoms in marshes of Florida,
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2(6):220-227.
Odum, H.T. 1994. Ecological and General Systems. University of Colorado Press, Niwot CO
Odum, H.T. 1996. Environmental Accounting: Emergy and Environmental Decision Making. John
Wiley and Sons, New York, NY.
Odum, H.T. 2000. An energy hierarchy law for biogeochemical cycles. pp 235-248 in Brown, M. T.
et al (eds) Emergy Synthesis 1; proceedings of a conference held in Gainesville Florida,
September 1999. Center for Environmental Policy, University of Florida, Gainesville.
Parker, N. 1998. Spatial simulation of nutrient dynamics in the St. Marks River Basin. MS Thesis.
Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences. University of Florida, Gainesville.
Patterson , M. 1983. Estimations of the quality of energy sources and uses. Energy Policy 2(4): 346359.
Reiss, K.C and M.T. Brown, 2005. An Evaluation of Florida Palustrine Wetlands: Application of
USEPA Levels 1, 2, and 3 Assessment Methods. EcoHealth [In Press].
Scienceman, D. 1987. Energy and Emergy. In Pillet, G and T. Murota (eds) Environmental Economics
The analysis of a major interface. Geneva, Switzerland: Roland Leimgruber . pp 257-276.
Tilley, D.R. 1999. Emergy basis of forest systems. PhD. Dissertation. University of Florida,
Gainesville. 296 pp.
-15-
-16-
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
2
An Energy Systems View of Karl Marx's Concepts of
Production and Labor Value
Howard T. Odum and David M. Scienceman
ABSTRACT
This paper explores models of production by Karl Marx and other authors using
microcomputer simulation to relate resources and dynamic process. Energy systems diagrams are
adopted both to translate many concepts without semantic misunderstanding and to facilitate their
pertinent computer simulations. Several models of production and labor value are discussed,
including donor-receiver concepts of value, the labor donor concept of value by Marx, Marxs model
of surplus value distribution, capital and price. A dynamic simulation model of Marx's concepts is
developed. Finally, Marxs views are explored using other authors interpretations of his concepts.
INTRODUCTION, ENERGY SYSTEMS AND THE MODELS OF MARX

Now in the new millennium changes in the economy and its relationship to environmental
resources, growth, and social welfare raise questions about which measures of value are appropriate
for public policy. As part of this reexamination, there have been studies of the economic concepts of
the 18th and 19th Century, especially those of Karl Marx. For expressing discussions concisely and
making models concrete, translation with energy systems diagrams clarifies semantic confusion,
facilitates mathematical expression, emergy evaluation, and computer simulation.
Some basic concepts of modern economics have been expressed with energy systems
methods in previous publications (Odum, 1983, Chapter 23; Odum, 1987, 1996; Scienceman, 1984,
1995). Scienceman (1989) uses a summary of the history of economic values by R.L. Heilbroner to
discuss concepts of value and capital in the history of economics, comparing it with emergy concepts
(emergy is spelled with an "m"). In this paper, with energy systems methods, we examine models of
production by Marx and others using microcomputer simulation to relate resources and dynamic
process. When the Marx model is expressed in energy systems language, related to resources and
degrees of feedback, simulated, and compared with other models, additional clarity may result on its
applicability to the 19th, 20th, and 21st Century.
Basic System of Production and Consumption

Figure 1 illustrates the basic system of production and consumption of an economy as
expressed in energy systems language symbols. The circulation of money from consumers to
producers and back begins most elementary economics textbooks. The energy diagram also shows
explicitly the flow of produce to consumers and services to producers that are bought with the money
payments and are a counter current to the flows of money. Materials are incorporated in production
and released as waste and by-products and dispersed for recycling to production again.
-17-
Chapter 2. An Energy Systems View of Karl Marxs Concepts
Figure 1. Energy systems diagram of the basic plan of the economy with production, consumption, and its
dependency on environmental resources and fuel resources including the circulation of money as a counter
current.
The realities of resource limitations are also shown. The potential energy inflows making the
economy possible are shown entering from the sources (circles), while the degraded used energy (that
cannot be reused) is shown leaving the system through the pathways to the "heat sink" at the bottom of
the diagram. The materials are recirculated within the system, and those lost outside the system have
to be replaced from the sources along with the fresh inflows of potential energy.
Growth Limits by External Availability of Energy Sources

There is not much controversy about Figure 1 until questions are raised about whether the
external inputs can be limiting. Economic views often assert that there is always another resource to
be substituted in the long run for the ones that technology develops for their use. Ecoenergetics views
resources as substitutable with the aid of technology, but asserts that substitutions and technologies
themselves require use of rich resources so that growth is ultimately resource limited.
Figure 1 can represent Ricardo's early view of natural value as limiting with his example of a
corn economy (Wolff, 1984). As shown, environmental inputs are used to produce products for
consumers such as corn. The consumers are people that provide the services to corn production.
When natural inputs change, so does the buying power and hence prices due to inflation or deflation.
An increase in environmental input causes an increase in value--thus profits.
The diagrammatic language distinguishes between the two resource hypotheses as shown in
Figure 2. Here Figure 2a has availability constant, regardless of use, because of substitutability (usual
economic viewpoint). Mathematically this is expressed as energy availability constant (E = constant,
Figure 2b). The opposite point of view is expressed with Figure 2c. Here available resources, even
when freely substituted, are ultimately dependent on externally determined inflows--some like sunlight
are abundant and rapid, whereas others like fuels are generated slowly by the biogeochemical cycles
of the earth.
The ways of connecting pathways force the diagrammer and the readers to consider the
energy and material constraints. The items on the left are those that are abundant but spatially
dispersed, whereas the items on the right are more concentrated, requiring the convergence and
resource use during transformations for their support. Thus, the diagram shows energy hierarchy
found in all systems.
-18-
Figure 2. Energy diagrams and microcomputer simulations for representing two competing concepts regarding
sources and economic growth. (a) Constant and therefore unlimited availability of resources supporting the
economy; (b) unlimited, accelerating growth based on constant availability of resource basis; (c) availability of
resources dependent on an externally controlled inflow; (d) growth eventually limited by external rate of
replenishment of available reserves.
The diagrammatic language has its mathematical equivalence that may be expressed in
equation forms, which are simulated producing graphs of variables with time. Equations in Figure 2b
and 2d are for the systems in Figure 2a and 2c. Simulation of these equations generated the graphs in
Figure 2. By means of the diagrams, equations, and simulation graphs, concepts about resources and
growth are given precision.
Simulation of an Aggregated Model of Production and Consumption

Given in Figure 3a is a model, ADDTANK (Table 1), with production, consumption, material
recycle and both kinds of energy sources, the steady renewable input on the left and the storage tank
-19-
(a)
(b)
Figure 3. Model of the dynamic relationships between producers, consumers, and the cycle of materials. (a)
Energy systems diagram and equations; (b) simulation of growth of the systems in model in (b) using the BASIC
program ADDTANK in Table l. Growth is first based only on environmental sources. Use of non-renewable
organic reserves is started halfway across the screen.
of organic reserves on the right. The model applies similarly to ecological systems on a small scale
and to the economy in Europe during the 18th and 19th Centuries.
As the simulation is run in Figure 3b, growth first occurs without use of the organic reserves.
In a lake, plant producers develop followed by growth of the dependent consumers. Then halfway
across the screen consumers start to use the reserve storage with a surge of growth that also pulls
down the producer assets and generates a surge of waste product materials to be assimilated.
-20-
Table 1. BASIC Program ADDTANK for simulating model in Figure 3.
10 REM IBM
20 REM ADDTANK (Autocatalytic prod.
on renewable source; later consumers on
reserves)
30 CLS
40 SCREEN 1,0:COLOR 0,0
45 KEY OFF
50 LINE (0,0)-(319,180),3,B
70 LINE (0,55)-(320,55),3
72 LOCATE 2,1:PRINT "Reserves"
74 LOCATE 6,1:PRINT "Materials"
76 LOCATE 14,1:PRINT "Producers"
78 LOCATE 20,8: PRINT "Consumers"
80 X = 0
90 C = 10
92 N = 100
95 DT = 20
100 Q = 10
110 F = 10000
130 F0 = 200
140 Q0 = 15
150 N0 = 100
160 C0 = 10
170 T0 = 30
190 JN = .005
200 K0 = 8.999999E-03
210 K1 = .0001
220 K2 = .001
230 K3 = .02
240 K4 = .0001
250 K5 = .001
260 K6 = .05
270 K7 = 1E-09
280 K8 = 1E-08
285 K9 = .00001
290 K10 = .000001
300 K11 = 5.2E-8
305 K12 = 1E-09
307 K13 = 1E-7
310 J = 100
320 IF J < 0 THEN J = 0
330 I = J / (1 + K0 * N*Q)
340 DC = K4*Q - K5*C +X*K7*F*C*Q X*K13*F*C
350 DQ = K1 * I*N*Q - K2 * Q X*K12*F*Q*C
360 DF = -X* K8*F*C*Q
365 DN = JN - K3*N + K6*C +K9*Q K10*I*N*Q +X* K11 *F * C
370 Q = Q +DQ*DT
380 C = C + DC*DT
390 F = F + DF*DT
400 N = N + DN*DT
405 T = T + DT
410 IF N <.00001 THEN N = .00001
420 PSET (T/T0, 180 - Q/Q0) ,1
440 PSET (T/T0, 55-N/N0),2
450 PSET (T/T0, 180-C/C0)
460 PSET (T/T0, 55 - F/F0),2
465 IF T/T0>130 THEN X = 1
470 IF T/T0 <320 GOTO 300
The model provides perspective on economic conditions in Europe with mostly an agrarian
society operating on steady renewable resources in the 19th Century followed by explosive growth of
an economy increasingly based on fuel resources accelerating in the 19th Century.
In summary, Figures 1-3 illustrate the way ideas of economics can be expressed in several
objective, alternative ways including models diagrams showing pathway relationships and storages,
energy laws and energy hierarchy, mathematical equations, and simulation graphs.
The diagrams are readily understood by most people, allowing those who use mathematical
concepts to discuss concepts with those who think verbally, without semantic misunderstanding.
Donor-Receiver Concepts of Value

Martinez-Alier (1987), with a book entitled Ecological Economics, reviewed the work of a
dozen authors whom he classified as pioneer contributors to ecological energetics in which value is
derived from the input of resources (climate and land), measured with physical measures of these basic
inputs.
The ecoenergetics roots attempt to derive and measure value in units of inputs of natural
resources from outside the economy. Symbolized by the face on the left in Figure 4c, value is "donor"
-21-
defined from the biosphere, in particular from the agricultural sector. Those with this resource
concept of value are sometimes called Physiocrats. The evaluation of resource contributions with the
new measure, emergy, spelled with an "M," is an attempt to put these evaluations on a scientific basis.
Shown in Figure 4a is another donor-type value concept. With Marx's Labor value concept,
the contribution of everything downstream is determined by the hours of labor embodied in the
pathway.
As viewed by economics of the 20th Century, the most common definition of economic value
is "what humans are willing to pay as in markets." It is the market value to an individual person or
firm. It is determined by the consumer in determining price.
The human perception value concept is represented in Figure 4b by the human figure in the
box marked "consumers." Value is defined by the selfish, local, individual, momentary perception as
to what is good for the individual collectively generating demand. This is a "receiver" defined value.
Thus, for over a century there has been a deep division of thought on value that is expressed
in Figure 4. Figure 4a shows a donor value starting with labor passing along pathways of work.
Figure 4b shows consumers controlling market price, thus expressing their receiver-based value.
Figure 4c shows a more complete picture. Donor value of environmental contributions, measured in
emergy units, flows from the left. Prices result from the amount of money circulating relative to the
product use.
Economic Designs for Maximum Empower

The external donor resource concept of value that goes back to Ricardo and before (MartinezAlier, 1987) has been given rigorous definition by defining emergy as the available energy of one
form necessary to develop that of another form (when accounted for by means of the rules of Emergy
Algebra). By developing tables of the solar emergy per unit energy (solar transformity), a practical
means has been developed for calculating donor value. The maximum power principle of Boltzmann
and Lotka and others, is more rigorously stated as the principle of maximum rate of useful emergy use
(empower) as follows:
The economy that emerges and prevails during self organization is the one that maximizes its
rate of useful emergy use.
In terms of the system shown in Figures 1, 2, and 4c the solar emergy use is determined from
the sources from outside plus the use of nonrenewable storages inside. The systems designs that
emerge are those where production is fed back to reinforce the gaining of new sources and the use of
these with optimum efficiency consistent with maximum performance. Whereas this paper does not
concern emergy evaluation, we do include this paragraph as the justification for the characteristic
designs used to represent economies of the past and present. (For more on emergy, see Odum, 1986a,
1986b; Scienceman, 1986; Odum et al., 1987, 1996).
Labor Donor Concept of Value of Marx

The value concept of Marx fits neither the external resource donor (emergy) nor internal
receiver concepts in Figures 4b and 4c. As sketched in Figure 4a, value of exchange is derived from
the human service contributed to material in commodity exchanges. It is value determined by a donor
process, but the donors are the people within the system. Its as though value is a fountain that
emerges within workers. Marx acknowledges the necessary incorporation of materials, but these do
not accrue labor value until incorporated through a labor-facilitated production process. When
diagrammed as in Figure 4a, a network of labor value flow results which does not deal with inputs of
environmental resources or information.
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Figure 4. Illustration of donor and receiver definitions of value. (a) Labor value concept of Marx with value
coming from human hours contributed; (b) market price value determined by receiving consumer's willingness to
pay money; (c) emergy value derived from the resource contributions.
Capital
The flows of value were called flows of capital by Marx, with meaning quite different to
modern uses of the word. See Table 2 from Eagly (1973, p. 131). As pointed out by Eagly, the word
capital, as used by Marx, was a term for all kinds of flow of economic value, a more general use of the
word than its modern use. In modern use, capital often refers to the values in large units such as
buildings, equipment, infrastructure, etc.
-23-
Capital was defined as the means of production and evaluated in units of labor time. In
volume III of DAS CAPITAL especially, Chapter 3, Marx as published by Engels (1894; 1962)
divided labor basis for production of "capital," designated C, into 3 categories:
1. Necessary labor time to produce the means of production such as structures and
equipment was designated "constant capital," c. Capital to Marx is a social relation.
2. Labor value of products distributed back to laborers was designated "variable capital," v.
3. Production for capitalists was designated "surplus value" s, the excess derived from the
variable production process.
Transmitting Embodied Power through a Sector Containing Storage

Confusion often arises in considering the numerical output of a donor based, embodied value
in being transmitted through a sector in which there is a capital storage with depreciation. In Figure 5,
100 units of embodied input are flowing into the sector per unit of time along with 100 units of energy
and materials being used by that sector. In Figure 5a the input of materials goes to maintain the
storage, some being dispersed as part of the transformation work and depreciation. The embodied
value, however, is transferred 100% to the output. In such a transmission the output has a higher ratio
of embodied value to materials and energy. This principle is clearly given by Marx for his labor
value.
In Figure 5a the embodied value is retained in the storage or transmitted beyond. Embodied
value in the storage may increase if there is growth, or it may decrease if there is storage decline. If
storage is constant there is steady state, and input embodied value equals output embodied value.
In Figure 5b, half of the product goes to a growing storage (+25/unit time), and half is
transmitted beyond to the right. The embodied value is split. Each of these two pathways carries half
of the embodied input of 100.
Marx's examples allowed for growth, but he adjusted his numbers to a steady state through
the device of diverting what would have been growth outside, labeling it "not used," as shown in
Figure 5c.
When something is transformed, the energy and materials may be less in the output product,
but the embodied input is undiminished. But if part of the output product is not used, its embodiment
is not passed to outputs.
Whereas part of the energy and materials of the input go out with depreciation, embodied
labor value is either stored or passed forward as output of the unit with depreciation. In other words,
depreciation is part of the necessary process of carrying embodied value forward. These principles,
illustrated in Figure 5, help explain the numerical values used by Marx in Figure 6.
Seasonal Separation of Production and Consumption

With the economy of Europe still highly agricultural in the last century, it was customary
then to think of a sharp seasonal pulse of production which went to markets. Then, as a separate stage,
the market products were distributed to workers and capitalists. Marx deals with the first with
production models numerically evaluated in units of labor time that include the direct paid and indirect
unpaid work necessary to the production process. Then the distribution of the products is traced with
numerical values of flows with monetary evaluations of "prices" for exchange.
Marx's Model of Surplus Value Distribution

The model of production in terms of labor values discussed by Marx in his volume III, Chapter 3,
is diagrammed in energy language notation in Figure 6. Notice two main production processes (within
producer symbols). The one above has a storage (tank symbol) representing long lasting structures
that have depreciation.
-24-
Figure 5. Concept of donor-type value transmitting the embodiment of an input through a transformation to an
output (applicable to both Labor value and EMERGY Value). Numbers on the pathways are energy flows in
steady state. (a) Steady state; (b) growing situation with net increase within the storage tank; (c) a growing state
represented as a steady state by diverting as "not used" what would have been growth increase.
To explain concepts, Marx supplied some numbers normalized as 100% of the work
contribution of the laborers. In Figure 6, the Marx concepts of production, its source of value from
labor, and the destination of the value in the products of labor and their fate are diagrammed.
In this example (from Marx, p.153) the total labor-determined value of the inputs to two
production processes was given as 100 per year of which 80 went by the lower pathway into the
constant capital means of production. This unit was not in steady state, since 30 is shown not used
and 50 is the output labor value going to the lower production process.
The two inputs to the process of producing variable capital includes labor power of 20 direct
from labor and 50 output from the constant capital production process. The labor value of the output
of the variable capital process is 70 of the original 100 that started from the labor source. There is an
-25-
Figure 6. Systems diagram of Marx's concept of embodied labor value using his terms and numerical example of
a production sector. The triangular constant gain amplifier symbol is used with a gain of 2.
input of 20 from the environment to variable capital and regarded as surplus value. These values go to
the market. In this example, 20 (equal to the surplus capital input) goes to capitalists leaving 70
returning to laborers. For steady state situations, the concept of labor value requires that the values
generated from labor be considered as disappearing (used up) and being replaced anew where the
pathways return labor value to laborers again.
In the example in Figure 6, the part designated as surplus, a value of 20/year, was the basis
for profit and capital accumulation. Marx's rate of exploitation e is the ratio of surplus s to input
variable capital v. In this case e = 1. Much of the social policy implications of Marx concerned the
magnitude and use of the surplus value.
Nineteenth Century Perceptions of Money and Donor Wealth

When a commodity is traded, its inherent wealth (donor value) goes with it whether it is
evaluated with hours of prior-used labor or in emergy units (prior-used energy of one form). Gold is
such a commodity. An analysis of gold production in South Africa (Bhatt and Odum, 1987) suggests
it has a solar transformity of 4 E14 solar emjoules per gram.
When gold is traded, it is a commodity with inherent wealth, a high emergy product of
nature. Gold is used for its inherent non-corrosive properties in industry and to make jewelry.
However as Gold evolved into money, it became also a counter current to facilitate the
trading of other commodities and services. Then the essence of gold was designated to paper money,
gold certificates, thus circulating as counter-currents to other commodities. During the period of the
last century, gold certificates could be traded for gold, a trade of information-gold in counter current
for real gold. Now, in this century, we are used to money as the counter current, no longer with
inherent wealth. Now the money as pure information is not useful until it is coupled to real wealth. In
other words, the spending and circulating of money pumps the commodities as Keynesian economics.
-26-
Diagramming Marx's Concept of Price

Money (Information paper money, not Gold) is a counter-current to real wealth. Marx and
modern economics practices often apply the numerical value of the money counter-current to the
purchased commodity or service going in the opposite direction toward the consumer. The solid lines
in Figures 1 and 4c represent wealth going forward and the dashed lines the counter-current of money
flow. In our modern view, the ratio of money paid to commodity or service rendered in countercurrent is price (not the meaning of Marx's use of the word).
In Marx's view, as we already indicated, the labor value embodied in each production process
is the "cost price" which is averaged through the market to form the price of production. In Marx's
way of representing the system, the pathways from labor through production to the market were
measured in units of labor time (Figure 6). Beyond the market the values are represented in monetary
units, "prices," moving in the direction of the products (Figure 4a).
In Marx's time, money was thought of as real value in the sense of money (gold-based) being
the real wealth going with the service or commodity, rather than as a counter-current. Thus, Marx's
numerical examples of flow of labor-based value, when diagrammed to represent his point of view, do
not have money as a counter-current (Figure 6).
The pathways of embodied labor power are also gold except that the conversion from hours
of labor to gold units was through a transformation that occurs in the market for labor that averages
the labor per unit gold. See example in Figure 8. This is Marx's labor price. It is not the money paid
for labor in the modern sense, but the gold-based money value that Marx sees as going in the same
direction as all other commodities and, like labor power, is a way to represent the pathways from
developing wealth to its consumption. Marx calls system-averaged gold-based money values "prices
of production."
Figures 6 and 9 are our diagrams of Marx's model with labor value given as his gold-based
money "prices." In reality, the gold and gold certificates were generally running as a countercurrent to
the food, clothing, and human services and should have been represented even then as a countercurrent.
Figure 7 is the example from Figure 6, with lines extending the flow of value from the market
to labor and to capitalists. The evaluated price is shown dependent on cost price and in turn dependent
on labor time. Marx (1963) included an arrow diagram in a letter to Engels with wages derived from
variable capital and profit from surplus value. Also added to Figure 7, according to energy language
diagramming, are flows of money shown in dashed lines, moving as a counter-current to the flows of
labor values, although this was apparently not Marx's view.
Averaging Surplus Labor Value Through Market to Determine "Price"

In Marx's discussion, where money was assigned to a pathway numerically equal to the labor
value of that flow, the number was designated the cost price. In the markets (Figure 8), the surplus
part was averaged to become the profit part of the price. The commodity prices resulting have the
same profit. As the diagram shows, the profit goes to capitalist, and the laborer receives the cost
prices, which are less than their contributed labor value, the differences being what went into storages
(not used up) and into profits.
In Figure 8, Marx's five department example (Volume III, pp. 153-155) is diagrammed to
show the convergence of the several sectors, each with a different labor value and cost price input to
variable capital production, each generating a different surplus value that is averaged in the market
and routed on the right to capitalists as 22%. This diagram, like that in Figure 6, has surplus value
generated in each department of production in excess of the 100 % input labor value.
-27-
Figure 7. Systems diagram of Marx concepts in Figure 6 extended to close production and consumption loop.
Numbers are embodied labor value adjusted to steady state. Dashed lines are the flows of money in counter
currents to the flows of labor and produced commodities.
The averaging of the price of labor is tantamount to regarding laborers as interchangeable. In

modern times this is done with lower paid categories with minimum wage laws. To some extent
humans that are not highly educated and programmable are more flexible and thus substitutable, but
human labor of our time has a wide range of educational backgrounds, job classifications, and emergy
in the background of specialized human service, with workers not completely interchangeable nor
representing the same price.
In the process of averaging the worker's labor inputs, an equivalence of labor and price was
obtained, the price of labor power. The price of products was evaluated by the amount of the labor
pool's work on the job and off the job, only part of which goes back to the workers. Foley (1986)
makes Marx's conversion of labor power to wage explicit with the expression:
W* = (m) (w)
where W* is the salary, which is fixed at the subsistence level, m is the value of money, and
w is the money wage, the amount of money the worker received for an hour of labor power.
Closure of Producer-Consumer Loops

Figure 6 has been expanded in Figures 7 and 9 to close the inputs and outputs of the four
sectors discussed: constant capital production, variable capital production, labor, and capitalists. The
numbers on Figure 7 are Marx's labor values adjusted so that contributions from the labor source are
numerically equal to those at the end of flows terminating at the labor sector. Whereas Figure 6 was
not a steady state, values in Figure 7 were adjusted slightly to make a steady state (inflows and
outflows equal for each unit).
To completely close the circuits and exchanges would require the pathways of capitalist
service back to labor or other sectors, but Marx's writings did not imply such mutualism. Notice the
feedback from capitalist to labor as a controller in Figure 9.
-28-
Figure 8. Diagram of Marx's example of five production-department economy showing labor values into the
market and price values for outputs from the market to consumers. Surplus capital is shown becoming profit 22%
through market averaging.
Input Output Representations of Marx Concepts of Value

Marx did not supply a complete input-output table for his examples. Several authors (Seton,
1957; Howard and King, 1976) have made partial input-output tables representing Marx's numerical
examples, with three production sectors, showing surplus capital production separate from variable
capital production. However, Marx rather refers to surplus capital production as an overcharge of the
one system rather than as a separate sector. Neither Marx nor these later authors in their numerical
tables closed the loop through the consumers (labor and capitalist) whose roles they discussed.
Diagram of Materials Flow as the Classical Circulating Capital

Table 2 has a comparison of terms simplified from Eagly (1976). Marx identified capital as
consisting of two parts to which he gave two names that had been used by Adam Smith and others
previously, capital for large equipment assets and capital for the materials used. In Figure 9 is given
Marx's model (Figure 6) with the added detail on materials. Numerical values given are from his
example from Vol. III, Chapter 9. A total labor value of 500 per unit time includes 400 circulating
and variable capital and 100 constant capital. Ten of that fixed capital is "used up" in wear and tear,
and thus its value is transmitted to the output commodity. (See explanation of the behavior of used up
storages in Figure 5b.) Ninety is not used (If the "not-used" is stored, then the system is growing, not
in steady state.) If the "not-used" is regarded as going elsewhere then the system is numerically in
steady state). Average profit of 50 is generated (from source unknown) in variable capital production
so that the labor value in the output commodity total is 460 per unit time of which 410 goes back to
support Labor.
-29-
Figure 9. Diagram of Marx's model and numerical example of labor value showing materials flow separately
which Marx removed from circulating capital and considered a part of constant capital. Diagram also includes
the product flows to consumers with labor-value derived prices.
Table 2. Definitions of "Capital" by Marx Modified from Eagly (1974).

Commodity group
Marx
Modern views
Wage Goods
Some authors prior to

Marx
Circulating Capital
Variable Capital
Not Usually
Called Capital
Raw materials
Circulating Capital
Constant Capital
Not Usually
Called Capital
Fixed Capital
Constant Capital
Capital
Durable Producer
Goods
Growth Implications of Marx Model

Because surplus value in some amount above the 100% input of labor value was part of
Marx's model, it was an exponential growth model. (That is, value was the input plus an added
surplus increment with some production not used.) Profit was derived from the surplus. An
expanding economy was generated from within a closed system of Figure 6. In 19th Century Europe,
expansion was aided by the rapid incorporation of new energy sources, especially technologyfacilitated fuels. The expansion of the technology to use energy reserves was generating growth in
-30-
value from the work of labor. This may have been the basis for the surplus value which Marx put in
his model, sometimes attributing it to unpriced and unpaid labor, and elsewhere he said its source
"remains a mystery." Marx, in one place, mentions energy contributing to production, a new concept
in his time. However, he excludes nature's work from labor power and from price values:
"Natural elements entering as agents into production, and which cost nothing, no matter what
role they play in production, do not enter as components of capital, but as a free gift of nature to
capital, that is as a free gift of Nature's productive power to labor, which however, appears as the
productiveness of capital as all other productivity under the capitalist mode of production. Therefore,
if such a natural power, which originally costs nothing, takes part in production, it does not enter into
the determination of price, so long as the product which it helped to produce suffices to meet the
demand."
A DYNAMIC SIMULATION OF THE MARX MODEL

By diagramming verbal models with energy systems diagrams, mathematical and energy
relationships are represented ready for computer simulation.
The process thus combines
thermodynamics, hierarchy and information, conservation of matter, reinforcing designs that are
consistent with maximum empower, and dynamic relationships. In the following section, the energy
systems diagram of Marx's concepts were put in equation form and simulated with a BASIC computer
program. The Marx model was simulated with several experimental modifications. These "what ifs"
are like controlled experiments exploring the consequences of this model for various designs and
energy conditions.
Details on the methodology are given in a recent book (Odum and Odum, 2000).
Equations for the Marx Model

The Marx model in Figure 7 was redrawn without dashed money lines in Figure 10 to include
the energy sources, the used energy sinks (heat sinks), and the mechanisms of production and
interaction. The diagram was then translated into the equations used for simulation. The
microcomputer program in BASIC for IBM PC is given in Table 3.
The state of laborers was represented as storage tank L, delivering labor power and receiving
the variable capital basis for labor. This storage is the total labor including the reserve of unemployed.
The use of labor in the three production interactions generates labor power. One of the labor inputs
goes to variable capital production. The labor flows to the constant capital production are shown with
two interactions. In some simulation runs one or the other or both are set to operate. Constant Capital
Assets (A) receives products from an interaction of labor, assets, and source energy, and also from a
second interaction that includes capitalist action.
The Capitalist unit C pumps value from the variable production output, diverting it from
reaching Labor. In some runs, Capitalist only uses and does not feed back. In other runs, the
feedbacks from Capitalist to interact and control more labor input to constant capital production is
included.
Outflows of capital assets include depreciation and contribution to variable capital
production, as indicated for materials-energy in Figure 5b. Variable "surplus production" was made
the product of energy source, labor, and capital assets.
Provision for Connecting or Disconnecting Capitalist Action

The pathway of capitalist action is shown in Figure 10 controlling two production units that
contribute products to the Assets storage. The pathways have on and off switches (X and Y). In some
simulation runs a pathway process is turned off (X = 0; Y = 0), thus causing the Capitalist to take
surplus capital without contributing back to the system. In other runs this capitalist-facilitated
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production interaction was turned on (X 1), representing contribution and control of capitalists on
some of the means of production.
Provision for Switching Unlimited and Limited Energy Sources

The importance of the type of energy source was shown in Figures 2 and 3. In the Marx
simulation model in Figure 10a, provision was made to run Unlimited source (E = 0) or Flow limited
source (E = 1). Both are shown in Figure 10 with an extra equation that is required for the flow
limited case.
Calibration
To calibrate the model in Figure 10a, the three main storages were each given the value 100,
a normalizing procedure. Then flows into and out of these storages were assigned to the pathways in
proportions implied by Marx's models (Figure 6). Flows in and out were adjusted to steady state of a
developed economy so as to provide an appropriate turnover time for each: Labor, 5 years; Capital
Assets, 20 years; and Capitalists, 30 years. These flows and storages are shown in Figure 10b. Also
shown in that Figure is the calculation of coefficients that follows from the assumed calibration values.
Simulation Results with Unlimited Energy

If the Capitalist part of the model in Figure 10 is disconnected (K7, K8, and K9 = 0), and if
the source is unlimited (E = 0; R = constant), Labor and Assets and the flows among them accelerated
rapidly with unlimited growth and went off scale. In other words, there is exponential growth without
capitalist feedback. Some researchers have pointed out the exponential growth characteristics inherent
in Marx's model. Much later, exponential growth of economies which accumulate value
autocatalytically was described with equations by Domar (1937) and Harrod (1939). That simulation
(Odum, 1987) bears out those conclusions about Marx's model.
Simulation with Capitalist Consuming but Not Contributing

Figure 11a has the simulation of the Marx Model without energy limit and with the capitalist
consumption connected, but with feedback disconnected. Note that a pulsing oscillation results.
Labor and assets started to grow and then were pulled down sharply by the capitalist consumption. A
sort of prey-predator oscillation resulted.
Simulation with Capitalist Consuming and Contributing

Figure 1lb has the simulation with capitalist feedback connected and energy source unlimited.
The oscillation was smaller in amplitude and with higher frequency.
Figure 11c has the simulation with only the capitalist-facilitated production operating. The
other capital assets production interaction was disabled (Y=O). There was still an oscillation.
Simulations with Limited Energy Inflow

Simulations with limited inflowing energy sources are given in Figure 12. Without the
capitalist feedback connection, a broad oscillation was observed (Figure 12a). With capitalist
feedback connected simulations (Figure 12b), a stable steady state pattern was observed.
Figure 12c has the simulation with only the capitalist-controlled assets production. A stable
pattern with high efficiency resulted.
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(a)
-33-
(b)
Figure 10. Simulation version of the Marx model (Figure 6) including the sources, storages, sinks, mechanisms,
and equations. Switches are provided so as to run the model with some pathways turned on and off in different
combinations. (a) System diagram with equations; (b) diagram of parts of the model with calibration values.
-34-
Table 3. BASIC Program MARX.bas for Simulation of the Model Figure 10.
320 K10 =.012

330 K11 = .004
340 K12 = .002
350 K13 = .02
360 K14 = .00002
365 K15 = 1!
367 K16 = .01
368 K17 = .0001
370 PSET (T/T0,180-A/A0),1
380 PSET (T/T0,180-C/C0),3
390 PSET (T/T0,180-L/L0),3
395 REM PSET (T/T0, 50 - PT/P0),1
396 GOTO 397
397 PSET (T/T0, 50 - P/P0),3
400 IF E = 1 THEN R = I/(1
+K0*L*A+Y*K4*L*A + X*K5*L*A*C)
410 IF E = 0 THEN R = 2.1
420 IF R < .0001 THEN R = .0001
425 IF A > AT THEN Z =1
426 IF A < AT THEN Z =0
430 P = K10*R*L*A
435 PT = P +Y*K1*L*A*R
+X*K2*L*A*R*C:REM total production
440 F = K10*R*L*A/(1 + K6*C)
450 DA=Y*K1*L*A*R +X*K2*L*A*R*C K3*A - Z*K16*A - K17 * R*A*L
460 DC=K7*F*C - K8*C -X*K9*R*L*A*C
470 DL = K15*F - K13*L -K12*R*A*LY*K11*R*A*L -X*K14*R*A*L*C
480 C = C +DC*DT
490 IF C <1 THEN C = 1
500 A = A + DA * DT
505 IF A <1 THEN A = 1
510 L = L +DL*DT
515 IF L <1 THEN L = 1
520 T = T + DT
530 IF T/T0<320 GOTO 370
10 REM PC: MARX

20 CLS
30 SCREEN 1,0:COLOR 0,0
40 LINE (0,60)-(320,180),3,B
50 LINE (0,0)-(319,50),3,B
60 REM Scaling factors
70 DT = 1
80 T0 = 2
100 L0 = 5
110 C0 = 3
120 A0= 3
125 P0= 3
137 REM Sources and Starting Values
130 L = 10
140 A = 10
160 I = 2.1
170 C = 10
175 AT = 200
180 REM E is type of source: E=0 unlimited;
E=1 is flow limited
190 REM X=1 is capitalist feedback to assets
production: X=0 is disconnected
195 REM Y=1 is Labor connected to capital
production: Y=0 is disconnected
200 E = 1
210 X = 1
215 Y = 1
220 K0 = .0003
230 K1 = .0015
240 K2= .00001
250 K3 = .02
260 K4 = .0003
270 K5 = .000003
280 K6 = .02
290 K7 = .005
300 K8 = .037
310 K9 = .000013
Comparison of Simulation with 19th Century Conditions

In the 19th Century, with new resources being drawn into the economy with new
technologies, conditions were like the simulations with unlimited energy. The sharp economic
oscillations observed in that century may be consistent with the simulation oscillations.
Like Domar (1937) and Harrod (1939) exponential growth formulation much later, it was
regarded as normal that surplus, profit, and expanding economy could be generated from within a
closed system of Figure 6. Such change in the 19th Century was started by the rapid incorporation of
new sources, especially technology-facilitated fuels.
-35-
Figure 11. Simulations of the model in Figure 10 with unlimited energy source (E = 0; R = constant): (a)
Without feedback from capitalist growth (X = 0; Y = 1); (b) with some production aided by feedback from
capitalist growth (X = 1; Y = 1); (c) with the only production controlled by feedback from capitalist growth (X =
1; Y = 0).
Especially when the capitalist sector contribution was not connected, the simulations
generated less production than was possible, and so little was routed to laborers that their services
were limiting to economic vitality.
Many of the discussions of this system have concerned what happens when the circulation in
Figure 10 is growing, with the surplus loop generating a new storage of accumulated capital (money).
Following Marx, Figure 10 shows the accumulated capital going into luxury production for capitalists,
who cause labor to produce a surplus for this. The words "luxury and surplus" used by Marx and the
diagram representing his views (Figure 10), were implied criticisms of the system of his time.
-36-
Figure 12. Simulations of the model in Figure 10 with energy sources limited to a fixed inflow (E=1; R limited).
(a) Without any production feedback action from capitalist growth (X = 0; Y = 1); (b) with some production
controlled by the capitalist feedback (X = 1; Y = 1). (c) with limited source and with all the production controlled
by capitalist feedback (X = 1; Y =0).
-37-
Comparison of Simulation with 20th Century Conditions

The simulations with limited energy may be more relevant to conditions late in the new
millennium when available resources may be decreasing.
Incomplete, and thus badly functioning, economies resulted when low energy agrarian
economies were supplied the new resources which can support rapid growth. Early succession in
ecosystems generates patterns with excess net production that may go into developing higher levels of
voracious consumers with low diversity, wild oscillations, and rapid displacement of the occupations
of one stage with those of another. Thus, the disruption and change of expanding resources that are
self organizing a better system may be viewed as pathological to people caught up in change that was
not understood.
The expansion of production due to expanding inputs of resources generated surplus values
that eventually were fed back into rapid growth of technology and advanced production sectors. The
structure suggested in Figure 8, with the disconnected Capitalist service, eventually was adjusted to be
like the connected feedback, suggesting the changes of income distribution, reorganization of the
economy, education, and rise of labor unions.
THE INTERPRETATIONS OF MARX BY OTHERS

In the following paragraphs, energy systems diagrams have been drawn to represent the
views of Marx offered by other scholars:
Carchedi System Equations and Information

As part of a discussion of Marx and class, Carchedi (1987) gave a set of equations describing
value resulting from human-facilitated transformations. He described transformation in production, in
consumption, and in a higher level of processing that generates information, and finally social
information. See Carchedi equations in Figure 13 and the energy systems diagram that is consistent
with these equations and their discussion. Notice the materials recycle loop found in all ecological
and economic systems in which materials are concentrated and become part of upgraded products and
then dispersed by consumption as "waste," often through environmental cycles back to production
again.
By translating Carchedi, it is easy to identify his concepts of value resulting from
transformations as similar to the emergy based concept of hierarchy and class which we have offered
(Odum 1986; Scienceman, 1987). We use Transformity, defined as the emergy per unit energy, to
measure the position in the scale of class and hierarchy. The energy systems language has units and
processes arranged from left to right in order of their transformity. We have found that information
has very high transformities. Higher transformity functions of processing and control are identified
with the consumer sector on the right in Figure 8.
Carchedi's discussion of Marx inserted the work of the upper class, the mental labor and
information processing and control, important and necessary in fully developed systems (right side of
Figure 13). Because the higher levels were distorted by the initial surges of growth based on new
resources in the 19th Century, it was easy for Marx to have a blind spot on the need and necessity of
the higher levels of human work. The generating of "surplus" production was the means for
developing the higher levels. Then, as now, there was the question as to how much of the luxury,
pomp, and circumstance is essential to the system as symbols and means of individual motivation, and
how much is pathological diversion leading to economic failure in circumstances of world
competition.
-38-
Figure 13. Transformation equations of Carchedi (1987) expressed with energy systems language. Carchedi's
expressions: LPo, labor power in value production; MAT, material transformation; MET, mental transformation;
MAU, material use value; MAU*, transformed material use value; K, knowledge; K*, transformed knowledge; IC
perception of concrete reality used to transform knowledge.
Samuelson Equations for Marx

A set of linear programming equations was used by Samuelson to represent the Marx model
of Figure 6 and to study analytic properties. His equations are diagrammed in Figure 14. They are
similar to the production part of the simulation model in Figure 10. One production system (I) sums a
contribution from capital K and one from labor L while producing capital. A second production
system II sums contributions from capital and labor while generating the goods Y that are used
(transformed) into Labor L. We have added energy sources and sinks (dotted lines) to Figure 14 to
make the model energetically correct.
A system of production with required labor and capital, if made into a dynamic model,
requires the multiplication of these inputs as the production function. The configuration of two such
systems with two interactions looping back to each other is mathematically the same as an explosive
chain reactions in chemistry (Figure 14a). (Also, see Odum, 1983, Chapter 6.) The explosive
properties of this configuration, where energy inputs are not limiting, are consistent with the explosive
nature of growth in the early industrial revolution.
Process of Organizing a Natural Hierarchy

We have indicated elsewhere the natural energy-hierarchy which emerges with successful
self organization of many kinds of systems, animate and inanimate. Systems of different kinds are
compared by expressing each on a graph of Energy and Transformity (Figure 15). The struggles over
distribution and class described as dialectical by Marx seem to be the means by which self
organization finds the natural distribution. If the natural hierarchical energy-transformity pattern
predicts the outcome of social-political evolution, we have means for achieving a stable economy
-39-
more directly, using first principles. Transformity as used in Figure 15 may be a useful, objective
measure for the definition of class. The essence of individual rights in democracy is the opportunity,
right, and obligation to try to move to the right in the transformity scale of class in the course of one's
life and experience.
Comparison of Labor Value and Emergy

Marx's Labor value originates from people. It continues over pathways of the system until it
returns to people again. It is transmitted when it is part of a transformation that "uses up" an input. It
may be accumulated and stored. Price of products (in the sense of monetary value) was believed to
come from averaging labor value.
Our concept of emergy is available energy of one form embodied in a commodity or in
labor. Emergy is transmitted whenever energy was required and its potential partially used up in being
degraded during transformations. Emergy is derived from outside energy sources or from storages
that
Figure 14. Energy diagram of Samuelson's (1957) linear equations for representing Marx and a comparison with
chain reactions. (a) Energy diagram of explosive chain reactions of unlimited energy sources in reactants A and
B generating products D and C; (b) energy diagram of Samuelson's equations for Marx. Dotted lines were used
to add energy flows.
-40-
Figure 15. Energy-transformity diagram used to represent class hierarchy.
were derived from outside previously. Emergy values disappear when a pathway returns to amplify
production in a closed loop. Labor has an emergy value, but the amount depends on the type of labor,
which in turn depends on the emergy of inputs to that labor such as education and machinery used. If
one gives labor and services an emergy value in proportion to wages, one is using an average money
per unit value, a useful averaging procedure for some purposes. Both are donor embodied values, but
emergy evaluates all flows with numbers derived from scientific data on the quantity of energy
previously used. Marx's numerical values for a flow are the labor hours contributed.
Trade Equity
Lonergan (1988) compared several ways of evaluating the relative benefits to each of two
trading partners. Becker (1976) had used Marx's labor value concept to show large imbalances where
trade was based on market prices. We had shown large imbalances using emergy (Odum, 1984;
Odum and Odum, 1983; Odum, 1988). If labor value is used to show a low price of labor in rural
areas, the implication might be drawn that labor is exploited there. The emergy evaluation indicates a
different interpretation. Labor may have as high a standard of living in units of emergy per person.
Emergy values for products from rural countries in relation to price are higher than in developed
countries because more of the support of labor comes direct from the landscape without payment. In
both evaluations, the country receiving higher values exploits the other unless it returns to that country
balancing values of other kinds such as information, technology, military protection, education, health
programs, foreign aids, etc.
Maximum Emergy and Economic Structure

Marx was a pioneer in seeking a donor basis of value. However, by inadequately recognizing
the basis for labor value in external inputs from emergy sources that were increasingly available in his
time, he misinterpreted the meaning, hierarchical distortion, trends, and remedies.
The world still has problems finding appropriate hierarchical structure that reinforces and
stabilizes economies to maximize total system performances. Maximum performance may require a
hierarchical distribution of emergy among classes of service-contributing consumers. The issue still is
to redivert the output of production from unnecessary luxury and waste to feed back reinforcements to
production.
-41-
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We are grateful for comments and criticisms from Bryan T. Byrne.
REFERENCES
Becker, J.F. 1977. Unequal Development. Monthly Review Press, NY, 326 pp.
Carchedi, G. 1984. The logic of prices as values. Economy and Society, Vol. 13 (4):431-455.
Carchedi, G. 1987. Class Analysis and Social Research. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, U.K., 299 pp.
Domar, E.D. 1937. Expansion and employment. American Economic Review, 37:34-55.
Eagley, 1974. The Structure of Classical Economic Theory. Oxford University Press, London, U.K.
Emmett, W.H. 1923. The Marxian Economic Handbook and Glossary. International Publishers, NY,
350 pp.
Foley, D.K. 1986. Understanding Capital; Marx's Economic Theory. Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, MA, 182 pp.
Harrod, R.F. 1939. An essay in dynamic theory. Economic Journal 69:451464.
Heertje, A. 1977. Economics and technical change. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, U.K.
Hollander, S. 1982. Classical Economics. Basil Blackwell, NY, 481 pp.
Howard, M.C. and J.E. King, ed. 1976. The Economics of Marx. Penguin Books, England.
Lonergan, S.C. 1988. Theory and measurement of unequal exchange: a comparison between a
Marxist and an energy theory of value. Ecological Modelling 41:127-146.
Martinez-Alier, J. 1987. Ecological Economics. Basil Blackwell, NY, 286 pp.
Marx, K. 1863. Letter, Marx to Engels, 6 July. pp. 153-156 in Selected Correspondence 1846-1895,
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, translated by
Dopna Torr. International Publishers, NY, 1942.
Marx. K. 1894. Das Capital, Band III; 1962. English translation: Capital. A Critique of Political
Economy, Vol. III, The process of Capital Production as a Whole, ed. by F. Engels. Foreign
Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 923 pp.
Odum, H.T. 1983. Systems Ecology, an Introduction. John Wiley, NY, 644 pp.
Odum, H.T. 1986. Enmergy in Ecosystems. pp. 337-369 in Ecosystem Theory and Application, ed.
by N. Polunin, John Wiley, NY.
Odum, H.T. 1987. Models for national, international and global systems policy. Chapter 13, pp. 203251 in Economic-ecological Modeling, ed. by L.C. Braat, and W.F.J. van Lierop. North
Holland-Amsterdam, 329 pp.
Odum, H.T. 1988. Self Organization, Transformity, and Information. Science 242 (Nov. 25,
1988):1132-1139.
Odum, H.T. E.C. Odum, and M. Blissett. 1987. Ecology and Economy: Emergy Analysis and Public
Policy in Texas. LBJ School of Public Affairs and Texas Department of Agriculture, Policy
Research Publication #78, University of Texas, Austin, TX, 178 pp.
Odum, H.T. 1996. Environmental Accounting, Emergy and Environmental Decision Making. John
Wiley, NY, 370 pp.
Odum, H.T. and E.C. Odum. 2000. Modeling for All Scales, an Introduction to Simulation.
Academic Press, San Diego, CA, 458 pp.
Samuelson, P.A. 1957. Wages and interest: a modern dissection of Marxian economic models.
American Economic Review 47(6): 884-912.
Scienceman, D.M. and F. Caldwell. 1984. A policy for a scientific party. General Systems Bulletin
15(l):31-39.
Scienceman, D. M. 1987. Energy and Emergy. pp. 257-276 in Environmental Economics, ed. by G.
Pillet and T. Murota. Roland Leimgruber, Geneva, Switzerland, 308 pp.
Scienceman, D. 1989. The emergence of emonomics. Vol. III. Proc. of the 1989 meeting of the ISSS
in Edinburgh, Scotland. Int. Soc. Systems Sciences, Louisville, KY, pp 62-68.
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Scienceman, D. 1995. Emergism, a Policy for a Scientific Party. pp. 251-254 in Maximum Power,
ed. by. C.A.S. Hall. Univ. Press of Colorado, Niwot, CO, 393 pp.
Seton, F. 1957. The transformation problem. Review of Economic Studies, 24: 149-160.
Wolff, R.P. 1984. Understanding Marx, A reconstruction and Critique of Capital. Princeton
University Press, Princeton, NJ, 235 pp.
-43-
-44-
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
3
Differential Bases of Emergy Algebra
Corrado Giannantoni
ABSTRACT
The well-known rules of Emergy Algebra, originally formulated in steady state conditions,
are reconsidered and analyzed from a dynamic point of view. In such a sense the paper points out their
corresponding differential bases. The latter, in turn, represent the preferential guide to recognize their
most profound physical meaning.
However, for the sake of completeness, a possible generalization of the same rules from
steady state to variable conditions is also considered.
The analysis is particularly focused on the three fundamental generative processes
represented by co-production, inter-action, and feed-back, which are formally described (under
dynamic conditions) by means of the Incipient Fractional Differential Calculus. In so doing, the
mathematical method adopted succeeds in defining the output exceeding Quality of the mentioned
processes by means of the corresponding Ordinality of their associated output Transformities.
Such a dynamic analysis enables us to show that the rules of Emergy Algebra proposed by
Prof. Odum under steady state conditions have a well-founded dynamic physical nature, adequately
described by the differential operators adopted. The analysis also shows that the originally conceived
rules of Emergy Algebra continue to hold even when the dynamics of a process becomes extremely
complicated.
INTRODUCTION
The basic rules of Emergy Algebra can be summarized as follows:
1. All Source Emergy to a Process is assigned to the Processs output
2. By-products from a Process have the total Emergy assigned to each pathway
3. When a pathway splits, the Emergy is assigned to each leg of the split based on their percent of
the total Exergy flow on the pathway1
4. Emergy cannot be counted twice within a system. In particular:
a) by-products, when reunited cannot be summed;
b) Emergy in feedbacks should not be double counted (Brown 1993; Brown & Herendeen 1996).
For the sake of completeness, it is worth adding a fifth rule concerning a more sophisticated
process termed as Interaction:
5. Output Emergy of an interaction Process is proportional to the product of the Emergy inputs
(Odum, 1994a).
A rapid glance at the above-mentioned rules allows us to immediately point out that:
- The first rule represents a sort of closure rule in the case of one sole output;
The third rule directly refers to Exergy in accordance with the general definition of Emergy (Giannantoni 2000a,
2001c)
-45-
Chapter 3. Differential Bases of Emergy Algebra
- The second rule is extremely important because it shows how co-generative processes represent the
basic processes mostly responsible for the increase in Emergy in self-organizing systems;
- The third rule points out the basic distinction between a co-production process and a simple split
process (a mere subdivision of a flow into two equivalent sub-flows);
- Rule 4a) prevents erroneous accounting which would lead to an artificial amplification of Emergy,
not related to a generative process (such as, for instance, a co-production).Thus it prevents doublecounting of an identical contribution, already accounted for in its primary generative phase;
- Rule 4b) can be simply seen as a particular case explicitly pointed out for the sake of clarity.
The fifth rule pertains to inter-action. It completes the list of basic processes capable of
generating an exceeding Emergy and also enables us to consider the feedback process as a particular
form of self-interaction. In such a perspective the basic generative processes are: co-production, interaction and feed-back.
It is also known that such rules are assumed as being valid under steady state conditions and
are also used, without any modification or basic justification under stationary or slow transient
conditions.
One fundamental problem is thus represented by the extension of their validity to variable
conditions. In this case it is of primary importance to recognize whether they are well-founded in
differential terms (which is equivalent to research for their basic dynamic foundations). This aspect
shows all its relevance if we take into account that the rules of Emergy Algebra represent an essential
part of the definition of Emergy. In fact Emergy is rigorously defined on the basis of two distinct
elements: a correct dynamic Balance Equation (i.e. accounting rules) and an additional assumption
concerning its reference level (i.e., solar Emergy with an associated conventional value of
Transformity, for instance 1 seJ/J) (Giannantoni, 2000a).
We will thus analyze, in a rapid sequence, the three most important generative processes (coproduction, inter-action, feed-back) and their associated dynamic foundation expressed in differential
terms. For the sake of completeness, we will also mention split processes.
SHORT REMINDERS ABOUT MATHEMATICAL METHODS ADOPTED

The Rules of Emergy Algebra enabled Odum not only to show, but also to account for, an
extra-ordinary aspect pertaining to living systems: their intrinsic capacity of generating ever new
forms of processes, characterized by an ever-increasing level of Quality. This new concept of quality
(thus indicated by a capital Q) is not understood as a simple property or a characteristic of a particular
phenomenon or process, but it is recognized as being any emerging property that is not reducible to its
phenomenological premises or to our traditional mental categories. This recent concept of science is
inducing a profound revision in Classical Thermodynamics and in several related disciplines. It
suggests that we modify our language to adequately describe the dynamics of Quality. In particular,
this includes the formal language represented by mathematics, which is recognized as the most
appropriate linguistic form adopted by science.
To this purpose a new form of derivative, the incipient derivative, represented by d/ dt has
been introduced (Giannantoni, 2001d, 2002a) to better describe the dynamics of living systems. This
derivative also allows processes to be modeled as intrinsically linear and always yields explicit
solutions.
In order to include the initial conditions in the differential equation modeling the process a new
generator D was introduced
D f (t ) =
f (t ) + f (0) (t )
dt
-46-
(2.1)
where (t ) represents the Dirac Delta function.

In such a way a differential equation of order n , with variable coefficients, takes the form
Pn (t ,
Pn (t ,
where
)=
dt
dt
) f (t ) = g (t )
dt
+ a n 1 (t )
dt
Equation (2.2) can be simply written as
+ ....... + a1 (t )
n 1 k
n 1
(2.2)
Pn (t , D) f (t ) = ( c k D
dt
+ a o (t )
(2.3).
) (t ) + g (t )
(2.4)
k =0
where the coefficients c k are related to the initial conditions
( k = 1,2,...., n 1 )
f ( k ) (0) = f k 0
(2.5).
The obtained structure (2.4) is extremely important because, when re-written in the form
n 1 k
n 1
f (t ) = Pn (t , D) 1 [( c k D
) (t ) + g (t )]
(2.6)
k =0
it gives the explicit solution to Eq. (2.2), with the initial conditions (2.5). In this respect it is worth
noting that the various functions of D , such as, for instance, Pn (t , D ) , play the analogous role that is
played by Laplace Transform, while the generator D plays the same role as the complex variable s .
However the fundamental differences between the two methods are: i) the method based on the
generator D always operates in the domain of the time variable t , and thus it always maintains an
evident physical meaning, whereas the functions of complex variable s rarely have an explicitly
interpretable physical meaning; ii) the method based on the generator D is always applicable to both
linear and non-linear differential equations (because the latter are always intrinsically linear when
interpreted in terms of D ), whereas the method based on Laplace Transform yields negligible, or even
no advantages in the case of traditional non-linear differential equations.
The three fundamental rules of Emergy Algebra co-production, inter-action and feed-back
will be analyzed in three successive sections by means of the above-mentioned Incipient Differential
Calculus in order to give differential bases to Emergy Algebra. At the same time, it will show the
intimate structural nature of the corresponding Emergy Source Terms. The latter are always present,
with their specific contribution, in the mathematical formulation of the Maximum Em-Power Principle
(Giannantoni 2001c,d, 2002a).
CO-PRODUCTION
The co-production process has already been analyzed in (Giannantoni, 2001d). However it
will be represented here in more detail.
-47-
The process can be schematized as in Fig. 1, where (u ) represents the Emergy Source
Term. The pertinent Emergy Balance in steady state conditions (but often adopted also in stationary or
slow transient conditions), can be thus written as follows
E m(u ) + (u ) = E m( y1 ) + E m( y 2 )
(3.1)
where
E m( y1 ) = E m( y 2 )
(3.2)
(u ) = E m(u )
and
(3.3).
It is easy to recognize that condition (3.2), corresponding to the second Rule of Emergy
Algebra, is assumed as being valid only on the basis of the relational structure of the outputs of the coproduction process, that is without considering its internal productive structure, which, in any case,
does not appear explicitly in Eq. (3.1), apart from the explicit assumption of the uniqueness of the
same process. In other words the latter is analyzed in terms of its mere phenomenological
characteristics, as if it were a black box.
We want now to show the basic reason for condition (3.2), not only in steady state conditions
but also in variable conditions. In this latter case we have to take the Emergy Accumulation Term into
account, so that Eq. (3.1) becomes (see Giannantoni, 2001d)
E m(u ) + (u ) =
AD + E m( y1 ) + E m( y 2 )
(3.4)
where the dot notation for the derivative is understood as an incipient derivative like in the term
AD / t , which represents the local variation (in the Eulerian sense) of the Accumulated Emergy
( AD ) on behalf of the considered system (geometrically defined by the domain D ).
In order to reach a more adequate description of the internal productive structure, let us now
compare Eq. (3.4) with a fractional differential equation, always in terms of incipient derivatives,
written in a unique variable Em (already thought of as a flow, for simplicity of notation), whose
homogeneous part is similar to Eq. (3.4), that is
1/ 2
Em(t ) + A
dt
1/ 2
Em(t ) + B Em(t ) = Em[u (t )]
E m(u )
E m( y1 )
(u ) , AD
E m( y 2 )
Figure 1. Mathematical model for a co-production process (Eq. 3.1).
-48-
(3.5),
where the symbol

is
d / d t , in the most general case, represents the incipient Lagrangian derivative, that
1/ 2
dt
1/ 2
= + v
t
1/ 2
(3.6)
in which v is the velocity of the mass flow and is the incipient nabla generator (understood as a
prior operator).
It is then easy to show that, if we assume the output Emergy Flow to be proportional to the
accumulated Emergy (as is usual in physical and biological systems)
Em = k AD
(3.7)
it follows that, for
C=k
A=1
and
B =1
(3.8),
Eq. (3.5) represents the most general dynamic model of the considered process. In order to find its
general solution, let us then reduce Eq. (3.5) to its standard form (as a linear differential equation of
the first order with constant coefficients)
1/ 2
Em(t ) + K 1
dt
K1 = A / C
where
dt
1/ 2
Em(t ) + K 2 Em(t ) = K 3 Em[u (t )]
(3.9)
K 3 = 1/ C
K2 = B / C
(3.10).
In fact, in adherence to the assumptions according to which Eq. (3.4) was formulated, we will
limit our considerations to case of a simple Eulerian description. This is equivalent to assume that
v = 0 or, alternatively, to deal with the problem in terms of the sole local time derivatives ( / t )
(that is in the absence of any spatial gradient). Such a partial time derivative, however, for the sake of
simplicity will be always represented as usual ( d / d t ), without any possibility of confusion.

If we now search for solutions to the associated homogeneous equation through functions of the form
and we take into account that the fractional derivative of order of the exponential function
gives two distinct values such as (see Giannantoni 2001d)
1/ 2
2
2
d
e t = e t
1/ 2
dt
(3.11)
we obtain a solution in the form of a binary function, that is structured as follows

11
12
E m( y1 (t )) c11 22 t c12 21

E m( y (t )) =
+ e
= c e
22
c 21
E m( y 2 (t ))
2
The exponents
1,i and 2,i
(3.12).
are the solutions to the two following characteristic equations
12 + K 1 1 + K 2 = 0
22 K 1 2 + K 2 = 0
(3.13)
(3.14)
where
2
11 = 22
K
K
= 1 + 1 K 2 (3.15)
2
2
12 = 21
-49-
K
K
= 1 1 K 2 (3.16).
2
2
Eq. (3.13) refers to the choice of the positive sign whereas Eq. (3.14) refers to the choice of the
negative sign.
If we now let
K
= 1
2
we have
K
and
= K2 1
2
12 = 12 = j
(3.17)
11 = 22 = + j
112 = 222 = 2 2 2 j
= = + 2 j
2
2
and it is easy to recognize that the system is stable when 0 , that is when
2
12
2
21
(3.18)
(3.19)
(3.20)
K
K2 2 1 0
2
(3.21).
Let us now start from the consideration of the solution in steady state conditions attained as the
solution at permanent regime.
BY-PRODUCTS EMERGY IN STEADY STATE CONDITIONS

Let us assume a constant input
Em[u (t )] = Em[u (t 0 )]
(3.22)
K
K2 1 > 0
2
and
(3.23).
Under such asymptotically stable conditions the general dynamic solution is given by
11
12
E m( y1 (t )) c11 22 t c12 21 t

+ Em p (t )
E m( y (t )) =
+ e
= c e
c
22
21
E m( y 2 (t ))
2
(3.24),
where Em p (t ) is a particular integral of non-homogeneous Eq. (3.9) given by
Em p (t ) =
K3
Em[u (t 0 )] = Em(u 0 )
K2
(3.25).
Since the system is asymptotically stable, after its pertinent transient, it achieves its permanent regime
conditions described by the solution
E m( y1 (t )) Em(u 0 )
E m( y (t )) =
= Em(u 0 )
E
m
(
y
(
t
))
2
(3.26)
which shows the validity of Odums Rule (as originally formulated) in steady state conditions, when
understood as being reached after a dynamic transient.
For the sake of completeness, we will also analyze the validity of the Rule both under stationary and
variable conditions.
-50-
BY-PRODUCTS EMERGY IN STATIONARY CONDITIONS

For the sake of simplicity we may continue to suppose a constant input. Let us now assume that
2
K
K2 2 1 = 0
2
(3.27)
(see condition (3.21)). Consequently the system stabilizes in a stationary regime which depends on the
assumed initial conditions. Eq. (3.9), although of the first order, has two initial conditions concerning
both the function and its derivative of order respectively, that is
Em( y1 (0)) Em10
=
Em( y 2 (0)) Em20
(3.28)
and
Em (1 / 2 ) ( y1 (0)) + Em0(1 / 2 )
Em (1 / 2 ) ( y (0)) = Em (1 / 2)
0
2

(3.29).
Eq. (3.29) presents opposite values only because this is one of the possibilities offered by the definition
of fractional derivative of order . Eq. (3.28), on the other hand, does not give any information about
the two (theoretically distinct) values.
In this respect the interpretation of the physical meaning of a fractional derivative of order plays a
fundamental role. In fact, on the basis of its specific definition, the fractional derivative of order
requires that (Giannantoni, 2001b)
Em (1 / 2) (0) o Em (1 / 2 ) (0) = Em(0) o Em (1) (0) = Em (1) (0) o Em(0)
(3.30)2.
This shows that the initial condition pertaining to the derivative of order corresponds to an
equivalent condition for the derivative of order 0 and order 1, respectively, those derivatives whose
integer orders define the minimum interval that includes the fractional order .
Condition (3.30), when explicitly expressed by means of Eq. (3.24), leads to the conditions
c11 = c 22
and
c12 = c 21
(3.31)
which, on the basis of Eq. (3.24), imply that the two values defining the initial condition (3.28) must
be equal, that is:
Em( y1 (0)) Em0
=
Em( y 2 (0)) Em0
(3.32).
Such a condition exactly corresponds to the Rule concerning by-products, when these are considered at
the initial time t = 0 . However the basic difference is that now the rule is obtained from the same
concept of a binary system or a co-productive binary process.
On the basis of the initial conditions (3.32) and (3.29), the general solution to Eq. (3.9) is then given by
Em0(1 / 2)
Em0 Em(u 0 )
2 + 2
cos
t +
E m( y (t )) =
(1 / 2 )
2 Em0
Em0 Em(u 0 )
+ 2
2 Em(u 0 )
sin 2 t + Em(u ) (3.33)

0
which represents a binary function, the two components of which are always equal to each other. Each
component is a function made up of two distinct sinusoidal modes, which oscillate with a difference of
phase of / 2 (according to the sign of the difference Em0 Em(u 0 ) ) and, as a global result,
they give rise to identical functions with the same time mean value Em(u 0 ) .
However we could alternatively choose the initial conditions in a different way, for instance as follows
2
The symbol o indicates the circle product (Giannantoni, 2002a, p. 178) which represents a generalization of
the concept of product already known in Mathematical Analysis.
-51-
Em( y1 (0)) Em0

(3.34)
=
Em( y 2 (0)) Em0
Em (1 / 2 ) ( y1 (0)) Em0(1 / 2 )

Em (1 / 2 ) ( y (0)) = Em (1 / 2 )
2
0
and
(3.35)
that is with the derivative of order having equal components. In fact Eq. (3.30) is a sort of
quadratic form. For the same reason it continues to require equal initial values in Eq. (3.34).
The corresponding solution is now given by
Em0(1 / 2)
Em0 Em(u 0 )
2 + 2
cos
t +
E m( y (t )) =
(1 / 2 )
2 Em0
Em0 Em(u 0 )
2
2 Em(u 0 )
sin 2 t + Em(u ) (3.36)

0
which still represents a binary function. Each component is made up of two distinct sinusoidal modes:
the former are identical for both functions, whereas the latter are always in opposition of phase to each
other. In addition, the first mode of each component oscillates with a difference of phase of / 2
with respect to the second one (according to the sign of the difference Em0 Em(u 0 ) ) and, as a
global result, they give rise to two oscillating functions with the same time mean value Em(u 0 ) .
In the most general case, in which the conditions on the derivative of order are completely different
from each other, we can always reduce it to a combination to the two previous ones by recognizing
that it is always possible to decompose such a condition as follows
Em (1 / 2 ) ( y1 (0)) Em10(1 / 2 ) Ema(1 / 2) + Emb(1 / 2)
Em (1 / 2 ) ( y (0)) = Em (1 / 2 ) = Em (1 / 2) + Em (1 / 2 )
20
a
b
2
(3.37)
where
(1 / 2 )
Ema(1 / 2) = ( Em10(1 / 2) + Em20
) / 2 (3.38) and
(1 / 2 )
Emb(1 / 2 ) = ( Em10(1 / 2 ) Em20
)/2
(3.39).
We can thus conclude that, in stationary (stable) conditions, the two components of output Emergy are
always equal to each other, either instantaneously or as a time mean value over a period. Their values
instantaneously differ from input Emergy because of the internal dynamics of the process (in particular
because of the accumulation term).3
BY-PRODUCTS EMERGY IN VARIABLE CONDITIONS

The case of variable conditions can be better dealt with in terms of prior operators such as
the generator D . In fact the explicit solution to Eq. (3.9) can be formally written as (Giannantoni
2001d, 2002a)
E m(t ) = (t , D) [ Em
1
k =0
1 k
k
2
2
0
(t ) + Em(u (t ))]
(3.40)
However a deeper analysis of the process would easily show that such a discrepancy from what the second rule
states only depends on our erroneous assumption of the model pertaining to the tank of information (or
accumulation term). In fact it has been modeled as if it were a mechanical reservoir. In living systems, on the
contrary, the tanks of information are of a different nature. They must be thus modeled (at least) as binary
accumulation terms. This means that the term d Em(t ) / d t has to be replaced by ( ( d / d t )
such a case the second rule continues to be valid, at any time.
-52-
1/ 2 2
) Em(t ) . In

1
2
1
2
(t , D) = ( D ) 2 + K1 D + K 2
where
(3.41)
with the initial conditions already included into Eq. (3.40). The corresponding explicit solution can be
then expressed as follows
1
E m(t ) = k (t , ) Em
k =0
1 k
k
2
2
0
( ) d + k (t , ) Em(u ( )) d
(3.42)
where k (t , ) is the incipient solving kernel of Eq. (3.9), which has always an explicit form based
on the particular integrals on the second side of Eq. (3.12).
The first term on the second side of Eq. (3.42) represents the transient response in the state (sometimes
termed as free evolution in the state) whereas the second term represents the so-called response at
permanent regime.
If the system is decisively stable (Eq. (3.21) different from zero), output Emergy, after its pertinent
transient, reduces to
1
E m(t ) = k (t , ) Em(u ( )) d
(3.43),
which represents either an oscillating (stable) trend around a mean value defined by the instantaneous
input Em(u (t )) or an asymptotic trend, which tends to a value defined by the same instantaneous
1/ 2
input Em(u (t )) . In addition, the presence of the prior generator ( D ) in Eq. (3.41) defines the
multiplicity of the output Emergy which, in the asymptotic trend, assumes a structure which
corresponds to Odums co-production Rule.
BY-PRODUCTS EMERGY OF MORE COMPLEX CO-PRODUCTION

PROCESSES
More complex co-productive systems are represented by generative functions such as
1
2
1
2
m (t , D) = An ( D ) + An 1 ( D )
m
m 1
1
2
1
+ .... A1 ( D ) + A0
(3.44).
1
2
The right-hand side of Eq. (3.41) is replaced by a polynomial of order m in the prior generator D .
In such a case output Emergy is still a binary function (generated by the basic incipient derivative of
order ), but at the same time it is characterized by m distinct different modes.
The analysis of such Systems does not present particular difficulties if it is dealt with in terms of the
generator D , because (as we already know) the Incipient Fractional Calculus always allows us to
express the solution in the formal way similar to Eq. (3.40), that is
m 1
E m(t ) = m (t , D) [ Em
1
k =0
m 1 k
k

2
2

0
and in explicit terms as follows
-53-
(t ) + Em(u (t ))]
(3.45)

1
n 1
E m(t ) = k m (t , ) Em
0
k =0
n 1 k
k

2
2
0
( ) d + k m (t , ) Em(u ( )) d
(3.46).
The analysis can also be further generalized to a process which co-produces n distinct by-products.
For these more complex systems we can repeat the same considerations made in the case of simple coproductive systems. In fact their behavior is fundamentally due to the physical meaning of all the
fractional derivatives, for which conditions analogous to Eq. (3.30) hold. We can consequently
conclude that:
i) Odums co-production Rule is always valid under steady state conditions, when these are
understood as a permanent regime reached after a transient with constant input;
ii) it is also valid, as a mean value, in the case of stationary conditions characterized by an oscillating
trend around a constant value (still in the case of constant input)
iii) it is even valid under variable conditions, when the outputs are understood in terms of mean
values (in the case of oscillating solutions) or as an amplification of n times as much the input
Emergy, in the case of a decisively stable response to a variable input (when the associated
transient is finished).
In all cases Odums Maximum Em-Power Principle, which asserts the general tendency toward the
Maximum of processed Emergy (see Giannantoni 2001c, 2002a), is always satisfied. This due to an
increase of Ordinality of output Emergy (with respect to the input one) due to the generative capacity
of the process, which gives rise to a multiple binary function. The crucial role of Ordinality will be
presented, in detail, in the next paragraph.
OUTPUT CO-PRODUCTION TRANSFORMITY AND INCREASED

ORDINALITY OF OUTPUT EMERGY
For the sake of simplicity let us consider the case of two co-products modeled by Eq. (3.33). In this
case, the perfect identity of the terms which define the three added binary functions enables us to
easily separate the Ordinality of the binary structure from its conjugated cardinality. We may thus start
by writing
E m( y1 (t ))
E m( y (t )) =
=
E m( y 2 (t ))
1
2 1 Em0(1 / 2)
2 1
t +
t + Em(u 0 ) =
= ( Em0 Em(u 0 )) cos
sin
1
2 1 + 2
2 1
2
2 Em0(1 / 2)
1
t + Em(u 0 )
t +
sin
= ( Em0 Em(u 0 )) cos
2
2
2
1
Such an equation immediately shows that, at the initial time ( t = 0 ), we have
1
E m( y1 (t )) 1
E m( y (t )) =
= {Em(u 0 )} = Tr ,u0 E x(u 0 )
1
E m( y 2 (t ))
where
(3.47).
(3.48)
E x(u 0 ) represents the total Exergy spent to generate the input, whereas the term Tr ,u0
accounts for the associated previous generative processes.

Analogously we may thus re-write Eq. (3.47) as follows
-54-

(1 / 2 )

2
2 Ex 0
1
t + Ex(u 0 ) =
t +
E m( y (t )) = Tr ,u0 ( Ex 0 Ex(u 0 )) cos
sin
2
2
2
1
(3.49)
= Tr , y [Tr ex (t ) Ex( y (t ))]
where
1
Tr , y = Tr ,u0
1
whereas
(3.50),
Ex( y (t )) is the total instantaneous output Exergy and Tr ex (t ) is the factor accounting for
all the dissipations due to the genesis of the corresponding form of output Exergy.
In this way it becomes particularly clear that the subdivision of Transformity in two factors (initially
introduced in Giannantoni 2001c,d)
Tr = Tr Tr ex
(3.51)
enables us to distinguish between the dimensionless scalar contribution due to losses of Exergy
(Tr ex ) from the dimensional one accounting for the emerging of higher forms of Ordinality ( Tr ).
The same procedure (here extremely simplified by the fact that the two by-products always have the
same Emergy) can also be applied to the other considered cases by adopting a new type of Algebra,
termed as Algebra by Ordinal-cardinality, which defines the rules and procedures according to
which it is possible to handle mathematical entities characterized by both Ordinality and its conjugated
cardinality.
Such a generalized form of Algebra is also able to show that, even if the Exergy of the system tends to
be dissipated, Emergy on the contrary, in generative processes, tends to increase. Such an increase is
explicitly accounted for by Transformity. In fact the latter passes from a simple algebraic value to a
binary function, which consequently shows the corresponding increase in Ordinality of the system.
This, on the other hand, is nothing but what we anticipated in (Giannantoni 2002a, p. 97) when the
Maximum Em-Power Principle was interpreted as a tendency Principle toward the Maximum of
Ordinality.
SPLITS AS DUAL FUNCTIONS

Splits have already been dealt with in (Giannantoni, 2001b,d). They are thus simply recalled only to
point out some aspects which stress, even more, the deep difference with respect to a co-production
process. In fact, as already shown (ib.), any attempt at modeling a co-production process in terms of
two distinct integer-order differential equations is destined to fail. Even if we adopt incipient
derivatives in writing the pertinent vector equation
Em (t )
d 2 Em (t )
d Em (t )
C 1 + B 1 + A 1 = Em(u (t ) )
Em (t )
Em (t )
Em2 (t )
d t2 2
dt 2
and even if we require that the associated initial conditions
Em1 (0 ) Em0
Em (0 ) = Em
2 0
(4.2) ,
Em1' (0 ) Em10'
' = '
Em2 (0 ) Em20
(4.1)
(4.3)
satisfy Eq. (3.30) (the first member of which is defined on the basis of the initial binary function) the
general solution to Eq. (4.1) can never ever coincide with the solution to Eq. (3.9). The reason is that a
fractional differential problem is never reducible to an integer-order differential problem (although
-55-
thought of in terms of incipient derivatives) without losing its specific intrinsic characteristics. This is
because the definition of a binary function depends only on the specific type of the unique differential
equation to which it is solution. More precisely, it only depends on the fractional derivative of order
1/2. Certainly it might degenerate into a dual function, that is a function made up of two
independent monadic 4 functions (extrinsically related, as in the case of a vector). However this
happens only if we decide beforehand to analyze the trend of such (supposedly independent) solutions
exclusively in terms of integer-order derivatives (that is on the basis of a particular perspective,
preliminarily chosen, which implicitly excludes other possibilities).
Consequently, the behavior described by one fractional incipient differential equation uniquely
characterizes (and consequently defines) a generative co-production process, whereas a vector
differential equation (although in terms of incipient derivatives) is only able to describe a split process
(because its solutions are only extrinsically related, and thus termed as dual functions). This
immediately implies that the two distinct processes co-production and split can never be confused,
because their specific definition is now based on the intimate generative structure of each process,
which is uniquely described in differential terms: co-production is represented by fractional basic
incipient derivatives and a split by integer basic incipient derivatives.
INTER-ACTION
Interaction constitutes another fundamental generative process. It is generally symbolized as in Fig. 2,
which evidently represents the simplest form of interaction, even if its elementary structure can also be
the basis for more complex interactions. Its output structure is generally associated with non-linear
input or process dynamics (or both). An example of input-output non-linear dynamics can be given by
Riccatis Equation which, written in terms of incipient derivatives,
f (t ) + Q(t ) f (t ) + R (t ) f 2 (t ) = P(t )
(5.1)
dt
can be diagrammatically represented as in Fig. 3, where G (t , D ) = (t , D )

function of the intrinsically linear process.
is the transference
Em(u 2 )
Em(u1 )
k int Em (u 1 ) Em (u 2 )
k int
Figure 2. Mathematical model of an inter-action process (Giannantoni, 2000a).
Riccatis Equation furnishes a solution in form of a duet (thus represented as [ f (t ), f (t )] ) because

it is understood as the result of a circle product (or product by Ordinal-cardinality) between two
traditional functions, each one of Ordinality (1), which gives rise to a completely new function, of
4
That is each one can be thought of as a solution of an independent integer-order differential equation.
-56-
Ordinality (2). In fact, by definition of circle product (indicated by o and defined in (Giannantoni
2002a, p. 178)), we have
[ f (t ), f (t )] = f (t ) o f (t ) = f (t )
1, (1)
o f (t )
1, (1)
= f (t )
2,( 2 )
(5.2)
where the exponents in round brackets indicate the degree of Ordinality of the corresponding
functions.
f (t )
F (t )
f (t)
G (t , D )
Figure 3. Graphical representation of Riccatis Equation (Eq. 5.1).
Riccatis Equation is here explicitly recalled because Odum (1994a, p. 147) used it as an example of
the simplest self-organizing system because it is based on the simplest self-interaction generative
process. Now, by taking into account that its formulation in terms of incipient derivatives implicitly
transforms this non-linear equation into an intrinsically linear one (although in terms of duet
functions), we can always separate such a duet non-linearity from the remaining linear dynamics
(see Fig. 3) Such a result can also be generalized to any interaction represented by the scheme in Fig. 2
Consequently any interaction can always be considered as made up of a duet non-linearity input,
followed by a linear dynamic process (in terms of output quantity) characterized by a differential
equation of order n, as represented in Fig. 3, where G (t , D ) = n (t , D )
is the transfer function of
the linear process modeled in terms the generator D .

As is well-known, output Emergy is then the result of two contributions: the first one pertaining to the
transient regime, the second one describing the permanent regime
n 1 k
n 1
E m[ y (t )] = n (t , D) 1 ( c k D
k =0
) (t ) + n (t , D) 1 E m[u1 (t )] E m[u 2 (t )]
(5.3).
If the process is stable, the first term on the second side of Eq. (5.3) progressively tends to zero, so
that, at permanent regime, we are left with
E m[ y (t )] = n (t , D) 1 E m[u1 (t )] E m[u 2 (t )] =
1
= k (t , ) E m[u1 ( )] E m[u 2 ( )] d
(5.4)
where the last term expresses the explicit result by means of the solving kernel k (t , ) .
-57-
E m(u 2 (t ))
E m[ y (t )]
E m(u1(t))
G (t , D )
Figure 4. Graphical representation of an inter-action process (Eq. 5.3).
If we now assume that the system is stable as a consequence of a transfer function characterized by all
real roots, Eq. (5.4) tends to the structure
E m[ y (t )] = k int E m[u1 (t )] E m[u 2 (t )]
(5.5)
where k int is a dimensional factor corresponding to the integration of the solving kernel when
t . The result obtained (Eq. (5.5)) evidently coincides with the initial assumption made by
Odum about the interaction process (see Fig. 2).
If, on the contrary, the system, although stable, has a transfer function characterized by couples of
complex roots, the coefficient k int becomes a periodic function of time. This simplified analysis of the
interaction (which can be easily generalized to the various cases previously considered with reference
to a co-production process) is already sufficient to show the increase in Ordinality of the output
Emergy.
INTER-ACTION OUTPUT TRANSFORMITY AND INCREASED

ORDINALITY OF OUTPUT EMERGY
If, in analogy to the case of a co-production process, we do not consider the Ordinality of Exergy (as
usual happens for physical quantities) but only the Ordinality pertaining to Transformity, we have
E m[ y (t )] = k int E m[u1 (t )] o E m[u 2 (t )] =
= k int [T r ,1 T rex.1 E x(u1 )] o [T r , 2 T rex.2 E x(u 2 )] =
= k int [T r ,1 o T r , 2 ] [(T rex.1 E x(u1 )) (T rex.2 E x(u 2 ))]
(5.6).
If we then consider the pertinent Ordinality of the two Transformities, the circular product in Eq. (5.6),
evaluated according to Eq. (5.2), gives
[T r ,1 o T r , 2 ] = [(T r ,1 )1,(1) o (T r , 2 )1,(1) ] = [(T r ,1 T r , 2 )1,( 2) ]
(5.7)
which shows that the Interaction Process has an Ordinality of order (2), that is higher than the initial
ones (supposed to be equal to (1)). Interaction is thus a process which generates an increase in the
pertinent Ordinality of its output Emergy.
-58-
In other words, under dynamic conditions, the interaction not only presents a quantitative gain greater
than 1 (due to the contribution of internal source terms), but also an increase in the pertinent Ordinality
of the output, which represents an excess Quality, not strictly reducible to its mere phenomenological
premises.
We can thus conclude that the fifth Rule stated by Odum (who did not introduce explicit Ordinality
notations) correctly accounts for both the quantitative gain of the process and the corresponding gain
in Quality, although the latter is expressed through a quantitative increase in the pertinent (scalar)
Transformity.
FEED-BACK
Let us now consider another generative process, though of a different nature: a self-organizing system
characterized by an internal feedback chain as represented in Fig. 5.
As is well-know, the transfer function of the whole system, written in terms of the generator D , is
given by
G (t , D)
W (t , D) =
(6.1)
1 + G (t , D) H (t , D)
G (t , D) = n (t , D) 1
where
(6.2)
represents the transfer function of a differential process (supposed of order n), whereas H (t , D ) is
the transfer function of the feedback. The latter can be generally thought of as given by the following
structure
H (t , D) =
Q q (t , D)
(6.3)
Rr (t , D)
a ratio of two polynomials in D of order q and r respectively, where q r . The numerator
Q q (t , D) can be reduced to a constant which can be chosen to be 1 (without any lack of generality)
so that Eq. (6.3) becomes
H (t , D) =
(6.4).
Rr (t , D )
If now introduce Eqs. (6.2) and (6.4) into Eq. (6.1), we get
Rr (t , D)
W (t , D) =
(6.5)
n (t , D) Rr (t , D)+ 1
which allows us to illustrates the principal effects of the feedback. These can be synthesized as
follows:
i) a negligible influence in module on the controlled process, because
H ( D) << 1
(6.6)
and, consequently,
W ( D) G ( D)
ii) an extreme relevance in terms of both stability and Ordinality of the output Emergy.
-59-
(6.7)
E m[ y (t )]
H (t , D)
E m[u (t )]
E m[ y (t )]
G (t , D)
Figure 5. Graphical representation of a feed-back process (Eq. 6.1).
The stabilization effect is due to the translation of the n zeros of the function
n (t , D)
which characterizes the dynamics of the process. The polynomial in D at the denominator of Eq.
(6.5), as a consequence of the term Rr (t , D ) due to the feedback, has now n + r complex roots with
their real part less than zero, which yields stability.
The effect on output Ordinality is analyzed in more detail in the next paragraph.
FEED-BACK OUTPUT TRANSFORMITY AND INCREASED ORDINALITY

OF OUTPUT EMERGY
In the simple case of a constant input Em(u 0 ) , the response at permanent regime, under the
hypothesis of asymptotically stable conditions, is given by
Rr ( D )
E m[ y (t )] = W ( D) E m(u 0 ) =
n ( D ) Rr ( D ) + 1
E m(u 0 ) = W01,( r ),[ n + r ] E m(u 0 )
W0 1
where
(6.8)
(6.9).
Eq. (6.8) shows an increase in Ordinality of output Emergy due to both the incipient integration of
order n + r (compositive Ordinality) and the incipient differentiation of order r (multiple duet
Ordinality).
Such a higher level of Ordinality is faithfully taken into account by the generative Transformity. In
fact, under the same conditions, Eq. (6.8) can be written as follows
E m[ y (t )] = Tr , y [Trex , y E x y ] = W01,( r ),[ n + r ] Tr ,u0 [Trex ,u0 E xu0 ]

and consequently
-60-
(6.10)
Tr , y = W01,( r ),[ n + r ] Tr ,u0
(6.11),
which shows that:

- output Transformity is much richer than the Input one in terms of Ordinality
- it accounts for n + r basic harmonics, which are not only harmoniously composed among them (by
integration), but are also consonant with all their r pertinent genetic harmonics (generated by the r
different orders of derivation).
Similar results can be easily achieved when the analysis is generalized to stationary and variable
conditions (in analogy to the cases already analyzed with reference to a co-production process).
CONCLUSIONS
The previous analysis allows us to draw the following main conclusions:
Emergy Algebra has solid Differential Bases, not only in steady state conditions (as originally
conceived) but in stationary and variable conditions too;
ii) Odums Rules are substantially correct even if Transformity, for practical reasons, is considered
as being a simple scalar;
iii) Generative Processes (such as co-production, inter-action and feed-back) present an excess
Quality in their output Emergy, which is reflected by the pertinent levels of Ordinality of their
output Transformities;
iv) This also confirms the advantages of the subdivision of Transformity into two distinct factors
Tr = Tr Tr ex
(7.1)
i)
where Tr (generative Transformity)
accounts for
emerging forms of higher Ordinality,
whereas Tr ex (dissipative Tansformity) accounts for losses of Exergy;

v) in particular, the Ordinality of Tr is the one which accounts for the progressive increase in
Quality, as stated by the Maximum Em-Power Principle.
From a more general point of view, however, we can draw some additional conclusions.
The three processes previously analyzed represent the basic modalities according to which the
emerging of an excess of Emergy takes place. This constitutes the most important of Odums discovery
in his lifetime work (see Giannantoni, 2003b). This discovery acquired its most significant expression
in the formulation of the Maximum Em-Power Principle, a revised and updated version of Loktas
Principle.
The completely new perspective introduced by such a new concept of Quality also suggested
the development of an appropriate mathematical language, explicitly finalized by translating Odums
ideas into a generally recognized formal language.
Initially applied to living systems, such a language has shown its validity for non-living systems too
(see, for instance, Mercurys Precessions (Giannantoni, 2001d)).
Consequently, the rules of Emergy Algebra can also be considered as being the basis for the
development of a new mathematics. Such a Mathematics for Generative Processes represents a radical
passage from a description of processes based on velocity and acceleration (expressed by the
traditional derivatives of the first and second order), to a new description of the same based on their
generating capacity and associated generation supra-abundance, adequately represented by the
incipient derivatives of the first and second order, respectively (Giannantoni, 2003a).
REFERENCES
Brown M. T., 1993. Workshop on Emergy Analysis. Siena, September 20-25.
Brown M. T. and Herendeen R. A., 1996. Embodied Energy Analysis and EMERGY analysis: a
comparative view. Ecological Economics 19 (1996), 219-235.
-61-
Giannantoni C., 2000a. Toward a Mathematical Formulation of the Maximum Em-Power Principle.
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Gainesville (USA), p. 155-169.
Giannantoni C., 2001a. Advanced Mathematical Tools for Energy Analysis of Complex Systems.
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Giannantoni C., 2001c. Mathematical Formulation of the Maximum Em-Power Principle. Second
Biennial International Emergy Conference. Gainesville (Florida, USA), September 20-22.
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Evaluation and Research Conference. Gainesville (Florida, USA), September 20-22, 2001.
Giannantoni C., 2002a. The Maximum Em-Power Principle as the basis for Thermodynamics of
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Giannantoni C., 2003a. La Matematica dei Processi Generativi. Convegno sul Calcolo Matematico
Precolombiano. Internazionale. IILA Institute, Rome, October 21, 2003 (in the process of
publication).
Giannantoni C., 2003b. A harmonious dissonance. Ecological Modelling, December 2003 (in the
process of publication).
Kolmogorov A. N. and Fomin S. V., 1980. Elements of the Theory of Functions and Functional
Analysis. Ed. MIR, Moscow.
Kransov M. L., 1983. Ordinary Differential Equations. Ed. MIR, Moscow.
Lazzarin R. and Macor A., 1989. Introduzione allAnalisi Exergetica. Ed. CLEUP, Padova.
Lotka A. J., 1922a. Contribution to the Energetics of Evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences, 8 (1922), 147-150.
Lotka A. J., 1922b. Natural Selection as a Physical Principle. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, 8 (1922), 151-155.
Lotka A. J., 1945. The Law of Evolution as a Maximal Principle. Human Biology, a record of research.
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Odum H. T. and Pinkerton R. C., 1955. Time Speed Regulator: the Optimum Efficiency for Maximum
Power Output in Physical and Biological Systems. American Scientist, 43 (1955), 331-343.
Odum H. T., 1983. Maximum Power and Efficiency: a Rebuttal. Ecological Modelling, 20 (1983), 7182.
Odum H. T., 1988. Self-Organization, Transformity and Information. Science, v. 242, pp. 1132-1139,
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Odum H. T., 1994a. Ecological and General Systems. An Introduction to Systems Ecology. Re.
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Odum H. T., 1994b. Environmental Accounting. Environ. Engineering Sciences. University of Florida.
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Metallurgical Processes. Hemisphere Publ. Corp., USA.
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
4
A Linear Optimization Method for Computing Transformities
from Ecosystem Energy Webs
Eliana Bardi, Matthew Cohen, and Mark Brown
ABSTRACT
This paper describes a procedure for computing transformities of complex networks using a
linear optimization method. The paper outlines the procedure for implementing the method, and
demonstrates its applicability for network data containing both co-production and split flows. A
detailed tutorial of the method is provided with step-by-step instructions on setting up the matrix for
the solver calculations. Two examples are included; the Cone Springs and Oyster Reef systems
previously evaluated by Odum and Collins (2003) using the minimum-Eigenvalue method. Solar
transformities obtained with the linear optimization method proposed in this paper are equivalent to
previously calculated values (Odum and Collins 2003).
INTRODUCTION
Transformity is the ratio of emergy to energy flow; it measures the position of a flow or
storage of available energy in the energy hierarchy of a network (Odum 1996). While in most cases
solar transformities are calculated by compiling flows of emergy required for production and scaling
the sum of the inputs to the available energy in the output, in recent years there has been a shift to
calculating solar transformities using alternative methods that more effectively represent dynamic and
coupled ecosystem processes. For example, Tilley (1999) presents methods for computing
transformities from dynamic simulation models, and, more recently, Collins and Odum (2000)
describe a minimum-eigenvalue method that can be used to compute transformities for multiple system
components simultaneously from network data. Eigenvalues are computed in the standard way as the
roots of an nth order polynomial defined by the n components of a network system. This method is
particularly helpful when calculating transformities of components in a complex network, as exchange
and recycle pathways require iterative calculations when attempting to solve for network transformities
using conventional emergy algebra tools (Brown and Herendeen 1996). Solving for transformities
from complex networks using this method offers the advantage that all equations are solved for
transformities of all system components simultaneously. While various software templates have been
provided for matrix inversion procedures using MATHEMATICA and TRUEBASIC (Odum and
Collins 2003), and other platforms are possible (MATLAB, S-Plus etc.), they all require specialized
software that is generally not widely available. This paper describes a general procedure, analogous to
the eigenvalue method but targeting non-analytical solutions to the same problem, to calculate solar
transformities using a linear optimization method (Solver) built into Microsoft Excel. We outline the
procedure for implementation, and demonstrate its applicability for network data containing both coproduction and bifurcation (split) flows.
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Chapter 4. A Linear Optimization Method
METHODS
Network data from two systems evaluated by Odum and Collins (2003) were used to compare
results with previous methods of calculating transformities. The Cone Spring system (Figure 1) was
chosen because it has two exogenous sources and contains only splits in the model of energy
transformations. The Oyster Reef system (Figure 2) includes two modes of energy transformation and
allocation: splits and co-products. It is critical that any method for simplifying transformity
calculations effectively handle both modes of energy allocation.
Any component within the network may have several input and output pathways (Figure 3),
and it is important to distinguish the transformities of all those pathways (Odum and Collins, 2003).
Many studies of ecosystem networks use aggregated data so that only input, output, and inter-unit
transfers are known. In such cases, as for the two systems analyzed in this paper, we can only
calculate transformities of between-compartment transfers, or net production (flow 4 in Figure 3), and
not the transformity of the stored structure.
The Solver method presented herein computes transformities based on input-output matrices
consisting of direct energy or material flows between compartments. For a system with N
components, an array of N simultaneous equations can be identified by equating emergy input and
output across each component. The unknowns in those equations are transformity values.
The solver algorithm in MS Excel is a Generalized Reduced Gradient (GRG) non-linear
minimizer. This algorithm was designed as an allocation optimization protocol, partitioning available
resources to various uses based on constraints and objectives. This approach is widely used in the
decision/management science, finance and process engineering disciplines to develop optimized
solutions to a variety of linear and non-linear problems. This approach generalizes to emergy
networks by imagining emergy as the resource being allocated to various network components, while
meeting the inherent energetic and emergy algebra constraints. The approach iteratively manipulates
unknown values (in this case transformities), checking the effect of each manipulation against some
global or local constraint (emergy in = emergy out) (Fylstra et al. 1998). After comparing potential
manipulations, the algorithm selects the one that maximizes improvement in constraints/objectives and
reiterates the process, effectively maximizing the gradient reduction between current and optimal
solutions. The GRG algorithm is efficient at finding local optima (approximate solutions that meet the
given constraints but may not necessarily optimize objectives), and for linear problems (in particular,
those that avoid the use of if-then statements and inequalities) this equates to global optimization
(Fylstra et al. 1998). Additional information (and explication of error messages) can be found at:
http://www.frontsys.com/ (Frontline Systems Inc. 2004).
The optimization constraint that emergy in equals emergy out for a system component is the
special case where all products are treated as splits (their transformities are consequently identical).
Where co-production is identified, we generalize this equality to hold across each flow instead of
across components. Emergy driving multiple co-produced outputs is, therefore, the emergy input to
that component, and the product transformities are scaled to their available energy1 flow. In this
manner, system scale emergy output or throughput may exceed emergy input. This inherent nonadditivity is well documented in the emergy literature (Odum 1996, Brown and Herendeen 1996,
Giannantoni 2003), but represents a significant departure from the implicit assumptions of input-output
matrix examination based on energy or materials alone.
Available energy (exergy) is the maximum theoretical work that can be extracted from a flow in a reversible
process when a resource is brought into thermodynamic equilibrium with the surrounding environment.
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(a) Cone Spring System Diagram
(b) Matrix
From
To
Sun
Photosyn
Plants
Litter
Detritus
Bacteria
Detritivore
Carnivore
x1
x2
x3
x4
x5
x6
x7
x8
0
Photosyn
x2
2000
-1
Plants
x3
11184
-9181
Litter
x4
4000
-1
Detritus
x5
8881
635
-8374
1600
200
167
Bacteria
x6
5205
-1930
Detritivore
x7
2309
75
-570
Carnivore
x8
370
-167
Figure 1. Cone Spring System (a )Energy systems diagram of Cone Spring system showing energy flows; (b)
Matrix set up (from Odum and Collins, 2003).
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(a) Oyster Reef System
(b) Matrix
From
Sun
To
Phytoplank Oyster +
Organics F.F. Yield
Detritus
Deposit
Predator
Yield
Meiofauna
Deposit
Microbiota
Yield
Feeder Yield
Yield
x1
x2
x3
x4
x5
X6
x7
x8
Phytoplank
Organics
Oyster +F.F.
Yield
Detritus Deposit
x2
50000
-1
x3
41.5
-10.96
x4
41.5
-15.8
4.2
Predator Yield
x5
0.51
-0.05
0.17
Meiofauna Yield
x6
7.3
-4.9
1.21
Deposit Feeder
Yield
Microbiota Yield
x7
0.64
0.66
-0.68
1.2
x8
8.2
-2.4
Figure 2. Oyster Reef system (a) Energy systems diagram of an oyster reef system showing energy flows; (b)
Matrix set up (from Odum and Collins 2003).
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Figure 3. Diagram of energy pathways to and from components (Production values used in matrix correspond to
flow no. 4).
Method Outline (adapted from Odum and Collins, 2003)

The solver method provides an approximate solution that can be compared with the analytical
solution given by the minimum eigenvalue method (Odum and Collin 2003). The precision of the
approximation relies on several algorithm settings that are user-defined (# iterations, precision,
convergence and tolerance). These control processing time and stopping conditions (i.e. how close to
optimal is considered sufficient) are generally of limited concern for our purposes. However, where
we advise a setting that differs from the defaults, we provide a brief rationale.
1. Assemble data (converted to Joules) of available energy flows and pathways among network
components. If the network consists of few compartments, a systems diagram of the interactions
among them with all flows identified is a critical product. If new network data are being compiled,
Ulanowicz (2002) presents several guidelines for acquiring the necessary data. Of particular
importance is the condition that there be no gap in the network; that is, every pathway with data needs
to connect directly or indirectly with all others. This frequently necessitates data estimation
procedures, also outlined in Ulanowicz (2002).
2. Construct the matrix in Microsoft Excel with N+1 number of columns and N number of rows
(where N equals the number of transformations in the network). The first column is reserved for
emergy flows into the system, allocated to specific components and expressed in solar emjoules
(Figure 4). The subsequent columns represent allocation of production from each component to other
components in the network (it is a to-from matrix). Inputs to each component occur along rows.
Component net production values (Flow 4 in Figure 3) are assigned to the main diagonal as negative
numbers (Figure 4). This precludes any component from securing a portion of its diet from other
individuals of the same component.
Note that in this paper we applied the method to two networks previously evaluated by Odum and Collins (2003)
with data converted to kilocalories, not Joules. To allow comparison between the two methods, we left the data in
the original units. We recommend that future users convert data to Joules for direct comparability. Note,
however, that computed transformities are numerically identical regardless of base units (solar emkcal/kcal =
seJ/J).
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Transformities
To
From
Solar Emergy
Tr1
Tr2
Trn
Comp. 1
Comp. 2
Comp. n
Comp. 1
P1
Comp. 2
C1 to C2
P2
Cn -to- C2
Comp. n
C1 to Cn
Constraints
Comp1 (Flowsi*Tri) = 0
C2 -to- Cn
Pn
Pi values are total component production minus respiration

Ci -to- Cj values are energy transfers from comp. i to comp. j
Objective
Contraints = 0
Figure 4. Schematic of input/output matrix form. Along the main diagonal, net production (total transfer to other
components) is given as a negative number. All other entries are bilateral interactions. The transformity values
(top row) represent variables in the array of simultaneous equations described by the constraints. For fully
specified systems (i.e. no. of equations = no. of unknown transformities) the objective constraint is redundant.
3. If the system has more than one source, as with Litter in the Cone Springs example (Figure 1), and
the transformity of the other sources is known, one can introduce the transformity value in the first
column (x1) and a -1 value in the column for the specific source (in this case x4, Figure 5).
4. Next, set up the spreadsheet for calculation of transformity values using the linear optimization
method. Above the matrix, insert a row of values (start with 1 across all columns) for each column in
the matrix. These are the preliminary transformity values that will be adjusted by the Linear
Optimization Method. To the right of the matrix, insert a column named SUMPRODUCT and next to
that, a column named CONSTRAINT (Figure 6).
5. The SUMPRODUCT cells contain the equation shown in Figure 6, with the corresponding matrix
rows multiplied by the row of transformity values. Below the last cell, type the formula SUM of all
cells above (this will be your target cell). Type 0 in the CONSTRAINT cells.
Figure 5. Matrix setup for Cone Spring system.
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Figure 6. Matrix setup for Cone Spring system ready for solver.
6. Next, go to the tools menu, and select Solver (if Solver does not appear under the Tools menu, it
probably needs to be installed from the Microsoft Office disk. You can go to Tools, Add-Ins, select
Solver, click OK, and follow the instructions). A pop-up window will appear called Solver Parameters
(Figure 7). Select the cell below the last SUMPRODUCT cell as your Target Cell. In the next line,
select Equal To Value Of: and type 0 in the cell provided. In the next line By changing Cells
select the row of preliminary transformities as your cells (you can do so by clicking on the red arrow to
the right of the open cell, and dragging the mouse directly on the spreadsheet cells). Leave out the first
cell for the solar transformity, as it is always equal to 1 by definition (Odum 1996). Next, in the space
Subject To The Constraints, select the cells of the column SUMPRODUCT to be equal to the cells in
the CONSTRAINT column (you can do so by clicking the red arrow to the right of the open cell, and
dragging the mouse directly on the spreadsheet cells).
7. Next, click on options. A new pop-up window will appear named Solver Options (Figure 8). Set
your max time and iterations according to the complexity of your network (for a small network, 100 in
both settings will be sufficient, but it may need to be greater for larger or more complex networks).
Set your precision to 0.1 or less, again, depending on network complexity, and your convergence to
0.1 or less (you can ignore the Tolerance box for applications that are not integer constrained). The
defaults of both these parameters are significantly smaller, and our experience is that they force
precision constraints that significantly exceed the precision of the input data. If positivity is violated in
any solution (i.e. transformities are < 0) you can constrain the solution by selecting the Assume NonNegative box (this changes the optimization algorithm to the more conventional simplex method
Fylstra et al. 1998). Click OK and the window will go back to Solver Parameters. You can now click
on SOLVE. A pop-up window will appear with Solver Results (Figure 9) that will say whether
solver has found a solution. In the case that solver has not reached a solution, try the following: 1)
increase the number of iterations, 2) change your beginning transformity values (from 1 to a value that
is more appropriate), 3) change your precision, 4) double-check all solver parameters as well as
equations on the matrix spreadsheet, 5) check the data. In certain situations, simply re-running the
solver module with the same parameters results in solution convergence.
RESULTS
Figures 9 and 10 show the matrix and solar transformities for the Cone Spring and Oyster
Reef systems respectively. Transformity values are identical to the ones reported by Odum and
Collins (2003).
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Figure 7. Solver parameters pop-up window.
Figure 8. Solver options pop-up window.
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Figure 9. Solver results window for Cone Spring System.
Figure 10. Solver matrix and transformity results for the Oyster Reef System.
DISCUSSION
Calculating transformities simultaneously using the Microsoft Excel Solver method is
extremely efficient when analyzing complex networks, where iterative computations are often
impractical. The time necessary to implement solver for the given examples was less than a second in
each case. The solver can handle up to 200 unknowns, and additional packages that run in Microsoft
Excel are available that are capable of handling much larger data sets.
The method appears to be effective for the selected relatively simple examples. However,
these examples do not cover the entire range of applications and system organizations that are typically
encountered. In particular, evaluating recycled pathways within complex networks using simultaneous
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equations can be challenging. The conventional method of emergy accounting states that recycled
emergy should not be double counted (Odum 1996). When emergy has been previously processed by
one component, and then recycled back to that component from other processes, the fraction that is in
the recycle pathway cannot be included when calculating the emergy driving that component. This is
clearly challenging to accomplish for complex networks, where the fractional recycled emergy cannot
be calculated without prior knowledge of transformities, and thus cannot be subtracted from the
driving emergy of each component. The result is that transformities computed simultaneously often
appear to be artificially inflated compared to conventional methods. We are currently exploring ways
to ensure that this technique respects the standard rules of emergy algebra. For instance, Cohen et al.
(2004) showed that by adjusting the transformity of the incoming flow to the level of the storage of the
recycle components in the network (the detrital pool), artificial overestimation of the contribution of
higher quality components could be avoided. Nevertheless, Cohen et al. (2004) did not offer
transformity values computed conventionally, and therefore the results cannot yet be proven to be
theoretically consistent with static rules for emergy algebra.
Both methods (minimum eigenvalue and solver) are capable of handling co-production as
well as split/bifurcation flows. The general framework, which treats the production and allocation of
each component as a single algebraic equality (i.e. emergy in = emergy out), is generalized for coproduction by including separate algebraic equalities for each co-produced outflow. In particular, the
oyster reef system includes co-production flows from the oyster/filter feeder component to detritus
deposits and exported material. The emergy driving each is the entire emergy flow driving oyster
production; that emergy is not allocated on the basis of mass or energy fraction allocated to each flow.
For systems with multiple co-products, this substantially increases network matrix complexity. This
also necessitates careful labeling of matrix rows/columns to ensure that computed transformities are
interpreted appropriately.
Although this paper shows that the Microsoft Excel Solver method yields identical results to
previous analyses using other techniques (Odum and Collins, 2004), further work is needed to verify
that results from simultaneous solving techniques are consistent with emergy accounting theory. We
therefore advise that this method be applied only with caution; careful examination of results may
reveal instances where the theoretical basis of emergy algebra is violated.
SUMMARY
Computing transformities from complex networks using Microsoft Excel Solver offers many
advantages. First, Microsoft Excel is widely available and used in many countries. The Solver set-up
is easily performed and can be re-applied to different sets of data. Manually inserting formulas into
the matrix and establishing the layout of the calculations allow insight into how transformity values are
computed. In addition, the method allows placement of meta-constraints (e.g. lock transformities, selfreferencing transformities) within the matrix.
REFERENCES
Brown, M.T. and R.A. Herendeen. 1996. Embodied Energy Analysis and EMERGY Analysis: A
Comparative View. Ecological Economics 3 (19): 219-235.
Cohen, M.J, E. Bardi, M.T. Brown, and W. Ingwersen. 2004. Emergy, Transformity and Network
Analysis of Everglades Ecosystems. This volume.
Collins, D. and H.T. Odum. 2000. Calculating Transformities With An Eigenvector Method. In:
Brown, M. T. (ed). Proceedings of the First Biennial Emergy Analysis Research Conference,
Emergy Synthesis: Theory and Applications of the Emergy Methodology. Center for
Environmental Policy, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA.
-72-
Fylstra D., L. Lasdon, J. Watson and A. Waren. 1998. Design and Use of the Microsoft Excel Solver.
Interfaces 28:29-55
Frontline Systems, Inc. 2004. Solver tutorial. www.frontsys.com (Last accessed 7/29/04).
Giannantoni, 2003. The problem of the initial conditions and their physical meaning in linear
differential equations of fractional order, Applied Mathematics and Computation 141: 87
102.
Wiley and Sons, New York. 370 pp.
Odum, H.T. and D. Collins. 2003. Transformities From Ecosystem Energy Webs With The Eigenvalue
Method. Proceedings of the First Biennial Emergy Analysis Research Conference, Emergy
Synthesis: Theory and Applications of the Emergy Methodology. Center for Environmental
Policy, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA.
Tilley, D.R. 1999. Emergy Basis of Forest Systems. Ph.D. Dissertation, Environmental Engineering
Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA. 298 pp.
Ulanowicz, R.E. 2002. NETWRK 4.2b: A package of Computer Algorithms to Analyze Ecological
Networks. Center for Environmental and Estuarine Studies, Chesapeake Biological
Laboratory, University of Maryland, Solomons, MD, USA.
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
5
Emergy, Transformity and Network Analysis of
Everglades Ecosystems
Matthew Cohen, Eliana Bardi, Mark Brown, and Wes Ingwersen
ABSTRACT
Detailed examination of biotic and abiotic interactions in two of South Floridas most
important ecosystem types (graminoid marsh and cypress swamp) provides insight into their internal
functions. This paper presents methods based on energy and material accounting that can be used to
assess whole system condition; the proposed methods, arising from emergy theory (Odum 1996,
Brown and Ulgiati 2004) and extending emergy algebra (Brown and Herendeen 1996, Collins and
Odum 2000), are compared with system metrics based on energy or materials alone, which fail to
account for energy quality. Using input-output matrices with carbon as the numeraire (compiled for
the Across Trophic Level Systems Simulation ATLSS; DeAngelis et al. 1998, Ulanowicz et al. 2000),
and integrating exogenous emergy contributions (Brown and Bardi 2001), we employed a simple,
portable method to solve the array of simultaneous equations that describe bilateral energy transfer
between compartments (both biotic and abiotic), computing transformity values for each. This
simultaneous method for computing transformities provides values that correspond closely with
expected transformity levels at each trophic level, despite a significant theoretical departure from
conventional emergy algebra in the manner with which recycled materials are counted. Additionally,
we offer an emergy-based index to calculate across-trophic level biodiversity, adjusting for quality
using transformity. We compare transformity as an index of component trophic dependency and
sensitivity with other network indices (sensitivity, effective trophic level - Heymans et al. 2002),
following the theoretical contributions of Ulanowicz (1986). Comparison of extant emergy flows and
theoretical maximum flows predicted by the Maximum Empower Principle provides a measure of
component importance; we observe strong overlap between species with lower than expected emergybased importance and those known to be currently threatened or endangered. Comparison of the
proposed emergy-based system diversity index with alternative measures of system condition (e.g.
relative ascendancy, redundancy - Heymans et al. 2002) highlights substantially different conclusions,
and illustrates the need for careful examination of more systems. A rationale for emergy-based
ascendancy is provided.
INTRODUCTION
Ecosystem condition is typically evaluated using metrics of community composition (Karr
and Chu 1997) in comparison with some reference state. While these methods have been successful at
providing benchmarks against which restoration or anthropogenic disturbance effects can be measured,
they ignore the dynamic coupling and information feedbacks between system components that provide
the framework for ecosystem organization (Odum 1994). Though it is clear that whole systems
assessment is prohibitively complex for standardized evaluation of ecosystem condition, where
possible, a holistic view of function and interaction can be informative. In particular, hierarchy theory
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Chapter 5. Emergy, Transformity and Network Analysis
and complex systems analysis suggest that understanding ecosystems merely as the context for the
study of individual organisms or species ignores the significant physical and cybernetic coupling of
biotic and abiotic components that results in emergent properties at the ecosystem scale.
Network analysis is one tool employed to document and assess complex ecological systems
(Heymans et al. 2002, Ulanowicz and Kay 1991, Christensen 1994). Methods are well established for
computing a suite of system- and component-scale metrics derived from network analysis and
ascendency theory (Ulanowicz 1997). Our objective is to develop systems indicators based on energy
systems theory to complement these existing metrics, and explicitly adjust energy flows by quality
factors for within- and between-system comparison.
Data compiled for the Across Trophic Level Systems Simulation (ATLSS DeAngelis et al.
2000) and matrix synthesis provided by Ulanowicz et al. (2000 and 1997;
http://cbl.umces.edu/%7eatlss/ATLSS.html) represent perhaps the most disaggregated and complete
ecological network data ever compiled. With carbon as the network numeraire, direct bilateral
interactions between system components (bilateral interactions allocation of available energy to
biotic and abiotic compartments; we exclude cybernetic feedbacks from our definition) have been
described using published data and field measurements and organized into material flow input/output
matrices. These matrices have been compiled for four ecosystem types (Fig. 1) in the Greater
Everglades system (values in parentheses indicate the number of system components, both biotic and
abiotic, in each system): A graminoid marsh (n = 66), B cypress swamp (n = 68), C mangrove
swamp (n = 94) and D Florida Bay (n = 125).
Figure 1. Map of the South Florida system (pre-development). Four ecosystems for which network data are
available are labeled (A graminoid marsh, B cypress swamp, C mangrove swamp, D Florida Bay). This
paper presents evaluations of A and B only.
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Detailed examination of bilateral interactions amongst the many components in these systems
has been shown to offer insight into ecosystem energetics, compartment efficiencies, internal material
cycling, integrated indices of maturity, flow determinism, and component trophic location (Ulanowicz
1986). For example, Heymans et al. (2002) demonstrated that network-based inferential techniques
could be used to explore the effects of differences in structure and productivity between forested and
herbaceous wetlands in the Everglades on trophic energetics, ecosystem development/maturity, flow
dependencies and internal cycling. They conclude that whole ecosystem assessment is a critical
complement to reductionist approaches towards system condition evaluation (e.g. scaling inference
based on behavior of single species up to whole ecosystems), particularly where inference of
vulnerability or resilience is required. This study builds on work by Heymans et al. (2002) by
integrating emergy theory (Odum 1996) with network flow matrices, comparing resulting measures of
ecosystem condition with indices from ascendency theory (Ulanowicz 1997).
Ascendency
While this paper is not a direct examination of the methods or implications of system
ascendency, a brief discussion of the concept is critical for index comparisons offered later.
Ascendency is a combined measure of system size (measured as total system throughput TST in
energy or material units) and organization: it rises with increasing throughput (in energy or material
units) and also with increased coherence (increased determinism of flow direction/allocation) of
bilateral interactions. Ascendency is the product of Average Mutual Information (AMI), a concept
derived from information theory to describe the level of uncertainty associated with internal flow
paths, and system size (Total System Throughput TST) (Ulanowicz 1986). The theory suggests that,
for a system of fixed throughput, as specific bilateral flows are reinforced while others are selected
against (increasing flow determinism), the system increases in organization, reflected in decreased
uncertainty and increased AMI. To compare across systems of different throughput, relative
ascendency (calculated as the ratio of ascendency to development capacity, where development
capacity describes the theoretical upper bound for ascendency) is often useful. The theoretical upper
bound is analogous to the maximum uncertainty in the system, or Hmax in the Shannon-Weaver
information equation (MacArthur 1955, Krebs 2000), the log of the number of components in a given
network (in units concordant with the base of the logarithm). The complement of ascendency (i.e.
development capacity minus ascendency) is overhead, which in turn consists of three components: 1)
redundancy, often used to indicate the resilience of an ecosystem because it quantifies the degree to
which bilateral flows remain indeterminate; 2) dissipation (2nd Law Losses); and 3) exports across the
system boundary (Ulanowicz 1986).
Ascendency is most frequently computed at the ecosystem scale for comparison among
system types. On the other hand, the relative sensitivity index expresses an individual compartments
relative contribution to system ascendancy, and has shown qualitative association with human
perceived value of organisms (e.g. Heymans et al. 2002 for graminoid and cypress systems in the
Everglades). Sensitivity values, coupled with Effective Trophic Level (ETL) (fractional measure of
where organisms feed in an aggregated food chain; ETL of 1 = primary producer, etc.), provide insight
into how compartment activities enhance system performance (Heymans et al. 2002).
Emergy
One critique of ascendency (e.g. Christansen 1994) is that the method makes the implicit
assumption that energy in all bilateral interactions is directly comparable. Emergy theory (Odum
1996) posits that this assumption is untenable; different forms of energy have different qualities that
reflect their differential abilities to perform work within an ecosystem. For example, insolation and
carnivore metabolism can be reported in similar units (Joules per time), but have dramatically different
-77-
properties and potentials within an ecosystem; Odum (1996) concludes that energy content alone is an
insufficient numeraire for describing the flows in self-organizing systems.
Emergy, formally defined as the available energy required through all transformations from
equivalent solar energy to make a product, provides a numeric framework for comparison of species
contributions to ecosystem organization in directly comparable units (solar emjoules, or sej). Emergy
is often referred to as energy memory, reflecting that this approach to systems synthesis is effectively a
form of accounting that traces energy flow and dissipation back through all necessary transformations
to scale all flows relative to a common energy benchmark (solar equivalent energy). Emergy synthesis
facilitates rapid comparison of energy flows of different form; Odum (1996) argues that different
forms of energy have different qualities that arise from the base energy (e.g. solar equivalent energy)
required to make them. In a self-organizing adaptive system, he argues, those forms of energy that
require larger investment per unit energy must provide commensurate higher quality cybernetic work
in the form of feedback/control. Transformity quantifies the emergy invested per unit energy
(Transformity Emergy per Exergy) for each flow in the system of interest; Odum (1996) argues that
direct comparison of energy flows, both within and across the system boundary, is misleading until
physical flows have been adjusted by transformity values that embody the work necessary for their
production.
Odums environmental accounting framework (Odum 1996) further suggests that evaluating
species importance within a quantitative systems framework based on biomass or available energy
throughput alone, without adjusting for transformity, will tend to dramatically underestimate the
system-scale control potential of energy flow in upper trophic levels because of typical Lindeman
efficiencies for trophic energy transfer. The result is that only a small fraction of total system
throughput is incorporated in top-level consumers. However, the cybernetic control services (e.g.
control of population at lower trophic levels, seed dispersal, ecosystem structural attributes) provided
by these upper levels are critical for sustained ecosystem function and incommensurate with their
energy throughput. For example, Terborgh et al. (2001) show dramatic changes in vegetative
community composition in the absence of predators, suggesting top-down control of ecosystem
function, and Pandolfi et al. (2003) illustrate the influence of removing upper trophic level consumers
in coral reef degradation. Odum (1996) argues that, within methods for energy flow analysis, the
relative energetic contributions of each component should be evaluated only after adjusting for
transformity to avoid misrepresenting their influence.
In an ecosystem setting, the factors of production frequently include feedbacks (cybernetic
controls) from other system components. It is important to note that input/output matrix-based
network analyses, by relying on static accounting of direct and indirect material/energy transfer,
already internalize the effects of cybernetic feedbacks, effectively alleviating the need to quantify
those feedbacks for computing transformity values. That is, the static condition of a system, as
measured by using material or energy flows at steady state, internalizes and embodies all work done by
system components including feedback controls, which, according to emergy algebra rules, should not
be double counted. This does not suggest that the cybernetic controls are fully understood or
explicated merely that the observed energy flows already contain the effects of control feedbacks.
Material Dispersal and Recycle

Emergy flow in networks is complicated by considerations of recycled materials (Brown and
Buranakarn 2003, Cohen 2003) that should not be counted twice (or more) as they cycle through a
system. The rules of emergy algebra for systems at steady-state (Odum 1996, Brown and Herendeen
1996) ensure that emergy previously processed by one component and subsequently fed back to that
component from other processes should not be included when evaluating the driving emergy; this
avoids double-counting emergy that flows along recycle and feedback pathways. In an ecosystem
setting, detrital pools in energy webs receive material inputs both from plants and from top-level
carnivores. Because the carbon content of detritus in an ecosystem is largely from decomposing
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vegetative material (99.1% of detritus mass is from plant biomass in the herbaceous marsh system
studied herein), the detrital pool should be expected to have a transformity near that of green plants.
However, small contributions of top carnivore biomass substantially inflate the quality of this pool
because the transformity of that biomass is several orders of magnitude higher than the transformity of
plant material. This has major implications when comparing the transformity values of detritivores
with that of herbivores. We propose that detritus can be viewed as a recycle pathway, and, following
the logical framework proposed in Brown and Buranakarn (2003), represents a reduction in
transformity. Specific rules for applying this assumption are given in the methods section.
System-Level Diversity
The Shannon diversity index (Eq. 1) disaggregates diversity into two components: 1) richness
or variety and 2) evenness/dominance, and is calculated as follows:
j
Diversity = pi * log[ pi ]
(Eq. 1)
i =1
where pi is the probability of observing component i in a system of j components. Observation

probabilities are based on relative importance values (Krebs 2000), which can be measured in a variety
of ways (e.g. relative biomass, frequency of occurrence, or coverage area).
This formulation has been widely used for ecosystem evaluation, but it is almost never
applied in a holistic manner since it evaluates richness and dominance characteristics of single trophic
levels (see MacArthur 1955 for a discussion of flow diversity across trophic levels). While the
association between richness and trophic level is complex (e.g. typically richness of insects > plants >
mammals), the effect of trophic level on dominance, when measured using energy throughput, is
dramatic. Specifically, cross-trophic level comparison of component evenness/dominance is
confounded by the expected sequential reduction in energy and biomass through repeated
transformations (Fig. 2) that will make higher trophic level importance values miniscule.
Following Odum (1996), across-trophic level Shannon diversity can be computed based on
the importance of flows to and from each component in the system; flows are scaled by appropriate
transformity values to adjust for the expected drop in dominance with sequential energy transformation
(Fig. 2). This follows from the original application of the Shannon information index to ecological
communities (MacArthur 1955) where the focus was on flows of energy or materials instead of
standing stocks.
Figure 2. Energy, emergy and transformity in a typical food chain. The Maximum Empower Principle predicts
that feedback controls from a component (inferred from transformity) are commensurate with the emergy invested
in supporting that component. If emergy flows on each pathway are equal, quality-adjusted diversity is
maximized.
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While a transformity-adjusted index of compartment importance offers some informative

characteristics with respect to the balance of emergy flows throughout a system, it is useful to provide
a benchmark against which computed values can be compared. The standard practice in diversity
computation in ecology is to benchmark diversity indices against the maximum possible value given
the number of components observed. The quality adjusted diversity index has a maximum value when
all emergy flows are even; this condition is postulated as the target for selection during ecological
succession (Odum 1996). This follows from previous work (MacArthur 1955, Odum 1971) whereby
evenness of flows (not stocks) was conceptualized as a surrogate for community stability. Flow
evenness across a network corresponds to the condition of maximum uncertainty about further
observation. The theoretical rationale for the Shannon index as a measure of flow uncertainty (derived
in detail in Ulanowicz 1986) equates all flows of energy within a system as equivalent in form. We
propose that adjusting for energy quality via transformity values makes this standard benchmark much
more meaningful as a measure of flow allocation uncertainty in systems with multiple trophic levels.
In particular, the flow uncertainty reduction (i.e., lowered Shannon index Ulanowicz 1986)
associated with the paucity of energy throughput in upper trophic levels may be fictitious when flows
are standardized to comparable emergy units.
The Maximum Power Principle (Odum and Pinkerton 1955, Odum 1994) suggests that
systems will develop pathways interconnecting components to make maximum use of available energy
gradients, adjusted to reflect their energy quality. In adaptive systems, increased energy quality is
thought to translate into feedback control potential. That is, systems maximizing emergy throughput
will select those components whose contributions to whole-system function are commensurate with
what was required to make them, while selective pressure will tend to isolate and remove those
components that fail to provide commensurate services.
This formulation for system self-organization suggests that the expected optimal level of
quality adjusted diversity will reach a maximum when all system components are evenly distributed
with regard to importance; importance can be measured as a fractional contribution to emergy
throughput. This follows the same logic typically used in Shannon diversity measurements in ecology,
where maximum diversity, given a fixed richness, is computed where components exhibit equal
importance. On a component-wise basis, this also allows comparison between observed emergy
allocation patterns with the expected optimal, identifying species that are more or less important than
expected.
This study uses transformity as an indicator of species value to an ecosystem, which allows
computation of system-scale diversity indices. Our specific objectives are to:
1) Compute transformity values from complex network data in order to compare the graminoid
and cypress wetland ecosystems of the Florida Everglades.
2) Correlate transformity values computed in this paper with previously calculated ascendency
indices (Heymans et al. 2000).
3) Develop an index of biodiversity at the system-scale using transformity to control for energy
quality (allowing direct comparison of component contributions).
METHODS
Using published network data for cypress and graminoid marsh ecosystems of the Florida
Everglades (Fig. 1 details for accounting, aggregation and assumptions in Ulanowicz et. al 2000,
Ulanowicz et al. 1997), we computed transformities using a linear optimization technique (Bardi et al.
2004). The original data were presented in a To From matrix of carbon exchanges from one
component (i.e. species or group of species where aggregations were necessary) of the network to
another, where each cell in the matrix represents a certain amount of material transfer.
An energy systems depiction (Fig. 3) of a generic network containing biotic and abiotic
components includes organisms feeding at multiple trophic levels and on both photosynthetic and
detrital food chains. Cybernetic feedbacks are omitted in matrix data, and are omitted from this figure.
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For each component in Fig. 3, five flows describe bilateral interactions (e.g., consumption,
net production/transfer and egestion) with other components in the system (Fig. 4). Energy or material
inputs (1) arrive from exogenous sources (e.g. sunlight, rainfall and wind driving photosynthetic
production) or from components within the network (e.g., plant biomass supporting production of
white-tailed deer, apple snails and marsh rabbits). Gross production (2) quantifies the portion of that
energy that is assimilated, while the complimentary fraction (egestion 5), though required for
production and partially processed during digestion, is not incorporated. Respiration (3) represents the
metabolic work of each compartment (i.e., internal feedbacks to secure energy), while Transfer (Net
Production 4) is the energy that is eventually used by other components in the food web. Note that
matrices of bilateral interactions, such as those used herein, assume a steady-state condition seasonal
effects are presented by developing steady-state matrices for wet and dry season biomass and energy
flow. The heat sink symbol represents energy that has become unavailable to do work within the
system of interest.
Figure 3. Energy systems diagram of a generic ecosystem.
Figure 4. Diagram of bilateral and internal energy pathways compiled for each compartment within the inputoutput matrix (from Bardi et al. 2004)
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Our analysis required network matrices with the following attributes. First, flows should be
reported in energy units (e.g., Joules), with flows in each cell directed from column component to row
component. Second, along the main diagonal, net production (total transfer to other components),
should be reported as a negative number; all other entries are bilateral interactions between
components. The original material flow matrices (Ulanowicz et al. 2000, Ulanowicz et al. 1997) were
processed to achieve these requirements as follows:
1) Flows, initially reported in g C/m2/yr were converted to J/m2/yr, assuming an energy content
of 18,800 J/g C (organic).
2) The matrices were transposed (inputs, or energy flows, to each component along rows,
allocation of net production, or transfer, from each component along columns)
3) Component steady state net production values (Flow 4 in Fig. 4) were assigned to the main
diagonal as negative numbers. This precluded any component (e.g. alligators) securing any
portion of its diet from other individuals of the same component.
4) Emergy flows were added as inputs. Exogenous emergy flows were split between primary
producers based on steady-state standing stocks (g/m2) of photosynthetically active material
(i.e. leaves, but not wood and roots) reported in the matrices obtained for each ecosystem.
These emergy inputs for both ecosystems were inferred from Brown and Bardi (2001), and
were set equal to 8.33x1011 sej and 2.08x1011 sej in the wet and dry seasons respectively for
the cypress swamp, and 5.2x1011 and 1.3x1011 for the wet and dry seasons for the graminoid
marsh.
5) Flows of egested material were introduced in the matrix (they were omitted from the original
matrices because that carbon was unassimilated; it is, however, a necessary component of
each compartments production). To do this, each bilateral flow was multiplied by 2.5. It was
assumed that an organisms assimilation efficiency (gross production/total input) was
constant across its sources of food. The sensitivity of the method to this assumption was not
tested within the scope of this work.
Each row in Fig. 5 represents a system component. The constraints to the right of each row
follow from the equality of emergy inflow and emergy outflow. Specifically, the energy inputs
multiplied by appropriate transformity values equal the net production/transfer of energy multiplied by
its transformity:
(Eq. 2)
EmergyInflow j =
X ij * i =
X ji * j = EmergyOutflow j
where Xij is the energy transfer from component i to component j and i is the transformity value of
respective flows.
To avoid artificial overestimation of the transformity of fecal/senescent biomass contributions
to detritus from high-quality components, we applied the following rules:
1) The transformity (sej/J) of a compartment is the emergy (sej) from incoming flows driving
biotic production (Flow 1, Fig. 4) divided by the energy (J) remaining for trophic transfer
(Flow 4 in Fig. 4).
2) Where flows converge to abiotic components (e.g. detrital pools), the transformity of the
incoming flow is adjusted to the level of the detrital pool storage.
A generalized optimization method (Bardi et al. 2004) was applied to the processed matrix to
estimate transformities for each component. Hillier and Lieberman (1990) discuss the potential for
guess-and-check methods to locate non-global solutions; because input/output matrices used herein
are square (# rows = # columns) and no linearity assumptions are violated, this was considered
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Transformities
To From
Solar Emergy
Tr1
Comp. 1
Comp. 1
- P1
Comp. 2
Comp. n
C1 -to- C2
Tr2
Comp. 2
Trn
Comp. n
- P2
Cn -to- C2
C1 -to- Cn
Constraints
C2 -to- Cn
- Pn
Pi values are total component production minus respiration

Ci -to- Cj values are energy transfers from comp. i to comp. j
Objective
Contraints = 0
Figure 5. Schematic of input/output matrix form. Transformity values (top row) represent unknowns in the
simultaneous equations defined by the constraints. For fully specified systems (i.e. # equations = # unknown
transformities) the objective function is redundant.
impossible. The identification of feasible solutions for the large number of constraints for all analyses
required slight relaxation of the default precision (Bardi et al. 2004).
Once transformity values were computed, we compared the seasonality effects of wet and
dry season productivities by developing a linear regression between transformity values computed for
each season for the graminoid system. A similar linear regression comparison was developed across
ecosystems for those components (n = 23) that were ubiquitous, where wet and dry season mean
transformity values were compared. Finally, we computed correlation coefficients between
transformity values and other indices calculated using ascendency (Heymans et al. 2002). Odum
(1996) showed that transformity increases exponentially with trophic transformation; consequently we
took the natural log of the transformity values to facilitate comparison with ascendency indices.
System-Level Diversity Index

Shannon diversity is computed in the typical manner, with relative importance value (pi in Eq.
1) defined as the proportion of total system emergy throughput (sej/yr; sej=solar emergy joules)
contributed by each component. We refer to the relative contribution of each component to total
system emergy throughput as the Emergy Importance Value (EIV) and compute it as follows:
EIVi =
NPi * i
NPj * j
(Eq. 3)
where NPj is the net production (J/yr) and j (sej/J) is the computed transformity of component j. In
this formulation, importance value is the relative contribution of each component to the total emergy
flow through all biotic components (i.e., denominator of Eq. 3), computed by summing net production
times derived transformity over all components. The computed EIV was used directly in the Shannon
diversity index equation (Eq. 1) to calculate system scale diversity.
The maximum possible value for this index (when the emergy on each pathway, and therefore
each components EIV is equal) was computed. This maximum varies between the systems because of
the number of biotic components in each (ngraminoid = 61, ncypress = 57). The ratio of observed diversity
to maximum diversity was computed.
For each individual component, we defined a ratio (Expected:Observed Emergy Throughput
or EOET) as follows:
EOETi =
TET / N
NPi * i
(Eq. 4)
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where TET is total emergy throughput in the entire system, N is the number of biotic compartments
and NP and are as in Eq. 3. This quantified the deviation each component exhibits from expected
emergy throughput (i.e. at optimal organization for Maximum Empower); we log transformed the
index to linearize the response. Consequently, values larger than 0 indicate a component less
important than the expected value of 1 (i.e., equal emergy flows on all network pathways). We plotted
the ratio versus transformity to check for systematic variability between systems as a function of
energy quality.
RESULTS
Transformity values for the graminoid and cypress wetland systems are given in Tables 1 and
2. These values represent an average between computed estimates for the wet and dry seasons. While
there was a strong correlation between seasons (r = 0.98) (Fig. 6), higher transformities were observed
in the dry season coincident with reduced primary production (3.47E+03 g C/m2/yr in the dry season
vs. 6.27E+03 g C/m2/yr in the wet season). A similar pattern held for the cypress swamp.
Table 1. Computed transformity values for graminoid marsh matrix in rank order by transformity.
Ecosystem Component
Periphyton
Labile Detritus
Flagfish
Floating Vegetation
Utricularia spp.
Living Sediments
Other Macroinvertabrates
Apple snail
Mesoinverts
Macrophytes
Poecilids
Lizards
Tadpoles
Crayfish
Freshwater Prawn
Bluefin killifish
Chubsuckers
Mosquitofishes
Other Small Fishes
Shiners & Minnows
Killifishes
Large Aquatic Insects
Terrestrial Inverts
Topminnows
Bluespotted Sunfish
Pigmy Sunfish
Opossum
Dollar Sunfish
Redear Sunfish
Snakes
Ducks
Other Centrarchids
Transformity (sej/J)
3.56E+03
6.43E+03
1.24E+04
1.25E+04
1.51E+04
1.59E+04
1.91E+04
1.97E+04
2.02E+04
2.08E+04
2.23E+04
2.67E+04
2.91E+04
3.04E+04
3.87E+04
4.14E+04
4.26E+04
4.35E+04
4.37E+04
5.35E+04
5.68E+04
6.37E+04
6.74E+04
7.51E+04
8.38E+04
8.42E+04
8.63E+04
8.71E+04
8.83E+04
9.62E+04
1.01E+05
1.03E+05
Ecosystem Component
Small frogs
Muskrats
Medium frogs
White Tailed Deer
Salamander larvae
Catfish
Gruiformes
Large frogs
Alligators
Spotted sunfish
Cichlids
Warmouth
Rabbits
Other Large Fishes
Turtles
Largemouth Bass
Snailkites
Raccoons
Grebes
Salamanders
Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow
Fishing spider
Passerines
Gar
Rats&Mice
Bitterns
Otter
Mink
Nighthawks
Panthers
Bobcat
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1.07E+05
1.08E+05
1.09E+05
1.10E+05
1.11E+05
1.18E+05
1.28E+05
1.30E+05
1.34E+05
1.36E+05
1.36E+05
1.38E+05
1.41E+05
1.45E+05
1.51E+05
1.52E+05
1.62E+05
1.63E+05
1.76E+05
1.79E+05
1.85E+05
1.99E+05
2.13E+05
2.17E+05
2.28E+05
2.40E+05
4.00E+05
4.38E+05
5.39E+05
1.35E+06
3.30E+06
Table 2. Computed transformity values for Cypress Swamp matrix in rank order by transformity.
Ecosystem Component
Phytoplankton
Epiphytes
Vine Leaves
Macrophytes
Floating vegetation
Cypress Leaves
Hardwood Leaves
Understory Vegetation
Periphyton/Macroalgae
Detritus
Cypress Wood
Roots
Hardwood Wood
Tadpoles
Squirrels
Rabbits
White-Tailed Deer
Living Sediment (microbial)
Aquatic Invertebrates
Prawn
Crayfish
Apple Snail
Anseriformes
Terrestrial Invertebrates
Small Fish (herb. and omni.)
Galliformes
Salamander Larvae
Small Fish (carnivorous)
Passeriformes (omnivorous)
Small Frogs
Medium Frogs
Mice & Rats
Large Frogs
4.77E+01
1.01E+04
1.56E+04
1.93E+04
2.21E+04
2.89E+04
2.91E+04
2.91E+04
3.55E+04
7.04E+04
7.23E+04
7.23E+04
7.27E+04
1.90E+05
1.95E+05
1.96E+05
1.99E+05
2.56E+05
3.00E+05
3.57E+05
3.71E+05
3.77E+05
3.91E+05
5.09E+05
6.12E+05
1.03E+06
1.17E+06
1.22E+06
1.23E+06
1.25E+06
1.25E+06
1.30E+06
1.46E+06
Ecosystem Component
Woodpeckers
Large Fish
Hogs
Black Bear
Hummingbirds
Great Blue heron
Turtles
Other herons
Egrets
Raccoon
Vertebrate Det
Wood stork
Bobcat
Lizards
Passeriformes (predatory)
Salamanders
Armadillo
Opossum
Alligators
Otter
Grey Fox
Mink
Caprimulgiformes
Bats
Snakes
White ibis
Kites & Hawks
Owls
Gruiformes
Shrews
Pelecaniformes
Vultures
Florida Panther
1.64E+06
1.71E+06
1.73E+06
1.77E+06
1.90E+06
1.98E+06
2.07E+06
2.08E+06
2.08E+06
2.30E+06
2.46E+06
2.52E+06
2.71E+06
2.75E+06
2.79E+06
2.82E+06
3.21E+06
3.82E+06
4.34E+06
4.76E+06
4.80E+06
4.84E+06
5.02E+06
5.69E+06
6.21E+06
6.61E+06
7.13E+06
7.14E+06
7.15E+06
7.28E+06
7.90E+06
1.29E+07
1.48E+07
Transformity values for the ubiquitous components (Fig. 7) were approximately one order of
magnitude higher in the cypress swamp. While there is a moderately strong positive association (r =
0.72), the linear regression slope parameter is significantly different from 1 (parameter s.e. =0.04, Pr
[=1] < 0.01).
Table 3 gives correlation coefficients relating transformity to other network analysis
indicators, namely Effective Trophic Level and Sensitivity. Note that the strong positive correlation
between these indicators is non-linear. Specifically, linear increases in trophic level or sensitivity are
associated with exponential increases in transformity.
Table 4 summarizes quality-adjusted diversity for the two systems, given as raw values and as
a percentage of the maximum possible value. Note that quality adjusted diversity can be compared
between systems directly or as a fraction of the theoretical maximum. Also given is the annual
average exogenous emergy flowing into each systems.
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Figure 6. Seasonal association of computed component transformity values. Transformity values are consistently
lower in the wet season (Pr [slope = 1.0] < 0.001), during which primary production is greatly elevated.
Figure 7. Comparison of computed transformity values for components found in both graminoid and cypress
ecosystems.
Fig. 8a shows that for the graminoid system, as component transformity increases, the
Expected-to-Observed Emergy Throughput of a component becomes increasingly small relative to the
expected value, thus yielding a higher EOET ratio; the association is statistically significant (p<0.001).
One potential explanation that the graminoid marsh is highly oligotrophic and consequently invests
relatively less energy in upper trophic levels is challenged by Fig. 8b, which shows the same index
for the cypress swamp. The cypress system, which is similarly oligotrophic, exhibits substantially
different behavior; while some components of the swamp are less important than expected (i.e. EOET
> 0, indicating less emergy throughput than predicted by the Maximum Empower Principle), the trend
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Table 3. Correlation matrix showing association between transformity values (this study) and
component specific network analysis indices (Heymans et al. 2002).
Graminoid System
Transformity
ETL
Sensitivity
Transformity
1.00
ETL
0.75
1.00
Sensitivity
0.82
0.75
1.00
Cypress System
Transformity
ETL
Sensitivity
Transformity
1.00
ETL
0.82
1.00
Sensitivity
0.74
0.68
1.00
Table 4. System scale indices of condition. Upper indices are computed in this study; emergy
inputs are from Brown and Bardi (2001).
Graminoid Marsh (n = 63)
Cypress Swamp (n = 65)
Quality Adjusted Diversity (bits)
1.73
2.16
Theoretical Maximum Diversity (bits)
4.14
3.81
Relative Diversity (%)
42%
57%
Exogenous Emergy Inputs (sej/ha/yr)
5.2E11
8.3E11
with increasing transformity is non-significant. Those organisms that exhibit lower than expected
emergy throughput (listed in Table 5) coincide substantially with normative judgments of rarity and
conservation value (Bobcats, Florida panthers, Kites and Hawks, Minks, Black Bears all have high
EOET values; conversely, Vultures, Detritus, Invertebrates, Ibis and Periphyton are more important
than expected).
DISCUSSION
The ability to compute transformity values for multiple products simultaneously from
input/output matrices has been previously demonstrated (Collins and Odum 2000). This study
reiterates the feasibility of the method for significantly more complex systems than was previously
shown. While the convergence between expected transformity values (i.e. previously computed values
for primary production, primary and secondary consumers and detritus) and computed values from
network analysis data do not prove that the method is consistent with static rules for emergy algebra
(Odum 1996, Brown and Herendeen 1996), the results circumstantially suggest that the method
provides transformity values that are consistent with previous computations. Previous demonstrations
of equivalence between methods (Odum and Collins 2003) are for cases where exogenous emergy
flows pass through primary producers only; this is the situation for the flow networks used in this
work. This assumption may be inappropriate where exogenous inflows of emergy are first incident on
higher-level components, and only later distributed back through the network via recycling and
feedback flows. Clearly, further research to substantiate the direct equivalence of the simultaneous
methods used herein with standard emergy algebra is needed. In the interim, we proceeded with the
analyses presented assuming equivalence.
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(a)
(b)
Figure 8. Expected-to-Observed Emergy Throughput (EOET) vs. Transformity for the graminoid marsh (Fig. 8a)
and cypress swamp (Fig. 8b).
Transformity offers a useful indicator of component value within an ecosystem. However,

the accuracy of our computation is dependent on the validity of the source data. One area that poses
potential theoretical problems is the dramatically different transformities observed within a given
system between seasons. Specifically, the nearly order of magnitude difference between wet and dry
season transformities with dry seasons exhibiting significantly higher transformity values indicates
dramatic differences in resource consumption rates and process efficiencies that may be artifacts of the
data used. Detailed re-analysis of the source data would be required for this end. The similar
discrepancy in transformity values between systems (i.e. organisms found in both exhibit higher
transformity values in the cypress system) could be viewed as a fundamental ecological
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Table 5. Selected EOET values for components in the cypress swamp. Lower values denote species
with greater than expected ecosystem importance. High values indicate species that are less important
than expected (EOET = 0 where expected and observed are equal).
Component
EOET
Component
EOET
Refractory Detritus
-1.34
Otter
0.83
Living sediment
-1.14
Apple Snail
0.97
Vertebrate Detritus
-0.71
Egrets
1.13
Periphyton/Macroalgae
-0.43
Wood stork
1.26
Terrestrial Invertebrates
-0.38
Large Frogs
1.34
Prawns
-0.31
Raccoon
1.37
Understory Vegetation
-0.30
Kites & Hawks
2.05
Crayfish
-0.18
Florida Panther
2.26
Floating vegetation
-0.17
Black Bear
2.42
Macrophytes
-0.11
Predatory Passeriformes
2.58
Vultures
-0.06
Salamanders
2.67
White ibis
-0.04
Mink
2.69
Opossum
-0.04
Bobcat
3.05
Aquatic Invertebrates
-0.03
Shrews
3.39
Turtles
0.18
Hummingbirds
5.60
Lizards
0.58
Bats
5.86
difference arising from the disparity in emergy budgets (cypress received nearly 50% more emergy)
and resulting production (the cypress system fixes 70% less carbon than the graminoid marsh).
However, biomass data from the region system (70% greater herbivore and 20% greater carnivore
biomass in the cypress swamp) suggests that wildlife populations are substantially denser in the
cypress swamp system, perhaps as a result of the additional vertical structure, which should result in
lower transformities. The most likely explanation for this effect is the significantly greater primary
production in the graminoid marsh (annual production = 9.74E+03 g C/m2/yr vs. 2.46E+03 g C/m2/yr
in the cypress system) while the system emergy budget is higher in the cypress system (8.3E+11
sej/ha/yr vs. 5.2E+11 sej/ha/yr in the graminoid system) (Brown and Bardi 2001). Our conclusion is
that the increased emergy input and reduced primary productivity outweigh the observed difference in
biomass, and that the transformities reflect the ecological reality that greater environmental work is
embodied in similar organisms in the cypress system.
Though assessment of the association between metrics benefits from linearizing transformity
values via log transformation, this result suggests that, while energy and material dynamics are linear,
emergy dynamics are non-linear. We infer that mechanisms that adjust for energy quality are critical
when evaluating the cybernetic control potential of each component.
The strong correspondence between log-transformed transformity values and the componentwise ascendency (sensitivity) and trophic level (ETL) indicates promising convergence of evidence
(i.e, high correlation) with regard to species influence or value within an ecosystem. However, it
should be stressed that raw transformity values, which reflect the invested energy in a component and,
hypothetically, the value of the work that component performs in the system, increase exponentially in
comparison with the other measures. The inherent limitations of the energy equivalence assumptions
(i.e., energy compared without accounting for quality) made for flows within a network are illustrated
in the measures of network sensitivity to perturbations in each individual component; to conclude that
the ecological value of large carnivores (sensitivity ~ 8-13) is less than an order of magnitude larger
than primary producers (sensitivity ~ 1.5) on a unit basis seems to undervalue the control services of
these organisms. Applying the theoretical framework of energy memory to linear flow matrices with
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multiple trophic transformation introduces indices of quality that are non-linear, suggesting that higher
order carnivores contribute nearly 100 times more service to the ecosystem per unit production than
primary producers.
While network analyses (Ulanowicz 1986, Dame and Patten 1981) and emergy refinements
proposed herein offer little insight into the particular cybernetic controls provided by each species in
the system, transformity has been proposed as an informative measure of the expected importance of
each component (Odum 1996). Ulanowicz (1980) recognized the need to weight flow diversity at the
system scale by total system throughput to adequately compare between systems. We propose that
system-scale flow diversity further requires adjustment for energy quality (transformity) before
meaningful cross-trophic comparisons of importance and between system comparisons of development
or stress can be achieved.
Our conclusion that quality-adjusted diversity is substantially higher in the cypress swamp is
difficult to interpret in the absence of comparative data from more systems. However, anecdotal
observation that anthropogenic impacts are concentrated in the graminoid marsh and that the cypress
system is less impaired corresponds with this measurement. Other potential explanations include the
increased structural diversity of the cypress system. Interestingly, the system-scale network indices
imply the opposite conclusion, with ascendency values for the graminoid marsh appearing much
higher (Table 6), both in raw and relative terms, than the values for the cypress system (Heymans et al.
2002). The authors of that paper suggest that the cypress system manifests the effects of
anthropogenic impairment more, but offer no ecological reason for this to be the case.
We conclude that the cypress system, by distributing emergy more uniformly throughout the
trophic levels, is the more mature of the two, and that ascendency computed without accounting for
energy quality will tend to overemphasize the importance of lower trophic levels, which are relatively
more dominant in the graminoid marsh. Efforts to develop an emergy-based ascendency have been
proposed (Christansen 1994), but serious flaws in the method adopted for embedding emergy
accounting into ascendency computations leave this effort unaccomplished. This work points towards
further integration of the ascendent ecological perspective with emergy theory.
The maximum empower principle provides a theoretical reference point against which to
evaluate systems. Deviance from this maximum value may be a useful indicator of system recovery or
degradation over time; this clearly requires time series information to delineate temporal directionality
in the assessment indices. This logic was used to identify specific organisms that exhibit deviation
from expected importance (measured in units of productivity adjusted for quality). Our finding that
the deviance reported as EOET (Expected:Observed Emergy Throughput) systematically increases in
the graminoid marsh system, but not in the cypress system, may be further indication of increased
marsh impairment relative to swamp areas. Notably, those species with high normative value in
society (i.e., those for which wildlife management plans and on which considerable public scrutiny are
focused) are generally those with high EOET values.
The overlap between an emergy based approach to ecosystem evaluation and network
analysis/ascendency is fertile ground for ongoing research; while we demonstrate strong associations
Table 6. System scale indices of condition from Heymans et al. (2002).
Graminoid Marsh (n = 63) Cypress Swamp (n = 65)
Ascendancy (gC - bits/m2/yr)
20896
4026
2
Redundancy (gC - bits/m /yr)
9728
3736
Total System Throughput (gC/m2/yr)
10978
2952
Development Capacity (gC - bits/m2/yr)
39799
14659
Relative Ascendancy (%)
52.5%
34.3%
Relative Redundancy (%)
24.4%
25.5%
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between emergy indices and component-wise ascendency indices, more important convergence should
come with linkages at the whole system scale. It is critical that the findings of this paper be extended
in two ways. First, the coupling of emergy and ascendency should be viewed as a priority as a result
of the implicit assumption in ascendency analysis (and other ecological flow analyses e.g. Patten and
Dame 1981) that energy flows on all bilateral pathways are directly comparable (i.e., equal quality), a
conclusion profoundly challenged by emergy theory and research. This can be achieved using simple
systems that have already been carefully examined as part of previous research efforts (see Ulanowicz
1997, Odum and Collins 2003, and Bardi et al. 2004 for widely cited examples). Second, the systems
in this study are approximately equally influenced by human activities. By extending this application
to systems of varying levels of human disturbance and successional state, additional metrics of system
development and status should be readily quantifiable.
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Conference (M.T. Brown ed.), Gainesville, FL USA.
Collins, D. and H.T. Odum. 2000. Calculating Transformities with an Eigenvector Method.
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Dame, R.F. and B.C. Patten. 1981. Analysis of Energy Flows in an Intertidal Oyster Reef. Marine
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Wiley and Sons, New York, NY.
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Odum, H.T. and D. Collins. 2003. Transformities from Ecosystem Energy Webs with the Eigenvalue
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McClenachan, M.J.H. Newman, G. Paredes, R.R. Warner, and J.B.C. Jackson. 2003. Global
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Adler, T.D. Lambert, and L. Balbas. 2001. Ecological Meltdown in Predator-Free Forest
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
6
Moral Codes II
Dennis G. Collins
ABSTRACT
This paper deals with stimulated and other change of moral levels described in
"Thermodynamic Modelling of Moral Codes (2001)" "Moral Codes I" by the author. The quantum
change of these levels is studied in terms of three approaches: 1) 3-level laser model, 2) drama
triangle, and 3) H.T. Odum's network transformity model. A typical cycle based on three different
quantum levels, 4, 7, and 8, could be level 4 (victim), level 8 (rescuer), level 7 (aggressor), and level
4 (victim). In this drama triangle (3-level laser model) a person A at level 4 who was once robbed
jumps to level 8 to try to kill a person B who is robbing (level 7 assault or violent crime) a person C
like himself at level 4. According to the drama triangle in a future encounter, the person A may
"relax" to level 7, being ready to attack even if unprovoked to action, the person B would drop to level
4 being afraid of getting killed, and the person C might jump from level 4 to level 8, having person A
as a model. In the laser model the actions or deeds of the people correspond to photons of given
(quantum) energy, and the level 7 action may stimulate other level 7 actions (lasing). Other 3-level
cycles, such as war models, are possible, as there are many types of 3-level lasers. A continuous
version of quantum change, which forms a background for the quantum change of levels, is the Benard
circulation experiment and model. How to break the cycle of violence is considered.
INTRODUCTION
Why moral codes? The general answer in terms of a maximum entropy view is that the order
created by moral codes permits actually more long-term disorder or entropy generation by allowing
more interactions in the population or higher abstract temperature, which translates into more entropy.
If everyone kills each other off, there is more disorder for a while but then less activity or disorder for
the long term, as there is no one left to do anything. This general view is presented by Rod Swenson
(1997). It must be pointed out that the highest levels of entropy generation or "turbulence" are not
necessarily desirable. There are questions about the validity of the maximum-entropy approach, not
discussed here, and the theory is somewhat independent of the other arguments of this paper.
In the case where moral codes are implemented by some sort of security force or police
department, such a police department must "pay for" itself or the hierarchical order it represents
(decrease of entropy) by eventually encouraging more activity and interaction by the people, so that
the net entropy increases according to the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
For example where the police are effective, people may be willing to go out at night, creating
activity or entropy that would not occur if everyone were afraid to go out. Having everyone stay in his
house would correspond to a (possibly vibrating) crystal or solid phase, whereas having people move
around to restaurants or visit other people would mean a type of higher-entropy liquid or gas phase.
This increased entropy production roughly corresponds to the Benard cell circulation cell that starts
with a heat source raising the temperature under a fluid [Swenson, 1997]. The container or pan that
holds the fluid corresponds to the police and thus "the picture that emerges is that the moral code
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Chapter 6. Moral Codes II
enables society to operate at a higher temperature than it would otherwise be able to do by disabling
high energy 'bad guys' or people who do more harm than good . . ." (Collins, 2001).
Haken (1983) models the transition from the Benard cell to turbulence or, at least in some
cases, an undesirable high level of entropy generation with increased energy input by the same
equations that describe the onset of lasing. In this paper, it corresponds to the drama triangle
stimulating mob or war behavior.
One may ask what is the gradient that allows the police order (decrease of entropy) to "live
off" the gradient, as the Benard cell lives off the heat gradient from bottom to top. The answer seems
to be 1) the gradient of unequal possessions or access to resources (for example, the products closed
inside a store) and 2) the gradient of unequal talent or concentration of physical force or power. Of
course the police become part of the force concentration. For example in movies such as "The Seven
Samurai" and "High Plains Drifter," people hire "police" to protect their towns from outside threat or
criminal gangs. The "Homeland Defense Department" recently set up in the U.S.A. seems to have a
similar origin to protect the U.S.A. from terrorists such as Al-Queida. The police or other concentrated
force may maintain or increase the property gradient, or in some cases decrease it (as in the Robin
Hood or "trust-busting" examples), dependent on the "evolutionary" objective of generating more
overall entropy. In fact some systems may have to be designed to minimize entropy production, to
contribute to the overall maximum dissipation, or entropy generation. For example a house may be
designed to minimize heat loss through insulation and sealed windows, so that the house can actually
generate more entropy through its being there to support the activities of people living in it.
A side conclusion, based on the maximum entropy approach, would be that where the police
"order" does not lead to a higher long-term entropy production, say due to inefficiency of the police (a
leaky pan or container), or police state constraints on activity, the society may collapse, to be replaced
by a society which does provide more entropy generation in the long term. Thus an unsustainable
growth of urban sprawl, although increasing activity or disorder in the short term, might collapse
compared to ecologically-based planning. Also pulsing of ecological/social states may result.
However, to get back to the topic of this paper, it is necessary to ask what causes people to
change moral levels. The earlier paper (Collins, 2001) was roughly based on the Bible and Systems of
Survival (1992) by Jane Jacobs and set up a system of ten levels of increasingly damaging behavior
from 0 to 9, with a typical population average in some settings of about 4.5, as follows:
Ten Levels of Moral Code
0) "saint," making everyone (everything) better
1) obeys "Golden Rule" as "Good Samaritan," making most people better
2) productive, service with limited risk to self, making some better
3) decent person of good will; honors parents; not greedy but protects interests
4) law-abiding but possible thought crime such as coveting, self-interest
5) word crime: swearing, lying, as well as thought crime
6) property crime: stealing, cheating
7) violent crime, assault or attempted assault
8) murder, attempted murder
9) treason, making holes in the dikes, crime against humanity (Collins, 2001)
Prof. Giannantoni has pointed out (Giannantoni, 2004) the levels correspond to increasing
egotism. It is important to note that the levels do not correspond to increasing energy. Both saints
(level 0) and arch-villains (level 9) command more energy than the ordinary person at average level
4.5. Rather the levels correspond to increasing social cost of the actions.
Three models are presented: laser model in section II, the drama triangle in section III, and
Odums transformity network in section IV. Section V discusses how to decrease lasing or drama
triangle cycling. Section VI offers conclusions and further projects.
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THE LASER MODEL

The laser model is a special case of quantum radiation theory. Change of quantum level is
studied in terms of three types of processes: 1) absorption, 2) spontaneous emission, and 3) stimulated
emission. Absorption occurs when an electron jumps to a higher quantum level after absorbing a
photon. Spontaneous emission occurs when an electron drops to a lower level after emitting or giving
off a photon on a random basis. Stimulated emission occurs when an electron drops to a lower level
after being stimulated by a photon of a certain frequency to give off a photon of the same frequency.
Since photons correspond to violence-producing acts in our theory, then:
(1) absorption could represent a person who receives a teaching to carry out a violent act, or
becomes more violent as a consequence of being a victim;
(2) spontaneous emission could represent a person who commits a violent act and then drops his
level of violence as a result of repentance, or having his gun accidentally jam, or simply
(randomly) getting too old or tired to maintain violent activity, and so on, and;
(3) stimulated emission may represent a person who commits a violent act in imitation of other
violent acts, for example in war, and then drops to a lower level as a result of repentance, being
out of ammo or too tired, and so on.
The quantum moral acts should have energy proportional to the differences in their energy
levels and not the actual energy levels themselves; however with quadratic energy spacing, the
differences more-or-less correspond to the levels themselves.
Also simple quantum models satisfy so-called "selection rules" which only allow a change of
one level at a time, similar to the trophic level changes of ecology; however more complicated systems
such as lasers seem to relax these requirements. Perhaps something similar happens in complicated
ecological systems, such as humans feeding over different trophic levels, such as grains and beef.
The three above-mentioned processes can be described by equations relating the change of
electron occupation density of the three levels, for example equations 3.28, 3.29, and 3.30 of Chen
(1996), p. 111:
dN1/dt = AP (N3 N1) - AL (N1 N2) + N3/31 + N2/21
dN2/dt =
dN3/dt = -AP (N3 N1)
- AL (N2 N1) + N3/32 - N2/21

-(1/31 + 1/32) N3
Please see Figure 1.

Here the AP (pumping) and AL (lasing) are transition probabilities, and the tau's are reciprocals of socalled "Einstein A-coefficients" and represent spontaneous emission lifetimes. Also N1 corresponds to
the lowest (victim) level (say level 4), N2 corresponds to the next-to-highest (aggressor or persecutor)
level (say level 7), and N3 corresponds to the highest (rescuer) level (say level 8) of violence. 31 is the
average time for an electron to drop spontaneously from the highest level, say 8, to the lowest level,
say 4; the corresponding term N3/31 adds into the N1 density and subtracts from the N3 density. The
rescuers (say police) are generally given a higher level of violence than the aggressor.
For a ruby laser, an early 3-level working laser, typical values required for lasing are the
following (Chen 1996, p. 115):
31 = 1/3 10-5 sec.
32 = 5 10-8 sec.
21 = 3 10-3 sec.
AP = 3.33103 sec.
AL =
N3 = approx. 1.667 10-4 N1
N2 = approx.
10 N1
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Observe that there is a probability inversion in that most of the electrons (or people) are in level N2
(ten times as many aggressors N2 as victims N1) and there are very few rescuers compared to victims
(only 1.667 10 -4 times as many). The value of AL appears not to be given in Chen (1996). Since the
constant AL does not appear in the third equation, the equilibrium ratio (assuming left-hand derivatives
equal zero) of N3 to N1 can be figured out without knowing AL. To obtain a viable theory in the social
science case, the above constants must be approximated. It may be that such a probability inversion is
unlikely in the social setting except in the case of war, in which case propaganda pumps most people
into the level N3, and they do not decay back into the N1 level but only into the N2 level. Perhaps their
only act at level 8 in the N3 population is wishing to kill someone in the very short time before they
drop to the level 7 or N2 population. As a consequence, most of the population remains in the
aggressive attitude N2 (say level 7). Also it appears a 4-level laser may be more appropriate for the
social science case. Two tangential references to quantum theory in the social sciences are Lawless
(2002) and Slechta (1986).
Remark: According to the author's calculations, the laser equations with the above values
substituted into them yield AL=-5.98/sec. by the first equation with left-hand side equal zero, and
AL=.074/sec. from the second equation with the left-hand side equal to zero, with the third equation
resulting in dN3/dt=-54.5 N1. If calculated correctly, these values leave something to be desired with
regards to consistency.
Rescuer
Level 8
N3
N3/32
Persecutor
Level 7
N2
AP
N2/21
pumping
N1/31
lasing
Victim
Level 4
N1
Figure 1. Laser energy levels and transition from3-level laser.
THE DRAMA TRIANGLE

The laser model seems to represent the high-energy or turbulent limit of the drama triangle,
which corresponds in its usual description more to a Benard circulation. According to Eric Berne
(1976), "Drama in life, as in the theatre, is based on "switches," and these switches have been neatly
summarized by Stephen Karpman (1968) in a diagram he calls 'The Drama Triangle' . . ." (p.188).
Continuing, Berne says:
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Each hero in drama or in life (the protagonist) starts off in one of the main
three roles: Rescuer, Persecutor, or Victim, with the other principal player
(the antagonist) in one of the other roles. When the crisis occurs, the two
players move around the triangle, thus switching roles. (p.188)
This is a slow version of the three levels of the laser cycle; another writer on the Drama Triangle,
Claude Steiner (1974), states: "Therefore a person who has played the role of Victim vis-a-vis a
person who is a Rescuer will also inevitably become angry. So it is possible to predict that every
Rescue-Victim transaction will eventually result in a Persecutor-Victim transaction" (p. 153).
The drama triangle seems to predict fairly well the course of events, although the particular
three levels may change, as in different lasers. For example, the Jews went from level 4 (Victims)
before World War II, to level 9 (Rescuers) in the development of the atomic bomb proposed by
Einstein (a former pacifist) and organized mostly by Jews during World War II, which however could
be considered a crime against humanity (level 9--not the least reason being that it was not known if it
would completely burn up the atmosphere), and then relatively quickly "relaxed" to be Persecutors
(level 8) with a "Lebensraum" policy against Arabs which has probably outdone the Nazi Persecutors,
since the Nazis only had their policy going for about a dozen years. Meanwhile the Nazis (level 8)
dropped to being Victims (level 4), and so on. Of course not all Jews, Arabs, and so forth, could be
considered part of the above cycle. Some Jews, for example, Richard Feynmann, might claim that
they should not be considered Jewish, since they apparently never practiced the religion, and so on.
The simple laser and drama triangle models do not discuss the question of where events
occur. Swenson (1997) stresses that non-local processes can increase entropy production compared to
local processes. Presumably Palestinian victims of targeted assassinations would like to carry out
revenge beheadings against Israeli pilots, but the point of contact may change to civilians in Baghdad.
Thus, in comparison to the way convection moves fluid around in the Benard cycle, with heated fluid
parcels at the bottom rising to the cooler top of the fluid and then giving up their heat and dropping
back down, the particular contact during change of moral level may change, e.g. from Germans
(concentration camp) to Japanese (atomic bomb) to Arabs (refugee camp) above. Thus an Israeli
attack against Arab hospitals in the West Bank today may result in an Arab car bombing against the
Red Cross in Baghdad a few days later.
The rate of Benard circulation corresponds to what Karpman calls ". . .script velocity (number
of role switches in a given unit of time)." (Berne 1976, p.189)
In general the Drama Triangle theory is closely related to Berne's "I'm O.K.-You're O.K." 3level quantum diagrams of Parent-Child-Adult. These roles could be approximated by (actual )
levels 3.5 (Parent), 4.0 (Child) and 4.5 (Adult). As with the police, the parents could operate at high
her temperature, so that even though their average violence level is lower, they have more violent acts
due to greater dispersion or larger standard deviation across the ten quantum levels. Children are
usually considered innocent and so would have below-average violent behavior, although again they
could operate at higher temperature and so have more violent acts
Also it is not necessary for there to be more than two adjacent violence levels involved in the
Drama Triangle, since it appears the Rescuer and Persecutor could have the same violence level one
step above the Victim.
H.T. ODUMS TRANSFORMITY MODEL

When I discussed the moral codes theory with Prof. H.T. Odum in May 2001 before the 2nd
Emergy Conference in Gainesville, FL later that year, he recommended that I try to apply his
transformity theory to discuss change of moral level. He would always ask how many or much of one
thing it takes to make something of higher "transformity," for example how much grass it takes to
make a rabbit (prey) and how many rabbits it takes to make a predator, such as a fox. Thus one can
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ask how many liars (level 5) it takes to make a thief (level 6), and how many thieves it takes to make a
robber or thug (level 7), and how many thugs it takes to make a murderer (level 8), and so on. If one
watches TV shows such as "Murder She Wrote," there is usually some substrate of criminal behavior
before a person reaches level 8; however, as a version of the laser example illustrates, the pathway to
level 8 may go through level 9, and in general there is no set progression to level 8. Otherwise the TV
shows would be predictable. Pathways from level 9 to level 8, or lower, have more complexity in the
Odum network theory. There can be material re-cycling by getting killed ("He swims with the fishes,"
in the Godfather movie) or put in prison and thus (typically) restricted to a lower level. There can also
be feedback controls by recruitment (in a recent mass murder in Florida a 27-year old apparently
recruited 3 eighteen-year old accomplices), which apparently has no analog in the quantum theory, the
quantum theory being described only by probabilities. A recent candidate for level 9 behavior, the
"Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski, apparently followed something like the Drama Triangle, going from a
sort of victim of cold-war psychological tests at Harvard to a would-be Rescuer of society from
technological controls through revenge bombings (Chase, 2003). Chase traces his change of moral
level partly to literary recruitment, based on a novel by Polish writer Joseph Conrad in which a
character searches for the "perfect detonator." Mark Brown [personal communication] has pointed out
that (as with progress in the educational pathway) considerable struggle and effort may be expended
getting to a higher and more destructive (with this paper's classification) moral level. For example
because his earlier bombs had not actually killed anyone, Kaczynski quit bombing for several years
while developing a better detonator and eventually killing three people.
Also, Odum had the idea that network systems would self-organize to avoid evil or criminal
activity because such activity weakens the system, whereas systems that survive have feedback paths
that reinforce or support the various levels. For example the "Godfather" movie comments on the
small number of boys in Sicily due to the "Vendetta." As another example, one cause of Chaing KaiShek Nationalist mainland Chinese defeat up to 1949 was supposedly the corruption of officials. On
the other hand some forms of criminal behavior, such as black marketeering, may survive because they
actually increase entropy generation overall. These questions return to H.T. Odum's Maximum Power
or Maximum Emergy theory in comparison with Maximum Entropy theory. Also Peter Corning's
synergy theory (2003) may be mentioned versus what he calls "neo-Pythagorean" hopes.
Nonetheless, the Odum theory points to the fact that one way people change moral levels is
through recruitment from higher more-violent levels, such as a crime web organized by a drug kingpin,
such as Columbian Pablo Escobar. Thus people may be forced to lie (level 5) to avoid being beaten
(level 7). The idea of a crime pipeline is very similar to Odum's encouraging education pipeline
(Odum, 1996, p.232), going from grade school to high school to college to Ph.D. study to publications
to public figure to legacy. A chart similar to Odum's education pathway (Odum, 1996) is presented in
Figure 2. One may also observe that the education pipeline also runs substantially by recruitment from
higher levels. A few graduate students are selected from the best undergraduate students, and so on. In
comparison with the education model, someone such as Pablo Escobar or a crime "godfather" would
have a very high transformity, although built up gradually. This type of Odum model then would not
resemble laser pumping very much, since the change of level is only one at a time, instead of jumping
to a high level. Jumping from grass to fox in an ecological web would leave nothing for the fox to eat.
The Roman-army practice of decimation, or killing at random one soldier out of every ten, may be
considered a form of pumping people to a higher level of violence (say level 8) in the military that
would not have an obvious counterpart in an ecological web.
Thus it seems destructive human organizations such as crime syndicates have to be
considered as simply a higher trophic level of predation, just as wolves may feed on deer or sheep and
cause destruction of the sheep. However, humans reach higher levels of emergy as predators of cattle
and sheep because they feed back energy to reinforce the raising of the cattle. Giannantoni (2002) has
written transformity as a product of dissipative transformity and generative transformity. Apparently
the higher transformity of a fox versus a rabbit can be considered due partly to the energy of rabbits
consumed and partly to new structures, such as different teeth. Similarly, the higher transformity of a
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Energy
8.9
24.6
73.3
343
1029
2054
Transformity
Lying
Level 5
Auto Theft Gang/Assault Hit Men/Murder Mass Murder Al Capone

Level 6
Level 7
Level 8
Level 9
Legacy
Figure 2. Crime Pipeline. Moving to right corresponds to decreasing energy and increasing transformity.
Transformities above boxes are from Odums Education pipeline model.
crime boss might be partly due to number of victims' lives degraded and partly due to new structures,
such as weapons and highly-paid lawyers. Leaving out these levels of predation will not lead to
accurate models, just as leaving out predators will not lead to accurate predator-prey models involving
pulsing. Also, as indicated by the supposed calculation that it takes more money to keep someone in
prison than to send them to Harvard, considerable emergy is involved in the penal system, which as
mentioned above, must be balanced against its benefits. A tentative diagram is presented in Figure 3.
Odum has reacted to the (earlier) Swenson theory with a discussion of Benard circulation
(Odum, 1995) as creating a storage tank of high-transformity structure through interaction. It remains
to be seen if the geometrical structure of Benard cells can be corresponded to the geographical
distribution of crime families or even political states. Considerable effort by workers such as Charles
Doering (2004) has tried to show that Benard circulation actually achieves close to the maximum
possible energy dissipation at its place in the turbulence hierarchy. Eventually this work may confirm
Odum's approach.
DECREASING VIOLENCE
A possible way to decrease violence is to eliminate all violent acts. The "peace through
peaceful means" idea is explained in the TRANSCEND theory of Johan Galtung (1998). This work
also covers some of the religious approaches. As mentioned in Moral Codes I, the New Testament
stresses repentance and forgiveness as a way of decreasing violence. However in some cases this
approach seems to eliminate the possibility of Rescue, supposing a rescue requires a higher level of
violence than the Persecutor. Here is where the laser model may come in, since when lasing occurs the
laser-beam energy is radiated away from the apparatus. The laser model raises the possibility that
violent acts may be focused outward somehow, say by sports or space exploration, or other activity not
considered in this paper.
-99-
Figure 3. Criminal/Penal System. All items have depreciation (not shown). Also not all flows are illustrated,
such as flows that skip trophic level. Crime pipeline arrows to right along bottom.
The quantum model is reversible to a large extent, although the laser radiates energy outward
as well as possibly generating acoustic energy and heat. On the other hand violent acts are irreversible
to a large extent; if someone gets murdered, he doesn't come back. Thus Galtung's (1998) 3 R's of
Resolution, Reconstruction, and Reconciliation may have validity for dealing with violent acts.
Since mankind is, as it were, huddled against "gradient mountain" of various types (such as
the surplus of oxygen in the atmosphere), the wanton increase of entropy without any work being
done, say by pushing someone off the mountain with the loss of gravitational potential, is generally
considered evil. The more entropy generated or emergy lost, the greater the amount of evil, which
gives rise to the increasing levels of the moral code with increasing level and scope of violence. Thus,
although the moral code arises from maximum entropy generation, the essence of moral codes is to
minimize (irreversible) entropy generation. If someone comes up and breaks your dishes on the floor
or takes a sledgehammer to your bicycle, it is considered evil. The exception is if the item has no
foreseeable use, or may be dangerous. For example if the dishes are old with cracks that contain
harmful bacteria, it might be considered a Rescue operation to break them. The exception to the
exception is that if the item is very rare, it still might be considered evil to destroy it; for example, even
though wolves are dangerous, some consider it evil to destroy them because they are now rare. It
would probably be considered evil to break a vase from ancient Egypt even if it has harmful bacteria in
its cracks. The consequence is that almost any violent act can be justified from some viewpoint, and
moral judgments become unstable, so that one person's level 0 is another's level 9. The way in which
-100-
theories like Maximum Entropy and Maximum Power become entwined with moral codes shows how
difficult it would be to verify these theories in the social science setting.
CONCLUSION
The shifting of moral levels is compared to quantum jumps involved in laser operation. The
laser represents a more-or-less pure transactional analysis as described in the Drama Triangle, in which
photons correspond to actions. It remains to be seen if this analogy will be helpful. For one thing, laser
models may see improvement, and there is still controversy about how 2nd law losses, i.e. entropy
generation, occur in quantum processes. It is even possible that social science models will clarify
some issues in physics.
For now, improvements could be made with regard to more mathematical calculations. For
example, decrease of opportunity for action due to injuries and damages as a consequence of violent
acts may give some idea of decrease of the quantum phase space (dimension) due to irreversibility (cf.
Callens, 2003). Odum's work still seems relevant to this problem.
REFERENCES
Berne, Eric, 1976. Beyond Games and Scripts, Grove Press, Inc., N.Y.
Callens, I., de Roeck, W., Jacobs, T., Maes, C., Netocny, K., 2003. Quantum production as a
measure of irreversibility arXiv:cond-mat/0211252 v2,8 Apr 2003.
Chen, Chin-Lin, 1996. Elements of Optoelectronics and Fiber Optics, Irwin, Chicago, IL.
Chase, Alston, 2003. Harvard and the Unabomber, W.W. Norton and Company, NY.
Collins, Dennis G., 2001. Thermodynamic Modelling of Moral Codes (Moral Codes I), (unpublished
manuscript) presented at SIDIM-16 Conference, Feb. 24, 2001, Humacao, PR.
Corning, Peter, 2003. Nature's Magic, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, UK.
Doering, Charles, 2000. "Bounds on turbulent transport,"
http://doug-pc.itp.ucsb.edu/online/hydrot_c00/doering/oh/01.html. November 2004.
Galtung, Johan, 1998. Conflict Transformation by Peaceful Means, United Nations,
http://www.transcend.org/CONFLENG.HTM. January 2004.
Giannantoni, Corrado, 2002. The Maximum Em-Power Principle as the basis for the Thermodynamics
of Quality, Center for Environmental Policy, Univ. of Florida, Gainesville, FL.
Haken, Hermann, 1983. Synergetics, Springer-Verlag, Berlin.
Giannantoni, Corrado, 2004. Personal communication.
Lawless, W.F., and Schwartz, Michael, 2002. The Social Quantum Model of Dissonance, Social
Science Computer Review, Vol. 20, No. 3 Fall, pp. 439-448.
Karpman, Stephen, 1968. Fairy Tales and Script Drama Analysis, Transactional Analysis Bulletin
7:39-43, April 1968.
Odum, Howard T., 1995. "Self-Organization and Maximum Power," Chapter 28 in Maximum Power,
ed. Charles A.S.Hall, Univ. Press of Colorado, Niwot, CO.
Odum, Howard T., 1996. Emergy Accounting, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., N.Y.
Slechta, Jiri, 1968. On Quantum Statistical Theory of the Brain--Brain as a Generalized Laser, Dept.
of Physiology, Univ. of Leeds reprint, pp. 919-924, UK.
Steiner, Claude M., 1974. Scripts People Live, Grove Press, Inc., N.Y.
Swenson, Rod, 1997. Spontaneous Order, Autokatakinetic Closure, and the Development of SpaceTime, in Closure: Emergent Organizations and Their Dynamics, Vol. 901 Annals of the New
York Academy of Sciences, ed. Jerry Chandler and Gertrudis Van de Vijer.
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-102-
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
7
How Many Fourth Principles Are There in Thermodynamics?
Corrado Giannantoni
ABSTRACT
The paper considers four different proposals (found in Literature) concerning a possible
Fourth Thermodynamic Principle, namely: Onsagers Reciprocal Relations (1931), Prigogines
Excess Entropy Production (1971), Georgescou-Roegens Matter Entropy (1972) and Jorgensens
Ecological Law of Thermodynamics (1992). Such Principles, when analyzed in the light of Odums
Maximum Em-Power Principle (1994), appear as being four different reductive quantitative versions
of the latter. Consequently, the Maximum Em-Power Principle can be considered as being not only a
new Thermodynamic Principle (as already shown in (Giannantoni 2001, 2002)), but also the only
candidate to be recognized as the real Fourth Thermodynamic Principle.
INTRODUCTION
In the 1870s Thermodynamics had already reached (in less than 50 years) its almost
definitive and systematic formulation. Scientists consequently thought that all the physical phenomena
substantially obeyed two fundamental Principles: the First and the Second Principles of
Thermodynamics. Science seemed to have reached a definitive result. Everything seemed to be under
control. However some creaking could already be heard in that theoretical structure.
The first problematic aspect appeared in the application of those two Thermodynamic
Principles to the analysis of Biological Systems. It was immediately clear that those Principles
(although globally valid even in the case of living systems), could not be considered as being Laws
sufficient to explain, by themselves, how and why organisms develop through self-organization
processes, during which they lose Entropy (by increasing their own order), in open contrast with the
surrounding universe. Those Principles in fact are only able to tell us that certain things cannot
happen, but they do not tell us what does happen (Lotka, 1922b).
As is well-known Boltzmann (1887) first had the original idea of looking for a direct
relationship between Classical Thermodynamics and the Evolutionary Theory of the organic world.
Lotka in 1922 reconsidered Boltzmanns initial ideas and, on the basis a thorough analysis of wide
classes of living systems, formulated the Maximum Power Principle and contemporaneously proposed
that it was the Fourth Thermodynamic Principle (ib.) (Nernsts Principle (1906) had already reached
the status of a Third Thermodynamic Principle). Subsequently Odum (1994), in the early 1990s, after
having introduced the new physical quantity termed Emergy, gave a more general formulation of
Lotkas Principle in the form of the Maximum Em-Power Principle.
Parallel to this line of thought, some other scientists discovered new Thermodynamic aspects
and systematically proposed them as an expression of a Fourth Thermodynamic Principle.
-103-
Chapter 7. How Many Fourth Principles

Reciprocal Relations, discovered by Onsager in 1931, represented a substantial novelty with respect
to Classical Thermodynamics. The same can be said with reference to Excess Entropy Production
Principle discovered by Prigogine in 1971. Even from Economics a new Fourth Principle was
suggested: the Matter Entropy Principle, proposed by Georgescou-Roegen in 1972. More recently
another tentative Fourth Thermodynamic Principle was proposed by Jorgensen in 1992, termed as the
Ecological Law of Thermodynamics.
In this respect we can observe that: i) the mathematical formulation of the Maximum EmPower Principle, achieved in 2001 (Giannantoni, 2001, 2002), finally clarified in what sense the latter
can be considered as a Thermo-dynamic Principle; ii) and now, the availability of such a formulation
(together with the appropriate associated mathematical language) enables us to show that all the other
Principles are simple and different reductive quantitative versions of the Maximum Em-Power
Principle.
ONSAGERS PRINCIPLE (RECIPROCAL RELATIONS)

This Principle states that: Near thermal equilibrium an affinity X j (also termed as
generalized thermodynamic force) produces a linear effect, in a flux J k , which is symmetrical with
respect to that produced by the affinity X k in the flux J j (Onsager, 1931). In other words, given
two coupled processes, two linear force-flux equations can be written by means of transport
coefficients L jk as
J 1 = L11 X 1 + L12 X 2
J 2 = L21 X 1 + L22 X 2
(2.1)
(2.2)
where
L12 = L21
(2.3).
Such a Principle has not the same generality as the other well-known Thermodynamic
Principles (and Onsager was aware of this). In fact it is only valid under very restricted conditions
(Haken, 1984): i) an isolated System; ii) flows, at a given time t , are supposed to be only dependent
on affinities (at the same time); iii) flows are always time derivatives of extensive quantities (pseudothermodynamic variables); iv) processes are supposed to be linear (near the equilibrium); v) there
exists a dynamic equilibrium in a very restricted neighborhood of the thermal equilibrium; vi)
subjacent statistical processes are supposed to be without memory (Markovs assumption); vii)
microscopic reversibility of processes is also assumed.
All these hypotheses are generally and synthetically referred to as linear Thermodynamics of
irreversible processes.
Derivation from the Maximum Em-Power Principle

Given its very limited field of validity, Onsagers Principle can be derived from the
Maximum Em-Power Principle by simply starting from the general definition of Emergy (see
Giannantoni, 2002)
Em = Tr Ex = Tr Trex Ex
and by remembering that
d
Em Max
dt
-104-
(2.4)
(2.5).

In fact:
i) Eq. (2.5) can be explicitly written as follows
d
d
dEx
Em = Trex ( Tr Ex + Tr
) Max
dt
dt
dt
(2.6)
because, by hypothesis, the system has no memory near equilibrium. This implies that the factor
Trex , accounting for Exergy dissipation, is constant, whereas the factor Tr , which accounts for
Emergy source terms may vary.
ii) If we now take into account that, for an isolated System
(Ex) irr
dEx
dS
=
= T0
dt
dt
dt
(2.7)
and
dS
0
dt
(2.8),
Eq. (2.6) becomes
d
d
dS
Em = Trex ( Tr Ex Tr T0
) Max
dt
dt
dt
which is satisfied when two distinct and independent conditions are verified :
(2.9)
d
Tr Max (that
dt
is Emergy source terms give their maximum contribution) and contemporaneously
dS
min
dt
(2.10).
The much wider generality of the Maximum Em-Power Principle can be shown by the fact
that Onsagers Principle can be derived from the sole latter condition.
iii) Condition (2.10), on the other hand, considered in the context of the hypotheses mentioned above,
expresses Prigogines well-known minimum entropy production Principle (1947).
iv) By remembering that the Entropy production can be expressed as
dS
= X 1 J 1 + X 2 J 2 = L11 J 12 + L12 J 1 J 2 + L 21 J 1 J 2 + L 22 J 22
dt
(2.11)
and that it must also satisfy condition (2.8), we recognize that the structure (2.11) cannot be, strictly
speaking, minimized, but it must have (at least) an extremum.
vi) This can be found on the basis of variational calculus via Silvesters criterion, valid for quadratic
forms (see Krasnov et al., 1984) and it is really achieved when
L12 = L21
(2.12)
and
2
L11 L22 L12
0
(2.13).
PRIGOGINES PRINCIPLE (EXCESS ENTROPY PRODUCTION)

This Principle states that: Under the hypotheses which characterize Thermodynamics of
irreversible processes (see previous paragraph), a stationary non-equilibrium state is stable if any
perturbation ( ) of the system leads to the following conditions (Prigogine, 1980; Haken, 1984):
( 2 S ) st 0
(3.1)
1 2
( S ) st = X i J i 0
2 t
i
(3.2),
where (3.1) represents the extension of the analogous stability condition valid in the case of reversible
-105-

Thermodynamics, while (3.2) gives the excess entropy production.1 The equal sign only holds at the
threshold of a new regime.
This Principle is a more sophisticated stability criterion introduced by Prigogine (1971) in addition to
the already mentioned Minimum Entropy Production Principle (see previous paragraph), which was
too limited to be considered a Fourth Thermodynamic Principle.

i) Let us first re-formulate conditions (3.1) and (3.2) in terms of Exergy. These, on the basis of the
above mentioned hypotheses, can be written as follows (see also Eq. (2.7))
( 2 Ex) st 0
1 2
( Ex) st 0
2 t
(3.3)
(3.4).
ii) If we then start from the mathematical formulation of the Maximum Em-Power Principle
(Giannantoni, 2001)
v d 3V =
D (t )
d
emv d 3V Max
dt D ( t )
D (t ) SU (t )
(3.5)
and express the Lagrangian derivative in explicit terms, we can write
v d 3V =
D (t )
C ex d V + C ex
D (t )
v rn d 2 S 0
(3.6).
D ( t )
For an isolated system, in a reference stationary state, a perturbation ( ) in the neighborhood of

that state (under the assumption of local dynamic equilibrium and linear processes) can be written as
( v )d 3V =
D (t )
(C ex
)d 3V =
D (t )
1 2
( Em) st + .. 0
2 t
( C ex d 3V ) =
t D ( t )
(3.7)
because, under the mentioned hypotheses, the term of the first order (Em) st equals zero.2
The expression excess entropy production is due to the fact that, when the state of reference is an equilibrium
state, the pertaining stability condition
( 2 S ) eq 0
(analogous to condition (3.1)) is directly related to the
total entropy production (expressed by Eq. (2.11)) as follows:
dS
1 2
= X i Ji =
( S ) eq . When,
dt
2 t
i
on the contrary, the state of reference is a stationary non equilibrium state, the derivative with respect to time of
( 2 S ) st is no more related to the total entropy production of the system, but to the sole entropy
production in excess due to the perturbation (the terms X i and J i in Eq. (3.2) represent the corresponding
the quantity
variations with respect to the equilibrium values) (Prigogine, 1980).

In physical terms this means that system Emergy, when evaluated on the basis of the sole first order
perturbations, results as having already reached its maximum. In fact this is the only result compatible with the
considered boundary conditions. Vice versa, if it is evaluated through higher order perturbations, the latter imply
pertaining modifications of the previous boundary conditions and consequently allow us to calculate the
corresponding Emergy increase (in accordance with the general tendency expressed by the Maximum Em-Power
Principle).
2
-106-

iii) By taking into account that the system is also without memory, in stationary conditions, and
undergoing microscopic reversible processes, we can assume Trex (t ) = const , whereas Tr (t ) ,
which is due to perturbations of structural configuration, may vary. This means that condition (3.7)
becomes
1 2
1 2
1 2
[ (Tr Ex)] st = [ Ex
( Tr )] st + [Tr
( Ex)] st 0
2 t
2 t
2 t
(3.8)
because the mixed products vanish.

iv) Condition (3.8), derived from the Maximum Em-Power Principle, represents a very general
stability criterion which is much wider than Prigogines Principle. In fact the former includes the
latter, without being affected by its limitations. In addition it is able to explain why condition (3.2) (or
equivalent condition (3.4)) is only a sufficient condition for stability. Whereas, instability necessarily
implies its violation (Prigogine, 1980; Haken, 1984).
Let us now examine the various possible cases of this more general criterion:
a) Condition (3.4) is a sufficient condition for stability. In fact, on the basis of the Maximum EmPower Principle, under stability conditions we have
[( 2 Tr )] st 0
t
(3.9),
which is always verified if Prigogines condition (3.4) is introduced into the general criterion (3.8).
The latter however implies, in addition, that the term
1
[( 2 Ex)] st
2 t
(3.10)
must satisfy the following condition
[ Ex
1 2
1 2
( Tr )] st [Tr
( Ex)] st 0
2 t
2 t
(3.11),
which clearly shows that, according to criterion (3.8), the real cause of stability is represented by the
contribution due to the Ordinality of source terms, which must exceed the contribution due to the
associated Exergy dissipation. In fact, as already shown in (Giannantoni 2001, 2002), the Maximum
Em-Power Principle points out the contributions due to both meta-mechanical and conjugated
mechanical causes, whereas Prigogine emphasizes only the mechanical aspects, which solely account
for associated and concomitant conditions.
b) Condition (3.8) also shows how instability necessarily implies the violation of Eq. (3.4).
In fact, under such hypotheses, on the basis of the Maximum Em-Power Principle we have
[( 2 Tr )] st < 0
t
(3.12)
which, together with condition (3.8), consequently implies that
1
[( 2 Ex)] st > 0
2 t
(3.13).
c) Condition (3.13), however, when verified (violation of Prigogines condition (3.4)), does not
represent a sufficient condition for instability, and the general criterion (3.8) is able to show why.
In fact condition (3.13) does not necessarily imply the violation of condition (3.8). When in fact (3.13)
is introduced into condition (3.8), the latter only requires that
[ Ex
1 2
1 2
( Tr )] st [Tr
( Ex)] st
2 t
2 t
-107-
(3.14).

This condition simply asserts that the time variations of second order perturbations of Transformity
must be greater than a prefixed negative quantity, but it does not absolutely imply that they must be
negative. Consequently condition (3.9) is perfectly compatible with condition (3.14).
The general criterion (3.8) is thus also able to explain why the system can be stable even if Prigogines
stability condition (3.4) is violated.
JORGENSENS PRINCIPLE (ECOLOGICAL LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS)

This Principle asserts that: If a system receives a through-flow of exergy, it will utilize this
exergy to move away from thermodynamic equilibrium. If the system is offered more than one pathway
to move away from thermodynamic equilibrium, the one yielding most stored exergy, i.e. with the most
organized structure, or the longest distance to thermodynamic equilibrium under the prevailing
conditions, will have the propensity to be selected. (Jorgensen 1992, 2000).
Such a tentative Fourth Law of Thermodynamics (ib.) is essentially based on the concept of
Exergy which, because of its specific definition (see Szargut et al.,1988), is considered by the author as
being an appropriate measure of the information content of a system as well as of its distance from
equilibrium. For this reason Exergy seems to be, at the same time, a convenient indicator of the
development of ecosystem structure and changes in species composition. Structural exergy, in
particular, should be considered an appropriate measure of ecological integrity. (ib.).
The essential characteristics of Jorgensens Principle, seen in the light of the Maximum EmPower Principle, clearly show that it hardly reaches the status of a Fourth Thermodynamic Principle.
In fact: i) it has not been formulated in mathematical terms yet. This aspect represents a strong
limitation on our ability to decide as to whether it is a Thermodynamic Principle or not; ii) it refers to
an organized structure which is understood as being only based on topological (mechanical)
relationships. It does not consider any excess of meta-mechanical Ordinality; iii) the self-organizing
criterion adopted (i.e. most stored exergy) is too self-referent (with respect to the analyzed system).
In fact it neglects the multiform coupling of the same with the surrounding habitat, i.e. those bidirectional contributions included in Odums concept of useful work; iv) in addition, structural
exergy cannot be considered as being an appropriate measure of ecological integrity, because it is
only the conjugated foundation of the same. Ecological integrity, in fact, is expressed by the level of
Ordinality (not considered by Jorgensen); v) its (verbal) formulation however suggests a sort a
tendency Principle, even if the term propensity seems to indicate more a potential trend than an
effective tendency; vi) it is formulated in terms of phenomenological effects by neglecting the
subjacent causes.

The previous aspects enable us to show that Jorgensens Principle can be seen as a reductive
version of the Maximum Em-Power Principle. In fact:
i) by starting from the right side of Eq. (3.5) in its explicit form (3.6) (phenomenological aspects), we
can equivalently write
C ex
D (t )
d 3V
C ex
(v rn ) d 2 S ] Max
(4.1),
D ( t )
where the second term on the first side of Eq. (4.1) represents the net Emergy inflow due to all the
various contributions (mass, heat, work, etc.).
ii) In the case of a mere Exergy inflow ( v rn < 0 ), the coefficient C (which at a local level
corresponds to the global concept of Transformity (see Giannantoni, 2000, 2002)) is identical to 1.
-108-

In such conditions we always have
C ex
ex
(v rn ) d 2 S
D ( t )
(v rn ) d 2 S
(4.2),
(v rn ) d 2 S ] Max
(4.3).
D ( t )
and thus, a fortiori, we can assert that
C ex
d 3V
D (t )
ex
D ( t )
iii) In such a context, Jorgensens Principles points out that
ex
d 3V Max
(4.4)
D (t )
that is the propensity toward most stored exergy, whereas the Maximum Em-Power Principle (more
appropriately) indicates that the system tends to increase its organized structure not only in terms of
stored exergy, but also (and especially) in terms of conjugated meta-mechanical relationality
expressed by Transformity (as clearly indicated by the explicit expression of first term of (4.1))
D (t )
C ) ( ex ) d 3V + C ( ex ) d 3V ] Max
t
t
D (t )
(4.5)
while ever respecting the tendency condition (4.1), which also includes the useful emergy exchanged
with the outside.
iv) This analysis shows that this attempt to overcome the limits of the well-known Thermodynamic
Principles remains at a virtual level, because it does not free itself from that cogent and necessary
perspective which is typical and intrinsic in the traditional Thermodynamic Principles.
v) Jorgensen in fact refers to a necessary Logic when he admits that it is hardly possible to make
deterministic statements about the development of an ecosystem and that it is absolutely necessary
to test the tentative law with many more case studies before it can be recommended to use it more
generally. (Ulgiati and Bianciardi, 2004). In this respect he does not recognize that the emerging
Quality3 in living (and non-living) systems suggests the adoption of an adherent Logic (see
Giannantoni, 2002).
vi) In addition, the research for deterministic statements not only confirms such a necessary
approach, but also reveals that the tendency Principle proposed is not thought of as being the
phenomenological result of internal spring sources, but only a necessary consequential evolution of
constraining conditions.
vii) In essence, after having attempted to take flight toward the formulation of a General Tendency
Principle to explain the wide variability of ecological system dynamics, the criterion of selection,
based on a mere quantitative property (Exergy), together with the adoption of a necessary Logic and a
strictly efficient causality, ended up by clipping its wings.
Quality is written with a capital Q because in this context is no more considered (as usually happens) as a
simple property or a characteristic of a particular phenomenon, but it is understood (and recognized) as being
any emerging property (from any physical process) never reducible to its phenomenological premises or to our
traditional mental categories. This is also valid for the term Ordinality (with a capital O), because it is no more
referred to as a (traditional) topological order (e.g. geometrical symmetries and so on, although not excluded), but
it is understood as a hierarchical order based on the previous concept of Quality.
-109-
GEORGESCOU-ROEGENS PRINCIPLE (ENTROPY OF MATTER)

This Principle, proposed by the economist Nicholas Georgescou-Roegen in 1972, states that:
In a closed system (exchanging energy with the environment, but not matter) a material entropy
occurs and gradually reaches its maximum value (maximum disorder and mixture of matter) in such a
manner that all matter ultimately becomes unavailable (Ulgiati and Bianciardi, 2004).
This statement, which is undoubtedly correct for an isolated system, was assumed by
Georgescou-Roegen as being valid for the biosphere, considered as: i) a closed system; ii) with
external exchanges too slow and therefore not very significant on the scale of the economy.
Under such conditions he pointed out that it would be impossible to completely recover the
matter used in the production of mechanical work or wasted in friction. The disappearance of any
qualitative difference between materials is a sort of material death of the system, which is similar to
the famous thermal death dictated by the entropy law for isolated systems (ib.).
Such a possible Fourth Law of Thermodynamics has received several criticisms by various
scientists (among others, the same authors whom the previous quotations were taken from).
In this respect we can observe that: i) the Principle has never been formulated in
mathematical terms. This represents a basic difficulty for the Principle to be thought of as being a new
Thermodynamic Principle; ii) the basic reason for such a misleading Principle relies on the fact that
it supposes a radical de-coupling between Entropy and matter. The Maximum Em-Principle Principle
enables us to recognize that self-organization is based on Emergy, and its mathematical formulation
shows that this is one sole physical entity combining together both meta-mechanical relationality
(expressed by Transformity) and mechanical relationality, expressed by Exergy, which is the
conjugated extensive aspect of the former (see Eq. (2.4)). In such a context matter is exactly the
physical support of the mechanical relationality, in the sense that any (mechanical) relationality is a
specific property of the matter. In this perspective any order or disorder of matter is nothing but the
order or disorder of the mechanical relationality expressed by Entropy. Consequently Entropy of
matter is a sort of a tautology. Entropy of matter, in fact, is nothing but simple Entropy; iii) the
second misleading assumption concerns the absence of two additional basic concepts such as
information (vehicled by Energy and matter flows) and time (Cleveland and Ruth, 1997).

On the basis of the previous considerations, Georgescou-Roegens Principle can be seen as a
particular version of the Second Thermodynamic Principle which, in turn, is a reductive version of
the Maximum Em-Power Principle according to a mere quantitative phenomenological perspective
(Giannantoni, 2001). In fact:
i) by starting from Eq. (3.5) and by taking into account both the complete absence of any generative
source term and the schematization of the biosphere as usually adopted (Cleveland and Ruth, 1997;
Sllner, 1997), the second side of Eq. (3.5), under the additional above-mentioned hypotheses,
becomes a particular version of the Second Thermodynamic Principle (see Giannantoni, 2002, p. 87):
+
s
(u Ts) d V = q
3
D (t )
d2S
D ( t )
ex
irr
d 3V
(5.1).
D (t )
ii) The first term on the second side of Eq. (5.1) represents the net balance between the effective
absorbed solar Exergy flow and the low grade Exergy re-emission flow. We may thus assume that this
contribution is negligible with respect to normal Exergy flows in economic activities.
iii) Under such hypotheses Georgescou-Roegens Principle points out that the contribution of
irreversibilities is not limited to thermal ones, such as in traditional systems usually analyzed by
Classical Thermodynamics (engines, turbines, and so on). In this respect the generation of
-110-

irreversibilities can be expressed by considering all the flows per unit volume (
j k ) and their
associated generalized forces ( X k ). Then the last term of Eq. (5.1) explicitly becomes (apart from
the constant factor
T0 )
irr
d 3V =
k
D (t )
(X
D (t )
) j k d 3V =
k
(X
D (t )
y k
d 3V
t
(5.2)
y k = generic extensive physical property (per unit volume)

j k = the corresponding flow defined by the time variation y k / t .
where
iv) If we now assume that irreversibility due to heat flows associated with thermal differences
represent one of the contributions indicated in Eq. (5.2), lets say the first one
( X
) j1 d 3V =
(T ) j
q ,v
d 3V =
D (t )
(T )
D (t )
D (t )
q v
d 3V
t
(5.3),
q v / t is the flow (per unit volume) derivable form Fouriers Equation, the mathematical
where
formulation of Georgescou-Roegens Principle could be given as follows
(X
k 1 D ( t )
y k
d 3V 0
t
(5.4)
or, alternatively, on the basis of Eq. (5.1) (and associated assumptions on the system)
(Ts) d V = t ex
3
D (t )
irr
d 3V = = T0
(X
k D (t )
D (t )
yk
d 3V 0
t
(5.5).
v) In this form the Principle asserts a general tendency toward a progressive levelling of the
mechanical relationality, expressed by Exergy, but it does not imply any levelling of its associated
Transformity which, on the contrary, tends progressively to increase (Giannantoni, 2001, 2002).
CONCLUSIONS
The four Principles here considered represent different attempts at catching (and
describing) the excess of Quality clearly pointed out by the Maximum Em-Power Principle. However,
they do not achieve such an important result because of their intrinsic and specific limitations:
i) Onsagers Principle is undoubtedly the nearest one to the concept of emerging Quality. Firstly
because its validity is independent from any particular molecular model. This makes the discovery
of Reciprocal Relations surely a new Thermodynamic result (Prigogine, 1980). Secondly, because
it brings out the reciprocity of processes, even if only in quantitative terms, without succeeding in
expressing their cooperative behavior in terms of a unique process (think of a binary system
(Giannantoni, 2002)). In fact its formulation can be simply obtained as a particular case of
Prigogines Minimum Entropy Production Principle, which only expresses a sort of inertia of any
system in a stationary non-equilibrium state (Prigogine, 1980);
ii) Prigogines Excess Entropy Production Principle aims at extending non-equilibrium stability
conditions, but in so doing it does not consider the cooperative characteristic of the phenomena
involved, in favor of the mere quantitative aspects. In other terms, if seen in the light of Maximum
Em-Power Principle, Prigogines Principle reduces, once again, the perspective timidly opened by
Onsager, because Prigogines approach still refers to the global system, without considering any
intrinsic form of simple cooperation nor even of a more sophisticated binarity, that is that
special form of reciprocity describable by means of binary functions (Giannantoni, 2002).
-111-

iii) Jorgensens Principle represents an attempt at establishing a tendency Principle in the field of
Biological Systems, even if, in the end, a (desired) deterministic approach seems again to prevail.
In addition, it only considers phenomenological effects, without any mention of their pertinent
causes. In this respect Jorgensens Principle does not consider any excess of Quality (specific to
the Maximum Em-Power Principle), which is never completely reducible to physical phenomena;
iv) Finally, Georgescou-Roegens Matter Entropy Principle has its basic merit in having stressed
the importance of more correct relationships between Man and Environment. Though it cannot be
recognized as being a new Thermodynamic Principle, it emphasizes that the concept of Entropy,
in the case of very complex systems (such as ecological systems) is much more articulated than
the one from Classical Thermodynamics.
Consequently, if we take into account that: i) on the one hand, none of the above-mentioned Principles
has the same generality as the Maximum Em-Power Principle; ii) on the other hand, the mathematical
formulation of the latter first led us to clearly define in what sense it can be considered as a Thermodynamic Principle; iii) and now it has enabled us to show that all the other Principles (proposed as a
possible Fourth Thermodynamic Principle) are nothing but four different reductive quantitative
versions of the Maximum Em-Power Principle, we can conclude that: the Maximum Em-Power
Principle is the candidate most adequate to be recognized as the Fourth Thermodynamic Principle.
The whole logical demonstrative process adopted is synthesized in Fig. 1, where the axis t
ideally represents the last century and the vertical axis points out the irreducible discontinuity of the
jump from quantity to Quality. This would also indicate that, when obtaining the four abovementioned Principles from the Maximum Em-Power Principle, there is a specific stage of the
demonstrative process at which we have to deny (or, at least, to neglect) all the Quality characteristics
pertaining to this Principle. In other words, the four Principles cannot be considered as being
particular cases of the Maximum Em-Power Principle, but only reductive cases, because they
correspond to four different quantitative versions of the same. This also means that the term
derivation (previously adopted) rigorously applies only to this specific phase of the demonstrative
process. In fact, from a general point of view, it is more appropriate to say that the four considered
Principles are obtained (rather than derived) from the Maximum Em-Power Principle.
Finally, it is worth noting that Quality (different from quantity) is represented (in Fig. 1) as
being measured by hierarchical levels of Ordinality, as better illustrated in the companion paper
titled Differential Bases of Emergy Algebra.
REFERENCES
Bianciardi C. and Ulgiati S., 2004. Entropy. In: Encyclopedia of Energy, C. Cleveland Editor,
Academic Press, Elsevier, Oxford, UK, forthcoming Spring 2004.
Cleveland J. C. and Ruth M., 1997. When, where and by how much do biophysical limits constrain the
economic process? A survey of Nicholas Georgescou-Roegens contribution to ecological
economics. Ecological Economics 22 (1997) 203-223.
Giannantoni C., 2000. Toward a Mathematical Formulation of the Maximum Em-Power Principle.
Proceedings of the First Biennial Emergy Analysis Research Conference. Univ. of Florida, Gainesville
(USA), p. 155-169.
Giannantoni C., 2001. Mathematical Formulation of the Maximum Em-Power Principle. Second
Biennial International Emergy Conference. Gainesville (Florida, USA), September 20-22.
Giannantoni C., 2002. The Maximum Em-Power Principle as the basis for Thermodynamics of
Quality. Ed. S.G.E., Padova, ISBN 88-86281-76-5.
Giannantoni C., 2003. A harmonious dissonance. Ecological Modelling, December 2003 (in the
process of publishing).
Haken H., 1984. Termodinamica irreversibile e sinergetica. Enciclopedia del Novecento, vol. VII, p.
573-591. Ed. Treccani, Rome.
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Jrgensen, S.E., 1992. Integration of ecosystem theories: a pattern. Kluwer Acad. Publ., Dordrecht,
Boston, 383 pp., 1st Edition.
Jrgensen, S.E., 2000. The Tentative Fourth Law of Thermodynamics. In: Handbook of Ecosystem
Theories And Management. S.E. Jorgensen and F. Muller Editors. Lewis Publishers, Boca
Raton, London, New York, pp.161-174.
Krasnov M. L., Makarenko G. I., and Kisele A. I., 1984. Variational Calculus. Ed. MIR, Moscow.
Lavenda B. H., 1978. Termodynamics of Irreversible Processes. Dover Pubblications, Inc., New York.
Lotka A. J., 1922a. Contribution to the Energetics of Evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences, 8 (1922), 147-150.
Lotka A. J., 1922b. Natural Selection as a Physical Principle. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, 8 (1922), 151-155.
Lotka A. J., 1945. The Law of Evolution as a Maximal Principle. Human Biology, a record of research.
Vol. 17, n. 3, September.
Odum H. T. and Pinkerton R. C., 1955. Time Speed Regulator: the Optimum Efficiency for Maximum
Power Output in Physical and Biological Systems. American Scientist, 43 (1955), 331-343.
Odum H. T., 1983. Maximum Power and Efficiency: a Rebuttal. Ecological Modelling, 20 (1983), 7182.
Odum H. T., 1988. Self-Organization, Transformity and Information. Science, v. 242, pp. 1132-1139,
November 25.
Odum H. T., 1994a. Ecological and General Systems. An Introduction to Systems Ecology. Re.Edition.
University Press Colorado.
Odum H. T., 1994b. Environmental Accounting. Environ. Engineering Sciences. University of Florida.
Odum H. T., 1994c. Ecological Engineering and Self-Organization. Ecological Engineering. An
Introduction to Ecotechnology. Edited by Mitsch W. and Jorgensen S.. J. Wiley & Sons, Inc..
Odum H. T., 1994d. Self Organization and Maximum Power. Environ. Engineering Sciences. Univ. of
Florida.
Odum H. T., 1995a. Energy Systems and the Unification of Science. From Maximum Power. The Ideas
and Applications of H. T. Odum. C. A. S. Hall, Editor. University Press Colorado.
Onsager L., 1931. Reciprocal relations in irreversible processes. Physical Review, 37, 405-427.
Prigogine I., 1980. Physique, Temps et Devenir. French Edition. Masson, Paris, 1980.
Prigogine I and Stenger I., 1984. Order out of Chaos: Mans New Dialog with Nature. Bantam, New
York.
Sllner F., 1997. A reexamination of the role of thermodynamics for environmental economics.
Ecological Economics 22 (1997) 175-201.
Szargut J., Morris D. R. and Steward F. R., 1988. Exergy Analysis of Thermal, Chemical and
Metallurgical Processes. Hemisphere Publ. Corp., USA.
Ulgiati S. and Bianciardi C., 2004. The Laws of Thermodynamics. In: Encyclopedia of Energy, C.
Cleveland Editor, Academic Press, Elsevier, Oxford, UK, forthcoming Spring 2004.
-113-
-114(1971)
(1931)
J 1 = L11 X 1 + L12 X 2
J 2 = L21 X 1 + L22 X 2
in coupled processes
L12 = L21
Excess Entropy Production
Reciprocal Relations
stability conditions
1 2
( S ) st = X i J i 0
2 t
i
( 2 S ) st 0
Prigogines Principle
Onsagers Principle
Figure 1. Historical-Logical Synthetic Scheme
q
u
a
n
t
i
t
y
Q
u
a
l
i
t
y
Multiple
hierarchical levels
of Ordinality
y k
d 3V 0
t
all matter ultimately
becomes unavailable
k 1 D ( t )
(X
(1972)
Matter Entropy
Georgescou-Roegens Principle
+
+

D (t )
dt
D (t )
d 3V Max
propensity toward
most stored exergy
ex
(1992)
Law of Thermodynamics
time
em d V Max
D (t )
D (t ) SU (t )
d 3V =
Mathematical Formulation (2001)
Jorgensens Ecological
Every System tends to maximize the

flow of processed Emergy
Odums Maximum Em-Power Principle

(1984)
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
8
The Rising Value of Water Due To Scarcity in
Sao Paulo, Brazil
ABSTRACT
The Great So Paulo Metropolitan Region (GSPMR) is already facing episodes of water
shortage. Presently, around 18 million people living in the metropolis are being supplied by 7 systems
located in a Green Belt that surrounds the urban area. Alternatives for increasing the water supply in
the future include imports from distant systems and/or water reuse projects.
This study evaluates the rising value of a natural resource due to scarcity. This work
proposes that the increase in water values is proportional to the efforts required to get it. These efforts
include all environmental and economic for water availability. Emergy analysis was used to compare
two alternative water supply systems - Juquitiba and Capivari. Also, an expeditious methodology for
evaluating losses in species diversity in the Atlantic Rainforest was proposed.
Results indicated that, although the monetary costs of the construction of the Capivari project
were smaller than the Juquitiba project, the Emergy evaluation of these projects showed that the
Capivari project demands greater environmental resources than the Juquitiba alternative, which was
not well accounted for in the conventional economic evaluation. Emergy values of water for different
hypothetical stages of development displayed an exponential growth pattern, varying from 1.0E11
sej/m3 to 14.3E11 sej/m3 for the Capivari project to 2.6 E11 sej/m3 to 19.5E11 sej/m3 for the Juquitiba
project.
INTRODUCTION
The Great So Paulo Metropolitan Region (GSPMR) is one of most densely populated areas
in the world. Around 18 million people, representing 10% of the Brazilian population, live in 0.1% of
this Brazilian territory. It is also a very developed area, with a gross internal product of 99.1 billion
dollars, which represents 16.7% of the Brazilian GNP (Emplasa, 2004).
To support this very high Emergy center resources coming from more distant and pristine
areas are required. Valuable resources are demanded to cope with the intensive development of the
region. Freshwater is one of those resources currently in short supply.
Water Values
Historically, Sao Paulo city obtained water from the tributaries of the Tiete River, which is
the main river crossing the urban area. In the late 1960s, following a large increase in population and
industry, a major project, Cantareira, was constructed to withdraw water from a distant river basin
(Piracicaba River basin).
-115-
Chapter 8. The Rising Value of Water Due to Scarcity
Presently, seven systems supply 60 m3s-1 of treated water to the GSPMR, as depicted in
Figure 1. About half of the water is provided by tributaries of the Tiete River and the rest is diverted
from the Piracicaba River basin. This is causing economic constraints and environmental problems to
the downstream municipalities along this river basin.
As growth took place in the GSPMR, more valuable resources were required to match the
increasing Emergy density of the area. Water is one of the major resources required to support
development in the metropolis. As water became scarce, its value increased.
This study proposes that the increase in the value of water is proportional to the efforts
required to get it. More natural and economic resources are required to concentrate, purify and
transport water. Emergy is a very suitable measure to assess the total costs of proposed water projects
because it can quantify both natural and economic resources on a common basis. Therefore, to assess
the rising value of the water to be provided to the Great Sao Paulo Metropolitan Region, an Emergy
analysis of two new alternative water supply systems was performed.
CANTAREIRA
BAIXO
COTIA
ALTO
COTIA
ALTO
TIET
RIO
CLARO
RIO TIET
RIO GRANDE
JUQUITIBA
ATLANTIC OCEAN
GUARAPIRANGA
BILLINGS
CAPIVARI
Figure 1. Map of the Great So Paulo Metropolitan Region, where the existing (dotted lines) and proposed
(dashed lines) water supply systems are displayed.
-116-
Systems Examined
Alternative solutions that have been proposed to supply water to GSPMR include two
projects that divert water from upland tributaries of two coastal watersheds. One of these watersheds is
the JuquiaRibeira River basin, where water would be taken from the Juquitiba River. The other is the
Itanhaem River basin, where water would be withdrawn from the Capivari River (Figure 1).
Those tributaries, located in the highlands of the coastal watersheds, take advantage of the
moisturized air that rises from the ocean and precipitates on the ridge of the flat plateau where Sao
Paulo sits. Heavy and year round rain falls in those areas where average annual precipitation is around
2.2 meters.
Description of the Projects

The Juquitiba Project
Approximately 4.7 m3s-1 of river water will be withdrawn from Juquia river watershed and
pumped upward 170 m to be discharged in the Guarapiranga reservoir that already serves as a supply
system to Sao Paulo region. The design includes the following units: lifting station (22,000 HP),
pipeline (15,700 m), tunnel (6,760 m), a channel, and a water treatment plant.
The headwater of the Juquia watershed consists of rainforest and suburban developments.
Downstream, close to Juquitiba city, the river is full of rapids, permitting the practice of water sports
(rafting, canoeing, fishing, etc.). Further downstream, where the terrain drops very steeply, six small
hydroelectric dams are found.
The Capivari Project
The project includes the construction of two dams (Alto and Medio Capivari dams) in the
headwaters of the Capivari River to hold and revert water back to the GSPMR. A total of 3.9 m3s-1 will
be diverted from the Capivari-Itanhaem River systems. The design includes the following units: Medio
Capivari dam (5 km2 reservoir), Alto Capivari dam (9 km2 reservoir), lifting station (3,750 HP),
Embura dam (0.3 km2) and Embura channel.
The planned reservoirs are located in an area covered by very dense Atlantic Forest.
Downstream the Capivari River crosses a natural park and Indian lands. Further downstream, in the
estuary, mangrove forests spread across the floodplain.
METHODOLOGY
Emergy Diagrams
The Emergy analysis of the two alternative water supply systems was done according to the
following steps. First, diagrams were drawn using Odums energetic language (Figures 2 and 3) to
identify major natural and economic inputs required for the construction and operation of each
alternative. Those resources included river water captured and processed in the uplands of these
coastal watersheds; economic and human resources required to construct and operate the water supply
project; and natural and economic resources that will be affected by the construction and operation of
the projects, such as the downstream losses in the natural and economic production processes and
declines in diversity and forest production.
Each alternative was depicted as three sub-systems: the watersheds from which water will be
taken; the water supply projects to be constructed and operated; and the GSPMR, where the water
resources will be used. For the Juquitiba alternative the watershed sub-system diagram (Figure 2)
shows the uplands, covered by Atlantic Forest, and the middle reaches of the Juquia River where
aquatic sports and electrical power generation will be affected by the project. For the Capivari
-117-
chem i
cals equipservices
food energy
GNP
$
S un
W ind
Rain
SPMR
wastes
Services
Sao Paulo
Metropolitan
Region
CONSTRUCTION
OPERATION
concreteequip labor
ments
Chemicals
explosives
fuel
fauna
geology
seeds
OPERATION
Pipelines
Tunnel
Channel
electri
city
Juquitiba
Capivari Water
System
rain
diversity
Atlantic
Forest
rafting/fishery
valley
$
riverine
Juquitiba
ecosystem city
sun
Tourists
Electricity
hydro
power
plants
To Ribeira River
Juquia
River Ecosystem
Figure 2. Emergy diagram for the proposed Juquitiba system showing the watershed scale, the water supply
project and the Great Sao Paolo Metropolitan Region.
-118-
che m i
e q ui p
cals
services
food energy
GNP
$
Sun
W ind
R a in
SPMR
wastes
Services
S ao P aulo
M etropolitan
CONSTRUCTION
R egion
OPERATION
equip
clay concretem ents labor
C hem icals
fuel
fauna
geology
se e d s
OPERATION
electri
city
Resevoirs
Channel
W ater Treatment
Plant
Capivari W ater
System
rain
land
diversity
Atlantic
Forest
valley
fishery
sun
riverine
indian
ecosystem
reserve
m ang rove
estuarine
ecosystem
Capivari/Itanhaem
River Ecosystem
$
Itanhaem
city
tourists
ocean
Figure 3. Emergy diagram for the proposed Capivari system showing the watershed scale, the water supply
project and the Great Sao Paolo Metropolitan Region.
-119-
alternative the major processes in the watershed are depicted as the upper reaches dominated by the
dense Atlantic Forest where water will be taken, the middle reaches where the riverine productivity is
relevant for the Indian reserve, and the estuarine ecosystem where river waters support mangrove,
fisheries, and tourism development (Figure 3). Diagrams of the water supply project (Figure 2 and 3)
show major inputs for their construction (fuel, equipment, and labor) and for operation (chemicals and
electricity). The GSPMR is represented by a single autocatalytic process where water is one of the
major inputs required to support development and provide services to the larger system (Figure 2 and
3).
Data Collection
Data were collected from two main sources: HIDROPLAN (Consorsio HIDROPLAN 1995a,
1995b)- a water development plan developed in 1995 for the Sao Paulo metropolitan region and three
neighboring watersheds (Baixada Santista, Piracicaba/Capivari/Jundiai, and Medio Tiete) and EISs
(Environmental Impact Statements) prepared for the Juquitiba and Capivari water supply projects
(Multiservice Engenharia 1992, SABESP 1996).
Emergy Tables
Emergy tables were constructed for the Juquitiba and Capivari water supply projects (see
Appendix, Tables A1 and A2). A 30 year- life span for the water supply projects was assumed.
Therefore, to estimate the total inputs required by the projects, the annual inputs required for the
operation of the projects were multiplied by 30 and then added to the inputs required for construction
of the projects.
Evaluation of the affected diversity of Atlantic Forest

The Atlantic Forest is a very diverse and endangered ecosystem (Stotz et al. 1996). It has
been indicated as one of the top five priority ecosystems for conservation in the world (Mittermeir et
al. 2000). An opening in the forest, as predicted in the Capivari project, is expected to adversely affect
the diversity of the ecosystem due to impacts on plant and animal populations (Brooks et al. 1997).
To calculate the Emergy of the affected diversity of the Atlantic Forest due to the
development of the Capivari water supply project the following procedure was applied:
It was proposed that it took the whole original area of the forest to shelter the diversity that
is found in the present coverage. Considering that the present coverage of the Dense
Rainforest, located in the bio-geographic sub-region of Meridional Atlantic Forest, is about
17.7% of the original one (DHorta, F. personal communication), it was calculated that it took
5.65 ha of the pristine forest to obtain the species diversity of one hectare of the present
forest.
The forested area impacted by the project was estimated as 1,235 ha. Following the
rationale presented above, it was assumed that to obtain the diversity of the impacted area
(1,235 ha), it would be necessary to allow regeneration of an area 5.65 times larger.
Therefore, 6,983 ha (1,235 x5.65) of area multiplied by an estimated regeneration period of
250 years would yield the equivalent species diversity that will be affected by the project.
Therefore, considering that the major input supporting this regeneration process would be chemical
potential energy of rain, the Emergy of the affected diversity was calculated by multiplying the total
rain falling in the 6,983 ha for 250 years by the transformity of the rain.
-120-
RESULTS
Emergy Tables
The Emergy evaluation tables for the two alternative water supply systems are presented in
the Appendix as Tables A1 and A2. The evaluation took into consideration major natural and
economic resources required for the construction and annual operation of the projects.
For the Juquitiba construction, the Emergy analysis included ecosystem resources affected by
the construction; inputs needed for the pipeline production, transportation and construction; material
and energy resources for the civil works; and labor and services. The greatest inputs were those related
to services (53.58E18 sej), followed by material (concrete, 190.41E18 sej) and energy (electricity for
pipeline production, 76.87E18 sej).
The empower of the water that will be supplied to GSPMR was included in the evaluation of
the operation of the projects. It was estimated as the annual Emergy of the rain falling in the basin area
that drains to the withdrawal point and totaled 83.75E18 sej/yr for the Juquitiba project and 15.40E18
sej/yr for the Capivari project.
The Emergy evaluation of the operational phase of the projects took into consideration
resources required for treating and lifting the water and also losses in downstream natural and
socioeconomic processes due to the water diversion. In the Juquitiba project, it included
socioeconomic impacts due to impediment to rafting activities and reduction in electrical power
generation, aside from losses in riverine and estuarine primary productivity. For the Capivari project,
computed losses included riverine and estuarine aquatic primary productivity, as well as mangrove
productivity.
Electricity was a major input to the operation of the Juquitiba project (Table A1) as it
amounted to 59.26E18 sej/yr to lift the river water to GSPMR and 90.78E18 sej/yr in losses of
potential electricity production due to the river diversion. Losses in riverine and estuarine productivity
(29.2E18 sej/yr) were a major input for the Capivari river operation (Table A2).
Comparisons
Construction Inputs
Figure 4 displays the comparison between inputs required by the construction of the Juquitiba
and Capivari projects. Emergy inputs were divided into 3 categories: environmental (natural resources
and community impacts), material and energy, and labor and services.
Results indicated that the construction of the Capivari project demanded 376 times more
environmental resources than the Juquitiba project. The requirement of material and energy resources,
which can ultimately be accounted for as environmental resources too, were 352 percent greater in the
Capivari project due to the large quantity of concrete and clay for the construction of the dams.
Operation Inputs
When considering the inputs for the annual operation of the projects, Juquitiba demanded four
times more empower of material, energy and services than Capivari, as shown in Figure 5. Those
results are due to the fact that the water from Juquitiba River has to be lifted approximately 170 m to
reach the GSPMR, which represents four times the water head required by the Capivari project. Water
Values
Figure 6 shows the rising value of the water supplied to GSPMR, based on the following
rationale. Using the data presented in Tables A1 and A2 four hypothetical scenarios were evaluated: 1)
W- river water readily available to consumers- evaluating water that can be taken from the rivers. This
was estimated as the Emergy of rain falling in the river basin that contributes to the uptake points; 2)
W+T- river water has to be dammed and treated to be available to consumers calculated as
-121-
Inputs for the Construction of the Water Supply Projects

3000.0
Emergy (1E18 sej)
2500.0
2000.0
Juquitiba
1500.0
Capivari
1000.0
500.0
labor+services
material+energy
environmental
0.0
Figure 4. A comparison of the different categories of resources needed for the construction of the water supply
projects.
Annual Inputs for the Operation of the Water Supply Systems
Empower (1E18 sej/yr)
120.0
100.0
80.0
Juquitiba
60.0
Capivari
40.0
20.0
environmental
services
material+energy
water
0.0
Figure 5. Comparison of the annual resources required for the operation of the two water supply projects.
-122-
The Rising Value of Water for Different Scenarios
Emergy/flow(1E10 sej/m3)
2.5E+02
2.0E+02
1.5E+02
Juquitiba
Capivari
1.0E+02
5.0E+01
0.0E+00
W
W+T
W+T+P
W+T+P+E
Figure 6. Evaluating the rising value of water for different scenarios in Emergy/m3. The scenarios evaluated
included: W- water taken directly from river; W+T- river water dammed and treated; W+T+P- river water
dammed, treated and pumped; W+T+P+E- river water dammed, treated, pumped where environment impacts are
take in consideration.
the raw water value (W) plus Emergy inputs needed to concentrate additional water with dams. This
included material, energy and services of construction, plus chemicals inputs of the water treatment; 3)
W+T+P- river water dammed, treated and pumped to be available to consumers, in addition to the
previous two scenarios, this value included the Emergy of the resources required for pumping water; 4)
W+T+P+E river water dammed, treated and pumped, and the environment impacts, in addition to the
previous three scenarios, this value included the Emergy of the environmental resources (E) affected
due to each water supply alternative.
These four scenarios are related to different stages of urban development, from primitive
conditions to modern society. Figure 6, showing the value of water along different development
scenarios, displays an exponential growth pattern, especially when considering the Juquitiba
alternative.
DISCUSSION
The relevance of the Emergy evaluation for comparing alternatives projects
As displayed in Figures 4 and 5, Emergy analysis is a very helpful tool for comparing projects
alternatives. It allows for a holistic view of the costs and effects of the projects when compared to
traditional technical and economic analyses regularly performed in engineering project appraisals.
For example, when comparing the construction costs, the estimated cost of US$116 million
for the Juquitiba project was approximately two-fold the cost of the Capivari project (US$62 million)
(Consorsio HIDROPLAN 1995b). However, when projects were compared using Emergy values, the
inputs to construction for the Capivari project (44.7E20 sej) were 4.5 times higher than those
contributing to the construction of the Juquitiba project (9.50E20 sej). As seen in Figure 4, this is
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because the Capivari project required high quality inputs (e.g., biodiversity of the Atlantic Forest and
large amounts of concrete and clay) that are undervalued in the economic cost of projects. When doing
the Emergy evaluation of the projects operation, only a small fraction of the annual inputs to the
projects had monetary basis, which represented only 10% of total annual Emergy for the Juquititba
project and 5% for the Capivari project.
The rising value of water

Presently, there is a general feeling in the population that water is a valuable and limiting
resource. People are starting to condemn wasteful practices of water. Industries are beginning to
practice water reuse.
The Emergy evaluation done with the Juquitiba and Capivari projects allowed us to estimate
Emergy values for different hypothetical stages of development. From a primitive stage, where men
were sitting by the river and water was abundant to a modern world, to the current situation, where
river water has to be diverted from its original watershed, pumped and treated, the value of water
increased 4 to 14 times for the Juquitiba and Capivari projects respectively. It varied from 1.0E11
sej/m3 to 14.3E11 sej/m3 for the Capivari project to 5.6E11 sej/m3 to 22.6E11 sej/m3 for the Juquitiba
project (Figure 6).
These higher figures are comparable to the potable water values estimated by Buenfil (1999)
for water treatment systems of Florida. According to that evaluation the Emergy per cubic meter of
potable water ranged from 9.11E11sej to 53.9E11 sej.
Evaluating losses in Atlantic Forest diversity

There is a need to include conservation values in an Emergy evaluation of a preserved forest.
This study proposes a methodology to evaluate the effects of the Capivari project in the diversity of the
Atlantic Forest. It combines bio-geographical information about the original and present extension of
the sub-region of the Meridional Atlantic Forest and the Emergy evaluation of the inputs required to
obtain a forested area with equivalent diversity. The impact on the conservation values of the forest
was evaluated at 1.72E18 sej/ha. Using the Brazilian Emergy-dollar ratio of 4.62E12sej/$ (estimated
for the year 2003), losses of Atlantic Forest were estimated at $372,400 dollars/ha. This figure is a
little bit higher than the value assigned for 1 ha of wetlands ($50,000-$100,000) (Edwards and
Abivardi 1998), but smaller than replacement values of $ 600,000 to $1,500,000 estimated by Bardi
and Brown (1999) for one hectare of different types of wetlands.
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Bargigli S.and S. Ulgiati. 2001. Emergy and Life Assessment of Steel Production in Europe. In:
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Conservation. University of Chicago Press. Chicago.
APPENDIX
Table A1. Emergy analysis of the Juquitiba water supply system.
Note
Item
Data
Unit
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
Natural Resources
Forest Biomass Losses
1.77E+14
Forest GPP Affected
1.46E+15
Pasture Biomass Losses
1.60E+13
Pasture GPP Affected
1.66E+15
Soil Losses
4.22E+12
Pipeline Production/transport/construction
Steel
8.26E+09
Electricity
4.52E+14
Labor
5.00E+01
Services
1.09E+07
Fuel Used in Transportation
7.54E+11
Heavy Machines-Material
4.00E+07
Heavy Machines -Energy
2.00E+12
Fuel Used in Construction
5.49E+12
Civil Work
Concrete
1.24E+11
Diesel
1.89E+13
Labor and Services
Labor
6.00E+02
Services
1.17E+08
OPERATION
Emergy of Pumped Water
9.31E+14
Pumping and Treating Water
Electricity for Pumping Water
3.49E+14
Electricity Costs
1.13E+06
Chemical for Water Treatment
3.26E+06
Chemical Costs
6.97E+05
Downstream effects
Losses on Productivity
7.32E+14
Losses Due to Rafting
3.14E+06
Impediment
Losses in Power Generation
5.34E+14
Losses in Electricity Revenue
1.73E+06
Transformity
Unit
Solar Emergy
E+18
Units
J
J
J
J
J
2.84E+04
8.78E+02
3.44E+03
6.58E.+02
7.34E+04
sej/J
sej/J
sej/J
sej/J
sej/J
5.03
1.28
0.05
0.15
0.31
sej
sej
sej
sej
sej
g
J
person
$
J
g
J
J
3.78E+09
1.70E+05
1.53E+16
4.62E+12
6.60E+04
3.78E+09
6.60E+04
6.60E+04
sej/g
sej/J
sej/pers
sej/$
sej/J
sej/g
sej/J
sej/J
31.23
76.87
0.76
50.45
0.05
0.50
0.13
0.36
sej
sej
sej
sej
sej
sej
sej
sej
g
J
1.54E+09
6.60E+04
sej/g
sej/J
190.41
1.24
sej
sej
person
$
3.66E+16
4.62E+12
sej/pers
sej/$
43.92
539.58
sej
sej
g/yr
9.00E+04
sej/g
83.75
sej/yr
J/yr
$/yr
kg/yr
$/yr
1.70E+05
4.62E+12
1.00E+12
4.62E+12
sej/J
sej/$
sej/Kg
sej/$
59.26
5.21
3.26
3.22
sej/yr
sej/yr
sej/yr
sej/yr
J/yr
$/yr
4.85E+04
4.62E+12
sej/J
sej/$
35.48
14.49
sej/yr
sej/yr
J/yr
$/yr
1.70E+05
4.64E+12
sej/J
sej/$
90.78
8.02
sej/yr
sej/yr
Footnotes
Natural Resources
1. Forest Biomass Losses
Deforestation of 28 ha (2 ha right of way + 20 ha for the water treatment plant + 6 ha of the riparian forest in the channel area)
Standing Biomass of tropical rainforest= 42 kg/m2 (Deshmukh, 1986)
Biomass energy content= 3.6 kcal/g (Prado & Brown 1997)
Forest Biomass energy= area (ha)*61E+04m2/ha* biomass (kg/m2)*(1E+03g/kg)*(3.6kcal/g)*4,168J/Kcal=
Forest Biomass energy= 28 (ha)*1E+04m2/ha*42 (kg/m2)*(1E+03g/kg)*(3.6kcal/g)*4,168J/Kcal=
Forest Biomass energy= 1.77E+14J
Rain ET= 1.8 m/yr (assumed)
Rain Gibbs Free Energy= 4.94 J/g
Transformity of rain= 1.54E+04 sej/ J (Odum, 1996)
Turnover time of forest= 100 years (assumed)
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Transformity of forest biomass= (rain ET(m/yr)*1E+6g/m3*rain Gibbs Free energy (J/g)*Transformity of rain (sej/J )*turnover
time)/ (biomass (kg /m2)*1,000g/kg*3.6kcal/g* 4,186 J/kcal)
Transformity of forest biomass= (1.8 m/yr*1E+6g/m3*4.94J/g*15,400sej/J*100)/ (42kg /m2*1,000g/kg*3.6kcal/g* 4,186 J/kcal)
Transformity of forest biomass= 2.84E+04 sej/J
2. Forest GPP affected (30 yrs)
Deforestation area =28 ha
Net Primary Production (NPP)= 2,300 g/m2/yr (Deshmukh, 1986)
Gross Primary Production= NPP/0.20= 11,500 g/m2/yr
Biomass energy content= 3.6 kcal/g
Energy of affected forest GPP (30 yrs)= (GPP(g/m2/yr/yr)*area (ha)*(1E+04m2/ha)*(3.6kcal/g)* (4,186J/kcal)*(30yr losses)=
Energy of affected forest GPP (30 yrs)= 11,500g/m2/yr/yr* 28ha*1E+04m2/ha*3.6kcal/g*4,186J/kcal*30yr losses
Energy of affected forest GPP (30 yrs)= 1.46E+15J
Rain ET= 2 m/yr
Rain Gibbs free energy= 4.94E+03J/kg
Transformity of chemical potential of the rain = 1.54E+04 sej/ J
Transformity of forest GPP= (ET(m/yr)*(1,000kg/m3)*rain Gibbs Free Energy (J/kg)*Transformity of rain ET(sej/J))/
(GPP(g/m2/yr)*(3.6kcal/g)*(41,86J/kcal))
Transformity of forest GPP= ((2m/yr*1,000kg/m3*4.94E+03J/kg*15,400sej/J)/(11,500g/m2/yr*3.6kcal/g* 4,186J/kcal)
Transformity of forest GPP= 8.78E+02 sej/J
3. Pasture Biomass Losses
Clearing of the pasture area= 48.32 ha (45 ha of the water treatment plant + 1.8 ha from the lifting area + 1.0 ha of the tunnel
entrances + 0.52 ha of the right of way)
Standing Biomass of Savanna= 2.2 kg/m2 (Deshmukh, 1986)
Biomass energy content= 3.6 kcal/g
Pasture biomass energy= area (ha)*1E4 m2/ha*standing biomass (kg/m2)*(1E+03g/kg)*(3.6kcal/g)*4,186J/kcal
Pasture biomass energy= 48.32 ha*1E+04 m2/ha* 2.2 kg/m2*1E+03g/kg*3.6kcal/g*4,186J/kcal
Pasture biomass energy= 1.60E+13J
Rain ET= 1 m/yr (assumed)
Rain Gibbs free energy= 4.94E+03 J/kg
Transformity of the chemical potential of the rain= 1.54E+04 sej/J
Turnover time of pasture= 1.5 years (Prado & Brown 1997)
Transformity of pasture biomass= (ET (m/yr)*(1,000kg/m3)*rain Gibbs Free Energy (J/kg)*Transformity of rain ET
(sej/J)*turnover time)/ (biomass (kg/m2)*(1,000g/kg)*(3.6kcal/g)*41,86J/kcal)
Transformity of pasture biomass= (2.0m/yr*1,000kg/m3* 4.94E+03J/kg*15,400sej/J*1.5
yrs)/(2.2kg/m2*1,000g/kg*3.6kcal/g*41,86J/kcal)
Transformity of pasture biomass= 6.88E+03 sej/J
4. Pasture GPP affected (30 years)
Area= 47.8 ha
Net Primary Production (NPP)= 2,300 g/m2/yr (Schlesinger, 1991)
Gross Primary Production=GPP=NPP/0.3= 7,666.7 g/m2/yr
Biomass Energy content= 3.6 kcal/g
Energy of the pasture GPP affected (30yrs)=GPP(g/m2/yr)*Area (ha)*(1E+04m2/ha)*(3.6kcal/g)*(4,186J/kcal)*(4yrs)
Energy (30yrs)= 2.21E+14J
Rain ET= 1 m/yr
Rain Gibbs free energy= 4.94E+03 J/kg
Transformity of rain= 1.54E+04 sej/J
Transformity of pasture GPP=(ET(m/yr)*(1,000kg/m3)*rain Gibbs Free Energy (J/kg)*transformity of rain ET (sej/J))
/GPP(g/m2/yr)*(3.6kcal/g)*(4,186J/kcal))
Transformity of pasture GPP=(ET(m/yr)*(1,000kg/m3)*(4.94E+03J/kg)*transformity of rain ET (sej/J))
/GPP(g/m2/yr)*(3.6kcal/g)*(41,86J/kcal))
Transformity of pasture GPP= 6.58E+02 sej/J
5. Soil Losses
Soil Organic Matter (2 years)
Area of bare soil= 77.79 ha (area of lifting unit+ tunnel entrance+ pipeline+ water treatment plant)
Soil Losses (10% slope)= 60 ton/ha/yr
Energy of soil losses (2 yrs)= soil losses (ton/ha/yr)*area (ha)*1E+06g/ton*0.02 org. matter*5.4kcal/g*41,86J/kcal*2yr
Energy of soil losses (2 yrs)= 60 ton/ha/yr*77.79 ha*1E+06g/ton*0.02 org. matter*5.4kcal/g*41,86J/kcal*2yr
Energy of soil losses (2 yrs)= 4.22E+12 J/yr
Transformity of top soil organic matter = 7.4E+04 sej/J (Odum, 1996)
Pipeline production/transportation/construction
6. Steel
Length of pipeline= 1.62E+04 m (SABESP, 1996)
Thickness= 1.43 cm
Steel density= 7,580 kg/m3
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Specific weight = 510 kg/m
Pipeline total weight= length* specific weight=8.26E+06 kg
Pipeline total weight= total weight (kg) * 1E3g/kg= 8.26E+09 g
Transformity of steel= 3.78E+09sej/g (Bargigli & Ulgiati, 2001)
7. Electricity
Energy requirement to produce steel pipe from ore= fuel production energy + energy content of fuels= 54.73 MJ/kg
(Boustead & Hancock 1979)
Pipeline total weight= 8.26E+06 kg (footnote 6)
Energy requirement to pipe production= 54.73E+06 J/kg* pipeline total weight= 4.52E+14J
Transformity of electricity = 1.70E+05 sej/J (Odum, 1996)
8. Labor
50 people with average 6 years of education working for 3 months
Emergy / worker educational level= 1.53E+16 sej/3 months/6yr-education
(estimated as annual country Emergy divided by the number of Brazilian people with average 6 yrs of education)
9. Services
Pipeline costs= 674.12 $/m (Consorsio HIDROPLAN, 1995b)
Length of pipeline= 1.62E+04 m
Total Cost= length* cost/m= 1.09E+07 $
10. Fuel used in transportation
Assuming that all pipes were transported by trucks
Route= 1.62E+04 m
Number of tubes= 1.35E+03 (tubes of 12 m)
Average trip length= 200 km (assumed)
Number of trips= 1.50E+02
Total trip length= 6.0E+04 Km
Diesel consumption= 3.0 km/1(Romitelli, 1999)
Diesel consumption= 2.0E+04 1
Energy= 37.71 MJ/1*consumption= 7.54E+11 J/yr
Transfomity of fuel = 6.60E+4 sej/J (Odum,1996)
11. Heavy Machines Material
Depreciation of heavy machine due to pipeline construction
Average weight of heavy machine = 20,000 kg/machine (assumed)
Number of machines = 20 units (assumed)
Total weight of machines= 4.00E+05 kg
Used material in one year of work= 4.00E+04 kg (assuming average life of the machines as 10 yr)
Used material in one year of work= 4.00E+07 g
12. Heavy Machines- energy
Electricity to make the machines= 50MJ/kg (Boustead & Hancock, 1979)
Energy on used machine= used material * 50 MJ/kg=2.00E+12 J
Transformity of fuel = 6.60E+04 sej/J (Odum,1996)
13. Fuel used in construction
Fuel/month/kg of machine= 0.060697 1/month/kg of machine (Romitelli, 1999)
Total weight (20 machines)= 4.00E+05 kg (as indicated in footnote 11)
Months of implementation= 6 months
Diesel used== 0.060697 1/month/kg of machine* 6 months*4.00E+05 kg=
Diesel used= 145,673.1 liters
Energy on diesel used= 37.71 MJ/Liter*145673.1 liters of diesel= 5.49E+12J
Transfomity of fuel = 6.60E+04 sej/J (Odum, 1996)
Civil Work
14. Concrete
Volume of concrete = 53,760 m3 (assumed 7,000 m3 of the lifting unit + 9,960 m3 of the tunnel + 36,800m3 for the water
treatment plant)
Concrete density= 2,300 kg/m3
Total concrete weight= 1.24E+08 kg= 1.24E+11g
Concrete transformity= 1.54E+09 sej/g (Brown & Buranakarn, 1999)
15. Diesel used (transportation of the crushed rock)
Volume of grinded rock= 9.00E+04 m3
Assuming hauling the grinded rock for 100 km
Volume transported for trip= 1.20E+01 m3
Number of trips= 7.50E+03
Total length= 1.50E+06 km
Diesel consumption= 3.00E+00 km/1 (Romitelli, 1999)
Diesel used= 5.00E+051
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Energy on diesel used= 37.71 MJ/Liter* liters of diesel=
Energy on diesel used= 1.89E+13J
Transfomity of fuel = 6.60E+04 sej/J (Odum, 1996)
Labor and Services
16. Labor
24 months for the construction= 2 years
Workers= 600 workers
Emergy/person (4 yr education)= 3.66E+16 sej/yr (Romitelli, 1999)
Emergy from labor= 4.39E+19 sej
17. Services
Cost of the project= 1.17E+08 $ (Consorsio HIDROPLAN 1995b)
Operation
18. Emergy of pumped water
Drainage area= 517 km2 (SABESP, 1996)
Rain in the area= 1.8 m/yr
Total rain= 9.31E+08 m3/yr
Total rain= 9.31E+14 g/yr
Emergy of the rain/m3= 9.00E+03 sej/yr/m3 (Romitelli, 1997)
Total Emergy in Juquitiba watershed= 8.38E+19 sej/yr
19. Electricity for pumping water
Elevation head= 168 m (SABESP, 1996)
Flow= 4.7 m3/s
Electrical energy for pumping= 1.11E+07 J/s= 3.49E+14 J/yr
20. Electricity costs
Cost of electricity (industrial)= 2.02E+01 US $/bep (MME, 2002)
1 bep= 6.24E+09 J/bep
Cost of electricity= 3.24E-09 U$/J Total cost= 1.13E+06 $/yr
21. Chemicals for water treatment
Typical concentration (Chlorine= 2 mg/1,Aluminum sulfate= 15 g/m3, Lime= 7 g/m3,Polioeletrolyte= 0.7 g/m3) (Azevedo Netto
et al.1978)
Taken aluminum and lime= 22 g/m3
Chemicals used= 0.1034 kg/s
Chemicals used= 3.26E+06 kg/yr= 3.26+09 g/yr
Transformity of chemicals= 1.00E+12sej/Kg (Buenfil, 1999)
22. Chemicals costs
Cost of aluminum sulfate= 0.62 R$/kg
Total cost= 2.02E+06 R$/yr =6.97E+05 US$/yr (assuming 1 dollar= 2.9 reais)
Downstream effects
23. Losses on Primary Productivity
(measured as chemical potential Emergy of the uptake water)
Available chemical potential energy= river flow (m3/s)*(1E+06 g/m3)*G
Flow withdrawn= 4.70E+00 m3/s
G= Gibbs Free Energy of Clean water= 4.94 J/g
Available Chemical Potential Energy= 4.7 m3/s*1.0E+6 g/m3*4.94 J/g= 2.32E+07 J/s
Available Chemical Potential Energy= 7.32E+14 J/yr
Transformity of river chemical potential energy = 4.85E+04 sej/J (Odum, 1996)
24. Losses due to rafting impediment
Estimated annual number of tourists=4.55E+04 persons
(Considering 3 trips a day w/ 12 boats with 6 people each during 6 days/week during summer time and 3 trips a day w/10 boats
and 6 people each during 3 days/ week during low season. This number was raised by 30% due to holidays)
Average expenditure= 200 reais/person (assumed)
Total gain w/ rafting= 9.10E+06 R$
Total gain w/ rafting= 3.14E+06 US$ (1 US$= 2.90 R$)
25. Losses in electrical power generation
6 hydro power plants downstream
Total drop in elevation= 525.2 m (being 82 m of UHE Frana; 110.2m of UHE Fumaa; 79m of UHE Barra; 64.5m of UHE
Porto Raso; 146.5m of UHE Alecrim; 43m of UHE Serraria) (Secretaria do Estado do Meio Ambiente, 1999)
Loss in electricity generation= diverted flow* drop in elevation= 1.69E+07 W
Loss in electricity generation= 1.69E+07 W
Loss in electricity generation= 16,933.5 kW
Annual loss in electricity generation= 5.34E+14 J/yr
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26. Losses in electricity revenue
Cost of electricity (industrial)= 2.02E+01 US $ bep (MME, 2002)
1 bep= 6.24E+09 J
Cost of electricity= 3.24E-09 U$/J
Total cost= 1.73E+06 $/yr
Table A2- Emergy analysis of the Capivari water supply system

Note
Item
Data
Units
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
Natural Resources
Rain forest Diversity Losses
Rainforest Biomass Losses
Rainforest GPP Affected
Socioeconomic
Land Acquisition
Families Displacement
Civil Works
Clay for Embankment
Concrete
Heavy Machines- Material
Heavy Machines- Energy
Diesel Used
Labor and Services
Labor
Services
OPERATION
(annual inputs)
Raw Water Energy
Electricity for Pumping
Water
Electricity Costs
Chemicals for Water
Treatment
Chemical Costs
Downstream Losses
River/Estuarine PP
Losses in Mangrove
Production
Transformity
Units
Solar Emergy
E+18
Unit
1.17E+16
9.63E+16
J
J
2.52E+04
9.66E+02
sej/J
sej/J
2,124.8
296.0
93.0
sej
sej
sej
1.44E+07
1.81E+06
$
$
4.62E+12
4.62E+12
sej/$
sej/$
66.5
8.3
sej
sej
7.18E+11
2.39E+11
8.71E+07
4.35E+12
5.16E+13
g
g
g
J
J
1.70E+09
1.54E+09
3.78E+09
6.60E+04
6.60E+04
sej/g
sej/g
sej/g
sej/J
sej/J
1,220.7
368.6
0.3
0.3
3.4
sej
sej
sej
sej
sej
7.00E+02
4.89E+07
persons
$
3.66E+16
4.62E+12
sej/pers
sej/$
38.4
226.1
sej
sej
1.71E+14
7.23E+13
g/yr
J/yr
9.00E+04
1.70E+05
sej/g
sej/J
15.4
12.3
sej/yr
sej/yr
2.34E+05
2.71E+05
$/yr
Kg/yr
4.62E+12
1.00E+12
sej/$
sej/kg
1.1
2.7
sej/yr
sej/yr
5.78E+05
$/yr
4.62E+12
sej/$
2.7
sej/yr
6.03E+14
1.42E+14
J/yr
J/yr
4.85E+04
1.11E+04
sej/J
sej/J
29.2
1.6
sej/yr
sej/yr
Footnotes
Natural Resources
1. Rain Forest Diversity Losses
Area to be deforested = 1,235 ha
Atlantic forest covers 17,7% of the original forest (DHorta, personal communication), therefore each ha of the present forest
represents 5.56 ha of the original forest.
Area of equivalent diversity= (area to be deforested)*(5.56 ha of equivalent original area) = 6,982.5 ha= 6.98E+07 m2
Time needed for forest restoration to original conditions= 250 yr
Rain ET = 1.6 m/yr (assumed)
Gibbs Free Energy of the rain =4.94J/g
Transformity of the chemical potential energy of the rain= 15,400 sej/J
Emergy of the affected conservation values= annual rain ET* area of equivalent diversity* 1E6g/m3 * Gibbs Free Energy of
rain* Transformity of rain*250 yrs
Emergy of the affected conservation values= 1.6m/yr*6.98E+7m3*1E+06g/m3*4.94J/g*15,400 sej/J*250 yr
Emergy of the affected conservation values= 2.12E+21 sej
2. Rainforest Biomass Losses
Affected area = 1,235 ha of Atlantic Forest* 1.5 ( assuming additional 50% of affected area due to border effect)= 1,852.5 ha
Tropical forest standing biomass = 42 kg/m2 (Deshmukh, 1986)
Plant energy content= 3.6 kcal/g (Prado & Brown, 1997)
Rain ET = 1.6 m/yr
Transformity of the chemical potential of the rain =15,400 sej/J
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Turnover time of the forest = 100 yrs (assumed)
Rainforest biomass energy = affected area (ha)* 1E+4 m2/ha*standing biomass (kg/m2)*(1E+3g/Kg)*energy content
(Kcal/g)*4,168J/Kcal
Rainforest biomass energy = 1,852.5 ha* 1E+04 m2/ha*42 kg/m2*1E+03g/Kg* 3.6 kcal/g*4,168J/Kcal
Rainforest biomass energy =1.17E+16 J
Transformity of the forest biomass =(rain ET (m/yr)*1E+6g/m3*Gibbs Free Energy(J/g)* Transformity of the rain ET (sej/J)*
turnover time)/ (biomass (kg/m2)*1,000 g/Kg*3.6Kcal/g*4,168J/Kcal)
Transformity of the forest biomass = 1.6 m/yr*1E+06g/m3*4.94 (J/g)* 15,400(sej/J)*100yr)/ (42 kg/m2*1,000
g/Kg*3.6Kcal/g*4,168J/Kcal)
Transformity of the forest biomass =2.52E+04 sej/J
3. Rainforest GPP affected (30 yrs)
Affected area = 1,235 ha of Atlantic Forest* 1.5 (assuming additional 50% of affected area due to border effect)= 1,852.5 ha
Tropical forest net primary production (NPP) = 2,300g/m2/yr (Deshmukh, 1986)
Tropical forest gross primary production (GPP) = NPP/0.8= 11,500 g/m2/yr
Plant energy content= 3.6 kcal/g (Prado & Brown, 1997)
Rain ET = 1.6 m/yr
Transformity of the chemical potential of the rain =15,400 sej/J
Rainforest GPP energy = affected area (ha)* 1E+04 m2/ha* GPP (g/m2/yr)*energy content (Kcal/g) *4,168J/Kcal * 30 yrs losses
Rainforest GPP energy = 1,852.5 ha* 1E+04 m2/ha*11,500 g/m2/yr* 3.6 kcal/g*4,168J/Kcal*30yrs
Rainforest GPP energy =9.63E+16 J
Transformity of the forest GPP =(rain ET (m/yr)*1E+06g/m3*Gibbs Free Energy(J/g)* Transformity of the rain ET (sej/J)/
(GPP (g/m2/yr )*3.6Kcal/g*4,168J/Kcal)
Transformity of the forest GPP =(1.6m/yr*1E+06g/m3*4.94J/g* 15,400sej/J)/ (11,500g/m2/yr *3.6Kcal/g *4,168J/Kcal)=
Transformity of the forest GPP = 9.66E+02sej/J
4. Land Acquisition
Cost of land+ right of way= 1.44E+07 $ (Consorsio HIDROPLAN, 1995b)
5. Families Displacement
Jobs affected =7.28E+02 jobs (assuming 2 jobs per occupied house in the affected area of the project)
Average salary + fringe benefits= 600 R$/month (assumed)
Months to find a new job= 12 months (assumed)
Expenditures w/ family resettlement= (number of jobs*average salary*months to find a job)= 5.24E+06R$
Expenditures w/ family resettlement= 1.81E+06US$ (assuming 1US$=2.90R$)
6. Clay used for embankment
Volume of clay= 5.98E+05 m3
Density= 1.2 ton/m3
Weight of Clay = 7.18E+11 g
Transformity of the clay from weathering=1.70E+09 sej/g (Odum, 1996)
7. Concrete
Total volume= 104,055 m3 (76,890 m3 of Alto Capivari and 27,075 m3 of Mdio Capivari) (Consorsio HIDROPLAN,
1995)
Density of concrete= 2,300 Kg/m3
Weight of concrete= 2.39E+11 g
Concrete transformity= 1.54E+09 sej/g (Brown & Buranakarn, 1999)
8. Steel used on excavation
Excavated material = 8.21E+05 m3 (6.29E+5 m3 of soil and 1.92E+05 m3 of rock from dams and channel construction)
Material used for m3 transported= 1.06E-01 Kg of steel per m3 transported (index estimated using transportation data from
Immigrants highway and machinery use from Romitelli, 1999)
Material on steel used= 8.21E+05 m3*1.06E-1 kg/m3=8.71E+04 kg=8.71E+07 g
9. Energy of used machinery
Electricity to make the machines= 50 MJ/Kg (Boustead & Hancock 1979)
Weight of transported material= 8.71E+04 kg (footnote 8)
Energy on used machine= 50 MJ/Kg* 8.71E+04 kg =4.35E+12 J
Transformity of fuel = 6.60E+04 sej/J (Odum, 1996)
10. Transport of excavated material
Total distance= 4.10E+06 Km (considering the 8.21E+05 m3 the volume to be transported; 12 m3/truck; 60 km the length of the
round trip)
Diesel consumption = 3 Km/liter of diesel (Romitelli, 1999)
Volume of diesel= 1.37E+061
Energy on diesel used= 37.71 MJ/Liter* liters of diesel=
Energy used for transporting excavated material= 5.16E+13 J
Transformity of fuel = 6.60E+04 sej/J (Odum, 1996)
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11. Labor
Workers (direct and indirect)= 700 workers for 1.5 years
Assuming an average education of 4 years= 3.66E+16 sej/year (Romitelli, 1999)
Emergy on labor= 3.84E+19 sej= 2.95E+07 dollars
12. Services
Total service (direct cost-land + construction + interests)= 4.9E+07 U$ (Consorsio HIDROPLAN, 1995)
13. Raw water Emergy
Drainage area= 95 Km2 (Multiservice, 1992)
Rain in the area= 1.8 m/yr
Total rain= 9.5E+07m2*1.8m/yr=1.71E+08 m3/yr
Total rain = 1.71E+14g/yr
Emergy/g of rain water= 9.00E+04 sej/g (Romitelli, 1997)
Total raw water emergy= 1.54E+19 sej/yr
14. Electricity for pumping the water
Elevation head= 42 m
Flow= 3.9 m3/s
Energy required for pumping water= 2.29E+06 J/s= 7.23E+13 J/yr
15. Electricity costs
Cost of electricity (industrial)= 2.02E+01 US $/bep (MME, 2002)
1 bep= 6.24E+09 J/bep
Cost of electricity= 3.24E-09US$/J
Electricity costs= 7.23E+13J/yr*3.24E-09US$/J= 2.34E+05 $/yr
16. Chemicals for water treatment
Typical concentration (Chlorine= 2 mg/1, Aluminum sulfate= 15 g/m3, Lime= 7 g/m3,Polioeletrolyte= 0.7 g/m3) (Azevedo
Netto et al., 1978)
Taken aluminum and lime= 22 g/m3
Chemicals used= 3.9 m3/s*2.2 E-02kg/m3=0.0858 Kg/s
Chemicals used= 2.71E+06 Kg/yr = 2.71E+09 g/yr
Transformity of chemicals= 1.00E+12sej/Kg (Buenfil, 1999)
17. Chemicals costs
Cost of aluminum sulfate= 0.62 R$/Kg
Chemical costs= 2.71E+06kg/yr*0.62R$/kg=1.68E+06 R$/yr
Chemical costs= 5.78E+05 US$/yr (assuming 1US$= 2.9 R$)
Downstream Losses
18. Riverine/ estuarine Primary Production
Measured as the river chemical potential energy of the water diverted
Water withdrawn from the basin= 3.9 m3/s
River Chemical Potential Energy= volume*density* Gibbs Free energy=
River Chemical Potential Energy= 3.9 m3/s*1E+06g/m3* 4.94J/g=
River Chemical Potential Energy= 6.03E+14 J/yr
Transformity of river chemical potential energy = 4.85E+04 sej/J (Odum, 1996)
19. Losses in Mangrove Production
Mangrove area= 150 Km2
Mangrove productivity=1,000 g/m2/yr (Odum et al., 1982)
Total annual production= 150 km2*1E+06m2/km2*1.0kg/m2/yr=1.50E+08 kg/yr
Average flow reduction= 6.33% of total flow
Considering equivalent impact in mangrove annual production
Losses in mangrove annual production=1.50E+08Kg/yr*0.0633= 9.50E+06 kg/yr
Energy of mangrove production lost= (GPP(kg/yr)*(1,000g/kg)*(3.6kcal/g)*(4,186J/kcal)=
Energy of mangrove production lost= (9.5E+06kg/yr)*(1,000g/kg)*(3.6kcal/g)*(4,186J/kcal)=
Energy of mangrove production lost = 1.42E+14J
RainET= 2 m/yr
Rain Gibbs free energy= 4.94 J/g
Transformity of rain= 15,400 sej/J
Transformity of forest GPP= (ET(m/yr)* (1,000kg/m3)*Rain Gibbs Free energy (J/kg)* Transformity of rainET
(sej/J))/(GPP(g/m2/yr)*(3.6kcal/g)*(4,186J/Kcal))
Transformity of forest GPP= ((2.0m/yr)* (1,000kg/m3)*(4.94J/kg)* (15,400sej/J))/(1,000g/m2/yr)*(3.6kcal/g)*(4,186J/Kcal))
Transformity of forest GPP= 1.11E+04 sej/J
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
9
Protecting Environmental Welfare: Comparison of Emergetic and
Economic Valuation
ABSTRACT
To protect human and environmental welfare, the US Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) aims to base environmental regulations and policies on sound scientific and economic analyses.
EPA has accordingly conducted analyses of both environmental and economic impacts of regulations
for three decades but has yet to develop an effective methodology for the integrated assessment of
impacts on the larger system as a whole, with social, economic, and environmental processes and
interactions all considered within a consistent, unified, and realistic framework. Assessments that
account for the integrated nature of these processes are crucial to avoid the oversights that can lead to
a less-than-optimal management or protection of our environmental resources due to inadequate or
erroneous information, poor decisions, or maladapted institutional resources. To address this need,
we are investigating the linkages of socioeconomic processes, as driven by preference formation and
satisfaction, with the environmental processes of available-energy exchange and transformation that
provide our basic life support. We report here on an initial step in this effort, in which we compare
emergetic and economic valuations in terms of their equilibrium orientations, underlying conceptions
of value, and potential contributions to an integrated analytical framework for the evaluation of policy
impacts on socioeconomic-environmental systems.
INTRODUCTION
Need for Improved Analytical Methods
Safeguarding a natural environment conducive to health and well-being within a highly
consumptive society, which is the essential mission of the US Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), requires sound scientific and economic analysis of both environmental and economic systems.
The impacts of human activities and proposed regulations on these systems must be understood in
terms of their most critical underlying processes. A scientific understanding of these processes might
be attained by determining the systems dynamics of the physical flows associated with them and of the
energy distributions and transformations that drive them. Some forms of scientific analysis, such as
emergy analysis, also recognize the critical (but seldom explicitly quantified) effects of information
acquisition and diffusion on these dynamics. To the extent that human preference formation,
satisfaction, and communication (through price and expenditure signals along with their associated
purchasing-power and entitlement flows) are considered in these scientific analyses, they are typically
treated as exogenous factors. Such an approach is unsatisfactory to the policy maker, however, who
perceives these information dynamics as endogenous to the integrated environmental-socioeconomic
system that environmental policy seeks in some manner to optimize.
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Chapter 9. Protecting Environmental Welfare

In the case of emergy-based policy analyses, for instance, price is sometimes included as an
exogenous (and implicit) determinant of transaction rates and thus of effective economic demand and
its satisfaction. Beyond this recognition of price as a factor affecting economic exploitation and
management of environmental resources, Odum (1994) provides a brief consideration of some
hypothetical interactions between price and effective demand using highly stylized models and simple
interaction diagrams. This approach of modeling one or two isolated interactions at a time could
readily be extended beyond these two economic variables to include other important determinants of
socioeconomic-environmental systems dynamics. An energy-systems perspective of such interactions
that explicitly incorporates the dynamics of preference formation and satisfaction might then be
developed based on observed relations between the relevant factors as these factors interact within an
integrated socioeconomic-environmental system. Insofar as all these factors and their interactions
within an integrated system together determine supply, demand, production, consumption, resource
allocation and use, and human and environmental well-being, however, a strictly reductionist
approach---in which these interactions are considered only in isolation---must remain inadequate.
Current Contribution of Environmental Economic Approaches

From this whole-systems perspective, then, protecting the environment requires tools both for
measuring the status of environmental welfare and for analyzing the underlying web of environmental
and socioeconomic interactions. With no consistent, unified scientific framework for analysis that
explicitly incorporates human preference dynamics, a more disjointed approach has been required.
Thus along with scientific analyses of environmental impacts, EPA has for three decades conducted
economic analyses of the impact of regulations on economic output and flows (Portney, 1997), with
the importance of this task to the agency indicated by EPAs employment of more than 100 economists
with graduate degrees (Morgenstern, 1997). These economic analyses can incorporate environmental
dynamics through the inclusion of a model of an environmental system or its effects within a standard
economic model of production and utility or preference satisfaction. All the standard environmental
economic approaches (such as hedonic-value and travel-cost models, simulated markets, contingent
valuation, etc.) are variations of this attempt to extend the applicability of market-based systems of
value or welfare generation and measurement to situations with missing or inefficient markets. The
common objective of these approaches is to produce economic analyses and accounts that more
accurately reflect the effects of environmental systems dynamics on preference satisfaction (Freeman,
1993; Hanley et al., 1997; Nordhaus and Kokkelenberg, 1999).
Despite the substantial resources that have been expended in developing and applying the
analytical approaches used by environmental economists, a generally applicable and consistent
methodology for integrated analysis has not been achieved. One persisting deficiency is the lack of a
consistent framework for modeling or incorporating environmental dynamics within a market-based
analysis. More fundamentally, however, environmental economics has not produced an adequate
characterization of the divergence of the preference-determined measures provided by market
mechanisms from actual effects on environmental policy goals. Market mechanisms weight
preferences according to the purchasing power associated with them. Policy goal and implementation
decisions are also informed by other measures of preference that are weighted according to voter
participation or relevant expertise, for instance, and also by an enduring, viability-enhancing
commitment to human health and to the survival, resilience, and vigor of our environmental systems.
An adequate method of rectifying the divergence from policy goals introduced by market-based
valuations has not been established.
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Potential Contributions of Emergy Methodology

Emergy methodology offers a more uniform approach to integrated analysis that EPA has
begun to assess as one possible option for addressing the above inadequacies, with three EPA scientists
currently involved in this assessment. Because emergy, as a value metric, is not essentially linked with
purchasing power or with economic entitlement distributions or flows, emergy-based valuations might
help to rectify the aforementioned divergence, particularly with respect to the valuation of
environmental dynamics and their associated services. Three aspects of emergy analysis suggest its
potential relevance to policy goals and needs as outlined above. First, emergy-based valuation is
derived from a theory of donor-based value applicable to any process in any system that can be
effectively represented as a network of measurable distributions, flows, and transformations of
available energy with established or derivable transformities (Odum, 1996). Thus some links between
socioeconomic and environmental dynamics that are difficult to incorporate within a preferencedetermined model might be more effectively analyzed within an emergy systems model. Second, the
donor-based emergy value associated with any well-adapted process (i.e., the emergy inflow to the
process) is hypothesized to correspond with its potential contribution to the vigor, adaptivity, survival,
and prevalence of systems that encompass and sustain it (Odum, 1994). Third, expertise with respect
to any process that can be effectively represented in an emergy systems model can be incorporated
without the distorting effects of the purchasing-power numeraire and the disconnect between this
expertise and the perceptions of the economic agents that determine or set market-based values.
The difference in approach between emergy methodology and environmental economics has
perhaps been most succinctly summarized by Odum and Odum (2000). Whereas environmental
economics addresses market inadequacies with a host of methods intended to internalize market
externalities, emergy analyses seek to externalize market internalities by valuating processes internal
to the market on the same basis as the processes in the larger system upon which the market processes
depend. To be successful, however, such analyses must be based on a sufficient understanding of
these market processes, their energetics, and their interactions with other processes in this larger
system. A more exact characterization of the commonalities and differences between market and
nonmarket-environmental processes is needed, specifically in terms of the contributions of these
processes to value generation and to valuation under the theories of value that underlie economic and
emergy analyses. The understanding thus achieved should help to identify potential complementarities
and conflicts among market and nonmarket processes, exigencies, and values that will be particularly
important for reaching viable and constructive policy decisions.
We will proceed then to consider the underlying perspectives and theories of value that
inform these alternative methods of analysis. Next, we will focus more specifically on the theoretical
basis for the divergence of market-based valuation from policy goals, concentrating particularly on the
overarching policy goal of safeguarding system viability. (The viability of an entity is its capacity for
sustainable performance of all necessary functions effectively supporting its survival within a given
environment and web of interdependent existence.) Finally, we will discuss some of the research
needs that must be addressed to develop an emergy-based methodology for rectifying these
divergences and for providing improved valuations from an environmental protection perspective.
VALUE THEORIES: AN ENERGY-SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE

Roles of Human Society in Socioeconomic-Environmental Systems
In considering these theories of value as they relate to environmental policy concerns, our
focus will be the interactions of human society (and thus of the economy and its dynamics) with the
rest of the larger global system. Within an energy-systems context, then, we are specifically interested
in both the requirements and the consequences of the energy-driven roles or contributions of human
-135-

society within this global window of interest (Figure 1). Like other resource processors, human
society is a source (and also an amplifier) of both ordering and disordering energy flows, both of
which are required in proper balance for optimal functioning of a well-integrated/adapted, selforganizing system (Odum, 1977). Our society is typically viewed more specifically as a consumer,
and more recently as a frenzor with respect to accumulated fossil storages (Odum, 1994). As a major
consumer, human society is responsible for large disordering effects that must be compensated with
large order-amplifying effects if this society is to contribute positively to the long-term viability of its
encompassing and supporting systemsand thus also to increase the likelihood of its own survival and
welfare. In this sense, the value of socioeconomic contributions is dependent on these orderamplifying effects. To provide net positive contributions to long-term viability as a frenzing
component within the current global system, society must also introduce sustainable amplifying
structures to this system that enhance long-term order productionor empower acquisition, via power
acquisition and effective use, according to emergy theory.
Nonrenewables
Amplifying
alternatives
Renewable
sources
Human
society
Regenerative
life support
Biodiversity
Current global system
Figure 1. Major ordering and disordering flows within the current global system that are important to monitor
and regulate/control in the interest of protecting environmental welfare. Long-term welfare enhancement
corresponding with empower maximization might be promoted under current conditions by increasing sustainable
productive flows (+) and decreasing unsustainable disorder-enhancing flows (), which do not contribute
adequate production-amplifying reinforcement. The flow from current-system nonrenewables must also decrease
eventually, and sooner could be better than later if the transition can be achieved without undue or increased
disruption (of system viability or human and environmental well-being). The amplifying alternatives include all
high-exergy storages introduced or supported by society that amplify system empower acquisition or allocation to
regenerative life support, biodiversity, or human society and that might substitute for nonrenewables in providing
such support. All elements in the above system are subject to entropy-related available-energy losses, as
indicated by the heat-sink symbol attached to the system window.
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Odum (1977, 1994) and others have suggested that a particularly important role for humans
might be processing information using systems models (permitting more rapid, multilevel optimization
of the dynamics and viability-enhancing functions of systems). This information-processing capacity
provides a greatly increased potential for introducing innovative designs and processes for maintaining
balance among flows (ordering and disordering, accumulating and frenzing, previously adapted and
novel) and among selection pressures (generated through cooperative and competitive interactions
among componentsand also environmentsat various system levels). Ultimately, such capacity
could permit use of this period of frenzing for the introduction and testing of novel amplifying
structure/cycles that increase long-term system empower (that persists beyond the frenzing period) in a
manner that enhances the viability of the integrated environmental-socioeconomic system. In this
capacity, society would also be an accumulator and preserver of information-rich productionamplifying storages and processes.
Although some such uses of frenzing periods by well-adapted components are suggested by
the pulsing paradigm (Odum, 1994; Odum and Odum, 2001), the extent to which human society is
accomplishing this objective is not yet clear. Human preferences tend to be oriented toward shorterrange goals, and these preferences substantially shape actual societal contributions. Human
contributions that might further this objective involve harnessing more of the renewable energy flow
that is currently lost as residual flow (from a flow-limited source, for instance), accessing
nonrenewable energy sources that otherwise would never become available to this global system, or
using existing flows more effectively to reinforce viability and well-being at all levels. Although the
third of these options has been the most often emphasized by environmental policy makers, some
emergy theorists might object that the global system is already fully adapted (after more than 4 billion
years) to effectively harness all the energy it receives at steady state (i.e., from its long-term-average
renewable sources). An emergy theory well grounded in the selective reinforcement theory from
which it was derived (Odum, 1994) would probably find such a position dubious, however. Such wellgrounded emergy theory further reinforces the preference for policies that seek improved
viability/welfare through a more effective and better-coordinated use of existing system influxes while
also clarifying the potential long-term contributions of emergy analysis and other possible systemoptimizing mechanisms.
Convergent and Divergent Perspectives on System Equilibration and

Adaptation
Achieving our fundamental environmental policy goals (safeguarding and enhancing health
and well-being) implicitly depends on modeling the global system with sufficient accuracy to permit a
reliable redirection of energy flows for optimal system balance, coordination, and viability. Attaining
this accuracy is then a common objective of scientific and economic analyses of environmental policy,
whether emergy- or market-based. As noted above, however, emergy- and market-based analyses
have each tended to emphasize processes and flows that the other treats as detail that can safely be
omitted. This divergence results from their differing perspectives on system equilibration, equilibrium
orientation (or extremum propensity), and value determination. In brief, the proximate goal of an
emergy-oriented policy would be to optimize systems for maximum empower; the proximate goal of a
market-oriented policy would be to optimize systems for maximum market efficiency. (We use the
term equilibrium to refer to the result of the adaptation of a system to its environment through a
process of variant generation and selection. Such an equilibrium does not imply succession to a
sustained steady-state climax; some of a systems state variables might be non-stationary at
equilibrium, were its hypothetical equilibrium dynamics ever attained.)
The theory upon which emergy-oriented approaches are based hypothesizes maximum system
empower as the orientation associated with system equilibration, which occurs through differential
prevalence of alternative system designs in response to competition for and selective reinforcement of
empower acquisition. The theory upon which market-oriented approaches are typically based
-137-

hypothesizes maximum preference satisfaction (in terms of the monetary numeraire, which is
necessary to obtain the aggregated-utility, or social-welfare, functions most frequently used by
environmental economists) as the defining orientation of the equilibration of free and efficient markets.
This equilibration is hypothesized to occur through differential prevalence of alternative production
and consumption processes in response to competition for and selective reinforcement of preferencesatisfying resources (i.e., of purchasing power and associated entitlements).
The potential connection of emergy- and market-based values with environmental policy
goals derives from the association of differential prevalence and selective reinforcement with the
viability of a system and its elements. In the case of emergy-based values, the absolute requirement
for available energy and the long-term viability associated with relative system-level vigor and
adaptability are emphasized. In the case of market-based values, a theoretical dependence of
subjective well-being on preference satisfaction and of preference satisfaction on free and efficient
markets is emphasized, along with the association of short-term viability with relative advantages with
respect to preference satisfaction. In both cases, the relevance of values to policy goals depends on the
strengths of the hypothesized equilibrium orientations and associations and on an adequate
characterization of the actual dynamics of equilibration and of the critical factors affecting it.
Although an ideal of equilibration based on decisively effective competition and adaptation is
foundational to both theories of value, the associated applied methodologies were developed as policyanalysis aids largely for evaluating situations in which the requirements of their respectively ideal
competitive equilibriums have not yet been met.
Market Equilibration, Valuation, and Divergence from Policy Goals

When markets are operating efficiently (so that all transactions that entitled individuals would
prefer to make, given a perfect understanding of their nonmarket consequences, are indeed made),
price is the standard economic measure of marginal value. Upon equilibration of such a market, the
price and quantity of goods produced are such that marginal cost equals marginal benefit (in terms of
the standard preference-satisfaction, i.e., monetary, numeraire). Producing either more or less of the
item decreases the corresponding net benefits at this point, so resources are allocated to production in a
preference-maximizing manner (Figure 2). These marginal benefits and costs are also equal,
respectively, to peoples willingness to pay or to accept compensation for an item, and thus also to its
equilibrium price. Price thus accurately signals marginal purchasing-power-weighted preference value
under these conditions. (Price is not necessarily acceptable as a signal for health- or well-being-related
costs or benefits under these conditions, however, given that market mechanisms can assign very little
weight to even the most basic health preferences or needs of those with very little purchasing power or
entitlement.) Given perfect market mechanisms as premised above and a preponderant human
preference for the survival of the larger systems on which human society depends, the equilibrium
market values for environmental processes, storages, and flows would correlate closely with their
importance to the viability of these larger systems.
Divergence between market values and generic preferences for environmental system
viability can also arise due to missing or poorly adapted markets, information flows, or energy circuits.
Such conditions result from both short-term perturbations (such as innovation or introduction of new
processes, system designs, policies, or forcing functions) and long-term structural factors (such as
social organizations, institutions, and entitlement systems that exacerbate externalities, adverse
selection conflicts, monopolistic resource and capital allocations, or irresponsible management of
public goods). The effects of such divergence can include reduced purchasing-power-weighted
productivity or preference satisfaction as well as reduced empower acquisition and short- or long-term
system viability. Environmental economic theory addresses these further limitations of market values
for effective policy analysis (Freeman, 1993; Friedman, 2002), without, however, providing a
consistent framework for a scientifically informed analysis of the environmental effects of economic
activities.
-138-
Production
Product
availability
Marketing
Resource scarcity,
production costs
Consumer
information
Product sales,
profits
Price
Life(style)
preferences
Consumer
preferences
Net benefits: (Preference

satisfaction, well-being?)
Product use
Nonmarket
effects, factors
Figure 2. Web of important influences on market equilibration and on resulting market-based production and
valuation. Equilibrium prices and quantities of products subject to a decentralized market mechanism are
determined by preferences and by resource accessibility and initial distribution. Individual human preferences
determine production and consumption choices that set equilibrium prices equal to marginal preferencesatisfaction values. Given an identification of individual, purchasing-power-weighted preference satisfaction with
social welfare, such prices accurately reflect contributions thereto. The critical relations linking preference
fulfillment and price are indicated with dotted lines. Resource-, production-, and purchase-driven relations are
indicated with thick solid lines, which also coincide with the relations that typically serve as the focus of
mainstream economic analyses. Other relations considered critical by some economists but often neglected in
economic analyses are indicated with thin solid lines. Influences that result in deviations from the marketequilibrium ideal (based on effects of production and use on costs and benefits that are not mediated by the
market mechanism) are indicated with dashed lines, which coincide with relations of specific concern to
environmental economic analysis.
ACHIEVING EMERGY VALUATIONS THAT COINCIDE WITH POLICY

GOALS
Empirical and Theoretical Research Needs
Emergy methodology might be augmented to meet this need through the integration of the
environmental economic methods within a consistent emergy-theoretic framework. However, the
susceptibility of emergy values to divergence from values commensurate with effects on viability
(Odum, 1994; Brown and Herendeen, 1996; Collins and Odum, 2000), particularly with respect to the
evaluation of recent innovations, novel development or policy proposals, and coproduct contributions,
must also be investigated more thoroughly. More generally, emergy valuation of energy circuits,
information flows, and emergy acquisitions and expenditures in environments lacking adequate
mechanisms for selective reinforcement of system-viability-enhancing processes requires appropriate
reference values for alternative processes within comparable environments. Such requirements might
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be met by calibrating appropriate indices, such as the emergy investment ratio, for instance. Empirical
testing of the usefulness of these indices is critical to our assessment of the relation between emergy
values and the viability of environmental systems. This testing must build on the simple relations
between emergy- and market-based values or indices that are currently derivable from previous
valuations of similar systems or goods and services (Levine and Butler, 1982; Odum et al., 1987).
Identifying specific factors that account for the observed convergences and divergences and
quantifying the relations among them might begin to address this policy need.
While the above empirical approach depends on a substantially increased resource allocation to
emergy valuations, the potential usefulness of the resulting comparative studies can be better
established and more effectively communicated through a more precise and realistic modeling of
integrated socioeconomic-environmental systems. Given the importance of price and preference in
organizing economic activities and the potential complementarities and conflicts between selection
that maximizes preference satisfaction and selection that maximizes empower acquisition, factors
affecting these two determinants of system organization and viability (see Figure 2) must be explicitly
incorporated within an energy-theoretic perspective. A more precise understanding of the role of
human preferences in the self-organizing and equilibrating dynamics of socioeconomic-environmental
systems at all scales is essential to the development of an analytical framework that is both consistent
and realistic. Given our focus on protecting human and environmental well-being, we want to
consider specifically how the current mechanisms designed to maximize some form of human
preference fulfillment relate to human well-being, the likelihood of system survival, and to other
human goals (related, for instance, to equity and environmental well-being).
Energy-Socioeconomic Systems Models

To this end, we hope to develop energy-socioeconomic systems models that capture in a
highly generic manner the respective effects and relative importance of preference- and empowermaximizing resource expenditures or allocations within a representative range of system designs.
When selection among alternative allocations of environmental production to two goods (at whatever
scale, public or private, market or nonmarket) is driven predominantly by preference-based
competition for purchased inputs (Figure 3), for instance, the respective emergy contributions to the
viability of the larger environmental systems might not be effective in maximizing either system
empower or viability. Tradeoffs between preference- and emergy-determined values will be
particularly important in such cases if there is a conflict between preference- and emergy-based
selection. The emergy contributions of Good a might exceed those of Good b, for instance, while the
preference intensity for Good b exceeds that for Good a. The empower-maximizing alternative in this
design (Good a) does not receive any selective advantage, with respect to its alternative within this
system (Good b), for the amplification of system empower that it provides. Following selection within
this system, then, the allocation of environmental resources will reflect the resulting prevalence of the
preference-maximizing alternative (Good b), which is selectively reinforced with respect to Good a.
In a different system design, in which the empower-maximizing alternative did receive a
selective advantage in terms of empower acquisition from the environmental system, it might prevail.
In some circumstances, the increased system empower could then provide resources for the persistence
of both alternatives along with a higher long-term preference fulfillment. Thus the short-term and
long-term preference-maximizing alternatives might differ. Such an empower-maximizing design, or
an alternative in which the same alternative maximized both short-term preference satisfaction and
empower, could prevail over the one depicted here. If the empower-maximizing alternative cannot
survive in the short term, however, such a design will have little likelihood of developing (within the
current accumulating-frenzing cycle). If the empower- and viability-maximizing alternatives did
coincide, we would then want to consider policies that supported an alternative expenditure
mechanism without introducing undue inefficiencies and unsustainable conflicts with the systems
-140-

Main
Purchased
economy inputs
Observed economic
activity (choices)
Energy
sources
Pb
Pa
Preference
formation
Good a
Unsatisfied
preferences
PS
Good b
Environmental
production
Viability
Figure 3. Effects of preference-dominated selection among alternative public or private goods on viability. Use
of environmental production within this system is primarily determined by preference-driven application of
purchased inputs. Allocation of these inputs (Pa and Pb, respectively) to Goods a and b contributes to short-term
maximization of preference satisfaction (PS), with both constructive and destructive effects on viability, which
provides a reinforcement (V) to environmental production that amplifies its unpurchased empower (I) without
selectively reinforcing production or use of Good a or b. (Viability is a storage, similar in nature to diversity, of
the energy or emergy specifically associated with this system property, although it is not a storage physically
separable from or within the system as diagrammed.)
intrinsic selection dynamic. In the case of alternative uses of a public resource, for instance, a pooled
preference-derived resource expenditure might be allocated according to some function of emergy
flows (the relation between amplifying emergy and purchased emergy, perhaps). Ex ante analysis of
the effects of this alternative expenditure allocation would focus on its effects on both cumulative
preference satisfaction and system empower acquisition to more fully assess both short-term and longterm viability or welfare.
CONCLUSIONS
Use of integrated analyses of socioeconomic-environmental systems to improve our
protection of environmental welfare will depend on the adequacy of our understanding of energy- and
preference-driven selection dynamics. Incorporation of these potentially disparate determinants of
system welfare and viability (along with their relations with other critical factors and policy goals) in
integrated analytical models that are useful as well as realistic remains a long-term objective for
effective management of socioeconomic-environmental systems. The contribution of economic
analyses to this effort will depend on the modification of environmental economic methodology to
address conflicts between purchasing-power-determined selection and other social goals such as
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optimal human health, environmental welfare, and long-term system viability. The contribution of
emergy methodology will depend on its further development to more explicitly account for the effects
of information flows, multilevel selection, and novel processes and designs on both short- and longterm system viability and prevalence.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are grateful to S. Brandt-Williams, S. Hale, S. Walter, and T. Able for their helpful review
comments. This manuscript was funded in part by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency but has
not been subjected to Agency-level review. Thus it does not necessarily reflect the views of the
Agency. This is contribution # AED-04-070 of the Atlantic Ecology Division.
REFERENCES
Brown, M.T. and R.A. Herendeen. 1996. Embodied energy analysis and emergy analysis: a
comparative view. Ecological economics 19:219-235.
Collins, D. and H.T. Odum. 2000. Calculating transformities with an eigenvector method. pp. 265-280
in M.T. Brown (Ed.) Emergy Synthesis: Theory and Applications of the Emergy Methodology.
Center for Environmental Policy, Gainesville, Florida. 328 pp.
Freeman, A.M. 1993. The Measurement of Environmental and Resource Values: Theory and Methods.
Resources for the Future, Washington, DC. 516 pp.
Friedman, L.S. 2002. The Microeconomics of Public Policy Analysis. Princeton University Press,
Princeton. 764 pp.
Hanley, N., J.F. Shogren and B. White. 1997. Environmental Economics: In Theory and Practice.
Oxford University Press, Oxford. 464 pp.
Levine, M.J. and T.J. Butler. 1982. Use of embodied energy values to price environmental factors:
examining the embodied energy/dollar relationship. Center for Environmental Research and
Department of Environmental Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
Morgenstern, R.D. 1997. The legal and institutional setting for economic analysis at EPA. pp. 5-23 in
R.D. Morgenstern (Ed.) Economic Analyses at EPA: Assessing Regulatory Impact. Resources
for the Future, Washington, DC. 480 pp.
Nordhaus, W.D. and E.C. Kokkelenberg (Eds.). 1999. Natures Numbers: Expanding the U.S. National
Economic Accounts to Include the Environment. National Academy of Sciences, Washington,
DC. 250 pp.
Odum, H.T. 1977. The ecosystem, energy, and human values. Zygon 12(2):109-133.
Odum, H.T. 1994. Ecological and General Systems: An Introduction to Systems Ecology. University
Press of Colorado, Niwot, Colorado. 644 pp.
Odum, H.T., 1996. Environmental Accounting: Emergy and Environmental Decision Making. John
Wiley & Sons, New York. 370 pp.
Odum, H.T. and E.C. Odum. 2001. A Prosperous Way Down: Principles and Policies. University
Press of Colorado, Boulder. 326 pp.
Odum, H.T. and E.P. Odum. 2000. The energetic basis for valuation of ecosystem services.
Ecosystems 3:21-23.
Odum, H.T., E.C. Odum and M. Blissett. 1987. Ecology and Economy: Emergy Analysis and Public
Policy in Texas. Policy Research Project Report #78, L.B. Johnson School of Public Affairs,
University of Texas and The Office of Natural Resources, Texas Department of Agriculture,
Austin. 178 pp.
Portney, P.R. 1997. Forward. pp. ix-x in R.D. Morgenstern (Ed.) Economic Analyses at EPA:
Assessing Regulatory Impact. Resources for the Future, Washington, DC. 480 pp.
-142-
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
10
Current Technical Problems in Emergy Analysis
ABSTRACT
Technical problems related to the determination of the emergy base for self-organization in
environmental systems are considered in this paper. The comparability of emergy analysis results
depends on emergy analysts making similar choices in determining the emergy base for a particular
system and the reproducibility of results depends on clear communication of the assumptions and
methods used. Four problem areas considered in this paper are (1) the choice of a planetary baseline,
(2) avoiding double counting in determining the renewable emergy base for the system, (3) the emergy
received by a system versus the emergy absorbed, and (4) the expanding emergy base for global selforganization. More than one planetary baseline can be justified (e.g., 9.26 E24 sej y-1 and 15.83 E24
sej y-1). The baseline value depends on the assumptions made about connectivity and causality within
the global processes used to determine the equivalence of the earths primary emergy sources.
Transformities are convertible from one baseline to another by multiplying by a factor. The renewable
emergy base for a system can be determined using the same rules to avoid double counting regardless
of the baseline used. The baseline used should always be reported in any emergy study. The emergy
actually used within a system (absorbed) is the basis for system organization and determines the
transformities of system products. The emergy received by a system gives the potential for
organization and use and may be related to the general attractiveness of an area for investment. A
theoretical explanation of the expanding emergy base for global self-organization follows: ecological,
economic, and social systems are organized hierarchically in different realms of increasing complexity
as a function of increasing energy transformation. The self-organization of such systems is based on
the interaction and distribution of the co-products of primary planetary processes and the addition of
emergy sources from pulsed global storages, i.e., fossil fuel and shared information. A rationale for
estimating human work contributions to system organization using learned knowledge and the
technology used is put forward. Following the guidelines and suggestions given in this paper will
increase the reproducibility and comparability of emergy analysis results and may increase the
acceptance of Emergy Analysis in the broader scientific community.
INTRODUCTION
Energy Systems Theory (Odum 1971, 1994) and its offshoots such as energy/emergy analysis
(Odum 1978) and environmental accounting (Odum 1996) have been rapidly evolving areas of inquiry
for more than 30 years. H.T. Odums tremendous intellectual creativity and his zealous search to
expand and improve scientific knowledge and use it for the betterment of the world have been the
primary driving forces behind this progress. His death in 2002 has brought practitioners in this field to
a time of transition. On one hand, we want to preserve and promote the excitement of intellectual
creativity upon which so much progress in these fields has been based. On the other, for his work and
-143-
Chapter 10. Current Technical Problems

ours to become accepted, used, and respected in the broader scientific community, our analyses must
be reproducible, our assumptions must be clearly stated and their consequences acknowledged, and
there must be some agreement among practitioners on what constitutes good practice in the field. The
latter will require some degree of standardization in reporting results to insure that emergy studies are
reproducible and comparable. For example, at the United States Environmental Protection Agency, we
have been challenged to demonstrate the utility of emergy analysis in the evaluation of the economic
and ecological effects of environmental policies. One criterion for success in this endeavor is that the
scientific community understands the analysis method and accepts it as valid. The proof of success is
that other scientists in the Agency and in the broader scientific community begin to use our methods
and quote our results. For these events to occur, emergy practitioners must have a set of accepted
methods and practices that allow our investigations to be reproduced and compared.
Emergy analyses have been performed at each stage in the development of the method over
the past 30 years, and as our understanding of concepts and methods evolved the planetary baseline for
determining transformities was expanded and refined. New baselines, under the constraint that double
counting be minimized, led to different sets of rules for determining the emergy base of the systems
analyzed. Because of this rapid evolution, the results of many analyses reported in the literature are not
exactly comparable. Table 1 shows estimates of the renewable emergy base for 7 states, the emergy
sources used to determine the base, and a reference giving the source of the information. Different
rules were used to calculate the renewable emergy base in six of seven state studies performed from
1979 through 1999. In addition, practitioners of emergy analysis have not always been careful to use
the most recent transformities and document the sources of values and assumptions used in their
analyses.
In this paper, we examine several issues affecting emergy analysis that will require consistent
treatment in the future, if results are to be comparable. (1) The same planetary baseline must be used
for all transformities in an analysis. (2) The rules to avoid double counting should be independent of
the baseline. (3) The emergy base for system organization is a function of the spatial resolution of the
emergy inputs. (4) The emergy coming into a system may be measured at two points: (a) the point of
entry where energy is received and (b) the point of use where energy is absorbed. (5) A consideration
of the emergy base for world biomes (Brandt-Williams et al. manuscript) led to the realization that the
emergy base for a given level of organization in a nested hierarchy depends on the properties of
emergy as a second law quantity, i.e., emergy is the energy of one kind previously used up in a
formation process, where many different kinds of energy input have been converted to a single kind by
multiplying each by its appropriate transformity. Because each co-product of a formation process
carries the entire emergy required as input (Odum 1996), the sum of the co-products of a system
carries more emergy than the original input, but the emergy of individual co-products cannot exceed
the emergy of the inputs. Emergy calculations are based on underlying energy flows that satisfy the
conservation principle (1st law); however, as explained above the emergy calculus is not constrained
strictly by this principle. Therefore, where organization at a given level in a nested hierarchy is formed
using the co-products of the preceding level, the emergy base for each succeeding level will be
somewhat greater than the preceding one. Specifically, this property may be identified with the
emerging forms of higher ordinality that are determined by the generative component of
transformity as explained by Giannantoni (this volume). Of course the emergy base will also expand
increasing the generative component of transformity when a new source of emergy is utilized in the
process of self-organization at any level. The implications of the expanding emergy base for
environmental accounting are briefly considered.
PLANETARY BASELINES
The geobiosphere of the earth receives and processes energy from three primary sources:
solar radiation, the deep heat of the earth including both residual heat and radioactive decay, and the
gravitational attraction of the sun and moon on the earth. These energies interact in different
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Table 1. Comparison of the determination of the renewable emergy base for 7 states in the United
States. Sources counted in the base for renewable emergy absorbed (a) and received (r).
WV2
NC1
AK3
AR2
TX3
ME1
FL1
Year
1997
Renewable emergy absorbed (X E20 sej y-1)
6.8
Renewable emergy received (X E20 sej y-1)
152
Emergy base (X E24 sej y-1)
9.26
Chemical potential rain on land (l) and/or sea (s) r
Evapotranspiration
a
Runoff
a
Earth cycle (mountain area)
r
Tides
Waves
River geopotential absorbed
a
River, chemical potential absorbed
a
River chemical potential received
r
a.
Reference4
1992
19
1985
404
1992
20
1983
39
1980
15
1979
66
9.44
a
9.44
a (s)
a (l)
9.44
8.0
a
b.
a
a
a
a
a
a
c.
d.
a
a
10.53 8/9.44
a
a
a
a
e.
f.
g.
If all rain runs off to the coastal ocean then all the chemical potential energy of rain is used in the system.
Transformity is 18200 sej/J with no double counting.
2
Because rain carries two different kinds of energy (chemical potential and geopotential) and is split to drive
two different processes (evapotranspiration , ET and runoff, RO) that result in different products (vegetation
and landform), both are counted in the emergy absorbed. In the past, different assumptions have been made
which assigned these two flows as splits or co-products in a hierarchy leading to different rules to avoid double
counting and different transformities. If ET is a split off rain (Tr= 18,200 sej/J) and if additional energy
transformation is required for the physical energy in streams (Tr = 27,200 sej/J ). If evapotranspiration and
runoff are global co-products, ET has a transformity of 28,100 sej/J and the geopotential energy of streams is
the same as above (Campbell 2003).
3
Transformity for rain has tide removed (Tr=15300 sej/J), thus tide can be counted in the base (Odum 1996).
4
References: a. Campbell et al. (2004), b. Tilley (1999), c. Brown et al. (1993), d. Odum et al. (1998a), e.
Odum et al. (1987), f. Campbell (1998), g. Odum et al. (1986, 1998b).
combinations to drive many global processes producing co-products, e.g., wind, rain, ocean currents,
tides, the earth cycle of uplift and subsidence, etc. Environmental accounting using emergy depends
upon the ability to convert energies of all kinds to solar emjoules. To accomplish this, a solar emergy
baseline for the earth must be established. To establish a planetary baseline from which all other
transformities for the global system can be calculated, the joules of energy supplied in the earths deep
heat and the gravitational attraction of the sun and moon must be expressed as solar emjoules. This can
be accomplished by evaluating any global process to which the sun and one or more of the other inputs
contribute. Figure 1 shows the interconnected system of atmosphere, oceans, and crust that forms the
earths geobiosphere. The earths primary emergy inputs, gravitational attraction of the sun and moon
(G) deep earth heat (E) and solar insolation (S) combine in driving two global processes: (1) the annual
production of geopotential energy in the world oceans and (2) the earth cycle of uplift and subsidence.
All three primary inputs are shown contributing to each of the global processes in Figure 1. In fact,
differences in the planetary baseline are directly related to the degree of connectivity among the three
primary sources in the global processes evaluated to determine the equivalence between them. Of
course, the baseline will also change if a new energy source is added to the inputs.
Table 2 shows the differences in the planetary baseline as the energy sources considered and
the degree of connectivity assumed to exist between them have changed over the time of development.
-145-
Gravitational
Attraction
G
Deep
Earth Heat
E
Evaporation
Rivers
Earth cycle
G
X
Atmosphere
Wind
Rain
Mountains
Magma
Currents
Solar
Insolation
S
E
S
G
X
Geopotential
Energy
Oceans
Crust
Earth cycle
Tides
Geobiosphere
Figure 1. An energy systems model of earths geobiosphere showing the maximum connectivity of the three
primary emergy inputs in driving two global processes, the earth cycle of uplift and subsidence and the annual
production of geopotential energy in the world oceans.
Three of the baselines (the 9.26, 10.58, and 15.83) listed may be reasonable choices based on current
knowledge, but only the 9.26 and 15.83 baselines are in use by practitioners. The 9.26 baseline is an
updated version of the 9.44 baseline of Odum (1996). The method used to calculate the transformity
of tidal energy for the 9.26 baseline (Campbell 2000) parallels the method that Odum and Odum
(1983) used to determine a transformity for the earths deep heat, and thus it is preferable to the 9.44
baseline, which did not calculate the transformity of the tide directly. The 15.83 baseline was
determined using a matrix solution (Collins and Odum 2000) for a completely interconnected global
network. Both of these baselines are reasonable based on our current state of knowledge (Figure 1,
Table 2) and the advantages and disadvantages of each are considered below.
AVOIDING DOUBLE COUNTING AND THE EMERGY BASE FOR A

SYSTEM
The different modes of interaction among the three primary energy sources (S, E, and G)
determine the planetary baselines, but the degree of interaction does not affect the double counting
question for 1st order methods of determining the renewable emergy base for a system.
This is true because in 1st order methods planetary processes are considered to be one interconnected
system of mutually necessary subsystems (Odum 1996), thus the entire emergy of the earth is assumed
to be necessary for the formation of all planetary co-products, regardless of the baseline. As a result
the rules to minimize double counting in determining the natural emergy base for a given system (a
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given area of the earth) will be the same for all baselines. The simple rule to avoid double counting
when using the 15.83 or the 9.26 baseline to determine the renewable emergy base for a system is to
only count the largest inflowing emergy of all the co-products of the planetary system (including tide)
as the emergy base for any given area of the earth. Under this rule different areas in the same system
may count different single emergies as the direct base, e.g., tide for a states area of coastal ocean and
the chemical potential energy of rain for the land area of the coastal state can be added together to get
the renewable emergy received by the entire area of the state. The same resolution for averaging the
emergy inflows must be used to insure that bases are comparable. Where emergy inflows are
concentrated in space, higher resolution of the inputs will result in a greater emergy base for the
system. For example, at a resolution of 100 m, the zone of breaking waves would be resolved for a
coastal system and the wave emergy absorbed might be added to the emergy base for the system after
adjustment of the area of the other inputs, and if it is the largest input received over the area of the 100
m coastal strip. This dependence on spatial resolution requires that the emergy analyst consider
differences in the emergy signature across the landscape, thus areas of different biogeographic
characteristics are considered separately and the largest emergy inflows to each are combined to
represent the total system. If the partial contributions of each primary energy source (S, G, and E) to a
planetary production process can be determined the transformity of that global product would be
determined on the basis of some fraction of the planetary baseline. In this case, the partial fractions of
independent emergy input from all sources to a given area could be added without double counting.
To define the emergy base for a system the fraction of the largest emergy received that is
absorbed by a given area of the system should be determined. Rain is often the largest emergy input to
a given land area and its contributions (chemical and geopotential energy) have been counted in
several ways (Table 1). Note that the emergy of rain absorbed is split into two different processes, the
chemical potential used (primarily in evapotranspiration) and geopotential energy used (primarily as
runoff); therefore, these two are added to determine the emergy of the rain absorbed (Odum et al.
1988a).
The emergy received by a system is augmented by cross boundary fluxes of energy and
matter bringing additional emergy into the system from other areas. Only the largest of the co-products
of a single process is counted as inflowing emergy received, e.g., the chemical potential energy in river
water flowing into the system is counted when it is larger than the geopotential energy delivered at the
border. The amount of these energies leaving the system must also be determined and the difference
Table 2. Comparison of planetary baselines in chronological order. S, E, and G, refer to the primary
planetary emergy inflows solar insolation(S), the earths deep heat (E), and gravitational attraction of
the sun and moon (G) as shown in Figure 1.
Planetary Process Evaluated
Geopotential Energy
Production
Earth Cycle
Method was not used

Method was not used
Method was not used
S and G
S, G, and E
S, G, and E
Method was not used

S and E
S and E
S and E
S and E
S, G, and E
Baseline
Sources
X 1024 sej y-1 Considered
4.0 (3.93)
8.0
9.44
9.26
10.58
15.83
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S only
S and E
S, E, and G
S, E, and G
S, E, and G
S, E, and G
Reference
Prior to 1983
Odum&Odum (1983)
Odum (1996)
Campbell (1998, 2000)
Campbell (1998, 2000)
Odum et al. (2000)

between the emergy entering and the emergy leaving is the emergy absorbed by the system. The cross
boundary emergy flows in both the received and absorbed categories are summed and added,
respectively, to the largest emergy directly received and absorbed over the system area. The totals give
the emergy received and the emergy absorbed by that system as the renewable base to support selforganization. The methods for determining the cross boundary flows of emergy are the same for all
baselines.
Each baseline has logical advantages and disadvantages. The 15.83 baseline assumes that
everything in the global system is connected and it assumes that all connections are necessary and
substantive inputs to the two global processes evaluated (Table 2). This is logically consistent with the
reasoning commonly used in holistic systems thinking. When using the 9.26 baseline (Table 2), tides
do not contribute to the earth cycle and the earths deep heat does not contribute to the annual
production of geopotential energy in the world oceans. This view is arguably more realistic based on
the actual quantities of energy from the various sources used in these two processes. For example, tidal
currents move sediment around but often this movement results in no net motion in the seaward
direction, thus it would make little or no contribution to the earth cycle of uplift and subsidence. While
the position of the continents (determined by the earth cycle) does affect the local tide height and
therefore the amount of geopotential energy generated on earth by gravitational attraction at any given
time, the rate at which the continents change position is negligible over the time scale of a year for
which the production of geopotential energy is being evaluated (Campbell 2000). One can argue that
the earth cycle does not affect the geopotential of the world oceans on time scales shorter than several
million years and thus it should not be considered as a material contributor to this process when
establishing equivalence between solar radiation and gravitational attraction for analyses that consider
timescales of 10,000 years or less (Campbell 2000).
Emergy Analysis results usually depend on relative differences; therefore, the choice of a
baseline is somewhat arbitrary. Both baselines use similar rules to avoid double counting since only
one emergy input (the largest) from any set of co-products constitutes the renewable emergy base for
any given area of the earth. Problems related to what to count to avoid double counting are removed by
the rule of counting only the largest input for any given area. In the past, when more than one
planetary input was counted in the base of a system (Odum et al. 1987, Brown et al. 1993) the
transformity of the primary input (e.g. chemical potential energy of rain) was adjusted to remove the
partial contribution of the additional emergy source included (e.g. tide). The development of a calculus
to determine the partial contribution of all sources would give a complete and exact measure of the
emergy base for any system. In the absence of such a method the rule to count only the largest source
of the emergies supplied by planetary co-products to any given area is a good first order approximation
to the emergy base for that area. This rule completely avoids double counting but in doing so it gives a
conservative estimate of the emergy base for the system. As long as transformities are set relative to
the same planetary baseline and the emergy base for system organization is determined at the same
spatial resolution, emergy analyses are comparable.
EMERGY RECEIVED AND EMERGY ABSORBED

An important factor to keep in mind when determining the emergy base for a system is the
distinction between the emergy received and the emergy absorbed. The emergy received, Rr, is the
emergy that enters the system. It represents the potential that a system has for self-organization. The
emergy absorbed, Ra, is the emergy that is actually used by the system in its organizational processes.
Almost all of the energy flows entering a system can be evaluated at the point of reception and at the
point of absorption. For example, incident solar radiation is received by the system but the reflected
radiation must be subtracted from the incident radiation to get the solar radiation absorbed. The energy
of the rain at the elevation where it falls on the land is the geopotential energy received, but only the
fraction that runs off is absorbed doing geological work in the system. In general, the emergy absorbed
by the system is the value of interest in an emergy analysis. The energy actually used within a system
-148-

is the basis for calculating the transformities of the systems products. In general, emergy analysts
have consistently used the emergy absorbed to determine the emergy base for systems. In past studies
often the entire chemical potential energy of the rain has been used as the emergy base for certain
states, e.g., Florida, Texas, Maine, North Carolina, rather than the chemical potential energy of
evapotranspiration as was done for Arkansas and West Virginia. This apparent discrepancy can be
explained by the fact that certain systems, e.g., coastal states and lakes and their watersheds (BrandtWilliams 1999) effectively absorb (use) almost 100% of the chemical potential energy of rainfall when
both the land and contiguous area of continental shelf or lake basin are considered.
In general, the emergy received by the system is often calculated as an intermediate step in
determining the emergy absorbed. It may be useful to report both these numbers in emergy analyses.
The emergy received may be useful in certain indices, because it indicates the potential for system
development and thus it may be related to the general attractiveness of an area for investment. The
distinction between the energy received and the emergy absorbed may be more complicated because
one could argue that all the emergy received is necessary for the observed use, and therefore, the
emergy base for the system should be that received. Again the accurate reporting of assumptions and
calculation is imperative for comparability of analyses.
COMPLEXITY AND THE EXPANDING EMERGY BASE FOR GLOBAL

SELF-ORGANIZATION
The emergy base for a given system depends on the properties of emergy itself as well as on
the baseline chosen for expressing transformities and the rules used to determine the renewable emergy
absorbed. A property of the transformation of energy is a tendency to build increasingly more complex
hierarchically ordered structures as long as sources of available energy continue to exist in the
environment. According to the energy transformation hierarchy principle, proposed by Odum (1996)
as a 5th law of thermodynamics, energy-based hierarchies develop using the inputs of available energy
(exergy) at all scales of organization and pass these products to systems at other hierarchical levels to
drive self-organization there. The position of any component or process within the hierarchies built by
the transformation of energy is indicated by its transformity or the emergy required to make a unit of
energy of the product. Emergy is a second law concept that tracks the energies of all kinds required for
production; therefore, systems that produce co-products amplify the emergy base for the next tier of
complexity where other systems use the co-products in their own self-organization. The emergy base
for each succeeding level of complexity must expand, if all inputs are required for each co-product and
co-products act to create nested levels of organization. Thus, the emergy base for all the nested
systems organized using the products of a larger scale system can exceed the emergy base at the level
of the larger system. This observation does not violate any rule of emergy accounting (see Odum 1996
and Giannantoni this volume). Also, there is no double counting involved because only the largest coproduct is counted as the emergy base for any given area (see the example below). For example, the
biomes are organized using the co-products of the primary planetary system organization (Figure 2),
thus we might expect the emergy base for all the biomes to be greater than that for the primary
planetary organization. To see that this must be true, consider a world where only two ecosystems
exist: (1) Rainforest, which covers of the area of the earth and desert, which covers the remaining .
Furthermore assume that only two planetary co-products exist, rain and wind and that 90% of the rain
falls on the rainforest and that the wind blows equally over the earths surface. Using the 15.83 E24 sej
y-1 baseline and the rules for determining the emergy base for an area of the earth given above, the
emergy base for the rainforest is 15.83 E24 sej y-1 (emergy base for global rain) times 0.90 (the
fraction split to rainforest) or 14.25 E24 sej y-1 and the emergy base for the desert area is 15.83 E24 sej
y-1 (emergy base for global wind) times 0.75 (the fraction split to desert) or 11.87 E24 sej y-1, thus the
total emergy supporting organization of the two biomes, which cover the entire surface of the earth is
26.12 E24 sej y-1.
-149-
-150Oceans
Atmosphere
Crust
Level 1
Geobiosphere
Tides
Production
Materials
Tides, Waves, Currents
Fuels, Minerals, Rivers
Econom ic
Use
Level 3
Main
Economy
Economic
Use
Main
Economy
Level 4
Shared
Inform ation
Humans
Emergy Base
Expanding
Fuel &
Minerals
Increasing Number of Energy Transformations
Level 2
Resp.
Environ.
Production
Fuel &
Minerals
Environ.
Production
Interface
Environmental- Economic
Ecosy stem s
Society
Environmental- Economic
Interface
Ecosy stems
Economy
Bio mes, Ecosystems
Tides, Waves,
Currents
Earth cycle,
Rivers
Sun,
Wind, Rain
Tides, Waves, Currents
Fuels, Minerals, Rivers
Sun, Wind, Rain
and Information
Sun, Wind, Rain
Figure 2. Increasing complexity of system organization is shown as a function of increasing energy transformation. The interaction and distribution
of co-products and the utilization of new emergy sources in nested hierarchical systems of increasing transformity cause the emergy base for selforganization to expand.
Sun
Deep
Heat
Primary
Sources
Global
Co-products
Fuel and Mineral

Sources
Increasing
Complexity of
Self-Organization
Human Learning

The emergy base supporting system self-organization will also expand when a new source is
added to the emergy signature (Brown and Ulgiati 1999). When a new emergy source such as fossil
fuel becomes available it drives additional self-organizational processes that increase complexity. The
emergy base for the products produced by systems using the new source will be greater than that of the
former system. Products passed from one scale of organization to another carry the emergy of the
originating scale and they can change the emergy base for the systems that they enter as feedbacks.
Figure 2 illustrates the concept of an expanding emergy base generating systems of greater complexity
as the number of energy transformations increases. Levels or realms of organization may be related to
the introduction of new or formerly unexploited energy sources that drive self-organization and open
up new possibilities for energy transformation. Four levels or realms of planetary self-organization are
identified in Figure 2.
The geobiosphere (Level 1) receives the three primary energy sources entering the earth, and
through the transformation of these sources in the interacting network of the atmosphere, oceans, and
crust, many co-products are produced. The energy transformations at this primary level are required to
produce the co-products, i.e., wind, rain, tidal flows, ocean currents, etc. that interact to create the
nested scales of increasingly more complex realms of order that are the earths living systems.
Hierarchies of structure and process are created at each level of self-organization, e.g., the continental
landmass that results in different transformities for rain over the land and sea (Odum 1996, Campbell
2003) is created at the primary level of the geobiosphere. The nested levels (2-4) of ecological
organization are based on the co-products of the global system using primary energy inflows. The
primary energy inflows also enter into more complex systems as inputs, but their transformation
processes on the global scale are unique, generating co-products that are different in kind and/or
magnitude from similar products generated on smaller scales of organization. For example, sun drives
the planetary heat engine, which generates wind, waves, currents, and rain at the global scale. At
smaller scales the sun supplies the energy to drive photosynthesis of green plants. Both of these
processes of energy transformation are critical for ecosystem organization but the processes are
qualitatively very different. Even when the product of the transformation of solar energy is similar to
its larger scale products, e.g., the generation of sea and land breezes due to differential heating, these
breezes differ substantially in scale and magnitude from the winds generated at the global scale.
The biomes and ecosystems are the next level of complexity in planetary self-organization
driven by energy transformation and made possible by the interaction and distribution of global coproducts. The total emergy base supporting the biomes is larger than that of the planet (see example
above). Around 1850, when our modern industrial civilization added fossil fuel energy as a major
input driving self-organization, the emergy base for planetary organization was expanded. Note that
from a top down perspective, economic organization on level three contains the biomes and
ecosystems as a nested element, upon which they exert controlling actions, whereas from a bottom up
perspective economic systems are nested within and depend on the biomes for support. The use of
fossil fuel emergy to support global self-organization resulted in a qualitative change in the nature of
the products and processes organized, as well as, an increase in the number of energy transformations
and the complexity of the resulting organization. Even though fossil fuel energy was generated by the
primary planetary energy inputs mediated through carbon fixation of the biomes over millions of
years, the present rapid use of this storage makes it behave like an additional energy source driving
global self-organization as a pulse on the limited time scale of its use and depletion. From this
perspective, human use of fossil fuel resources to create industrial society has expanded the emergy
base for the earth.
The biomes at organizational Level 2 and the economy at Level 3 are nested within society
(Level 4), which is characterized by the use of shared information in the self-organization operating at
this level. Shared information in the form of human learning and technology may also act like an
additional emergy source expanding the emergy base for this level. These information storages are
created over a long period of time compared to the time of their use. For example, to train a generation
of people in the present U.S. education system takes from 18 to 30 years depending on the skill level
-151-

of the occupation. An additional 20 years or more of work experience may be needed to fully develop
the emergy delivered to the system by an individual. Technology has an even longer turnover time.
For example, the personal computer developed from early experiments on transistors at the Bell
Telephone Laboratories in 1947 (the development of transistors allowed the miniaturization of
electronic circuits) to become the dominant technological tool in the modern home and office 50 years
later (http://www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/comphist/). Antecedent technologies go back to James
Clerk Maxwell and early experiments with electromagnetism during the mid 19th century
(http://www.northwinds.net/bchris/pre1900.htm). If we assume a turnover time of about 50 years for
shared information, there may be enough separation between the use of this emergy in determining the
transformity of human work contributed to annual economic production and its creation, to justify
considering it an additional emergy source driving the self-organization of society.
IMPLICATIONS OF THE EXPANDING EMERGY BASE FOR

ENVIRONMENTAL ACCOUNTING AND EMERGY ANALYSIS
The expanding emergy base for self-organization and the higher levels of complexity that
result from adding new sources to the global emergy signature may express a fundamental property
of transformity derived from the energy hierarchy law as discussed by Giannantoni (this volume) and
further elucidated by Brown (this volume). One of the primary implications of this insight is that social
processes will have an expanded emergy base compared to economic processes. Higgins (2003)
performed an emergy analysis of the Oak Openings Region of Ohio, which included a detailed
evaluation of some social processes. She showed that indices calculated in her study were not readily
comparable to past emergy analyses that only considered the environmental-economic interface. The
implication from her results and the theoretical arguments given above is that the emergy base and
level of organization should be considered when comparing the results of emergy analyses. Emergy
analyses using the same planetary baseline are directly comparable when they are performed for the
same realm of organization (Figure 2). Thus, the emergy-economic indices calculated in a study that
also evaluated social processes Level 4) including components of shared information as an additional
emergy source cannot be compared directly with the same indices determined by only evaluating the
environmental-economic interrelationships on Level 3. However, all level three analyses using the
emergy base appropriate to that level, i.e., fossil fuel and the global co-products should be comparable,
given the caveats discussed above. In a holistic view, the division into levels 2-4 is somewhat artificial.
These three levels of global self-organization are all based on the interaction of planetary co-products
and they are nested in both the power and control pathways so that levels of greater complexity control
the lower levels and the less complex levels physically support and maintain higher levels of
organization which are nested within them (Figure 2). The three doubly nested levels of organization
together encompass self-organized structures and processes of the entire earth. Furthermore, there are
many cross scale (level) links, e.g., anthropogenic enhancement of global nitrogen fixation, green
house gas emission, etc that imply that we should really be doing the nested hierarchies (Levels 2-4) as
a single system.
An evaluation of the role of shared information in economic production (a cross-level link)
offers a solution to a long-standing problem in emergy analysis. This problem is to determine the
emergy of human work contributions to economic production independent of the monetary value of
those contributions. Campbell (this volume) points out emergy analysts need to independently estimate
the emergy of human work contributions to economic production, if emdollars are to be used to
accurately represent the relative contributions of human and environmental work on an emergy
balance sheet that includes monetary and environmental liabilities. Figure 3 shows a socioeconomic
system illustrating the way that four emergy sources interact to determine system organization. In the
figure, Ra is the renewable emergy used, N0 is the emergy of renewable resources being used in a
-152-

Global Society
Ecosystems
Shared
Information
Fuel &
Minerals
SI
Environmental- Economic Interface
Environmental
Emergy
N0
Ra
Environ.
Production
Economic
Use
GWP
$
Main
Humans
Economy
Figure 3. This energy systems model of global socioeconomic organization shows the nested hierarchy of
ecosystems, economy, and society. Four emergy sources (renewable emergy, fuels and minerals, renewables used
faster than they are replenished and shared information) used to support global societies are shown.
nonrenewable manner, F is emergy in fuels, and SI (PI when estimated from money flows) is the
emergy of shared information in human work contributions, both pure service and the human service
used in making and supplying products.
Money assigns all value to human work and none to the work of nature; therefore, money
undervalues economic products in proportion to the fraction of the total emergy required that is
derived from the unpaid work of nature. Current practice in emergy analysis allows the average value
of human service, as represented by the emergy-to-money ratio for the economy, to be used to estimate
the human work contributions to the total emergy used in the system (U). This logic is circular and a
value for the emergy-to-money ratio cannot be found except through a recursive solution. The money
flowing through the economy of a state in a year is the Gross State Product (GSP). If the emergy to
dollar ratio (U/GSP) of the economy is assumed to represent the average emergy contributed by human
service, equations (1-5) show the nature of the problem, where Z is the emergy-to-money ratio.
U = Ra + N0 + F + PI and PI = f($, U)
Let, X = Ra + N0 + F
then, U = X + f($, U)
and, Z = U/GSP$
substituting for U, Z = {X+ f($, U)}/GSP$
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
While this approximation is useful in the absence of better information and can be justified because it
introduces small errors in the average value when the emergy to dollar ratio is from a much larger
system, it does not provide an independent estimate of the emergy in human work for which the dollars
are paid. In addition, the same problem recurs for systems on all scales. Economists attribute all
monetary value to human work contributions and none to the work of the environment and emergy
analysts use the environmental emergy contributions to estimate human work by assuming that all
value originates first from the emergy contributions of the environment. The latter is true, but as we
pointed out earlier, pulsed feedback from storage can change the emergy base for self-organization for
a limited time. Neither of these solutions will allow an accurate estimation of the relative contributions
of humans and the environment to economic production. It would be better to obtain an independent
-153-

estimate of human work contributions as the application of shared information (SI), which will allow
the GSP$ to be redistributed as emdollars that total to EM$P, the emdollar product, as follows:
Let Y= SI then, U = X + Y
and Z = (X+ Y)/GSP$
n
i =1
j =1
(6)
(7)
Em$ P = xi Z1 + y j Z1
i =1
j =1
U = xi + y j
(8)
(9)
where xi and yj are each one of the n emergy flows in the environment or the m emergy flows in the
economy, respectively. GSP$ is equal to EM$P and the distribution of emdollars will accurately reflect
the actual work contributions of both nature and humanity. The dollars paid for human service can still
be converted to emergy flows at an average rate using the ratio of Y to GSP$.
A key question to be answered is what, if anything, do humans contribute to the emergy base
for a system above that required from the renewable environmental emergy and fossil fuel emergy
required to support them? Two important emergy storages that determine the productivity of human
labor and the productive effects of capital are, respectively, the learned knowledge of the people, L,
and the technological status of the society, T. Figure 4 gives an energy systems diagram for
determining the emergy base driving the monetary flows of a region, including inputs for the learned
knowledge of the people and their use of technology. Both of these inputs are emergy storages of
shared information (Figure 3), which have accumulated over a relatively long period of time (as
described above) and both are required for the work contributions that humans make to economic
production in any given year. In fact, the money paid to people for their labor is in large part a function
of their knowledge and the importance of the technologies that their knowledge allows them to use.
We propose that these two information sources are in effect additional emergy inputs that characterize
the emergy base for socioeconomic systems. Together they establish a transformity for human labor
used in the system and the emergy contributed in this manner represents the contributions of work
done in the past to present work. In fact, the transformity, i.e., the kind and quality of the work done
by humans in annual economic production processes is a function of this information and that is the
test for including it as the unique emergy contribution of humans to the system for which they receive
money. The contribution of these information storages is qualitatively different from the contribution
of material infrastructure to production. For example, primary production in a forest depends on the
stored biomass of the trees, but this storage does not change the quality of the work done, it simply
allows more of it by increasing evapotranspiration. In contrast human labor using the learning and
technology of the ancient Roman culture accomplished very different work compared to that done in
the industrial age of 19th century England. The transformity of human labor in these two societies was
different and the human emergy contributed to self-organization was also different beyond the
difference in environmental contributions and fossil fuel use.
Odum (1996) points out that emergy accounting, which does not include an evaluation of information
inputs is incomplete. If shared information is an additional emergy source as implied by our analysis,
methods to estimate its contribution to the emergy base of systems must be developed.
These methods will also give an independent estimate of the transformity of human labor.
Information is not diminished by its use, but it depreciates and requires a maintenance cycle of
extracting, copying, operating, testing, and selection as described in Odum (1996). The emergy
-154-
Learned
Knowledge
Technology
Fossil fuel,
minerals,
etc.
Groundwater,
soil, clean air.
etc.
Goods &
Services
T
L
F
Environment
N0
GDP
$
Ra
X X
Markets
Economic
Production
Figure 4. An energy systems model of economic production showing the key emergy inputs required from the
environment and from humans. The circulation of money flows as a counter current to the human emergy
contributions.
required for the information cycle of creation and maintenance for learned knowledge and technology
must be evaluated to make an independent estimate of the transformity of human work in the system.
The emergy required for the most recent information cycle might be considered as the minimum
emergy base for the information in use at any given time. In the simplest case, the joules of human
labor used in the economy in a given year might be multiplied by an average transformity for the
knowledge of the people and by the transformity for the level of technology in use. A combination of
these two emergies (corrected for double counting) is a first order estimate of the emergy contributed
to the system as a result of human labor using the shared information base.
In summary, the emergy support for socioeconomic systems should include an independent
estimate of the contributions of people. An evaluation of the emergy required for material support,
education, and technology use can provide an estimate independent of the monetary value of labor.
Emergy-to-money ratios calculated on this basis and used to convert emergy flows in the environment
and economy to emdollars will redistribute the annual money flow (GSP) so that the emergy-money
unit reflects the actual buying power, which is based on the direct work contribution of an item to
economic production. This modification will change the value of the total emergy used in the system
probably resulting in higher emergy to money ratios, because the emergy of human service is expected
to increase in the expression. A human emergy to dollar ratio (Y/GSP$) could be calculated that would
measure directly the human service purchased by each dollar. This change will result in an
independent determination of the human service contribution in the expression for total emergy use.
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As a practical result, human work contributions may be given greater value in terms of emdollars and
we will avoid, for the most part, the problem of crudely estimating human emergy contributions by
using dollars and the emergy-to-money ratio in a circular manner.
CONCLUSIONS
Emergy researchers should report the planetary baseline used in each analysis, the spatial
resolution of the renewable emergy base, and the values of and sources for the transformities used. The
effects of spatial resolution on the emergy base for systems needs to be further evaluated. The
renewable emergy absorbed by the system should be given and the renewable emergy received might
also be reported. Emergy analysts need to be aware of the expanding emergy base for systems
organized on different realms of complexity and the position of their system within this hierarchy of
planetary self-organization. Comparison of systems within a given level of complexity will have
qualitatively similar emergy bases. Further development of environmental accounting tools like the
emergy balance sheet depends on the development of methods to make independent estimates of
human work contributions to economic production. A rationale for estimating human work
contributions to systems using learned knowledge and technology use was given. If emergy
researchers follow the reporting guidelines given in this paper, the reproducibility and comparability of
emergy analysis results should improve and this improvement in communication may increase the
acceptance of Emergy Analysis in the broader scientific community.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Peg Pelletier, Hal Walker, Robert King, and Betty Odum for helpful reviews of this
paper. Special thanks to Eliana Bardi for her editorial skills. This paper is Contribution No. AED-04060 of the Atlantic Ecology Division, National Health and Environmental Effects Research
Laboratory, Office of Research and Development, USEPA. Although the research described in this
paper has been funded wholly by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it has not been subjected
to Agency review. Therefore, it does not necessarily reflect the views of the agency.
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Odum, H.T., Odum, E.C., Blissett, M.: 1987, The Texas System, Emergy Analysis and Public Policy.
A Special Project Report, L.B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. University of Texas at
Austin, and The Office of Natural Resources, Texas Department of Agriculture, Austin.
Odum, H.T., Romitelli, S. and Tighe, R.: 1998a, Evaluation of the Cache River and Black Swamp in
Arkansas, Final Report on Contract #DACW39-94-K-0300, Center for Environmental Policy,
Environmental Engineering Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.
Odum, H.T., Odum, E.C., and Brown, M.T.: 1998b, Environment and Society in Florida. St. Lucie
Press, Boca Raton, FL. 449 pp.
Odum, H.T. Brown, M.T., Brandt-Williams, S., 2000. Handbook of Emergy Evaluation, Folio #1
Introduction and Global Budget, Center for Environmental Policy, Environmental
engineering Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville. 16 p.
Tilley, D.R. 1999. Emergy Basis of Forest Systems, UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor MI.
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
11
Emergy Yield Ratio Problems and Misapplications
ABSTRACT
Emergy analysts typically define Yield as the total emergy that converged into a system,
despite the fact that the common English meaning of the word is rather what can be obtained from the
system. In the opinion of the authors, this linguistic inconsistency has contributed to a widespread
misinterpretation and misapplication of the indicator Emergy Yield Ratio (EYR). A further related
issue is the common failure to realize that, since all systems seem to exhibit a pulsing behaviour, what
is a competitive and productive strategy in the early stages of a pulse (i.e. maximum power
regardless of efficiency) may well not be the most desirable goal in later times of limited resources
(Odum and Odum, 2001). Coal-powered rail transport and rainforest timber logging are discussed as
pertinent examples for human dominated systems. As a consequence, the over-simplistic idea that
greater Emergy Yield Ratios are better as a policy suggestion must be questioned, and a careful reconsideration is due of all such case studies, the conclusions of which depend on this assumption. In
times of declining resource supplies, optimal resource use becomes the priority. This puts more
importance on the role of transformity, which indeed expresses the ratio of the total emergy
requirement to the true yield of the system (measured in exergy or mass).
EMERGY YIELD RATIO: A MISNOMER?

According to emergy algebra, the emergy output of a system equals the sum of all the
independent (i.e. non co-product) emergy inputs to the system. Emergy analysts often call this quantity
(Y = R+N+F) the Yield of the system, even though what it actually represents is the memory of
the total exergy (available energy) that was required to produce it. Thus, consistent with the dictates of
the emergy theory, this so-called Yield is in fact a donor-side measure of the resources it took to
make something, rather than a user-side measure of what can be obtained from it.
However, the term yield is defined in English as: The amount obtained from an
investment, undertaking, tax, etc. from the Old English ield = payment (Brown, 1993). Clearly,
this definition puts the focus of interest on what can be gained by the end user (he or she who made the
investment or undertaking). A better name for Y could possibly be total emergy requirement, or
total emergy cost assigned to the yield.
Far from being a mere linguistic issue, this inconsistency can have, and in the opinion of the
authors has had, important consequences for the way in which the common emergy indicators Emergy
Yield Ratio (EYR) and Emergy Investment Ratio (EIR) are employed and for the meanings that are
attributed to them. In fact, attributing to what is essentially a cumulative requirement for input
resources (something which is usually perceived as burdensome and hence somewhat negative) the
name Yield (something which our dictionary and common sense tell us is advantageous and, hence,
positive) can strongly alter the analysts perspective on the investigated system and its relationships
with the environment and the economy.
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Chapter 11. Emergy Yield Ratio
In particular, the Emergy Yield Ratio of a system is interpreted as a measure of its net
contribution to the economy beyond its own operation (Odum, 1996, p. 71). In several reference
works, it is explicitly stated or implicitly implied that such an index must always be high in order for a
system to be competitive (e.g. Odum, 1996, chapter 8; Ko et al., 2000; Ortega et al., 2000; Romitelli,
2000; Martin, 2002; McLachan-Karr, 2003; Yang et al., 2003). In the authors opinion, this assumption
is an oversimplification and need not apply in many relevant situations where natural resources are
limited.
MAXIMUM POWER PRINCIPLE AND EMERGY YIELD

The Maximum Power Principle was originally introduced by Lotka (1922a; 1922b) and
further refined by Odum and Pinkerton [1955]. It states that natural systems seem to be selected for by
evolution when they operate so that the overall exploitation of available resources takes place at the
maximum rate that is compatible with the current environmental conditions. Hence, it is all but too
easy to make a parallel with human-dominated systems, where the most competitive ones appear to be
those that maximize the total emergy use, i.e. the so-called emergy Yield, vs. what is contributed by
the economy (F), regardless of the efficiency at which the exploitation takes place. In other words, the
winning ticket seems to have a high EYR.
However, life is never as simple as it seems and the parallel is not quite as straightforward. In
fact, as subsequently pointed out by Odum in his famous rebuttal to numerous misinterpretations of the
principle, selection for maximum power does not mean a selfish maximizing of power by
components (Odum, 1983). In Odum and Pinkertons words: Under conditions of limited raw
materials [], a higher efficiency is the best arrangement although the maximum power output []
cannot equal the optimum adjustment in which raw materials are not a limiting condition. In a
surprising sort of way this seems to be a statement favouring the survival of the spendthrift (Odum
and Pinkerton, 1955). What this seems to teach us is that natural systems evolve alternating pulses of
rapid growth on abundant resources at maximum power with periods of comparative quiescence, in
which resources are scarce and efficiency is at a premium.
Going back to our parallel with human systems, short-sighted overexploitation of readilyavailable natural resources may well lead to high emergy Yield (which is in fact a measure of
emergy appropriation) in the short term, but will invariably fail to be sustainable in the long run, when
reserves diminish and the long term side-effects of such behaviour become apparent.
Many hints indicate that human systems are approaching a period of climax that will likely be
followed by a time of comparative scarcity of readily-available fossil fuels, and hence energy, when
the present rate of expansion will become unsustainable (Bell, 1995; Campbell, 1997; Hall et al.,
2003). In this scenario, persevering in the business-as-usual maximisation of the ratio of exploitation
of natural resources per unit of invested emergy (EYR) may well not be the most desirable strategy. In
other words, short-term competitiveness may turn into medium or long-term self-destructiveness.
Perhaps mankind had better learn from nature and gradually switch to a low-EYR, high efficiency
strategy if our species is not to be selected against. As Odum said in his last book, Continuing the
ethic to maximize profit and consumption can generate overpopulation, inflation, shortages, debt,
bankruptcy, starvation, riot, local war, frustration, crime, loss of organization, loss of knowledge and
libraries, and abandonment of ideals (Odum and Odum, 2001).
TWO CASE-STUDIES: (I) COAL-POWERED RAIL TRANSPORT,

(II) RAINFOREST TIMBER LOGGING
(I) Table 1 shows a simple emergy analysis of a typical steam locomotive running on locallyavailable coal. Of course, the purpose of this is neither to break new ground on steam engine
performance, nor to perform a detailed analysis of an outdated technology, but rather to illustrate a
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typical transport scenario of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The use of a large input of mined coal
results in a high EYR value (7.5), which, following conventional wisdom, can be interpreted as a net
contribution to the human system in which the locomotive is embedded. However, such a result is
obtained due to an energy conversion efficiency of under 8%, and entails the emission into the
atmosphere of over 70 kg of CO2 and 620 g of SO2 per km (compare that to 1.9 kg CO2/km and 3 g
SO2/km for a typical modern diesel train (ORNL, 1995)). The list of emissions could easily be further
extended with even more hazardous pollutants, such as cadmium, PAH-rich coal tars, ashes, etc.
Surely, the English industrial revolution could never have occurred without the high-power,
high-EYR exploitation of vast quantities of coal at overall efficiencies that would be considered very
low by todays standards. However, it was a different moment in time, and what could perhaps be
regarded as an acceptable environmental impact at the dawn of the modern industrial era has now
become an unbearable burden for Earths ecosystems. Thus, although still technically feasible, and
still capable of ensuring high emergy Yield, running steam-engine trains on locally-available coal is
now hardly a recommendable transport option. In light of the Maximum Power Principle, this can be
interpreted as yet another case of selfish maximisation vs. global maximisation, where humans fail
to realize that free harvests from the environment [ ] are not sustainable in the long run because the
humans exploiting them do not reinforce the environmental production system (Odum and Odum,
2001, chapter 6).
(II) The second example makes use of a literature study, where an EYR of 12 is calculated for
tropical rainforest logs (Odum and Odum, 1983). A quick, superficial analysis might conclude that
these are a profitable, high-emergy yielding energy source, and recommend their use for heating
purposes. However, it can and should be argued that the quantity of virgin forest storages now
remaining on the Earth are small compared with the fossil fuels, and may be needed for the more
important purpose of preserving biodiversity (Odum, 1996, p. 147).
Broadly speaking, an action that may seem to contribute positively on the small scale of the
local economic system may have a much more negative effect on the larger scale of the biosphere. As
Odum again warned us: The environment might lose the last of its reserves (its natural capital) of
groundwaters, soils, forests, fisheries, minerals, and stored assets rapidly until reaching bottom
(Odum and Odum, 2001, chapter 13).
Table 1. Emergy analysis of 1km of travel by steam locomotive running on locally-available coal.
Transformity
Item
Units
Data
(seJ/unit)
Emergy (seJ)
Type
INPUTS
1 Coal
7.70E+08
4.0E+04
3.1E+13
2 Steel
1.28E+03
3.7E+09
4.7E+12
2.00E+12
1.8E+01
3.6E+13
OUTPUT
3 Output work
EYR
7.5
Footnotes can be found at the end of chapter.
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TRANSFORMITY AS THE TRUE INDICATOR OF A YIELD RATIO

We have seen in section one that the quantity that emergy analysts have traditionally referred
to as Yield (Y=R+N+F) does not correlate well to the common English meaning of the word. So,
one might ask, what does? The answer is quite straightforward: the output product of the analyzed
system, measured in exergy (available energy) or mass units, is what the end user actually gets out of
it, hence the true yield. Of course, the indicator that correctly expresses the ratio of the total emergy
requirement to the true (exergy) yield also exists; it is the transformity of the product. The central role
of this indicator is only evident if one realizes that it alone is a mixed indicator that combines a
measure of donor-side quality (total emergy requirement) with one of user-side quality (exergy yield).
One important policy indication that should always be given is to make careful (i.e. efficient)
use of high-transformity resources, which have required intense support by the environment per unit of
available yield. A larger embodied environmental support puts more responsibility on the final user of
the resource, especially in times of limited availability.
CONCLUSIONS
The point has been made that the term Yield in the traditional emergy jargon has a peculiar
meaning that can easily be misunderstood by the general public or inexperienced analyst. This has, in
the opinion of the authors, misled many to believing in the general applicability of the over-simplistic
idea that greater Emergy Yield Ratios (EYRs) are better as a policy indication (irrespective of specific
circumstances and other indicators). In fact, this is not always the case, and a careful re-consideration
is due of all such case studies, the conclusions of which depend on this assumption. In times of
declining resource supplies, optimal resource use becomes the priority, and this puts more importance
on the role of transformity, which indeed expresses the ratio of the total emergy requirement to the true
yield of the system (measured in exergy or mass).
As a last remark, in light of the arguments presented above, it would perhaps be wise to
consider giving the indicator Emergy Yield Ratio a name that could help prevent further future
misinterpretations, such as Emergy Appropriation Ratio, or Emergy Exploitation Ratio.
AKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to thank the reviewers for their contribution to the enhancement of this
paper by means of their stimulating comments and questions.
REFERENCES
Bargigli S. and Ulgiati S., 2003. Emergy and Life-Cycle Assessment of Steel Production in Europe. In:
Emergy Synthesis 2. Theory and Applications of the Emergy Methodology. Proceedings of the
2nd Biennial Emergy Research Conference, M.T. Brown, H.T. Odum, D. Tilley and S. Ulgiati,
Eds. Center for Environmental Policy, Univ. of Florida.
Bell D., 1995. Introduction: Reflections on the End of an Age. In: Encyclopedia of the Future. Ed.
G.T. Kurian and G.T.T. Molitor, MacMillan, New York.
Brown, L. ed. 1993. New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. 4th ed. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Campbell C.J., 1997. The Coming Oil Crisis. Multi-Science Publ. Co., Brentwood, Essex, England.
Hall C., Tharakan P., Hallock J., Cleveland C. and Jefferson M., 2003. Hydrocarbons and the
evolution of human culture. Nature, 426:318-322.
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Ko J.-Y., Martin J., Day J.W., 2000. Embodied Energy and Emergy Analysis of Wastewater Treatment
Using Wetlands. In: Emergy Synthesis. Theory and Applications of the Emergy Methodology.
Proceedings of the 1st Biennial Emergy Research Conference, M.T. Brown, S. BrandtWilliams, D. Tilley and S. Ulgiati, Eds. Center for Environmental Policy, Univ. of Florida.
Liu D. and Guo J., 1998. Final Report of the Peer Review of EM-China Database. Tsinghua
University, Beijing, China.
Lotka A., 1922a. Contribution to the energetics of evolution. Proc.Natl.Acad.Sci. 8:147-150.
Lotka A., 1922b. Natural selection as a physical principle, Proc.Natl.Acad.Sci. 8:151-155.
Martin J., 2002. Emergy valuation of diversions of river water to marshes in the Mississippi River
Delta. Ecological Engineering, 18(3):265-286.
McLachlan-Karr J., 2003. Emergy Evaluation for Sustainable Development Strategy of Fisheries
Resources in Darn, Panama. In: Emergy Synthesis 2. Theory and Applications of the Emergy
Methodology. Proceedings of the 2nd Biennial Emergy Research Conference, M.T. Brown,
H.T. Odum, D. Tilley and S. Ulgiati, Eds. Center for Environmental Policy, Univ. of Florida.
Odum H.T. and Odum E.C., 2001. A Prosperous Way Down. Colorado Univ. Press.
Odum H.T. and Odum E.C., eds. 1983. Energy Analysis Overview of Nations. IAASA, Laxenbourg,
Austria.
Odum H.T. and Pinkerton, 1955. Times speed regulator. The optimum efficiency for Maximum
Power output in physical and biological systems. Am. Sci., 43:331-343.
Odum H.T., 1983. Maximum Power and efficiency: A rebuttal. Ecol. Model., 20:71-82.
Odum H.T., 1996. Environmental Accounting. Wiley, New York.
ORNL (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), 1995. Transportation Energy Data Book: Edition 15.
ORNL-6856, Oak Ridge TE.
Ortega E., Queiroz J.F., Boyd C.E., Ferraz J.M.G., 2000. Emergy Analysis of Channel Catfish
Farming in Alabama USA. In: Emergy Synthesis. Theory and Applications of the Emergy
Methodology. Proceedings of the 1st Biennial Emergy Research Conference, M.T. Brown, S.
Brandt-Williams, D. Tilley and S. Ulgiati, Eds. Center for Environmental Policy, Univ. of
Florida.
Romitelli M.S., 2000. Emergy Analysis of the New Bolivia-Brazil Gas Pipeline (Gasbol). In: Emergy
Synthesis. Theory and Applications of the Emergy Methodology. Proceedings of the 1st
Biennial Emergy Research Conference, M.T. Brown, S. Brandt-Williams, D. Tilley and S.
Ulgiati, Eds. Center for Environmental Policy, Univ. of Florida.
Yang H., Li Y., Shen J., Hu S., 2003. Evaluating waste treatment, recycle and reuse in industrial
system: an application of the eMergy approach. Ecological Modelling, 160(1-2):13-21
APPENDIX
Calculations notes for Table 1.
1 Coal consumption per km travelled
Transformity of coal
2 Locomotive weight (assumed 100% steel)
Distance travelled
Life time
Steel used per km travelled
Transformity of steel
7.70E+08 J
4.00E+04 seJ/J
2.00E+09 g
98000 km/yr
16 yrs
1.28E+03 g
3.70E+09 seJ/g
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(Liu and Guo, 1998)

(Odum, 1996)
(Liu and Guo, 1998)
(Liu and Guo, 1998)
(Liu and Guo, 1998)
(This study using data from
Liu and Guo, 1998, calculated
as: Locomotive weight /
(distance travelled * life time))
(Bargigli and Ulgiati, 2003)
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
12
Making Emergy Analysis More Popular for Environmentally
Conscious Design and Manufacturing - Challenges and
Opportunities
ABSTRACT
As the need for changing the current non-sustainable industrial activities becomes
increasingly obvious, engineers are being forced to consider more holistic techniques for design and
assessment of industrial products and processes. As a result, techniques such as life cycle assessment
(LCA) and material flow analysis (MFA) have been developed and are increasingly popular. Many of
these techniques are similar to emergy analysis, but lack the thermodynamic basis and breadth of
emergy analysis. Although the need for including the contribution of ecosystems is widely recognized,
and even though emergy analysis is able to meet this need, emergy analysis has still found relatively
limited use in environmentally conscious design and manufacturing (ECDM) and LCA. Researchers in
the ECDM and LCA society who are aware of emergy analysis seem to have a mostly negative view of
the approach due to misunderstanding and inadequate access to details. This paper discusses the
reasons why emergy analysis is not popular for engineering use and LCA. Most of the criticisms of
emergy are either common to all holistic approaches that account for ecosystems within their systems
boundaries, or a result of misunderstandings derived from a lack of communication between various
disciplines. By identifying the main points of criticisms of emergy, this work attempts to clarify many of
the common misconceptions about emergy, inform the community of emergy practitioners about the
aspects that need to be communicated better or improved, and suggest solutions. Further research and
interaction with other disciplines, particularly engineering thermodynamics, is essential to bring
emergy analysis into the mainstream of ECDM and LCA.
INTRODUCTION
Industrial society is increasingly recognizing the need for changing its current non-sustainable
activities. For instance, DuPonts former CEO, Holliday (1999) argues that to be competitive in the
long term, industry will have to incorporate social and environmental aspects in its traditional decisionmaking objectives, and Elkington (1999), SustainAbility chairman, has described the triple bottom line
as enhancing simultaneously economic prosperity, environmental protection and social equity. As a
result, engineers are being forced to consider more holistic techniques for design and assessment of
industrial products and processes, a practice referred to as Environmentally Conscious Design and
Manufacture (ECDM).
Techniques such as life cycle assessment (LCA) and material flow analysis (MFA) attempt to
quantify critical environmental variables. These methods seek to scientifically evaluate ecological
variables, such as resource consumption and environmental impact, thus avoiding the arbitrariness in
economic approaches. Further development of sustainability evaluation methods has driven the
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Chapter 12. Making Emergy Analysis More Popular
engineering society into more thermodynamically founded techniques. For example, Energy flow
analysis (Spreng, 1988) is based on the first law of Thermodynamics, while exergy analysis also
considers the second law. According to this law, exergy or available energy is lost or consumed in all
processes, making it the ultimate limiting resource for the functioning of all systems and a promising
property for the joint analysis of industrial and ecological systems.
Exergy analysis only accounts for the exergy of material and energy streams flowing in the
process. Extensions of exergy analysis have focused on incorporating exergy consumed in various
inputs such as capital, labor, pollution remediation and natural resource utilization along the supply
chain (Szargut et al., 1988; Ayres et al., 1998; Sciubba, 2001; Wall, 2002; Connelly and Koshland,
2000; Cornelissen and Hirs, 2002). It becomes clear that many of these techniques are similar to
emergy analysis, but less developed and smaller in scope. Surprisingly, little attention has been paid to
emergy analysis, even though it is also capable of meeting the challenges of sustainability evaluation
and possibly more capable and holistic than most existing methods in ECDM. Most engineers are not
aware that ecological processes have also been analyzed using the same thermodynamic principles
common in engineering. Even those researchers who are aware of emergy analysis seem to have a
mostly negative view of the approach due to inadequate attention to details, poor communication of its
potential importance, and lack of clear links with related concepts in other disciplines.
This paper discusses the reasons why emergy analysis is not popular in ECDM. By
identifying the main points of criticisms of emergy, this work attempts to clarify many of the common
misconceptions about emergy, inform the community of emergy practitioners about the aspects that
need to be communicated better or improved, and suggest solutions. The new concept of Ecological
Cumulative Exergy Consumption and its relation to emergy shows how such links can strengthen
further interaction with other disciplines, particularly engineering thermodynamics. Cooperative
research is crucial to the enhancement of ECDM and LCA and can bring emergy analysis to a higher
level by expanding its practitioners opportunities to impact the industrial society and carry Odums
legacy into a more sustainable future.
The paper is structured in four sections. The first section describes attractive features that
make emergy analysis necessary in ECDM and LCA. The second section discusses the main sources of
criticisms that have hindered its use in the ECDM and LCA society. The third section describes a work
by Hau and Bakshi (2003a) and its implications in addressing most of the criticisms of emergy
analysis. Finally, the last section presents solutions and challenges for clearing up negative perceptions
about emergy analysis and setting it up as a model for ECDM methods.
EMERGY ANALYSIS AND SUSTAINABILITY

Sustainability evaluation demands tools that can deal with economic aspects, such as capital
investment and operating and maintenance costs, as well as environmental aspects, such as natural
resource consumption, water usage and environmental impact. Among the challenges that such
demands pose are combining dissimilar streams or quantities, estimating values for ecological goods
and services, and interpreting the variety of results. Existing approaches cope partially with these
challenges; however, they ignore the contribution of ecological processes to human progress and
wealth. Such processes not only create valuable natural resources and make them available to humans,
but also provide services and other goods upon which industrial processes unconsciously rely. Ignoring
them imposes a bias on the outcome of these evaluations since some processes may seem less resource
demanding than others just because they rely more on these services.
Emergy analysis overcomes many of these challenges and considers the contribution of
ecological goods and services. It provides a bridge that connects economic and ecological systems.
Since emergy is scientifically sound and shares the rigor of thermodynamic methods, it can compare
economic and ecological aspects on an objective basis that is independent of their perceived monetary
value. Emergy compensates for the inability of money to value non-market inputs in an objective
manner, providing an ecocentric valuation method. Its common unit allows all resources to be
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compared on a fair basis and facilitates interpretation of results. Emergy analysis recognizes the
different qualities of energy or abilities to do work within a network. Summarizing, emergy analysis
provides a more holistic alternative to many existing methods for ECDM. These features of emergy
analysis are particularly impressive since emergy was developed many decades before the more recent
engineering and corporate interest in life cycle assessment, industrial ecology and sustainability.
Despite the fact that emergy analysis provides a powerful framework for sustainability
evaluation, it has remained unexploited in the field. This is particularly surprising and unfortunate
because symbiosis could bring great advances and benefits in both fields. The lack of use of emergy
analysis is not caused by unawareness, but by a sort of rejection that originates from a long history of
criticism. As a matter of fact, the younger generations of engineers seem not to be familiar with the
approach itself but already have a negative preconceived notion of emergy analysis. The next section
discusses the main sources of criticism of emergy analysis and other causes that contribute to this
situation.
CRITICISMS OF EMERGY ANALYSIS

Emergy theory has been characterized as simplistic, contradictory, misleading and inaccurate
(Ayres, 1998; Cleveland et al., 2000; Mansson and McGlade, 1993; Spreng, 1988). Rebuttals of many
critiques have also been published (Patten, 1993; Odum, 1995). However, much of the persistent
skepticism seems to stem from the difficulty in obtaining details about the underlying computations,
and a lack of formal links with related concepts in other disciplines. Odums book (1996), emergy
folios (Odum et al., 2000; Odum, 2000; Brown and Bardi, 2001; Brandt-Williams, 2001), and plans for
an emergy handbook are important and essential steps to provide greater insight and understanding
about emergy.
The major criticisms of Emergy Analysis are described below and discussed in more detail in
Hau and Bakshi (2003b). Although they may seem trifling or unjust, addressing them is essential to
undo this negative preconception about emergy analysis and boost its involvement in ECDM.
Emergy and Economics

Odum (1988) argues that [m]oney cannot be used directly to measure environmental
contributions to the public good, since money is paid only to people for their services, not to the
environment generating resources or assimilating wastes. Since emergy does consider all
contributions to the public good and truly measures value, it is suggested as a complete measure of
wealth and a substitute for money (Odum, 1984).
These claims are among the most controversial aspects of emergy analysis and have been
most widely criticized (Ayres, 1998; Cleveland et al., 2000; Spreng, 1988). The emergy theory of
value, as other theories of value based on energy and exergy (Cleveland et al., 2000; Spreng, 1988),
focuses on the supply side and ignores human preference and demand. Modern economics has doubted
the ability of all such theories to capture the value of products to humans. For instance, two paintings
with similar emergies can have drastically different values, especially if one of them is by a renowned
painter. Consequently, all of the thermodynamic theories of value have been rejected by economists
over the last several decades. What most critiques of emergy-based valuation seem to miss is that
emergy aims to provide an ecocentric value of ecological and industrial products and processes. This is
in direct contrast to the economic view, which is anthropocentric. Clearly, the latter view is dominant
today, but eventually it will have to shift to a more ecocentric view if it intends to guide humanity to its
survival.
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Maximum Empower Principle

The Maximum Empower Principle claims that all self-organizing systems tend to maximize
their rate of emergy use or empower (Odum, 1996; Odum, 1988). This principle predicts which
species, populations, or ecosystems (or systems of whatever kind) will survive. Such broad, as yet
unsubstantiated, claims have made this principle extremely controversial (Ayres, 1998). Mansson and
McGlade (1993) argue that the behavior of complex systems cannot be described with a onedimensional optimizing principle, categorizing this principle as misleadingly simplistic. They also
claim to have invalidated this principle. However, the validity of their proof has been questioned
(Odum, 1995; Patten, 1993).
The Maximum Empower Principle seems to be one of Odums contributions that is ahead of
its time. Consequently, it will continue to be a cause of arguments and further scientific exploration
until it is scientifically proven or disproven. Recent results on maximum entropy production in selforganized systems indicate that some systems do tend to maximize power (Lorenz, 2003; Dewar,
2003). In addition, Giannantoni (2003) proposes a mathematical formulation of the Maximum
Empower Principle, which may be essential for addressing questions about the validity of this
principle, and for providing a general proof.
Relation with Other Thermodynamic Quantities

There seems to be much confusion about the relationship between emergy and other
thermodynamic properties such as energy, exergy, and enthalpy. The qualitative difference, as pointed
out by Odum and coworkers, is that unlike emergy, these thermodynamic quantities do not recognize
the difference in quality of various energy sources (Odum 1988, Odum 1996). However, formal
quantitative links are missing between emergy and these properties. This leads to impressions that
emergy analysis is a very different approach from exergy analysis (Emblemsvag and Bras, 2001).
Similarly, Ayres (1998) questions the need for emergy as opposed to standard variables of
thermodynamics, namely enthalpy and exergy.
There is also some confusion about the exact definition of available energy. Sometimes, it is
Gibbs free energy, exergy, kinetic energy or potential energy; but at other times it is implicitly
identified in terms of a function of money and other physical inflows, as when estimating human
services. This lack of formal links between emergy and other thermodynamic quantities is a significant
cause of skepticism about emergy among engineers. Some efforts have been made to connect emergy
with exergy (Ulgiati, 1999). As a starting point, Hau and Bakshi (2003a) have recently derived the
concept of emergy based on exergy.
Combining Disparate Time Scales

Conceptually, the calculation of emergy of some stored natural resources, such as metals, coal
and fossil fuels, would require knowing all the solar energy that was required to make them.
Accounting for solar inputs over geological time scales is problematic since it is difficult, if not
impossible, to know the inputs and processes over such a long period (Ayres, 1998; Cleveland et al.,
2000). Common questions concern how to account for the emergy of metals that existed from the
formation of the Earth and whether the emergy of fossil fuels includes the emergy of the living systems
from whence they are derived. A deep look into these questions reveals that the emergy of minerals
and fossil fuels does not account for the emergy of their formation, but instead considers the emergy of
concentrating them into ores and reservoirs, which is also the case for metals. Although such
approximations can be justified by specifying temporal system boundaries, making some assumptions
or reporting missing data, it is important to clearly communicate the approach taken so these
approximations are not taken as discrepancies and do not raise unnecessary doubts.
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Representing Global Energy Flows in Solar Equivalents

Emergy analysis represents all energy flows in solar equivalents. This requires conversion of
planetary energy inputs, such as tidal energy and crustal heat, into solar equivalents. Ayres (1998)
questions such conversions since there is no simple way to discover how much of any one form of
energy might have been needed to produce another in the distant past. Calculation of the emergy of
deep earth heat and tidal energy inherently carries some assumptions regarding the efficiency with
which they are carried to their point of application. These assumptions, which do not imply that solar
energy is being converted into tidal energy or deep earth heat, may be explained with the maximum
empower principle. However, they can also be justified as the means to determine conversion factors
based on the observed effects of these disparate forms of energy. The primary benefit of this approach
is that it allows a fair comparison of the concentration of different kinds of energy and does not inherit
the criticism of the maximum empower principle.
Problems of Quantification
Emergy analysis has not considered the uncertainty in many of the numbers used to calculate
the transformities. Averaged transformities of industrial and geological processes are frequently used
in specific case studies without showing sensitivity of the data reported. This criticism is also shared
by most other approaches; however, addressing it becomes crucial as the size and complexity of the
system increases and information decreases, which is the case with emergy analysis.
Problems of Allocation
The method used for partitioning or allocating inputs between multiple outputs makes the
emergy algebra quite challenging. Allocation is probably the most confusing aspect of emergy
analysis, particularly to engineers who are used to conservation equations, even for systems with
recycle pathways. The decision of whether multiple outputs are co-products or splits may not always
be obvious either. For example, the outputs of a crude oil distillation column may raise arguments
about whether they should be treated as co-products or splits. This issue can be made irrelevant by
verifying the variability of the results due to different approaches for ambiguous outputs. Moreover,
such allocation can be made more appealing to engineers by showing its practical benefits, rather than
by justifying it theoretically.
Before drawing conclusions about the legitimacy and relevance of the criticisms discussed
above, the next section discusses the link between emergy and exergy as derived by Hau and Bakshi
(2003a). The significance of this section is that it addresses all of the criticisms by showing that they
are either irrelevant for general purposes, common to all holistic approaches that account for
ecosystems and other macrosystems within their systems boundaries, or a result of misunderstandings
derived from a lack of communication between various disciplines.
LINKING EMERGY AND EXERGY

Improved understanding of the relationship between emergy and exergy is essential for
constructive cross-fertilization between these areas. Such insight is essential for greater use of the data
and concepts of emergy analysis in evaluating the life cycle of engineering products and processes.
Engineering thermodynamic methods include exergy analysis (Szargut et al., 1988), thermoeconomics
(Bejan et al., 1996), Cumulative Exergy Consumption (CEC) (Szargut et al., 1988), and Extended
Exergy Analysis (Sciubba, 2001). An extension of these methods has been proposed by the authors to
connect exergy with emergy (Hau and Bakshi, 2003a). The resulting concept of Ecological Cumulative
Exergy Consumption (ECEC) starts with the basic premise that available energy as used in emergy
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analysis and exergy analysis are equivalent. ECEC expands CEC analysis to include ecological
systems and shows that the resulting ECEC can be equivalent to emergy if three conditions are
satisfied.
First, the analysis boundary for both methods should be identical. This means that the same
processes or network should be analyzed.
Second, the allocation method should be the same at each node for both methods.
Finally, the same approach should be used for combining the global energy inputs, that is, the
global energy inputs may be combined via their transformities or some other approach.
These conditions are usually easy to satisfy and indicate the exact relationship between exergy and
emergy, thus addressing the criticism about the relation of emergy with other thermodynamic
quantities.
Since ECEC analysis derives from expanding exergy analysis system boundaries and is
related to emergy analysis, it is made clear that exergy analysis is inevitably exposed to the same
challenges faced by emergy and therefore to the same criticisms regarding disparate time scales,
representation of dissimilar streams in equivalent units, and the same issues about quantification and
reporting sensitivity. Moreover, the allocation approach used in ECEC analysis, which partitions
ECEC in proportion to the exergy of the outputs and follows conservation law, is possible only if
knowledge about the network and products is fully available. However, for ecological systems, this
approach to allocation is virtually impossible. Emergy allocation proves convenient since it can deal
with ecological systems, thus addressing the criticism about allocation.
SOLUTIONS AND CHALLENGES FOR THE FUTURE

Controversy surrounding the maximum empower principle reflects societys limited
understanding of the behavior of complex systems. Detailed studies of the maximum empower
principle and its connection with other concepts governing the behavior of self-organized systems is
necessary. However, as shown above, the maximum empower principle need not hinder the application
of emergy analysis by compromising every aspect of it. As for the criticism regarding emergy and
economics, it can be addressed by using emergy and economic indicators as complementary, which
provides a better estimator of value than the separate sets.
The other criticisms are not really attributable to emergy analysis, but to the nature of the
systems studied by it and, therefore, are also shared by methods such as LCA, MFA, and ECEC. As a
result, the negative preconceived notion of emergy analysis among ECDM practitioners can be
eliminated by showing the analogies with ECDM methods, establishing formal links with common
properties such as exergy and by focusing on the strengths of emergy while acknowledging unproven
claims.
Educating the industrial and ECDM society about emergy analysis requires more accessible
and comprehensive sources. Emergy folios are a great start, but more is needed. Projects for an emergy
analysis handbook, a website for performing emergy analysis and accessing a concise and complete
database of transformities are essential. The quality and uncertainty of the data used should be reported
(e.g. tabulating the mean and variance of commonly used transformities). Finally, reorganizing emergy
analysis by categorizing different inputs or aspects by levels of assumptions or different ranges of
confidence should strengthen the rigor and improve understanding and interpretation of the analysis.
Finally, implementing these solutions should not only clear up all misconceptions and negative
perceptions of emergy analysis, but should also establish it as a model for ECDM and sustainability
evaluation methods.
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REFERENCES
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Bejan, A., Tsatsaronis, G. and Moran, M., 1996. Thermal Design and Optimization. John Wiley &
Sons, New York, 543 pp.
Brandt-Williams, S.L., 2001. Folio #4, Emergy of Florida Agriculture. Handbook of Emergy
Evaluation, Center for Environmental Policy, Environmental Engineering Sciences,
University of Florida, Gainesville.
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Connelly, L. and Koshland, C. P., 2000. Two aspects of consumption: Using an exergy based measure
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Cornelissen, R. L. and Hirs, G. G., 2002. The value of the exergetic life cycle assessment besides the
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Emblemsvag, J. and Bras, B., 2001. Activity-Based Cost and Environmental Management, A Different
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Hau, J.L. and Bakshi, B.R., 2003a. Expanding Exergy Analysis to Account for Ecological Inputs.
Technical Report, Department of Chemical Engineering, Ohio State University,
www.che.eng.ohio-state.edu/~bakshi/ECEC.pdf.
Hau, J.L. and Bakshi, B.R., 2003b. Promise and Problems of Emergy Analysis. Technical Report,
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Holliday, C., 1999. DuPont CEO Sees Sustainability as Main Industrial Challenge of the New Century.
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http://www.dupont.com/corp/news/speeches/holliday_11_29_99.html.
Lorenz, R., 2003. Full steam aheadProbably. Science, 299: 837-838.
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Odum, H.T., 1984. Embodied energy, foreign trade and welfare of nations. In: A-M. Jansson (Editor),
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Wallenberg Symposium. Stockholm: Asko Laboratory, University of Stockholm, pp. 185199.
Odum, H.T., 1988. Self-organization, transformity, and information. Science, 242: 1132-1139.
Odum, H. T., 1995. Energy-systems concepts and self-organization A Rebuttal, Oecologia, 104, 4,
518-522.
Odum, H.T., 1996. Environmental Accounting: EMERGY and Environmental Decision Making. John
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Odum, H.T., 2000. Folio #2, Emergy of Global Processes. Handbook of Emergy Evaluation, Center for
Environmental Policy, Environmental Engineering Sciences, University of Florida,
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Odum, H.T., Brown, M.T. and Brandt-Williams, S.L., 2000. Folio #1, Introduction and Global Budget.
Handbook of Emergy Evaluation, Center for Environmental Policy, Environmental
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Patten, B.C., 1993. Toward a more holistic ecology, and sciencethe contribution of Odum, H.T.
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Sciubba, E., 2001. Beyond thermoeconomics? The concept of extended exergy accounting and its
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Spreng, D.T., 1988. Net-Energy Analysis and the Energy Requirements of Energy Systems. Praeger
Publishers, New York, 289 pp.
Szargut, J., Morris, D.R. and Steward, F.R, 1988. Exergy Analysis of Thermal, Chemical and
Metallurgical Processes. Hemisphere Pubs., New York, 332 pp.
Ulgiati, S., 1999. Energy, Emergy and Embodied Exergy: Diverging or Converging Approaches,
Proceedings of the First Biennial Emergy Analysis Conference, Gainesville, Florida.
Wall, Goran, 2002. Conditions and tools in the design of energy conservation and management
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
13
Discussion on EMERGY Allocation in Joint Production and Wastes
ABSTRACT
The objective of this paper is to discuss several methods of EMERGY allocation in joint
production and to present an approach for dealing with wastes (a form of joint production) within the
framework of EMERGY analysis.
Biophysical or economic criteria are often considered in the allocation of joint-products.
Several biophysical and economic weights for this are discussed, including the conventional EMERGY
approach, EMERGY fractions, energy/exergy weights and economic value, and their effects on final
result.
This analysis was illustrated by a case study of the Portuguese eucalyptus pulp industry. To
calculate the EMERGY of wastes, the energy needed by nature to absorb them should be used. In this
case, the analysis is made downstream, instead of upstream, i.e., wastes EMERGY should be allocated
to the products of the activity that produces them. This approach sheds a favorable light on industries
that recycle (i.e., using wastes as their resources), because they are using zero EMERGY resources.
INTRODUCTION
According to Guine et al. (2004) joint production is defined as a unit process yielding two or
more flows constituting the goal of this unit process (also called functional flow). In a unit process,
three situations may occur: the existence of two or more functional outflows without any functional
inflow, co-production, where there is the production of two useful outputs and where the inputs are not
the goal of the process; the existence of no functional outflow but more than one functional inflow
wastes processing, where the goal of the process is to treat the inputs, i.e. wastes; or the existence of
more than one functional inflows and more than one functional outflows recycling process, where
the goal is to treat wastes in the form of inputs and to produce a useful product.
Allocation of joint-products has raised discussion, especially among life cycle analysts (see
for instance Guine et al., 2004, and Weidema and Norris, 2002), on how impacts on emissions and
resource depletion are allocated to each co/by-product. Several approaches have been created such as
partitioning according to mass, energy or economic values and substitution (avoided processes are
subtracted from the process flows).
Ayres (2004) refers to EMERGY, as well as many other methods of analysis, as having
difficulty in practice dealing with joint outputs. This paper presents a summarized discussion on
several approaches to joint production, including the EMERGY approach.
Wastes can be defined as a below zero economic value flow (Guine et al., 2004). EMERGY,
as many other methods, handles wastes by considering the inputs to the end of pipe treatment
processes inside the economy; that is, after pollution is generated, the EMERGY used to clean emissions
or minimize the wastes impacts on environment is calculated. The effects of wastes on environment, in
general, are not accounted for. They can be determined by calculating the EMERGY related to the
environmental impacts verified. For instance, the EMERGY of emissions to the environment generating
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Chapter 13. Discussion on EMERGY Allocation
acid rain (e.g. sulphur dioxide, SO2) can be determined through the calculation of the EMERGY of the
plants destroyed by the acid rain. However in practice, this is not usually done.
To effectively provide information for decision-makers and lead to possible changes in the
systems analyzed, EMERGY analysis must be able to provide answers to some important some
questions, such as where to act within the economic structure of the system. EMERGY is quite silent
about this by not allocating the EMERGY of wastes to whom is responsible for them, and instead
analyzing the system as a whole. Although there is much literature on internalizing externalities into
the production processes (e.g. Bastianoni et al., 2001), intermediate transformities (those used to
determine the systems EMERGY flows) do not incorporate these externalities (for instance the
transformities for fossil fuels do not include the impacts for land occupation, or the impacts of an
eventual oil spill).
The structure of this paper is as follows: first, we discuss the problem of allocation of joint
production; then we present a discussion on how to consider wastes in EMERGY analysis; and finally we
report on the application of two approaches for joint production in EMERGY analysis for the case study
of the Portuguese eucalyptus pulp industry: conventional EMERGY analysis (Equation 1) and the
energy/exergy value weighting approach (Equation 6).
ALLOCATION IN JOINT PRODUCTION

One unit operation can receive multiple mass or energy fluxes and it can produce more than
one useful output flux (and also produce waste fluxes). In the situation of the production of more than
one product, it is very difficult or impossible to determine the inputs fractions that are related to each
of the joint products, creating the problem of determining the unknown tx and ty , respectively by the
transformities of joint products x and y (see Figure 1a).
Figure 1. (a) Simplified joint production process with two inputs and two outputs. (b) Separate production of the
two products in (a).
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To solve this allocation problem

each product:
B xy
B xy
tx =
, ty =
,
Ey
Ex
EMERGY
analysis assigns the total
EMERGY
(of inputs) to
(1)
where Ex and Ey are the energies of joint products x and y, respectively, and B xy is the
inputs i and ii ( B xy = B xy( i ) + B xy( ii ) ). These equations lead to a total output
EMERGY
EMERGY
of
that is higher
than the total input EMERGY, i.e., total EMERGY is non-additive with respect to joint-products (EMERGY
rule #4, Brown and Herendeen, 1996). This complicates both calculation and analysis and Bastianoni
and Marchettini (2000) state that it can lead to the precipitate conclusion that joint-production is not
feasible when compared to the production of only one output. Bastianoni and Marchettini (2000)
introduce new EMERGY based indices, to help analyze complex joint-production systems. These are the
joint transformity, txy ,
t xy =
B xy
(2)
Ex + Ey
and the weighted average of transformities, t xy ,
txy =
Ey
B + By
Ex
tx +
ty = x
,
Ex + E y
Ex + E y
Ex + E y
(3)
where tx and ty are, respectively, the transformities of x and y when produced separately (separate
production); and Bx and By the EMERGIES of separate production of products x and y (see
Figure 1b), independent of the system under analysis. Joint-production is better than separate
production if, and only if, txy < t xy , i.e. Bxy < Bx + By (note, however, that either separate
production or co-production may not be possible). This is a good indicator to help in the conclusion
about the efficiency of joint-production, compared to outputs separate production. However, it does
not solve the problem of the complexity of calculation and analysis.
Avoiding Allocation in Joint Production

EN ISO 14041 (1998) presents, as a first approach to deal with joint-production, the
expansion of system boundaries to vary the amount of each co-product while holding constant all the
other products amounts (Azapagic and Clift, 1994; Fleischer, G., 1994; Finnveden, G., 1994; and
Ekvall, T., 1994). Expanding system boundaries allows consideration of all relevant joint-products.
System expansion, however, does not solve the problem for processes where the ratio of jointproducts is necessarily fixed, leading to the need of allocation. Weidema and Norris (2002) refer to
system boundary expansion as a more general theory, while allocation in joint-production is seen as a
particular case of system boundary expansion. However, in this paper, the two approaches (system
boundary expansion and allocation) are treated separately.
EMERGY Values Weighting Approach

Another approach is the use of
production of each of the joint-products:
By
Bx
B x =
B xy , B y =
B xy .
Bx + B y
Bx + B y
EMERGY
values as weighting factors for the separate

(4)
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This approach considers the separate production of products x and y. It has complex
computation since it requires data on the separate production of the joint-products (which may not be
available) and their EMERGY value.
Economic Values Weighting Approach

Another approach discussed in EN ISO 14041 (1998), and largely used in life cycle analysis
(LCA), is to use economic values as weighting factors. This approach considers the economic value
created by a process as the driver of that process, and it uses allocation factors based on joint-products
prices (Guine et al., 2004).
The advantages of such a method are that a greater fraction of resources and emissions
(environmental impacts) are allocated to products with greater market value; hence the cost of a given
product incorporates a proportional responsibility to the environment.
The inconvenience of this approach is that it incorporates human preferences (which are
somehow against biophysical principles) and that other allocation procedures must be used when
analyzing natural systems, where the economic price is zero.
Energy/Exergy Values Weighting Approach

The fourth approach considered is to use energy (Finnveden, 1994; Ekvall, 1994) or exergy as
a weighting factor (other biophysical properties could be employed such as mass, molar content,
volume or area). The energy allocation procedure is given by:
Ey
Ex
B x =
B xy , B y =
B xy .
(5)
Ex + Ey
Ex + Ey
~
Using energy as a weighting factor, one can redefine transformities, t , as the total EMERGY
of a process divided by its total energy. These redefined transformities are equal to the joint
transformities defined by Bastianoni and Marchettini (2000), where these redefined transformities are
used for the total EMERGY computation, and not as a mere indicator. Therefore,
B xy
~
~
~
t xy = ~
t y = tx =
, B x = E x t x , B y = E y t y
(6)
Ex + Ey
~
t x is equal to tx when there is no co-production. With this approach there is no need to use separate
production values to evaluate joint-production and these redefined transformities from joint-products
are equal (as in usual energy analysis), so allocation becomes very simple (joint-products and splits are
treated in the same way). Also, the problem of double counting is eliminated since joint-products
impacts (on resources or emissions) can be summed.
WASTES IN EMERGY ANALYSIS

Waste has been defined as a below zero economic value flow (Guine et al. 2004). EMERGY,
as well as many other methods, handles wastes by considering the inputs to the end of pipe treatment
processes inside the economy to minimize the wastes impacts on the environment. Wastes emitted to
the environment, and their effects on it, are not considered.
Allocation in waste treatment processes, from our point of view, should give responsibility
for waste treatment or its environmental burdens to producers of a product or service, and so wastes
treatment EMERGY should be allocated to these producers.
Figure 2 presents a generic economic operation, producing wastes. The economic operation
receives from the environment products and services (ecological services) and, from the economy
other products (the latter are not presented in Figure 2). Three major processes with respect to wastes
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production can occur: treatment operations in economic systems; recycling within economic systems;
and emissions to the environment. The first and the second are the end of pipe processes.
Consider first the effect of treatment on wastes EMERGY. Wastes EMERGY is zero when
emitted from a production process. It might be considered that EMERGY of wastes would be acquired in
treatment operations through the inputs needed for the treatment operation. However, treatment
operations transform wastes into other wastes. Hence, the EMERGY acquired by wastes in treatment
operations should be allocated to the useful product, whose production process originally produced the
wastes. Hence, wastes always have zero EMERGY. The useful products EMERGY is then the sum of its
productive EMERGY plus the EMERGY of its waste treatment operations.
Figure 2. Simplified scheme for waste treatment, recycling and release to the environment in a generic economic
system. The dashed arrow presents both natural resources and ecological services used by the economic system
under analysis. Energy degradation is not presented.
Consider now recycling within the economic system. A recycling operation is a productive
process that transforms wastes into market-valued resources. Hence, zero EMERGY wastes are
transformed into new resources with an EMERGY equal to the EMERGY of the recycling process, i.e. the
EMERGY of the recycled product is equal to the EMERGY of the recycling process, calculated as a
general operation.
Consider now the emissions to the environment (note that all treatment and recycling
operations emit wastes to the environment, besides those wastes emitted directly to the environment
without any treatment, e.g. CO2). Emissions are analyzed by considering wastes assimilation by
nature through a virtual process of transforming them into new economic resources. To track the
passage of wastes through the environment, one of two approaches can be followed:
Choose the most probable passage of wastes through the environment, till they became a market
valuable resource; or
Choose a virtual process of natural assimilation, considering that this process occurs for the wastes
considered (similar to the approach for wastes taken by the Ecological Footprint method,
Wackernagel and Rees, 1998).
For processes occurring in the environment it is possible to consider natural production
processes where the inputs are wastes and the outputs are market-valued resources. The emergy of the
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natural processes used to assimilate the wastes (as in the case of waste treatment within economic
systems) must be allocated to the main product that created the waste in first place. For example, in
Figure 3 the same economic activity is presented with two different system boundaries. Considering
the first boundary (figure 3a), CO2 would have an EMERGY value equal to pulps, since they are joint
products. CO2 emitted is then sequestered by forests, producing new wood, but this process is not
considered in the analysis using the boundary in Figure 3a. Considering the second boundary (Figure
3b, CO2 and pulp still have the same EMERGY value, but CO2 sequestration by forests is now also
included. In this situation it is easier to see that the system has an output (wood) that is equal to one
of its inputs. However, they would have different EMERGY values since they come from different
processes.
If we consider the concept of avoided environmental burdens, the economic activity is
producing an output that can substitute an input (for instance, wood as fuel), and thus, this concept
would indicate that the EMERGY of the input (wood as fuel) should be subtracted from the main
products (in this case, pulp) EMERGY. Doing so, we are benefiting the economic activity due to the
fact that it produces a useful output (although indirectly).
Since the production of the new resource using waste emissions avoids the use of raw
environment resources, this should be counted in favour of the economic system.
There are two problems with this approach: persistent pollutants and energy wastes (heat).
Heat release to the environment is an irreversible process increasing entropy, and this matter must be
further investigated.
Other
inputs
Wood
(for pulp)
Wood
CO2
Economic
Activity
Wood
(for fuel)
Pulp
(a)
Other
inputs
CO2
Wood
(for pulp)
Economic
Activity
Wood
(for fuel)
Wood
Pulp
(b)
Figure 3. The same economic activity analyzed with two different system boundaries, where system (a) is
contained in system (b). The system boundaries are depicted by dashed rectangular boxes. The dashed arrow
depicts a process occurring in nature (outside the economic system).
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CASE STUDY FOR ALLOCATION WITH A JOINT-PRODUCT:

PORTUGUESE EUCALYPTUS PULP PRODUCTION
This section uses the example of the Portuguese eucalyptus pulp production to compare two
approaches for analyzing joint-products: conventional EMERGY analysis (Equation 1) and the
energy/exergy value weighting approach (Equation 6).
Using the energy/exergy value weighting approach, EMERGY algebra is changed, thus it is
necessary to recalculate all transformities published up to now according to the new algebra. For the
redefinition of the transformities it is necessary to go upstream in the energy fluxes, back to the solar
energy from the sun contribution. Solar energy arriving on Earth from the Sun is split (Oort and
Peixoto, 1992; Smil, 1991); about 20% is absorbed by the atmosphere and is used for wind generation
and other atmospheric processes. Land and oceans capture 50% of solar radiation. The remaining 30%
is sent back to space by clouds, dust and the earths surface reflection.
However, as a simple example to compare the results and effects of using different
approaches in analyzing joint-production, conventional EMERGY analysis (Equation 1) was used for
calculating the EMERGY of inputs. The EMERGY of outputs was determined using both approaches:
conventional EMERGY analysis (Equation 1) and the energy/exergy values weighting approach
(Equation 6). Results are presented in Table 1.
The pulp industrial process has two products, pulp and electricity (obtained through cogeneration), making it a good example for illustrating allocation in joint-products. The EMERGY
diagram for pulp production is presented in Figure 4. Data on eucalyptus pulp production can be found
in Table 1, which reports averages obtained from Portuguese producers. Notes to Table 1 can be found
in the Appendix.
In the joint-production scenario conventional EMERGY analysis allocates the total EMERGY of
2.61x1017 seJ to both pulp and electricity, yielding transformities of 3.41x104 seJ/J and 6.59x105 seJ/J,
respectively.
Figure 4. EMERGY diagram of Portuguese eucalyptus pulp production.
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Table 1. EMERGY Contributions to Pulp Production (Figure 4), considering the production of 1000
ton of printing and writing paper.
Inflow
Emergy/Unit
Emergy
Note Inputs and Units
(Units/FU)
(seJ/unit)
(E16 seJ/FU)
Euc. prod:
1 Direct Solar Radiation, J
2.17E+14
1.00E+00
0.02
2 Rain, g
6.40E+11
1.28E+05
8.19
3 Net mineral topsoil loss, g
2.31E+04
1.68E+09
0.00
4 Fuel, J
6.13E+10
6.60E+04
0.40
5 Coal, J
4.91E+06
5.71E+04
0.00
6 Natural Gas, J
8.19E+07
5.71E+04
0.00
7 Nitrogen (from fertilizer), g
1.99E+06
2.41E+10
4.79
8 Phosphate (from fertilizer), g
5.80E+04
2.20E+10
0.13
9 Potash (from fertilizer), g
0.00E+00
1.74E+09
0.00
Transport:
10 Fuel, J
5.21E+9
6.60E+04
0.03
Pulp prod:
11 Water, g
2.75E+10
1.28E+05
0.35
12 Fuel, J
8.94E+11
6.60E+04
5.90
13 Chemicals, g
9.92E+07
6.38E+08
6.33
14
Total
--------------------26.12
Outputs
Output
Transformity
Transformity
(Units/FU)
using
using
conventional
Energy/Exergy
Method
Weighting
(Total EMERGY
approach (Total
/ Output)
EMERGY*output/
total output)
15 Pulp, J
7.66E+12
3.41E+04
3.24E+04
16 Co-generated Electricity (kWhr)
3.97E+11
6.59E+05
3.24E+04
Abbreviations: seJ = solar emJoules; yr = year; E16 means multiplied by 1016; FU = functional unit, 1000 tones
of printing and writing paper, correspondent to 610 ton of pulp.
Now, let us consider the energy/exergy weighting approach (Equation 6). Results show a
redefined transformity of 3.24x104 seJ/J for both pulp and co-generated electricity. This value is
lower than that obtained by conventional EMERGY analysis (Equation 1) for pulp (3.41x104 seJ/J) and
electricity (6.59x105 seJ/J). EMERGY values for pulp and electricity, using the energy/exergy weighting
approach (Equation 6), are 2.48x1017 seJ and 0.13x1017 seJ, respectively. The sum of these values is
equal to total EMERGY by using the conventional EMERGY approach (Equation 1), 2.61x1017 seJ.
Electricity is allocated with a lower EMERGY content using the energy/exergy weighting approach
(Equation 6) due its lower energy content.
The energy/exergy weighting approach (Equation 6) presents different results than the
conventional EMERGY analysis (Equation 1). Using the energy/exergy weighting approach (Equation
6), since pulp has higher energy content, more EMERGY is allocated to this output so that the
transformity of both outputs are equal.
-180-
CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER WORK

Two important points were discussed in this paper: allocation to joint-products, and the way
that EMERGY handles wastes.
Several approaches for joint-production were referred to in this paper. All the approaches
presented advantages and disadvantages when compared to each other. Different approaches lead to
different results when analyzing a particular system.
For true joint-products, impacts (from resources or emissions) can be allocated using the
conventional EMERGY analysis (Equation 1), EMERGY weights, economic weights, or energy/exergy
weighting approach (Equation 6). If joint-products are not real joint-products, it is possible to vary the
amount of one co-product holding all other output amounts constant, allowing the determination of the
inputs impacts, for which each joint-product is responsible. Also, a change in joint-production
allocation procedure leads to the need for the determination of new transformities for EMERGY.
In this paper an approach for wastes was presented as follows:
All sources of EMERGY for a process should be assigned to the process useful output(s).
Wastes are not considered useful outputs, so they have zero EMERGY value.
The EMERGY from a waste treatment operation should be assigned to the product that
originated the waste.
Recycling operations are seen as productive operations, transforming wastes into new
products. EMERGY from a recycling operation must be assigned to the new product
produced.
Of the three situations analyzed for wastes, wastes emitted to nature are more complicated to
analyze than recycling and waste treatment operations within economic systems. The proposal
presented is to track wastes through the environment until they produce a new market-valued output,
allocating their EMERGY to the product that generated the wastes in first place. This approach was not
applied to the case study and needs further investigation.
Transformities and EMERGY values can be very different when different approaches are used
for joint-production. This paper showed that using energy/exergy weighting approach (Equation 6)
provides different results than conventional EMERGY analysis (Equation 1). However, for these new
approaches to be applied in practice, further comparisons must be made between the different
allocation procedures, and the methods for tracking wastes in the environment must be refined.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to thank Ins Azevedo, Nuno Cegonho and Tnia Sousa for their discussions
on this paper. A special thanks to Ana Simes, for her interest and contributions. This work was
supported by: POCTI under grant General Theory of Sustainability and Application to Agriculture,
POCTI/MGS/47731/2002; and by FLAD under grant 631/03.
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European Workshop on Allocation in LCA. SETAC, Leiden.
Bastianoni, S., Fugaro, L., Principi, I., Rosini, M., 2001. The Artificial Water Cycle: Emergy Analysis
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Brandt-Williams, S., 2001. Handbook of Emergy Evaluation: Folio #4, Emergy of Florida Agriculture.
Center for Environmental Policy, University of Florida, Gainesville.
Brown, M. T., Herendeen, R. A., 1996. Embodied Energy Analysis and EMERGY Analysis: a
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LCA, SETAC, Leiden.
Fleischer, G., 1994. The Allocation of Open-Loop-Recycling in LCA. In Huppes, G., Schneider, F.
(eds.), Proceedings of the European Workshop on Allocation in LCA. SETAC, Leiden.
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Huppes, G., 1994. A General Method for Allocation in LCA. In Huppes, G., Schneider, F. (eds.),
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(visited in September 2003).
Odum, H. T., 1996. Environmental Accounting: EMERGY and Environmental Decision Making. John
Wiley & Sons, New York.
Odum, H., Brown, M.T., Brandt-Williams, S., 2000. Handbook of Emergy Evaluation: Folio #1,
Introduction and Global Budget. Center for Environmental Policy, University of Florida,
Gainesville.
Ortega, E., 1998. Tabela de Transformidades (emergia/Joule, emergia/kg, emergia/US$) de Recursos
Naturais, Consumos Industriais e Produtos de Ecossistemas. LEIA/DEA/FEA/Unicamp,
www.unicamp.br/fea/ortega/ (visited in October 2002).
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Patterson, M. G., 2002. Ecological Production Based Pricing of Biosphere Processes. Ecol. Econ. 41:
457-478.
Pedersen, B., 1993. Environmental Assessment of Products: A Course on Life Cycle Assessment.
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Salgueiro, P., Coimbra, S., Sousa, C., 1996. Estudo dos Danos Causados no Ambiente pelo Uso de
Fertilizantes, Trabalho para a Cadeira de Energia e Ambiente. Insituto Superior Tcnico,
Lisboa.
Smil, V., 1991. General Energetics: Energy in the Biosphere and Civilization. John Wiley & Sons,
New York.
Vieira, R., 2002. Avaliao Economico-Ecolgica Comparativa de Papel de Fibra de eucalipto e de
Cnhamo: Trabalho Final de Curso, Documento 2. Instituto Superior Tcnico.
http://meteo.ist.utl.pt/~jjdd/LEAMB/LEAmb%20TFC%20site%20v1/2001-2002_PPT97.htm
(visited in December 2003).
Wackernagel, M., Rees, W., 1998. Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact om the Earth.
New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island.
Weidema, B. P.; Norris, G. A. 2002. Avoiding Co-product Allocation in the Metals Sector.
Presentation for the ICMM International Workshop on Life Cycle Assessment and Metals,
15-17 April 2002, Montral.
-182-
APPENDIX
Notes to Table 1
1
Direct Solar Radiation: Transformity = 1 seJ/J (Odum 1996); Average Annual Insolation =
6.49E+09 J/m2 (between 140 and 155 kcal/m2, Instituto do Ambiente, 2003); Area = 2.3E+04 m2
(obtained from mass wood logs from Portuguese industries, using eucalyptus productivity obtained
from Globulus 2.1); a 30% albedo was considered; Sun energy = 2,17E+14 J.
Rain: EMERGY/mass = 128000 seJ/g (Odum, 1996 corrected by a factor of 1.68); Water needs
(consumption from rain) = 6.40E+11 g (Sequeira per. com., considering 700 mm as the ideal
precipitation for eucalyptus, we have 0.7 m3/m2, the area needed to produce eucalyptus for 1000 ton
paper is 9.14E+05, according to the eucalyptus density of 1667 trees/ha). Using a density of 1000
kg/m3 it is possible to obtain the mass of water needed for eucalyptus plantations.
Net mineral topsoil loss: Soil, Mineral Fraction = 1.68 E+09 seJ/g (Odum, 1996 corrected by a factor
of 1.68); Nutrients loss = 23 135.65 g (nutrients lost are K2O5 and CaO, from a nutrients balance for
common fertilization practices values presented in the table; leaching values obtained from
Cortez 2000; and eucalyptus chemical composition obtained from the model Globulus 2.1,
developed by Instituto Superior de Agronomia; the procedure for the calculation was described by
Vieira, 2002).
Fuel: Transformity = 66000 seJ/J (Odum, 1996 corrected by a factor of 1.68, Odum et al., 2000);
Crude Oil mass = 1463.77 kg (from fertilizer use, obtained from Salgueiro et al. 1996, and
machinery use in eucalyptus production, with data obtained from SimaPro 4.0); Specific energy =
44000 kJ/kg (http://www.wec.ankara.edu.tr/wec/enersour.html); Energy from Crude Oil = 6.13E+10
J.
Coal: Transformity = 57120 sej/J (Odum, 1996 corrected by a factor of 1.68, Odum et al., 2000);
Coal mass usage = 0.17 kg (indirect input from machinery use in the eucalyptus production, data
from SimaPro 4.0 software); Specific Energy = 29300 kJ/kg
(http://www.wec.ankara.edu.tr/wec/enersour.html); Coal energy = 4.91E+06 J.
Natural Gas: Transformity = 80640 sej/J (Odum, 1996 corrected by a factor of 1.68, Odum et al.,
2000); Natural Gas consumption = 2.03 kg (indirect input from machinery use in the eucalyptus
production, data from SimaPro 4.0 software); Volumic Energy = 38100 kJ/m3
(http://www.wec.ankara.edu.tr/wec/enersour.html); Specific energy = 0.94 kg/m3; Specific Energy =
40370 kJ/kg; Natural Gas Energy = 8.19E+07 J.
Nitrogen: Emergy/mass = 2.41E+10 sej/g N (Brandt-Williams, 1999); Nitrogen consumption =

1.98E+06 g (from fertilizer used, amount of fertilizer known from inquiries made to Portuguese
producers; a detailed description can be found in Vieira, 2002).
Phosphate: Emergy/mass = 2.20E+10 sej/g P (Brandt-Williams, 1999); Phosphorus consumption =

5.80E+04 g (from fertilizer used, amount of fertilizer known from inquiries made to Portuguese
producers; a detailed description can be found in Vieira, 2002).
Potash: Emergy/mass = 1.74E+09 sej/g K (Brandt-Williams, 1999); Potash consumption = 0 g (from

fertilizer used, amount of fertilizer known from inquiries made to Portuguese producers; a detailed
description can be found in Vieira, 2002).
10
Fuel: Energy from Crude Oil = 1,99E+12 J, obtained from Simapro 4.0. 6.01E+04 ton.km = [(total
mass to be transported to pulp mill= 1.21E+03 ton)x(50km/trip) + (return of empty truck = 0 ton for
50 km)].
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11
Water: 2.74E+10 g (from inquiries made to Portuguese producers; a detailed description can be
found in Vieira, 2002).
12
Fuel: Crude Oil = 21351,05 kg (from inquiries made to Portuguese producers; a detailed description
can be found in Vieira, 2002); Energy from Crude Oil = 8,94E+11 J.
13
Chemicals: Emergy/mass = 6.38E+08 sej/g (Ortega, 1998); Chemicals consumption = 9.92E+07 g

(from inquiries made to Portuguese producers; a detailed description can be found in Vieira, 2002).
14
Equal to the sum of inputs 2 to 13. The suns EMERGY was not included to avoid double counting
(the suns EMERGY is lower than the EMERGY from the rain chemical potential)
15
Pulp: to produce 1000 ton of paper 610 ton of pulp is needed (data on production obtained from
inquiries made to Portuguese pulp industries, a detailed description can be found in Vieira, 2002), .
A specific energy of 12560 kJ/kg (http://www.wec.ankara.edu.tr/wec/enersour.html) was used for
energy calculation. The redefined transformity is calculated with equation 7.
16
Electricity: in the production of 610 ton of pulp there is the production of 1.10E+05 kWh (data on
production obtained from inquiries made to Portuguese pulp industries; a detailed description can be
found in Vieira, 2002). Energy determined according to 1.10E+05 (kWhr.=kJhr./sec) * 1000 (J/kJ) *
60 (min./hr.) * 60 (sec/min). Redefined transformity is determined according to equation 7.
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
14
Financial Accounting Methods to Further Develop and
Communicate Environmental Accounting Using Emergy
Daniel E. Campbell
ABSTRACT
Development of the concepts of emergy and transformity established a medium (emergy) for
accounting that made it possible to express economic and environmental work of all kinds on a
common basis as solar emjoules. Environmental accounting using emdollars, a combined emergymonetary unit, can be used to produce a single income statement and balance sheet giving
comprehensive accounts for the economy, society, and the environment. At present, emergy accounting
is in its inchoate stages and this paper uses well-known methods from financial accounting and
bookkeeping to guide the further development of emergy accounting methods. The important concept
of environmental liability is defined and a conceptual basis for its operation is presented in the form of
an energy systems model. Four categories of environmental debt are recognized and a scheme for
payment is proposed based on the criterion that economic production be sustainable. Also, a system of
double entry emergy and monetary bookkeeping is proposed, which uses a combined emergy-monetary
journal, separate emergy and money ledgers and an emergy-emdollar balance sheet to keep one set of
books for the environment and the economy. Further development, testing, and adoption of
environmental accounting tools like these will allow managers to finally determine the true solvency
(the ability to pay both economic and environmental debts) of the firms and economic systems for
which they are responsible.
INTRODUCTION
The idea that the methods and models of accounting and bookkeeping might be useful in
evaluating, understanding, and managing environmental systems is implicit in the title of H.T. Odums
1996 book, Environmental Accounting: Emergy and Environmental Decision Making. Development
of the concepts of emergy and transformity (Odum 1988) established a medium (emergy) for
environmental accounting that made it possible to express economic and environmental work of all
kinds on a common basis. During the 1980s and 1990s, many emergy analyses of nations and states
were performed and the results of these analyses invariably included tables of annual economic and
ecological flows and a table of stored assets (Odum and Odum 1983, Odum et al. 1986, Odum et al.
1987, Brown et al. 1993, Ulgiati et al. 1994, Campbell 1998, Odum et al. 1998a and b, Tilley 1999). In
standard financial accounting practice annual monetary flows would be placed on the income
statement and storages of cash and other assets would appear on the balance sheet. Thus, emergy
accounting already uses summary statements that are similar to those found in financial accounting. In
this paper I present theory and methods that can be used to expand emergy accounting procedures so
that they conform more closely to financial accounting and bookkeeping methods. The end result of
emergy accounting methods expanded in this manner will be a single income statement and balance
sheet giving comprehensive accounts for the economy, society, and the environment.
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Chapter 14. Financial Accounting Methods
Accounting is the systematic measuring and reporting of financial information to decisionmakers (Edwards et al. 1975). Accountants communicate results by classifying and summarizing
financial information into standard forms, e.g., income statements and balance sheets, that match the
decision-making needs of managers, i.e., to determine solvency and profitability. Managers use the
data, analysis, and interpretation of accountants to distinguish the financial advantages and
disadvantages of alternative economic, social, or individual choices. More information about
alternative choices reduces uncertainty, which should lead to better decisions. Accounting methods
are widely used and many people in positions of responsibility know how to read financial statements
and understand their importance.
Environmental accounting using emergy parallels financial accounting in that it is a
systematic method of measuring and reporting environmental and economic changes in real wealth
(emergy) to decision-makers; however, communicating the methods and results of Emergy Analysis so
that others understand has been difficult. If emergy accounting methods can be adapted to more closely
conform to financial accounting methods, parallel and/or joint accounts can be created and then
interrelated using emergy to money ratios. To accomplish this end in this paper, I define the concept of
environmental liability as an emergy debt to the environment and apply this concept using the
fundamental equation of accounting to determine solvency on the emergy balance sheet. In addition, I
examine how the methods of double entry bookkeeping might be used in emergy accounting to
document credits and debits in accounts for the economy and the environment. Because income
statements and balance sheets are familiar to many people in positions of responsibility, these new
combined accounts should help improve the communication and understanding of emergy accounting
results.
ENVIRONMENTAL LIABILITIES
The idea of a balance sheet for environmental systems leads to the question, What is an
environmental liability and how can it be measured? This is the central question that must be
answered to complete the emergy balance sheet for any system and make it conform to financial
accounting practice. A liability is simply a debt. When a firm receives goods from another firm on
credit, i.e., without rendering payment, a debt is incurred. The work contributions of the environment
to economic production are almost always received by the economy or by the firm without payment to
the environment for its work. Thus, the work of the environment used in economic production is
obtained on credit. In some cases payment may be made in the form of feedback, reinforcing
environmental production processes.
Everyone knows that monetary debt accumulated and not repaid leads to financial ruin.
Similarly, continuing and/or increasing empower deficits in ecosystems will lead to the eventual
collapse of those systems. Economic activity is not possible without the use of environmental
resources and since theory indicates that all the energy flows and storages of long standing natural
ecological systems are already being used to generate maximum empower in the ecosystem network
(Odum 1971a, 1996), human use or diversion of the energy inflows, system components or products of
a natural ecosystem will result in an empower decrease, a loss of stored emergy, or both, which in turn
decreases renewable production in the natural system. If such losses become too great, the ecosystem
will collapse; or if they continue for too long, it will be replaced in competition. Thus, if modern
societies are to survive in the long run, the use of natural resources must be linked to the obligation to
ensure that those resources will be replenished, thereby preserving the integrity of the combined
system of man and nature that depends on them. Failure to do so, inevitably leads to the collapse of the
neglected ecosystems and the dependent socioeconomic system, as illustrated by the Mayan
civilization (Deevey et al. 1979).
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Is Society Responsible for Environmental Debt?

Franz and Campbell (this volume) give a philosophical rationale for recognizing societys
debts to the environment. They argue that just as we have fiduciary responsibilities to ensure the well
being of socioeconomic institutions and structures, we have a vivantary responsibility to ensure the
health of our ecological life support systems. From a historical viewpoint, many of the fundamental
premises of economics were developed during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries (Giesbrecht 1972)
when the environmental effects of less extensive economic activities did not limit resource availability
and the support capacity of the environment, except locally. Debts to the environment for its
contributions to economic productivity have never been acknowledged in economic theory, perhaps
because of John Lockes observation that wealth and therefore the right to property is not created until
humans combine their labor with natures products (Gates 1998). From this viewpoint it is human
labor that makes the difference in the value of things and nature is seen as a passive contributor whose
work would have no value without human intervention. Our 21st century views on private property
and the role of the environment in creating wealth are derived from Lockes 17th century thesis.
Today resource consumption by modern industrial economies has made formerly unlimited
resources scarce, and the negative effects of resource extraction and waste production threaten the
long-term viability of society. Under these circumstances, the environments work contributions to
economic production and wealth can no longer be taken for granted. The question of whether to
acknowledge our debt to the environment for its work contributions to societys well-being is no
longer a prerogative of private ownership, but a matter that affects the survival and future prosperity of
us all. To prevent the ultimate collapse of our modern industrial economic systems, environmental
resource users must be held liable to compensate the environment for its unpaid work. An energy
systems model illustrating this concept and the classes of economic debt is shown as Figure 1 in Franz
and Campbell (this volume).
Classes of Environmental Debt

Four categories of environmental debt may be recognized, where the real work contributions
of the environment are used in economic production often without sufficient payment in the form of
reinforcing feedbacks. (1) The emergy of renewable resources extracted or diverted to be used in
economic production (a liability if use exceeds replenishment). (2) Annual empower deficits suffered
in impacted ecosystems as a result of resource removal and/or impaired production from the effects of
wastes, land conversion, etc. (this amounts to interest on the debt). (3) The emergy of nonrenewable
resources removed for use in economic production. (4) The emergy storages destroyed through the
extraction of renewable and nonrenewable resources or the conversion of lands from natural to
economic activities. Environmental debt is not necessarily bad; in fact our modern industrial
civilization could not exist without incurring debt from the use of renewable and nonrenewable
resources. The central point of this paper is that such debts exist and that we need to develop methods
to document them, so that we can determine the extent to which various social and economic activities
are sustainable. A certain amount of debt may be both necessary and appropriate to maximize
empower in the system of man and nature at a given level of resource availability.
Double Entry Bookkeeping

If society acknowledges the obligation of the users of environmental resources to compensate
the environment adequately for its unpaid work, there will be a great need for accurate and complete
environmental accounting methods. Double entry bookkeeping for emergy and emdollar accounting
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Debit
Net loss
Decreases retained earnings
Decreases equity
(+)
(-)
Equity
Credit
Difference
Resource
Owners
Profit, increases retained earnings,

increases equity
Liabilities
Accounts Payable,
loans, etc.
Monetary Assets
Cash, Accounts
Receivable, etc.
Debit
Decreases liabilities
Money is paid out
Credit
Increases Liabilities
Money is received
Investment
Resources
Debit
Increases assets
Money is paid out
Credit
Assets
Decreases assets
Money is received
Inventory, Buildings,
Land, Equipment
Markets
Economic Entity
Energy
Information
Money or other paper
Assets
Figure 1. Energy systems model of an economic entity showing examples of financial credit and debit
transactions for assets, liabilities, and equity.
is a logical extension of the use of this method in financial accounting. Double entry bookkeeping was
developed during the Middle Ages as a tool to determine the net monetary worth of joint endeavors
(Giesbrecht 1972). A system of double entries (credit and debits) is employed to show the dual effects
of any economic transaction on the assets and liabilities of a business, the difference between the two
being equity or the value of ownership. When applied to emergy accounting, the system of double
entries makes it possible to determine the net real wealth of an entity after all its debts have been paid,
including those owed to the environment.
METHODS
Energy Systems Language, ESL, (Odum 1971b, 1994) was used to create the models shown
in this study. In this paper, ESL was applied in its general or conceptual form to interrelate
environmental and economic storages, flows, and forcing functions in a manner that illustrates the
operation of the environmental economic interface in a region including the processes by which
environmental debt is incurred and paid.
In this study the standard methods of financial accounting were used to guide the further
development of emergy accounting methods. The two methods were first compared and differences
noted between the two were used to develop and modify emergy accounting tools. The method used to
-188-
create annual emergy income statements documents the imports, exports, production and consumption
of emergy and conforms fairly well to the accounts for revenues and expenses used in financial income
statements. Emergy balance sheet methods are not as developed. Therefore, this study focused
primarily on defining environmental liabilities and demonstrating how they might be added to the
emergy and emdollar balance sheets. The fundamental equation of accounting was applied to modify
the emergy balance sheet and the system of double entry bookkeeping was adapted for use in keeping
emergy and combined emergy-economic accounts.
The Fundamental Equation of Accounting

The Fundamental Equation of Accounting is Assets = Liabilities + Equity. This relationship
allows a trustee to determine the financial position or solvency of the organization for which he or she
is responsible. In the equation assets are defined as economic resources, e.g., cash, accounts
receivable, notes receivable, inventory, land, buildings, equipment, furniture, fixtures. Liabilities are
economic obligations or debts, e.g., accounts payable, notes payable, taxes payable and owners equity
is paid in capital or the amounts invested by owners along with retained earnings or income earned
from operations. Earnings are equal to revenues minus expenses. Wages, interest, rent, and normal
profit from entrepreneurial activities are the usual categories of expenses (McConnell 1966). Equity is
the remaining wealth after all debts have been paid. It includes paid in capital and retained earnings,
which are the economic profits in excess of all expenses. The fundamental equation of accounting was
used to guide the construction of emergy and emdollar balance sheets.
Double Entry Bookkeeping Methods

The ESL diagram in Figure 1 illustrates the operation of the system of double entry
bookkeeping as it is applied in financial accounting. This figure shows the operation of the system of
credits and debits used to keep track of financial transactions of an economic entity; however, it does
not provide a complete representation of that economic entity or of the system of which it is a part.
Also, all the classes and combinations of credits and debits have not been represented. Purchased
resources are debits increasing assets as money is paid out. When goods are sold, e.g., from inventory,
money is received and a credit is given for the decrease in assets. When investment funds are received
a credit is given to liabilities and cash increases. When debts are repaid, the liability account is debited
and cash is paid out. Equity increases as retained profits accumulate and it is diminished by net losses.
The financial model (Figure 1) was used to show how a system of credits and debits might be
used to account for the unpaid contributions of environmental work to economic production. Emergy
credits and debits can be entered on an account for environmental liabilities and equity adjusted using
the appropriate emergy to money ratio. Bookkeeping tools like the journal of transactions, the ledger
with debits in the left-hand column and credits in the right-hand column, and the balance sheet
detailing, assets, liabilities and equity were used to create emergy and combined emergy-money
accounts. Journal entries are made for both the monetary and emergy transactions. Separate ledgers
with debits and credits are kept for emergy and money. The emergy and money flows are then
combined on a comprehensive balance sheet and related using emdollars.
Relating Monetary and Emergy Accounts

Monetary flows must be related to emergy flows on the combined balance sheet to allow a
balance for all assets and liabilities to be determined. Emdollars provide the means to relate money to
emergy. In this paper we will use the emdollar to stand for any combined emergy-money unit, e.g., the
emeuro (Em). The emdollar (Em$) value of an emergy flow or storage is its solar emergy divided by
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the emergy-to-money ratio for the economy (Odum 1996). The emergy to dollar ratio is determined by
dividing the emergy used in the economy in a given year by a measure of gross economic activity, i.e.,
GSP, GDP, GNP, for that year. Converting emergy flows in the environment and economy to emdollar
flows (by dividing by the emergy-to-money ratio) redistributes the total money flow in proportion to
the emergy flows giving an Em$ value to all the products and work of nature and humanity. For this
value to accurately reflect the work contributions from the environment and humanity, both must be
assessed by independent means. The common practice of using the emergy to dollar ratio to estimate
the emergy of human service contributed to total emergy use is circular and leads to a trivial solution
when applied to the emdollar balance sheet. The unique emergy contributions of human learning and
shared information must be recognized, explicitly, to create an accurate emdollar balance sheet. All
value cannot originate from either people or the environment if emdollars are to give an accurate
measure of what each contributes. Campbell et al. (this volume) examine this problem in more detail
and offer a solution. Despite the argument given above, monetary value times the emergy to money
ratio often is used to give a first order estimate of the emergy contributed by human service. This
method was used in this paper, but more accurate methods are presently under development.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The results of this study include: (1) a description of an ESL model characterizing
environmental liabilities in the context of a regional system, (2) a rationale for crediting and debiting
the environmental liabilities account (3) a rationale for determining debt load and repayment, and (4)
an illustration of the application of double entry bookkeeping in environmental accounting using some
numbers from an emergy analysis of the State of West Virginia (Campbell et al. 2004) supplemented
with hypothetical parameters where values were unknown.
Regional System Model Showing Environmental Liabilities

An energy systems model showing how environmental debts are accumulated and repaid
within a regional economy is given in Figure 2. The model represents the environment and economy
within a region. The environmental energy received by the regional system is shown at Rr. The energy
inflows to the system carry a quantity of emergy represented by Rr. Some of this energy with emergy
Ra is absorbed by the system doing work to produce renewable environmental products such as wood,
water, soil, fish, etc. Renewable products can be used in regional economic production, IP, exported,
EP, or remain in place to participate in natural production processes. The products of economic
production that are sold in the larger economy produce an inflow of money that increases the monetary
assets, M, held in the region. Economic production also requires the use of nonrenewable resources
(coal, oil, etc.), Nu, found in the region or imported from outside, No. Both renewable, Rs, and
nonrenewable, Ns, resources of the region can be exported directly (Re and Ne, respectively) without
adding value in the region by being used in further economic production processes. People, P, and
assets, A, also make necessary contributions to economic production. Money flows to people, M1, not
only for their labor but also for their resource ownership rights and concomitant expenses. However,
no compensation goes directly to the environment for the real work contributions that it makes to
economic production. It is true that there are always feedbacks from economic systems to the
environment (often in the form of wastes of other unwanted products), but there is no check to
determine the extent to which these feedbacks support the maintenance of renewable resource
production or are detrimental to it.
-190-
EDp RP
Pem
Debt
Service
Rp0
Nonrenewable
Annual
Loss
Empower
Coal, Oil,
Stone, etc.
Ns
People
P
Iem
Waste
W
Treatment
Nu
Wood,
Fish, Soil, etc.
Rs
No
Re
Ru
Im
Investment
Assets
A
sej
Vo
Pm
P4
Environment
Economy
Markets
P5
Economic
Production
Goods &
Services
P3
IP
X
Rp
Regional System
Di
Rd
M1
Renewable
Restoration
Ra
Goods &
Services
Dm
Ne
Rr
P2
Vp
Dem
sej
Nd
Sun,
Wind,
Rain
P1
Dem
EP
National
Economy
Figure 2. An energy systems model of a regional system, showing processes that govern the creation and
repayment of environmental and monetary debts. Environmental liabilities, Dem, are an integral part of the
economic production systems of the region.
The larger national economic system provides markets for regional products and supplies
goods, services, and investment capital to the region as shown on the far right of the diagram. Prices,
P1 P5, are determined in the larger economy and govern the inflows of emergy in the goods and
services used for restoring the environment, P1, supplying the needs of the populace, P2, and business,
P3. In addition, externally set prices govern the sale of exported renewable and nonrenewable emergy,
P4, and the sale of the products of economic production, P5. Monetary debts are accounted for in the
usual manner (Odum 1989). Monetary debt, Di, is incurred when money is borrowed either from
within, Vi, or from without, Vo, the regional system. Interest, Im, is paid in proportion to a rate, r,
which may be set externally, and the size of the debt assuming that monetary assets do not limit the
ability to pay. At regular intervals and in proportion to the debt, Dm, payments, Pm, on the principal are
made.
Debts to the environment for its unpaid work contributions to economic production are
represented in the model as the emergy storage, Dem. Environmental liabilities increase as a result of
the accumulation of debt for renewable use, Rd, (when use exceeds the rate of replenishment), as well
as losses due to the concomitant effects of waste production, extraction damage and land conversion.
Damage from the extraction of nonrenewable resources, Nd, also increases environmental debt. The
emergy debt incurred from the use of nonrenewable resources is not shown in this figure. Renewable
production losses measured by comparison with the annual empower generated in a similar or
reference ecosystem (Annual Loss Program) are a measure of the benefits forgone by removing these
resources from the environment or otherwise damaging the natural production process. Each year these
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losses, Iem, accumulate in the storage, Dem, as a kind of interest on the natural capital borrowed from
the environment.
A logic program, Debt Service, is used in the model to determine a payment schedule for the
environmental debt and to keep track of emergy payments, Pem, and the debt remaining. This program
evaluates a regional system assumed to be operating in a steady state on flow-limited emergy sources,
Rr. The object is to operate the system in a sustainable manner. When the emergy available to support
system organization is different, other logical constructs would be used to evaluate the debt and to
determine the amount and timing of payments. The debt service program receives information on
available emergy, Rr, renewable production, Rp and Ru, retained profits of businesses, RP,
environmental debt load for the region, Dem, and determines if a payment is due. For example, under
the guidelines for sustainable use, a payment is due if Rp< Ru. Payment is made by using some of the
retained profit to purchase goods and services that are then used to restore lost resources or mitigate
damage to existing production. If the economic system is losing money and also damaging the
environment, government regulation might be needed to manage the environmental debt by
determining a reasonable payment schedule. In this case, the logic program in Debt Service would be
different.
Rationale for Emergy Credits and Debits to Environmental Liabilities

If society acknowledges its liability for the use of Natures work in economic production, the
question becomes, How will environmental liability be determined? In this section, I suggest a
rationale for recognizing the debts that can be repaid reasonably and I suggest several methods by
which payment might be made, e.g., a feedback of emergy that restores stream productivity or prevents
its loss.
The removal of stored emergy (natural capital) from ecosystems for or because of human use
is a loss to the ecosystem. In some cases, e.g., an endangered species, the loss is practically
irreversible. In general, the renewable resources taken, Ru, are used in economic production without
payment for the work of the environment (money is only paid to the owners of the resources);
therefore, a debt to the environment is incurred when Ru > Rp. If no payment is made for the work
needed to make the excess renewable resources used, an emergy credit is issued for the use of these
resources, thereby increasing the environmental liabilities of the economic system and decreasing
equity.
Nonrenewable resources also make a necessary contribution of work to economic production
that is not paid for, since no money is paid to the environment for its work over the millions of years
required for the creation of these resources. However, industrial civilization is completely dependent
on the rapid consumption of nonrenewable resources. Since replenishment is slow, the accumulated
debt cannot be repaid; thus it is untenable to credit the environmental liability account for the use of
these resources, per se. However, any environmental damage that results from the extraction,
processing, and use of these resources is recorded as an emergy credit to the environmental liabilities
account. Nonrenewable resource production and use cannot be brought into balance in the same way
that renewable resources can, nonetheless, off balance sheet records of nonrenewable debt should be
tabulated. This information provides a context for determining what is sustainable in the long run and
for estimating the value and efficacy of recycling materials.
Environmental debts incur their own form of interest as the unrealized benefits that would
have accrued to an impacted ecosystem. Annual ecosystem productivity, Rp, can be reduced due to
renewable resource use and the environmental damage from renewable and nonrenewable resource
extraction and waste production in economic systems. The annual empower loss (Rp0 Rp) in these
support systems accumulates similar to interest on the borrowed (removed or impaired) natural
capital. If restoration payments are not made commensurate with the lost productivity an equivalent
emergy credit is issued to the environmental liability account.
-192-
Table 1. An example of mixed journal entries for the transactions of a firm with entries cross-linked to the
ledgers account numbers (L.F.) in Table 2.
________________________________________________________________________
MIXED JOURNAL
Page 1
______________________________________________________________________________________
Date
Item, Accounts, Explanation
Note L. F. Unit Debit
Credit
2004
Jan.
30 1000 T (short) coal, assets, energy for Feb.
10
$
20,000
30 1000 T (short) coal, assets, energy for Feb.
1
100
sej
1.05E18
30 1000 T (short) coal, accounts payable
15
$
20,000
30 1000 T (short) coal, environmental
2
115
sej
1.56E16
liabilities, extraction losses
Feb. 2
Cash, purchase restoration services
09
$
1,000
2
Env. Liabilities, debt payment
3
115
sej
1.0E15
2
50 T coal burned, assets, energy consumed
4
100
sej
5.25E16
Feb. 15 Payment for coal, accounts payable
115
$
20,000
Feb. 15 Payment for coal, Cash
09
$
20,000
______________________________________________________________________________________
Retained profits can be used to purchase goods and services to restore environmental
production or to reduce the harmful effects of wastes. When these goods and services are converted to
an equivalent emergy flow, Pem, an emergy debit, EDp, to the environmental liabilities account is
recorded, i.e., payment for a prior credit has been made thus debt is decreased. The environmental
liability account might be debited in response to other actions that increase renewable production or
prevent its loss. For example, system design changes that increase Rp or decrease losses to Rp would
result in an equivalent emergy debit to the environmental liabilities account. If a firm uses a renewable
harvest strategy where Rp exceeded Ru, a credit to the environmental liabilities account might be
recorded. If a company recycled a percentage of its mineral requirements a credit might be given for
the extraction damage avoided. Social organizations that take action to restore or improve the
environment also make an emergy contribution that might count toward decreasing the debt.
Rationale for Determining Debt Load and Repayment

The marginal effect of debt accumulation or repayment in determining a change in system
empower on the emergy income statement can be used to determine the debt load that will result in
maximum power for a given system. The decision criterion must also satisfy the condition that
empower in the whole system be maximized over a period of time that is ultimately determined by the
availability of resources. For a sustainable system running on flow-limited sources the annual debt
payment should be at least equal to the difference between Ru and Rp plus any losses due to
degradation. Under other conditions empower in the system may be maximized by carrying and/or
accumulating some level of environmental debt. When a repayment schedule begins, it is logical that
debts owed for the use of environmental resources are repaid in proportion to the accumulated
environmental debt and the retained profits of the economic system. The overall criteria for deciding
how much environmental debt can be carried by a sustainable system is that renewable resource use,
Ru, plus the annual degradation of renewable resources, Iem, incurred as a result of carrying the debt,
should not exceed the replenishment of those resources by natural and/or anthropic means. If this
condition is not met, an emdollar payment is due to compensate for the difference {Rp (Ru + Iem)}.
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Table 2. An example of accounts in the Emergy and Monetary Ledgers with entries linked to appropriate
page in the mixed journal of transactions (Folio) in Table 1.
________________________________________________________________________
EMERGY LEDGER (solar emjoules)
______________________________________________________________________________________
Assets
Account No. 100
Date
Explanation
Folio
Debit
Credit
Balance
2004
Jan.
30 1000 T coal received
J1
1.05E18
1.05E18
Feb.
02 50 T coal burned
J1
5.25E16
9.975E17
Environmental Liabilities
Date
Explanation
2004
Jan.
30 Extraction damage 1000 T of coal*
Feb. 02 Stream restoration*
Folio
Account No. 115

Debit
Credit
J1
J1
1.00E15
1.56E16
Balance
1.56E16
1.46E16
______________________________________________________________________________________
MONETARY LEDGER ($)
______________________________________________________________________________________
Assets
Account No. 10
Date
Explanation
Folio
Debit
Credit
Balance
2004
Jan.
J1
20,000
20,000
Feb. 02 50 T coal burned
J1
1,000
19,000
Accounts payable
Date
Explanation
Jan.
Feb. 15 Payment for coal
Cash
Date
2004
Feb
Feb.
2
15
Explanation
Beginning balance
Cash, purchase restoration services*
Payment for coal, Cash
Folio
J1
J1
Account No. 15
Debit
Credit
20,000
20,000
Folio
Account No. 09
Debit
Credit
J1
J1
1,000
20,000
Balance
20,000
0
Balance
40,000
39,000
19,000
______________________________________________________________________________________
* Hypothetical value.
Monitoring the change in renewable resource production and other environmental parameters
is needed to verify the emergy gains from restoration and mitigation. The monitored environmental
parameters can be used to estimate emergy increases in annual renewable production that result from
restoration, remediation, and system design changes or through protecting some sources of renewable
production. The emergy flow increase in environmental systems compared to the emergy in the
purchased goods and services used in restoration is a measure of the relative efficacy of restoration and
mitigation alternatives. Monitoring allows managers to determine the amount of environmental debt
repaid by measuring the direct emergy benefits realized by ecosystems (the change in Iem).
-194-
Table 3. A partial emergy and emdollar balance sheet for the State of West Virginia in 2000 illustrating the
operation of the fundamental equation of accounting to determine solvency. Starred (*) items are
hypothetical estimates. Transformities are expressed relative to the 9.26 E24 sej y-1 baseline (Campbell
2000).
______________________________________________________________________________________
Note Item and Explanation
Data
Unit
Emergy/Unit
Emergy
Emdollars
sej/unit
E20 sej
E9 Em$
______________________________________________________________________________________
Assets
1
Forest Biomass
1.04 E19
J
28,200
2,933
272
2
Coal
1.42 E21
J
39,200
556,640
51,540
3
Knowledge of the People
1808344
Ind.
Various
4498
416
4
Buildings
44.5E9
$
1.08 E12
481
27
Accum. Depreciation*
18 E9
(194)
Total Assets
Liabilities
5
Extraction Damage*
6
Bonds Outstanding
Total Liabilities
564,358
?
3.956 E9
J
$
?
1.08 E12
11448
43
11,491
52,255
1064
4
1068
Public and Private Equity

7
Paid in Capital
22.5 E9
$
1.08 E12
244
23
8
Natural Capital
1.43 E21
J
Various
548,125
50,748
9
Human Capital
1808344
Ind.
Various
4498
416
Total Equity
552,867
51,187
Liabilities + Equity
564,358
52,255
______________________________________________________________________________________
1. Standing biomass 6.89 E14 g, 15,070 J/g, DiGiovanni (1990)
2. Coal reserves 2000 were 53451930801 short tons, 9.07 E5 g/T, 2.94 E4 J/g from
http://www.state.wv.us/mhst/reserves2000.pdf
3. Population number is from http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/54000.html, transformities by
education level form Odum (1996).
4. West Virginia Research League (2000) Table 39. Emergy-to-dollar ratio of 1.08 E12 sej/$ for the US
economy in 2000 was used to give a 1st order estimate of the emergy and emdollar value in buildings.
Depreciation assumed 10 years into a 25- year renewal cycle.
5. Extraction damage in Table 1 was assumed to be 5% of the emergy of the coal extracted. Based on a
total of 21,903,648,197 short tons extracted since 1883 http://www.wvminesafety.org/reserves2002.pdf.
11,448 E20 sej of accumulated damage may have been done assuming remediation has been negligible.
6. West Virginia Research League (2000) Table 8. See note 4.
7. The value of the buildings minus bonds outstanding.
8. Coal and forest reserves minus accumulated extraction damage.
9. In this table it is equal to the learned knowledge of the people.
Emergy Accounting: Journals, Ledgers, and Balance Sheets

The creation of emergy and emdollar accounts for the environment will require emergy
accounting tools such as the journal, ledger, and balance sheet used in financial accounting.
Conversely, financial accountants who want to estimate the environmental liabilities of their firm will
need to adapt financial accounting methods to keep track of their systems emergy debt to the
environment. A complete development of combined monetary and emergy accounting methods lies in
-195-
the future; however, a possible approach is to create a combined journal of transactions cross-indexed
to parallel money and emergy ledgers. The ledgers (Table 2) can be used to produce money and
emergy balance sheets and both series of accounts can be expressed in emdollars and brought together
on a single balance sheet that shows both environmental and economic assets and liabilities (Table 3).
The difference between emdollar assets and liabilities is the public and/or private equity or the net real
wealth of the system. The emergy of the nonrenewable resources shows the capacity to repay
environmental debts.
The details of economic transactions are recorded in the journal (Table 1). Financial journals
record the following information: the date of the transaction, an explanation of the transaction, the
accounts credited and debited, the number of the account credited or debited in the ledger, and the
amounts of the credit and debit. For emergy-money combined journaling the explanation must include
the physical units and quantity of energy or material purchased or exchanged in the transaction or
sufficient information to allow the determination of these quantities. A column needs to be added to
the journal that references a note where the energy exchanged in the transaction is determined. This
note will give a reference for the transformity of the energy exchanged or it will present a derivation of
that transformity. Mass units and specific emergies may be used where they are more convenient. An
example of a combined journal page for a firm is given as Table 1.
An account can be created for any category of asset, liability, or equity (including expenses
and revenues) that might alter the balance in the fundamental equation of accounting for the reporting
period. All accounts are kept in the ledger (Table 2), which has columns for the date, an explanation of
the entry, the journal page where the original transaction can be found and columns to indicate credits,
debits, and the account balance. A similar format can be used for the emergy ledger with additional
accounts, e.g., environmental liabilities. An example of parallel ledgers for a firm is given in Table 2.
The emdollar balance sheet (Table 3) should be a statement of the overall position of an
organization with respect to its solvency, i.e., the ability to pay its debts including debts owed to the
environment for its unpaid work contributions to economic production. Equating human and
environmental contributions to value is a key problem to be solved before accurate emdollar balance
sheets can be created from the emergy and money ledgers. This problem was described above and it is
further addressed in Campbell et al. (this volume). An example of a combined balance sheet is given in
Table 3 using some data for the state of West Virginia. Hypothetical parameters were used to make
estimates where values were missing or unknown.
CONCLUSIONS
Environmental accounting using emergy can be used to document environmental liabilities
and to construct a balance sheet that accounts for all economic and environmental work contributions
to economic production. With minor modifications, emergy and emdollar measures fit logically into
the formats used in standard financial accounting and bookkeeping. These methods show promise as
models for the further development of emergy accounting. Standard financial accounting methods are
understood and accepted by managers, and therefore, they are expected to be helpful in communicating
the results of emergy and emdollar accounting to decision-makers. This ability to make quantitative
determinations of environmental liabilities and relate them to monetary measures may cause people of
responsibility to explicitly recognize the magnitude of the debt that industrial society owes to the
environment. If sustainable economic production systems are the goal, recognition of environmental
debts implies an obligation to repay or perpetually service the debt. Environmental liabilities are
balanced by the empower gains to society from using and possibly degrading environmental resources.
Once all empower credits and debits in an environmental-economic system are known, recorded, and
analyzed the political process can be used to address questions of the appropriate debt load to be
carried by society, and the schedule for repaying existing debts.
-196-
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank Jerry Pesch, Sherry Brandt-Williams, Tingting Cai and two anonymous referees for
reviewing this paper. My interactions with Julie Higgins contributed to this work. This paper is
Contribution No. AED-04-059 the Atlantic Ecology Division, National Health and Environmental
Effects Research Laboratory, Office of Research and Development, USEPA. Although the research
described in this paper has been funded wholly by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it has
not been subjected to Agency review. Therefore, it does not necessarily reflect the views of the
agency.
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
15
Dotting the Is and Crossing the Ts of Emergy Synthesis:
Material Flows, Information and Memory Aspects,
and Performance Indicators
ABSTRACT
Emergy accounting is a donor-side approach based on keeping account of the direct and
indirect resource inputs previously used up. This paper performs a review of methodological aspects
very often disregarded or not adequately addressed in published emergy analyses, in spite of the basic
definitions and concepts of this evaluation method. A substantial amount of information about the
product and the process can be extracted by focusing on the donor-side characteristics
(renewable/non-renewable, local/imported, free/purchased, etc.) of the input emergy flows. This is
only possible if the way in which the indicators are calculated is such that the characteristics of the
input flows from the very beginning of the production chain are not progressively hidden or lost.
Emergy appropriation by the system, environmental and economic externalities, and the need to avoid
simplifications and misconceptions are addressed by means of a suitable case study on thermal
electricity production. Furthermore, the need for integration with other existing approaches within a
cradle to cradle Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) framework is stressed.
INTRODUCTION
Summarizing the contributions of Howard T. Odum to the understanding of many energetic
and ecological aspects of environmental dynamics over more than 40 years of scientific activity is by
no means an easy task, since these contributions encompass a vast number of subjects and disciplinary
fields. Hall (1995) and Brown and Hall (2004) have clearly shown that the concept of emergy (Odum,
1988; 1996) is the convergence point of an extraordinarily creative journey through systems at all
scales. This heritage should not be lost, depreciated, or misused, by restricting it to just a method to
convert energy or mass flows (to and from a system) into a single total or indicator, the use of which is
very often left unclear. The potential applications of emergy accounting are manyfold and require a
significant and increased effort from the scientific community to systematize, apply, and improve
definitions and methods, as well as disseminate the results to the largest possible audience (both in the
scientific communities and among policy makers). Application to case studies and publication of
results are a large part of this effort, together with the correct interpretation of results and the meaning
of the calculated emergy indicators. Last but not least, the relationship of emergy to other existing
approaches must be addressed as soon as possible, synergies identified, and collaborative links
between different scientific communities increased, to make emergy studies beneficial to non-emergy
analysts and enable emergy analysts to benefit from the achievements and databases available from
other approaches.
The number of emergy analysts in the world is not very large, although it has been growing
substantially in the last few years thanks to the Biennial Emergy Conference and other initiatives. To
spread and at the same time improve the emergy approach, we must reach the much larger scientific
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Chapter 15. Dotting the Is
communities of Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), Ecological Economics, and Exergy analysts, and show
them that the emergy approach provides complementary and integrative methods to supplement their
existing tools. In this regard, in the First Biennial Emergy Conference, Ulgiati (1991) suggested a
code of practice for integrating and more easily linking emergy accounting to other approaches. In
this paper we take a step forward, trying to better define and clarify some theoretical aspects that
demand attention in order to avoid misunderstandings and misapplications of the concept of emergy
itself.
EMERGY IS A DONOR-SIDE APPROACH

Emergy Input to a System
An emergy flow to a process represents a resource made available to it by the direct and
indirect work of the surrounding environment. Of course, the characteristics of the input flows
(amount, relative scarcity, renewability, flexibility, etc.) affect the dynamics and performance of the
process as well as the characteristics of the final product. An emergy reading of the process is by
definition an evaluation of how the characteristics of the input flows drive (or hinder) the process. The
series of upstream processes from which inputs are generated is much more than just a summation of
joules or grams. The generative process, organized in hierarchical levels, leads to products in which
information is stored in the form of higher complexity. A measure of this higher complexity is
provided by the transformity, calculated by means of suitable algebraic tools (Scienceman, 1987;
Giannantoni, 2002), accounting for all previous steps converging to the final result. Inputs may be
characterized by high or low transformities (expressing the so-called donor-side quality), and may also
be local or imported, dispersed or concentrated, free or purchased, renewable or non-renewable, scarce
or abundant. A great amount of information about the product and the process (availability,
renewability, cost, efficiency, environmental loading, sustainability) can be extracted by focusing on
the donor-side characteristics of the input emergy flows. This is only possible if the memory features
of the emergy approach are conserved in the evaluation process, namely if the way in which the
evaluation is carried out and the way in which the indicators are calculated are such that the
characteristics of the input flows from the very beginning of the production chain are not progressively
hidden or lost.
On the other hand, in no way can information about the final fate of products, co-products and
waste from human-dominated systems be directly investigated by means of emergy accounting. In
fact, these systems generally do not have time to adapt to the new state determined by the presence of
new products and co-products. This applies both to their usefulness (what can be extracted from a
process: products and wastes) and to the extent and severity of their impact (pollution) on downstream
ecosystems. The point here is that while we can evaluate in emergy terms what it takes to remedy the
negative effects of pollution once they have occurred, we cannot analytically predict them in advance
by means of an emergy evaluation. In the past, some Authors have used the Environmental Loading
Ratio (ELR) as a direct measure of pollution, but we show later in this paper that this is not an
appropriate use of that indicator. Although some consequences of a process can be indirectly
investigated by means of emergy accounting techniques, in our opinion the proper evaluation of userside quality requires integration with other tools, namely exergy analysis and LCA, which are very
often applied on the local or process scales. Some authors of published or submitted1 papers strive to
quantify pollution aspects of process wastes by means of modified emergy-based indicators (e.g.,
Yang et al., 2003).
According to the experience gained by one of the authors as Journal Reviewer.
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We will try to show in the next sections that emergy indicators cannot be used directly to
quantify downstream environmental impact in categories such as increased global warming, rain
acidification potential, eutrophication, and ecotoxycological potential. Integration with other
approaches is needed in order not to discredit emergy accounting due to misuse.
Emergy Appropriation by the System

When an emergy flow is fed to a system, it is no longer available (or only partially so) to
other systems or processes. This means that an emergy support should be seen as an appropriation of
the resource by the system. As such, it occurs in competition with other systems and it is, therefore,
subject to long-term selection according to Lotka-Odums Maximum Power Principle (Lotka, 1922a,
b; Odum and Pinkerton, 1955; Odum and Odum, 2001).
This appropriation concept also applies to environmental inputs provided for free by nature to
any system, including human-dominated ones. Environmental flows drive a multiplicity of phenomena
on Earth, which self-organize according to the size, rate and pulsing of incoming inputs. For instance,
when we build a dam for electricity generation we prevent sediments from flowing to the sea and alter
the water cycle by changing the evapotranspiration rate and the water available for downstream uses.
Our appropriation of the water resource entails appropriation of its chemical and gravitational
potential. Some work previously done by that water in the natural ecosystem will no longer be
performed. The gain in renewable emergy use is partly counterbalanced by a loss of useful work in the
downstream ecosystem, as clearly shown by the environmental disruption associated with the large
dams in India, Brazil and China (all essentially driven by renewable emergy). We are used to
distinguishing renewable and non-renewable energies simply on the basis of their turnover times, and,
therefore, consider any process supported by a larger share of renewable resources to be sustainable. A
larger fraction of renewable emergy may not always be the key to sustainability, if taken outside of a
systems perspective and without careful consideration of diverted uses of the same resource.
It is therefore of paramount importance to keep our attention constantly focused on both
donor (emergy) and user (LCA, exergy) sides, as well as on the larger scales in which the investigated
system is embedded (the next larger scale, as Odum used to say). In the following sections, we will
give examples of how to apply these concepts in order to enhance and complement the results of
emergy accounting.
FREQUENTLY OCCURRING PROBLEMS

As emergy analysts, we should be concerned with performing evaluations that provide results that
can be clearly understood and useful to non-emergy analysts. Due to the relatively recent development
of the approach, we should strive to avoid publishing papers that could spread erroneous or notgenerally-agreed-upon definitions, interpretations and values, unless this is clearly stated in the
publications. The following are some of the most urgent problems, which require our joint attention
and collaboration:
(a) Values of transformities. In spite of the urgent demand for updated values, a list of agreed-upon
transformities is still missing. Several transformities that we use currently suffer from significant
uncertainty (e.g., oil and natural gas [Odum 1996]) or only rely on a single, never updated
evaluation. It is not uncommon to find papers still using transformity values calculated before
gravitational and geothermal emergies were added to the total emergy of the biosphere. Due to
their frequent use, transformities of fossil fuels are crucial and require special attention. H.T.
Odum and Mark Brown suggested, in the last emergy conference, a joint effort in the creation of a
handbook of transformities as well as a series of short folios on specific subjects where basic
transformities are calculated and all procedures are shown. Some folios have already been
published (http://www.ees.ufl.edu/cep/emergydownloads.asp). Our colleague Enrique Ortega, at
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(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
the University of Campinas, Brazil, put a useful list of transformities online

(http://www.unicamp.br/fea/ortega/curso/transformid.htm), which could be translated into English
and continuously updated with contributions from other emergy analysts.
Co-products and splits. The emergy algebra underlying the allocation of input emergy to the
intermediate and final products of a process is still a source of controversy with non-emergy
analysts and is sometimes unclear even within the emergy community. Some colleagues
generously invested substantial efforts towards the clarification and codification of this important
theoretical problem (Brown and Herendeen, 1996; Valero, 2003; Giannantoni, 2003; Collins,
2003; Odum and Collins, 2003; among others), however there is still a general lack of
agreement on how to deal with this problem. Conclusions on allocation procedures are affected by
the choice of scale and boundaries, by the correct identification of products and by the use of
correct calculation procedures. Sometimes it is even difficult to decide if two flows are coproducts or splits, although this is not only a problem with emergy analysis. In principle, we
believe that two flows, A and B, out of a process are splits when they show the same physicochemical nature (same chemical composition, same matter state, same temperature, etc; e.g., when
A and B are oil flows extracted from an underground reservoir and exported towards two different
areas). Instead, electricity and hot water delivered from a cogeneration power plant are more
easily recognized as co-products, since their physico-chemical nature is very different. Timber and
sawdust out of a sawmill are not that different from a chemical point of view, but they are very
different in their aggregation state and physical properties. We may, therefore, think of them as
being partially splits and partially co-products, in terms of percentages, which are not easy to
evaluate. Finally, cow meat and skin appear to be co-products from our human point of view,
because the former is food and the latter is used for shoes and clothing. Yet several bacteria are
able to degrade meat and skin, which means that both of them can be considered food on the
scale of microorganisms.
If emergy is to offer acceptable and comparable conclusions, this theoretical aspect must be
urgently addressed by clarifying these aspects.
Environmental externalities. Environmental externalities, which in economic terms are defined
as an effect or output of a process which is not easily given a market value, can be indirectly
evaluated using emergy analysis by accounting for non-market value emergy inputs needed to take
care of, abate, or amend the effects of human activities on the environment (Ulgiati et al., 1995).
This work provides important support to the process itself, despite having no market value.
However, it must always be kept in mind that, since emergy is a donor-side approach, it cannot be
used for direct quantification of the amount of emissions or their downstream effects on the
surrounding environment or human life. In the following sections of this paper, special attention
will be given to the environmental externalities of wastes and emissions. However, it must always
be kept in mind that, since emergy is a donor-side approach, it cannot be used for direct
quantification of the amount of emissions or their downstream effects on the surrounding
environment or human life. In the following sections of this paper, special attention will be given
to the environmental externalities of wastes and emissions.
Labor, services and purchased goods. Labor and services require support from the environment,
in the sense that they are a product of the economic system of a nation or region, which in turn is
driven by direct and indirect solar emergy. Labor and services provided to a process can be
converted into emergy by means of suitable conversion factors depending on the economic
system. The extent to which this additional emergy affects the global demand for environmental
support to a product or process is then calculated. We explore in this paper how labor, services
and purchased goods record in memory the quality of their driving inputs.
Meaning of indicators. Several misconceptions due to an excessively simplified discussion of
indicators and ratios occur frequently and require our attention. In particular, three indicators are
crucial: Transformity, Emergy Yield Ratio (EYR) and Environmental Loading Ratio (ELR). The
Emergy Investment Ratio (1 / [EYR 1]) and the Emergy Index of Sustainability (EYR/ELR) are
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derived indicators and their meaning is a consequence of the correct interpretation of the previous
indicators and ratios. The same applies to another indicator, the so-called Renewable Emergy
Fraction (REF = Renewable Emergy/Total Emergy), which is linked to the ELR by the relation
REF = 1/(1+ELR). We will therefore only focus on transformity, EYR, and ELR in the following
sections.
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF HUMAN PROCESSES

Running a restaurant in a sustainable way requires cleaning up the table after each customer,
for the new one to be able to sit and place an order. The same applies to every process, if it is to be
sustainable. Take for example the generation of electricity in a thermal power plant. If the plant uses
natural gas and a gas turbine, the only significant inputs are the machinery, fuel, and some labor. In
general, each thermoelectric plant generates electricity, heat, and released chemicals and particulates
from combustion. We might at first disregard the impact of the heat and released chemicals on the
surrounding environment, since it will take some time before the buffering capacity of the natural
system is exhausted and significant consequences of pollution occur. As a consequence, a process may
take place, for a while even, without being sustainable. However, sooner or later the problem of
pollution generation will become more evident and require a solution for the process to be acceptable.
We use the word acceptable instead of sustainable because the latter involves too many aspects.
For instance, to make oil combustion environmentally sustainable, we should find a way to take up and
safely store all released chemicals, including carbon dioxide. But this is exactly what nature did over
millions of years by storing it in the form of underground oil should we invest resources for
absolute sustainability of oil use, there would not be any net gain in using oil. We therefore prefer to
refer to an acceptable level, which, in this context, indicates weak sustainability, as compared to
strong sustainability, which can be considered the upper limit of our efforts.
Dealing with Emissions

Ulgiati et al. (1995), moving from the awareness that it is impossible to hypothesize a
complete control, disposal, and recycling system for all pollutants, suggest as a reasonable evaluation
strategy to calculate the emergy investment needed to dispose of or recycle a few of the
wastes/byproducts, while the largest part is very often released into the biosphere without control. The
uncontrolled part is likely to cause damage to the environment and human life and assets and,
therefore, an additional emergy investment will be required annually over the persistence time of the
pollutant in the biosphere to amend this damage (although some damage is very unlikely to be
amendable). Figure 1 shows a generic system driven by renewable and non-renewable sources. The
pollution associated with the non-renewable input is represented as interacting with the system
structure and depreciating it. The amount of emergy stored in the structure and lost due to pollution or
the amount of emergy needed to restore a degraded structure can be used as indirect measures of the
impact of pollution. The degradation of a building facade, due to traffic emissions, and the emergy
needed to paint it again are good examples of this. Ulgiati et al. (1995) explore a number of cases to
which these considerations apply, provide a general formula for inclusion of additional investments
both for pollutant uptake and for fixing damage, and suggest an Emergy Yield Ratio of End Use,
calculated by including the investments required for clean-up (as opposed to the Emergy Yield Ratio
of a Source, where the additional investments are not accounted for). Of course, both versions of this
ratio should be calculated, since they provide two different pieces of information.
Following the same rationale, Geber and Bjrklund (2001) investigate the amount of
environmental services that are needed for treatment of wastewater from industrial and urban systems
in Sweden, in addition to the emergy invested to drive the systems. Their study analyzes the use of
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Solar
Fossil
Fuels
Assets
I1
I2
Pollution
B
I3
Figure 1. Energy System Diagram showing the depreciation of assets due to pollution (A= Assets, B= pollutants,
I1, I2, and I3 flow interactions).
resources in three different wastewater treatment systems: (i) a conventional three-step treatment, (ii) a
conventional mechanical and chemical treatment system complemented by a constructed wetland, and
(iii) treatment in a natural wetland. These systems were compared in order to investigate to what extent
increased space, time, and dependence on ecosystem services could substitute for purchased input in
wastewater treatment. The study clearly illustrates that a significant emergy investment is required for
the whole economic system to be acceptable according to the enforced Swedish laws.
Ulgiati and Brown (2002) take this concept a step further by identifying several possible
strategies to deal with the problem of undesired process co-products:
a)
business-as-usual strategies, i.e. ignoring the problem of waste products, which will require
investments later to fix damages;
b) fixing strategies, i.e. investing resources in technological devices for the abatement, recycling or
safe disposal of waste by-products;
c) carrying capacity assessment strategies, i.e. calculating the available environmental services and
adapting any development to their space-time scales.
Ulgiati and Brown apply these concepts to electricity production and quantify the values of emergybased indicators, depending on the additional technological and environmental services required.
Transformities and the other emergy indicators are significantly affected by inclusion of clean-up
services (mainly dilution of pollutants) to make the process acceptable.
Brown and Ulgiati calculate the volumes of air (wind) and the volumes of water (marine
currents and rivers) respectively needed to dilute the chemicals and heat released. If large amount of
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chemicals and heat are released, their dilution requires large amounts of wind emergy and marine or
river emergy. Bakshi (2002) criticizes the simplified calculation procedure adopted by Ulgiati and
Brown, pointing out that dilution is not the only mechanism for pollutant abatement. He suggests the
use of LCA databases and impact categories in emergy analysis, as a means of internalizing the
environmental damage. In a case study on soybean growth, Bakshi (2002) translates the environmental
damage indicated by LCA categories into emergy feedback flows. Accounting explicitly for the
emergy investment required for the dilution or the management of emissions and waste is a significant
improvement of the calculation practice generally adopted in emergy analysis, where transformities
and emergy indicators are very often calculated only on the basis of what is needed to make the
product. Both ways are correct, in our opinion, but they provide different levels of information. Both
ways are correct, in our opinion, provided that both kinds of information are supplied.
It clearly appears that in each of the studies cited above, the quality of results does not only
depend on the accurate quantification of energy flows (solar radiation, wind, deep heat, fuels,
electricity), but also on the quality and completeness of data about input and output material flows.
This applies particularly to waste and polluting emissions, the effects of which cannot be directly
monitored by means of the emergy accounting of input flows. A correct and meaningful emergy
analysis requires, as unavoidable preliminary steps, a Material Flow Inventory (MFA) and Life Cycle
Assessment (LCA) to be performed (or derived from the large MFA and LCA databases available [e.g.
Hoffmann, 2002; Ritthoff et al., 2003]).
Dealing with Wastes

Dealing with wastes requires, first of all, the identification of a thermodynamic property,
which can, in first approximation, quantify its residual usefulness. Wastes are usually an aggregate of
different materials and chemical species, which are difficult to separate, unless additional resources are
invested. Simply referring to waste in mass or volume terms (e.g. grams or m3) does not express any
meaningful property, apart from a difficult handling of large quantities. Calculating its exergy (a userside, local scale property) may be useful in quantifying its residual value as a resource (Szargut et al.,
1988), within an acceptable window of uncertainty. By definition, exergy is the potential ability to do
work in a reversible process. If waste exergy is not negligible, wastes could still serve as input to
another process or be recycled. If they are abandoned in the environment, their exergy could also
translate into the ability to further drive (maybe undesired) reactions within environmental dynamics.
It is therefore strongly advisable not to release materials that are still usable or could be dangerous. In
principle, further exploitation allows the user to extract the work potential still available and then to
release the residual matter in a state of quasi-thermodynamic equilibrium with the surrounding
environment. When the wastes are fully degraded so that the gradient of whatever their physical
characteristics (concentration, pressure, chemical potential, temperature) is zero in relation to the
reference level of the environment, they are no longer a resource.
What is then the role of emergy in this terminal part of the process chain? By definition,
emergy is the memory of the direct and indirect work provided by the environment to make the
product available. If wastes are to be considered directly usable co-products, the total emergy driving
the process should be assigned to them. According to the emergy approach, the transformity (= emergy
invested/exergy of co-product) of the wastes increases as their exergy decreases, indicating a very
inefficient way of producing this flow. Such a result is not unexpected, since it is true for any item
requiring a large investment and providing an increasingly small yield in terms of potential work. In
principle, when the exergy of the waste is close to zero, its transformity tends towards + .
In order to reuse or recycle the waste material that can still be used, an emergy investment is
needed. We already pointed out that for an emergy evaluation to be reliable, the emergy input required
for waste treatment, safe disposal, or recycling must be accounted for, similar to the emergy
investment required for emission abatement.
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In principle, the transformity of the recycled material should be calculated accounting for both the
investment for recycling and previous input to the process that generated the waste. This is because of
the co-product nature of the wastes. However, recycling has the same role in human productive
systems as the detritus chain in natural systems. Both take a high transformity input at the end of its
life cycle, break it down to simpler components and feed them back to lower hierarchical levels. The
recycled component then re-enters the same productive cycles through which it had already passed
(maybe many times), and therefore it would be double counting to assign to it the whole emergy it
bore when it was still in the finished product form. The following allocation rules therefore apply:
If the wastes (either as they are or after some treatment) are released into the environment, the
input provided by nature for their abatement via natural processes should be accounted for (as an
emergy cost) and assigned to the main product, thus increasing its transformity. The waste flow
itself is to be considered as a depreciation pathway (not a product) and, therefore, it shall bear no
emergy.
If wastes are treated and re-enter a production process as a substitute material or resource, only
the emergy invested in the treatment and recycling process should be assigned to recycled
resources.
According to the allocation rules proposed above, wastes only bear the additional emergy inputs
needed for their further processing. This implies that, if a sufficiently efficient recycling process exists,
secondary materials (derived from wastes) will have lower transformities than the corresponding
primary ones (i.e., from ores), thus recognizing the advantage of recycling. This will in turn make
them favourable as alternative inputs in other industrial processes too.
QUALITY OF EMERGY FLOWS EMBODIED IN PURCHASED INPUTS (F)

Emergy accounting procedures usually classify input flows as locally renewable (R), nonrenewable (N), and purchased (F) flows. Each category of inputs (R, N, F) is therefore embodied in the
output, which is driven by given percentages of the above flows. Indicators of performance (e.g, EYR,
ELR) are calculated according to these proportions of input emergy flows.
When a given product is in turn supplied as an input to another process, the emergy of the
input flow is transferred to the new process, so that the memory of previous processes is not lost.
However, what is lost is the information embodied in the proportion of R, N, and F, which
characterizes the input flow. On the scale of the new process, the flow is usually accounted for as
purchased nonrenewable (F) in the calculation of performance indicators. Thus, locally renewable
driving forces seem to lose relevance as the observer moves farther and farther from primary
processes. This practice is surprising within the body of a theory based on the memory of a product
history. We suggest that performance indicators be calculated preserving the characteristics of the
inputs (% R, N and F).
In practice, if the emergy flows of goods, labor, or services are generated within a process
characterized by a given fraction of renewables, these flows should also be considered renewable by
the same fraction. In so doing, the contribution of input flows to a process performance is not
necessarily non-renewable on the larger scale of the system in which the investigated process is
embedded, but offers a variety of intermediate possibilities, with sometimes non-negligible effects on
the calculated performance indicators. Cialani et al. (2004) calculate that the renewable fraction of
labor and services in the Italian economy was 9% in the year 1991 and is presently about 6%. Less
industrialized economic systems, of course, present much higher fraction. Labor and services
generated within the Italian economy share the same renewable fraction as the general economic
system. As a consequence, labor-intensive goods may embody lower, but not negligible, fractions of
renewable emergy. Accounting for these fractions in the calculation of performance indicators, i.e.
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taking into account the larger appropriation of renewable input emergy, affects their values to a
quantifiable extent, as we will see later in the case study (Table 1).
GETTING RID OF SIMPLIFICATIONS AND MISCONCEPTIONS

Most emergy evaluations end up calculating a set of indicators. The most common ones,
based on the experience of published papers, are: (a) the total emergy supporting the process, (b)
suitable intensity ratios (transformity, seJ/J; specific emergy, seJ/g; emergy/GNP; emergy/person), and
(c) performance indicators (Emergy Yield Ratio [EYR], Environmental Loading Ratio [ELR],
Empower Density [ED], and Emergy Index of Sustainability [EIS]). Depending on the specificity of a
paper, other indicators have also been suggested and calculated (carrying capacity [Brown and Ulgiati,
2001], recycling index [Brown and Buranakarn, 2003], Landscape Development Intensity [Brown and
Vivas, 2004], and Industrial Emergy Sustainability Index [Yang et al., 2003]).
Although each author has the right to focus on those specific aspects that appear more
interesting for the research he/she is carrying out, it is important that indicators with the same name
indicate the same properties. Trivial as it may seem, inconsistencies in definitions and use of indicators
are common to all branches of science and many years are often needed before general agreement is
reached about names and properties. Thermodynamics offers innumerous examples of this trend
(Truesdell, 1980).
Emergy analysts are often faced with the task of clarifying appropriate definitions and uses of
particular indicators. Furthermore, suggesting new indicators can only be justified when the set of
existing ones are found to be unable or insufficient to describe a systems dynamics. We still need to
better explore the meaning and potentialities of the existing emergy indicators on the basis of detailed
case studies. We must honestly admit that only in very few sectors have we investigated enough case
studies to allow significant comparisons and reliable conclusions. Running ahead with too much
innovation does not help reinforce the foundations of emergy analysis or its relationship with other
approaches.
In the next sections we will shortly discuss the meaning of two emergy indicators (EYR and
ELR). Then, with the help of the results of a case study on electricity production, we will show how
their meaning can easily be misunderstood, and how the whole set of emergy indicators should be used
to provide a clearer picture of the process.
Emergy Appropriation and Environmental Loading

In a companion paper (Raugei et al., 2004) also presented in this conference, we dedicate
special attention to the properties of the EYR, underlining that it is independent of the efficiency that
characterizes the process. This efficiency is instead expressed by the transformity. Brown and Ulgiati
(2004) define the EYR as follows:
The emergy yield ratio, EYR, is a measure of the ability of a process to exploit and make
available local resources by investing outside resources. It provides a look at the process from
a different perspective, its openness. It provides a measure of the appropriation of local
resources by a process, which can be read as a potential additional contribution to the
economy, gained by investing resources already available. (334)
According to such a definition, the EYR measures a potential, not actual, contribution to the
systems dynamics. The equation high EYR = good for the system does not always hold, especially
over long run perspectives, and should not be applied automatically to any investigated situation.
Odum and Odum (2001) point out that indicators have different values in the different stages of a
systems life (growth, climax, descent, and restoration) and, therefore, policies that are good in times
of abundant resources may not be similarly good in times of declining or scarce resources. The whole
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set of emergy based indicators must therefore be used to understand a process performance and to
select policies.
According to Brown and Ulgiati (2004), the ELR is designed to compare the amounts of nonrenewable and purchased emergy (N+F) to the amount of locally renewable emergy (R). In the absence
of investments from outside, the renewable emergy that is locally available would have driven the
growth of a mature ecosystem consistent with the constraints imposed by the environment and
characterized by an ELR = 0. Instead, the non-renewable imported emergy drives a different site
development, and its distance from the natural ecosystem can be indicated by the ratio (N+F)/R. The
higher this ratio, the bigger the distance of the technological development from the natural process that
could have developed locally. In this sense, we can say that the ELR is a measure of the load on the
environment. It is not, however, a measure of pollution. In no way can the ELR specifically indicate
the polluting effects of a given process since it based on donor-side flow accounting. We may feel
disappointed by this lack of ability to account for direct pollution and may think of modified versions
of the ELR, in order to also account for the concentration of released chemicals or the residual emergy
of wastes and to make the indicator more sensitive to downstream effects. In so doing we run the risk
of misunderstanding the significance of this indicator by forcing it to perform tasks for which it was
not designed in the first place, and which can be better accomplished by other already existing tools.
CASE STUDY: ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL EXTERNALITIES

IN OIL POWERED ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION
Table 1 summarizes the updated results of a previous study (Brown and Ulgiati, 2002) about
electricity production in Italy (Figure 2). We disaggregated the different components of the renewable
flows in the table, in order to better show their dependence on the scale at which the process is
investigated. Moving from column (A) to (D), the only difference is the inclusion of additional
renewable emergy flows, corresponding to indirect environmental services (see section on emternalities) previously not accounted for. In a way, this corresponds to expanding the boundary of the
investigated system. Option (A) only includes the local flows of solar radiation and rain, as done in
many published emergy analyses. Due to the very small amount of this local emergy compared with
the flows purchased from outside, the EYR is practically equal to 1: that is, the total emergy driving
the system and assigned to the output is almost equal to the purchased flow. For the same reason, the
ELR is very high and the EIS is close to zero. This result should not be surprising, since it is based on
the assumption that the only renewable flow to the system is the amount indicated as R1. Option (B)
more correctly includes a second renewable emergy flow, i.e. the cooling service R2 operated by the
water flowing through the plant from a nearby sea or river. This much more concentrated emergy flow
adds to the total emergy actually driving the process (no cooling, no electricity!) and translates into a
higher EYR and a much lower ELR. The plant appears to be more sustainable (EIS = 0.057), thanks to
the buffer contribution of the surrounding environment. Let us now move on to option (C). In order
for the plant to be more sustainable (or acceptable), the heat and chemicals released must be quickly
diluted to concentrations very close to the background values in the environment. In our assumption,
the dilution service is provided by the wind flowing from outside the local area, although in a real case
humid deposition and rain also play a significant role. The emergy associated with the wind for
dilution further increases the EYR, indicating a much larger appropriation of renewable emergy by the
system, and lowers the ELR. The system becomes more sustainable (EIS = 0.35), thanks to the
availability and exploitation of environmental services for the dilution. Should the plant be located in
an area with scarce wind, the released heat and chemicals would accumulate in the surrounding air and
soil, the ELR would increase due to the lower support capacity of the local environment, and the
plants acceptability by the local population would decrease as well. Finally, the renewable fractions of
purchased fuel, goods, labor and services provided to the plant are also accounted for in option (D),
with smaller, but not negligible, effects on further lowering of the ELR and increasing of the EIS.
-208-
How should these results be interpreted? Option (D) is, undoubtedly, more realistic, although it is not
the most commonly calculated one. Whether we like it or not, the cooling service is absolutely
necessary, the dilution or abatement of heat and chemicals is the only way to make the plant acceptable
and, finally, all inputs provided to the plant are supported on the larger scale by a fraction of renewable
emergy. The latter can be estimated from the analysis of the countrys economic and ecological
systems. The total renewable flow Rtot provided to the plant in option (D) amounts to 22.2% of the
total emergy input. Is the electricity from this plant partially renewable? Certainly not, at least not in
Table 1. Emergy-based indices for a 1,280 MWe oil-powered plant in Italy.
Increasing spatial scale --->
Summary of data
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
R1
Renewable input from the local scale
seJ
1.20E+17 1.20E+17 1.20E+17 1.20E+17
R2
Cooling service from sea water
seJ
0.00E+00 3.33E+20 3.33E+20 3.33E+20
R3
seJ
0.00E+00 0.00E+00 1.67E+21 1.67E+21
seJ
0.00E+00 0.00E+00 0.00E+00 6.51E+16
RS
Dilution by wind
Renewable fraction of purchased plant inputs,
including fuel, without services
Renewable fraction of labor and services (#)
seJ
0.00E+00 0.00E+00 0.00E+00 5.53E+19
Rtot
Total renewable input
seJ
1.20E+17 3.33E+20 1.67E+21 1.73E+21
seJ
0.00E+00 0.00E+00 0.00E+00 0.00E+00
seJ
5.57E+21 5.57E+21 5.57E+21 5.57E+21
NS
Locally nonrenewable input, without services (*)

Nonrenew fraction of purchased plant inputs,
including fuel, without services
Nonrenewable fraction of labor and services (#)
seJ
5.53E+20 5.53E+20 5.53E+20 4.98E+20
Yield without services= [(Rtot-RS)+N+NF]
seJ
5.57E+21 5.90E+21 7.24E+21 7.24E+21
YS
Yield with services= (Y+RS+NS)

Indices (including services for fuel supply and
plant manufacturing)
Solar Transformity of electricity, with services
seJ
6.12E+21 6.45E+21 7.79E+21 7.79E+21
RF
N
NF
Tr1
sej/J 2.60E+05 2.75E+05 3.32E+05 3.32E+05
Solar Transformity of electricity, without services sej/J 2.37E+05 2.51E+05 3.08E+05 3.08E+05
Emergy Yield Ratio, EYR=
1.00
1.05
1.27
1.27
EYR
(Ys)/(RF+NF+RS+NS)
Environmental Loading Ratio,
5.09E+04
18.40
3.66
3.51
ELR
ELR= (N+NF+NS)/(Rtot)
sej/m2 3.19E+15 3.36E+15 4.06E+15 4.06E+15
ED Emergy Density, ED= (YS)/area of plant
Tr2
0.00002
0.057
0.348
0.363
EIS EYR/ELR
(*) Includes only locally extracted fuel delivered to plant, as well as underground water, and topsoil used up (if
any).
(#) Labor accounts for hours actually worked in the investigated process. Services include human labor in all
steps prior than plant use, quantified as the emergy associated to the monetary cost (cost of item, $, x country
emergy/GNP ratio, seJ/$)
(A) Renewable emergy only includes solar radiation and rainfall on local area; purchased goods and services are
considered 100% nonrenewable.
(B) Renewable emergy includes solar radiation and rainfall on local area and the cooling service by sea water;
purchased goods and services are considered 100% nonrenewable.
(C) Renewable emergy includes solar radiation and rainfall on local area, the cooling service by sea water, and
cooling + dilution by wind; purchased goods and services are considered 100% nonrenewable.
(D) Renewable emergy includes all the above + the renewable fractions of purchased inputs and services;
purchased goods and services are considered partially renewable and partially nonrenewable.
-209-
Sea
Currents
Fuel
Goods &
machinery
Wind
Labor
Services
$
Emis
Heat
Local ai
Power Plant
Air
Electricity
Sun
Marine
Ecosystems
Heat
Sea
Figure 2. Energy System Diagram of electricity production including the environmental work of wind and sea
currents for dilution of pollutants
the way in which electricity produced by means of a wind turbine or a photovoltaic module is.
Nevertheless, the appropriation of renewable emergy by the plant is real: the same water used to cool
the plant cannot be used to provide the same service to a nearby one, because its cooling ability has
already been used up. Similarly, the dilution service is smaller if the wind is already carrying
chemicals from an upstream chimney. Therefore, if the necessary environmental services are available,
the plant is more acceptable or sustainable. Yet, this increased acceptability, from an environmental
point of view, occurs at the cost of a higher value of transformity, steadily increasing from (A) to (D),
and a larger Emergy Density. It takes more direct and indirect, renewable and non-renewable emergy
to generate one joule of electricity in a relatively sustainable way. The required environmental support
is higher or, better yet, a higher required support is calculated when all the inputs are correctly
accounted for.
The case study confirms that:
a)
The EYR of End Use is higher than the EYR of the Source and must be calculated if the system is
to be checked for sustainability.
b) The EYR measures the appropriation of resources independently of the efficiency of the process
itself. Since the appropriated resources are diverted from other uses, a careful evaluation is
required.
c) The ELR is not a measure of direct pollution. In the investigated options, the pollution is always
the same and is not accounted for by the ELR. Instead, this indicator measures the hierarchical
distance between the technological system and a virtual pristine natural system only driven by
renewable emergy on the same area. This distance becomes lower on the largest possible scale,
-210-
depending on the correct inclusion of the environmental externalities, while it seems to increase
on smaller scales where some externalities are not accounted for.
d) The transformity is a crucial and very effective evaluation parameter. It indicates the real
environmental cost (amount of total emergy requirement per unit of true yield) of the output and is
sensitive to any additional flows fed to the system. Correctly accounting for all the necessary
externalities that make a system more acceptable inevitably highlights the higher demand for
environmental support. The indicator better suited to express this state is the transformity.
However, higher transformities indicate higher ecological footprints, and therefore a lower
number of systems that can be globally supported.
NO NEED TO START FROM SCRATCH

Every year countless studies are published in the scientific literature in which environmental
and performance analyses are carried out using different methodologies, such as Life Cycle
Assessment, Material Flow Accounting, Embodied Energy Analysis, Exergy Analysis, etc., each with
its own well-defined rules and scale of applicability. This body of work constitutes an ever-expanding
database of information that emergy analysts should not underestimate. In fact, there is little point in
directing ones efforts at gathering information from scratch when the information has already been
gathered for previous studies, even if these studies were performed using a different assessment
method.
Furthermore, it is the authors firm belief that, under no circumstances, can a single indicator
or method of analysis be sufficient to give a comprehensive picture of a complex system, be it natural
or human-dominated. Emergy accounting itself would be even more valuable and appreciated by a
larger scientific community if it could rely on the results of a multi-criteria approach, wherein it could
contribute the missing tessera of the mosaic (i.e., the evaluation of environmental support) and at the
same time provide a larger framework (the biosphere space-time scale) for understanding the system
dynamics. The results of such multi-criteria and emergy analyses should then be critically compared
and integrated before conclusions can be drawn and, possibly, sensible policy recommendations
provided.
A recent proposal for a multi-scale, multi-criteria code of practice was made by the authors
with their SUMMA approach (Ulgiati et al., 2003; Ulgiati et al., 2004), which attempts to integrate the
different information that can be obtained from several individual environmental impact assessment
methods. These can be categorized into upstream and downstream methods, where the former are
focused primarily on the amount of resources used per unit of product, while the latter are more
concerned with consequences of the systems emissions. Emergy accounting is used in SUMMA in
order to help understand the relationship between the process and the environment, on the largest
possible scale, as well as to assess its actual sustainability.
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-214-
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
16
Combining Bookkeeping Techniques and Emergy Analysis
ABSTRACT
This paper proposes the fusion of bookkeeping and emergy analysis to evaluate production
systems. The basic idea is to obtain from emergy analysis the values of natural resources that
contribute to a specific production and also an estimative of the importance of environmental and
social impacts. On the other hand, from the bookkeeping methods side it is necessary to discover
where and how the emergy information will be introduced on the Balance Sheet and the Gain and Loss
Statement. Finally, it is necessary to observe the behavior of bookkeeping tools after the introduction
of emergy values of natural resources and externalities. To illustrate this dual method it was analyzed
a water buffalo farm located in Rio Grande do Sul, the southernmost state of Brazil. This farm
(Fazenda Redomo) uses an ecological method for animal husbandry, the Voisin Technique. So far,
the proposed combination of methods seems possible but, because the dual method was applied to an
ecological system with low negative impacts, we strongly recommend applying it in a non-ecological
cattle-growing system, in order to compare and discover new possibilities of improvement. It is
possible that negative externalities as well as free contributions from Nature can lead to strong
modifications on the bookkeeping results. The combined accounting method may be very useful for
holistic management.
INTRODUCTION
Any activity demands and degrades available energy. Every activity has specific opensystems thermodynamics indicators of performance. However, nowadays the enterprises do not use
them as criteria for planning and management. But, since economic activities generate important
environmental and social impacts, it is necessary to review the forms of measuring value and
efficiency.
In this context, emergy method is a precious tool, since it measures the real energy involved
in any activity. The Emergy Analysis assigns to every input all the energy that is needed to produce it.
In order to make inputs comparable, they are calculated in terms of their equivalent solar energy. On
the other hand, Bookkeeping evaluates all the activities of an enterprise through the detailed register of
the inventory in order to offer a diagnosis of the economic health of the enterprise. As it has been in
use for quite a long time, bookkeeping is accepted internationally as an appropriate tool for
administration on general and financial control, in a specific form. The Accounting Community
accepts that Bookkeeping can include environmental debts and credits.
Combining both criterions targets a fundamental goal: to offer bookkeeping the possibility of
expressing the values of assets and liabilities in terms of emergy and, therefore, to be environmentally
meaningful. The idea is to account all the items of a balance sheet by their energy content and quality.
-215-
Chapter 16. Combining Bookkeeping Techniques

Some of these, whose monetary value is considered inexistent, should be seen as having useful energy
and, therefore, capable of performing valuable work.
In South America, cattle-growing is a very important economic activity that requires few
employees per area and usually has low costs. Because of that, it spreads out over the countryside. The
cattle-growing systems are becoming bigger and concentrate the income in rural areas. This activity
creates social and environmental liabilities, not always identified and not charged to the farmers, for
instance:
a) Low employment rate (social exodus);
b) Replacement of the virgin forests by pasture;
c) Soil erosion;
d) Water pollution;
e) Extinction of species;
f) Gas emissions that produce climatic changes;
Traditional cattle growers are guided by the logic of diminishing costs through gaining on
scale. They acquire political power and use it to avoid law enforcement. Since pasturelands are
increasing their price and are no longer fertile, rural activities are striding towards distant woodlands
where price of land is cheaper. This raises transport costs, but the financial balance is positive.
However, the environmental threaten is obvious. As an alternative, there are systems that combine
pasture, forest and animal rotation. These new technologies point towards great improvements in
environmental stability and economic profitability. Water buffalo is an interesting option to Latin
American countries; they are rustic, docile, adaptable and efficient converters of biomass into many
products.
So, the improvement of cattle systems is highly desirable and possible. It is expected that in
the future the animal husbandry systems will have integration with agriculture and industrial activities.
Naturally, the environmental impacts of the cattle growing activity, that may exist, must be studied and
solved. The owners of the cattle project analyzed agreed to contribute with this study.
MATERIALS AND METHODS

In this essay, as shown in Figure 1, the goal is to maintain the standard accounting structure, with its
items valued in the traditional way adding, however, a second column in the Balance Sheet (BS) and
the Gain and Loss Statement (GLS) where each item receives the emergy value calculated in the
Emergy Flows Table. Another additional feature is a line of externalities to be subtracted from the Net
Profit at the GLS chart. If externalities are neglected, it means that the producers do not assume
Daily
inventory
Externalities
estimatives
Annual
Balance
Combined
Balance Sheet
Emergy
Evaluation
Figure 1. Accounting procedure including Emergy Evaluation and estimate of externalities.
-216-
Combined
Gains & Losses
Statement

social, environmental or economic costs. In short, four scenarios were obtained: monetary and emergy
evaluation both with and without externalities.
The combined methods were applied to Redomo water buffalo farm (Figure 2). The
productive process of this farm is divided into eight sectors: four sectors are dedicated to milk
production and the other three to meat production, in a total area of 307 hectares. In all these sectors,
the animal husbandry follows the Voisin method. It establishes that the cattle should stay one up to two
days in each paddock, in a quick consumption period, and only comes back after forty days, the period
of time necessary for pasture regeneration. The Voisin method doesnt need investments in pasture
formation but on paddocks construction and technical training. In the eighth sector the area is devoted
to produce the feed (maize and sugar cane) that is supplied to milk producing animals. The farm
nowadays obtains the productivity and profitability ratios as shown in Table 1 below:
Table 1. Productivity and Net Profit indicators for the Redomo farm.
Product
Productivity
Medium price
US$/unit
0,60
Meat
228 kg/ha/year
Milk
170 liters/ha/year
Sales
US$/ha/year
136.08
1,09
Expenses
US$/ha/year
Net profit
US$/ha/year
184.92
Total
321.00
196.56
124.44
Source: Redomo farm, 20/November/2003.
Watershed
water, sediments,
organic matter
Initial
investiment
Regional
Biodiversity
payments
N3
Atmosphere
materials and
energy
inputs
internal
cicles
Soil minerals
NPK
Instalations human
and employee local
labor
Landgrass and
other cultures
payments
$
money
Paddocks,
Infraestucture
Solar energy,
rain and wind
Materials
and
Services
milk
Buffalos,
calves and
reproducers
Farm
Figure 2. Emergy Flows Diagram for Redomo ecological farm.
-217-
Cooling and
processing
$ sales
cheese
milk
$ sales
meat
Diagram Flows and Balance Sheets

For the purpose of this study we need to consider all the stages of the enterprises
development. Through the use of energy flows diagrams and balance sheets in parallel (figures 3 to 6)
we show a farm from its beginning until it achieves full production and also to its enclosure. This
procedure evidences the environmental passive as well as the ecological debt. Two examples were
considered: typical cattle growing and an ecological farm.
Cattle growing system: Initially, the stakeholders meet to choose the area that will be used and to join
the capital to buy it. Nowadays, in Brazil the cattle systems are expanding in lands covered by native
forests. The first process is contract external services to extract the wood and after that, they put fire on
the residual vegetation. The money obtained from wood sales allows paying part of initial investment.
There is an environmental load because the biological diversity decreases and erosion begins. The
environmental impact creates a passive to be paid in the future.
Balance Sheet
Soil Mineral
External
Services
Assets
N2
Atmosphere
$ Inicial
Investiment
sun,
wind,
rain
Current Assets
Wood
Current liabilities
Long Term Assets
Long term liabilities

Environmental debit
biomass
Wood
Natural ecossistem
without men
intervention
Biological
Diversity
Liabilities
Fixed Assets
Agrarian capital
Net worth
Initial Investment
Pure
Wather
Figure 3a. Emergy and Financial views of Cattle Growing System, first step implementation.
Redomo Voisin Method: The owners decided to buy a land degraded by agrochemical rice culture.
The soil fertility was lost and it had a lower price. The enterprise accepted to gradually recover the
environmental passive left by previous activity. An important pre-operational investment was the
Voisin Method training. This ecological technique demands a high planning and managing capacity.
Balance Sheet
Soil Mineral
External
Services
Assets
Current Assets
Ecological training
N2
Atmosphere
$
$
biomass
sun,
wind,
rain
Pasture and
agriculture land
$
Knowledge
Inicial
Investiment
Long Term Assets
Ecological
training
Fixed Assets
Agrarian capital
Liabilities
Current liabilities
Ecological training costs
Environmental debit
Net worth
Initial Investment
Externalities
Figure 3b. Emergy and Financial views of Redomo Voisin Method, first step implementation.
-218-

In the next stage, the enterprises use land area capital to obtain bank long-term investments to
complete the infrastructure: paddocks, equipment, machinery, buildings, etc. This activity can be
shown in a unique figure for both systems.
Preoperational
Expenses
Soil minerals
N2
Atmosphere
Balance Sheet
Taxes
$
biomass
sun,
wind, rain
External
services
Bank long
term capital
Assets
Current Assets
Current liabilities
Pre operational costs
Long Term Assets

Bank
Environmental debit
Infra-estructure
Natural
Grassland
Externalities
Liabilities
Fixed Assets
Infra-structure
Machinery
Agrarian capital
Social register
Net worth
Initial Investment
Figure 4. Emergy and Financial views of the infrastructure implementation in conventional cattle growing system
and Redomo ecological farm.
After the infrastructure implementation, it is possible to start the farms production. At this
stage (Figure 5), the expenses with labor and inputs will begin. The main obligations are salaries,
employees rights, fuel suppliers, electric energy and telephone, payment of the bank interests over
third parties capital, taxes and net profit.
Cattle growing system: This enterprise maintains intense commercial activities with urban economy
to buy inputs and to obtain services. Even today the environmental passive is not paid due to several
reasons, in the future it will have to be considered in public and private accounting. It is better to be
prepared for that moment.
Bank available
cashier
Stockist
Soil Minerals
Balance Sheet
Bank - Long
term loan
Governamental
Services
(taxes)
Assets
Current Assets
Available cash
Cattle Growing
N2
Atmosphere
Catlle
sun,
wind,
rain
Natural
grassland
Human
Farm work
InfraStructure
$
Consume Stock
Long Term Assets

$
Meat and
milk sales
Externalities
Fixed Assets
Equipment and machines

Installations
Agrarian Capital
Liabilities
Current Liabilities
Suppliers
Salary
Taxes
Interest
Long Term Liabilities
Banks
Environmental debit
Net Worth
Initial Investments
Net Profit
Figure 5a. Emergy and Financial views of full performance conditions in Cattle Growing Systems.
Redomo Voisin Method: Meat and milk production is carried out with the minimum of external
inputs. The animals are fed with several plants that grow on the paddocks under rotation. The milking
animals receive a food complement made with sugar cane and corn produced in the farm. The
Redomo enterprise is making investments on vegetation recovering: formation of tree corridors,
natural diversification of grasslands and soil protection. This farm is gaining an environmental credit,
increasing the value of the property and reducing production costs.
-219-

Balance Sheet
Bank - available
cashier
Stockist
Bank - Long
term loan
Governamental
Services
(taxes)
Soil Minerals
Assets
Liabilities
Current Liabilities
Current Assets
Suppliers
Salary
Taxes
Interest
Available cash
Water Buffaloes
N2
Atmosphere
Catlle
Biodiverdity
sun,
wind,
rain
Farm
InfraStructure
Human
work
Consume Stock
Long Term Liabilities

Banks
Long Term Assets

$
Natural
grassland
Net Worth
Meat and
milk sales
Externalities
Fixed Assets
Water Buffaloes for milk
Equipment and machines
Initial Investments
Installations
Agrarian Capital
Net Profit
Environmental credit
Figure 5b. Emergy and Financial views of Redomo Voisin Method in steady state.
If this farm ends its operation (Figure 6), all the assets should be sold and the result of this
sale should meet all the farms obligations. Beside the traditional obligations, any company should put
apart enough resources to restore the environment to its original conditions. After having met all these
obligations, the owners could keep the remaining assets, if any.
Cattle Growing System: At the end of its operation, the assets will be sold to pay all its liabilities.
Our idea is that the ecological debt has to be paid, at least at this final moment. The taxes should be
greater for those that do not recover the ecosystem, in such a form that the government could assume
the restoration of nature at the end of operations. This tax difference could affect the profit of
stakeholders, as shown in Figure 6a:
$
Balance Sheet
$
environmental
recovering
work
Assets
Environmental
Taxes
soil
minerals
Environmental
Liabilities
Liabilities
Current Assets
Current liabilities
Final payment
Long Term Assets

Environmental recovering
reserve
Fixed Assets
N2
atmosphere
Farm
InfraStructure
Human
work
Catlle
sun,
wind,
rain
natural
grassland
Liquid profit of farm

sale
$
$
Net worth
Selling of the
farm
Externalities
Figure 6a. Emergy and Financial views of end of activities in conventional cattle growing system.
Redomo Voisin Method: At the end of Redomo activities, the owners will receive additional
benefits. There will be no economic neither ecological liabilities. The debt with bank and suppliers
will be very low, only some commitments with workers and long-term loans. The ecological
recovering will mean better price for the property.
-220-

Balance Sheet
Employment
rights
soil
minerals
N2
atmosphere
Farm
InfraStructure
Activity
Liabilities
Taxes
Human
work
Current Assets
Current liabilities
Final payment
Long Term Assets
Net worth
natural
grassland
Liabilities
Fixed Assets
Catlle
sun,
wind,
rain
Assets
Liquid profit of farm

sale
Selling of the
farm
Externalities
Figure 6b. Emergy and Financial views of the end of activities in Redomo farm.
RESULTS
The emergy evaluation of Redomo farm provides the indicators shown in Table 2. See Table
4 in the Appendix for details.
Table 2a. Emergy flows for Redomo farm in 2002.
Emergy flow
x 1013 sej/ha/year
278.2
Aggregated flows
Renewable resources ( R )
Non-renewable resources ( N )
Percent
81.8
6.3
1.9
Inputs from nature ( I )

Materials depreciation ( M )
284.5
83.7
12.3
3.6
Materials consumption ( M )
24.6
7.3
Services ( S )
13.5
4.0
2.3
0.7
52.7
15.6
317.2
100.0
Additional services ( S )
Feedback from economy ( F )
Total emergy used ( Y )
Table 2b. Emergy indicators for Redomo farm in 2002.

Indicators
(H. T. Odum, 1996)
Transformity
Formulas
(H. T. Odum, 1996)
Tr = Y/(product energy)
% Renewable
%Ren = (R/Y)*100
Emergy Yield Ratio
EYR = Y/F
Values
1.917.758
85%
8.1
Remarks
(Brown & Ulgiati, 2000)
Intensive system
Highly renewable
Very good
Emergy Investment Ratio EIR = F/I

Emergy Loading Ratio
ELR = (N+F)/R
0.14
Low investment
0.17
Low impact
Emergy Exchange Ratio
2.28
Reasonable fair trade
EER = Y/[(US$ *(sej/US$)]

-221-

These indicators expose the correctness of the administration patterns adopted by the
proprietors and the good environmental behavior of this cattle-growing activity.
Definitions of emergy indicators from Brown and Ulgiati (2000):

Tr: Ratio between the total emergy used and the energy yielded by a process. It is a measure of the
ecosystems efficiency and an indicator of the products position in natures emergy hierarchy.
%Ren: The renewability shows the ratio of renewable emergy to total emergy used in the production
process. Processes with high renewability are sustainable in the long run. The economic consequences
to process are low production costs, more competitive products and lower environmental impact.
EYR: The Environmental Yield Ratio provides a measure of the extraction or appropriation of natural
local resources by investing economic resources. The lowest possible value is 1, which indicates that a
process delivers the same amount of emergy that was provided to drive it, and that it is unable to
usefully exploit any local resource. Therefore, a process with EYR equal to 1 or only slightly higher
does not provide significant net emergy to the economy and only transforms resources that are already
available from previous process.
EIR: The Emergy Investment Ratio measures the ratio of emergy fed back from outside a system to
the indigenous emergy inputs (renewable and nonrenewable). It evaluates how much the process is a
good user of the emergy that is invested, in comparison with alternatives. For conventional agricultural
processes this value goes up to 5-8, for agro-ecological system can be as low as 0,1 to 4. Systems with
EIR values higher than 5 are considered dependent of external resources.
ELR: This indicator compares the amount of nonrenewable (N) and purchased emergy (F) to the
amount of locally renewable emergy (R). In the absence of external investments, the renewable
emergy that is locally available will be driven to the growth of a mature ecosystem and this situation is
characterized by an ELR=0. If external investments are made, values lower than 2 indicate low
environment impacts (or process that can use large areas of local environment to dilute impacts).
Values from 3 to 10 mean a moderate impact, while ELR values above 10 indicate high environmental
impacts due to large flows of concentrated nonrenewable emergy in a relative small local environment.
A comparison of traditional monetary and emergy Balance Sheets.

Now, switching to accounting procedures, Figure 7 presents two different forms to present the
Balance Sheet. The first one is the traditional Annual Balance and the second corresponds to the
Emergy Balance Sheet. This second form shows the same assets and liabilities in terms of Em$.
Bar Diagram
Monetary Agregeted Values
10 0%
Assets
Liabilities
current
245.991
222.741
current
Long Term
149.030
Long Term
Fixed
440.613
314.354
Net Worth
TOTAL
686.125
686.125
US$
Curren t
5 0%
Lo ng Term
Fixed
0%
1
1- Asset s e 2- Liabilit ies
Figure 7a. Traditional Balance Sheet of Redomo farm in 2003, expressed in US dollars.
-222-
Emergy Agregeted Values
current
Assets
Liabilities
262.083
243.272
Bar Diagram
100%
Current
current
Long Term
149.030
Long Term
Fixed
411.880
272.970
Net Worth
TOTAL
673.963
673.963
Em$
50%
Long Term
Fixed
0%
1- Assets
e 2- Liabilities
1
2
Figure 7b. Emergy Balance Sheet of Redomo farm in 2003, expressed in Em$.
It is possible to observe in Figures 7a and 7b that:

(a) Current Assets: some items have higher Em$ value than monetary value.
(b) Current Liabilities: increase because the inputs in Em$ have a higher value.
(c) Log term does not change because correspond to monetary values in both cases.
(d) Fixed Assets: monetary depreciations could be higher than the emergy ones (greater time).
(e) Net Profit, the more important item of Balance Sheet for stakeholders, decreases when emergy
equivalent dollars are used; it changes from 314,354 dollars to 272,970 Em$.
Table 3. GLS in terms of money and Emergy.
Gain and Loss Statement
Sales Revenue
Net Revenue
Production costs
Gross profit
Operational costs
Operational Expenses
Financial expenses
US$
Em$
101,116.35
101,116.35
85,768.10
75,541.94
18,442.49
17,263.74
67,325.60
58,278.19
7,832.86
7,832.86
59,492.75
50,445.33
13,236.71
13,276.71
Tributary expenses
1,691.79
1,691.79
Depreciation expenses
23,895.88
23,895.88
Earnings before Income Tax
22,360.15
13,312.74
5,590.04
16,770.12
23,895.88
16,770.12
9,984.56
23,895.88
Income Tax
Earnings after Income Tax
Depreciation (+)
Net profit
40,666.00
33,880.44
Social and Environmental

externalities
1,905.43
1,905.43
Net profit after

externalities
38,760.57
31,975.01
Using data from Figure 7 it is possible to prepare the G&LS including, or not, externalities
that appear in the system. Table 3 shows GLS in monetary and emergy equivalent dollars, with and
without externalities. The last line shows the Net Profit after inclusion of externalities costs.
-223-
DISCUSSION
It can be observed that Redomo Farm is a very lucrative enterprise. The value of its current
assets allows paying current liabilities. Long-term liabilities can be paid with the Net Profit.
The inclusion of negative externalities can punish the net worth and the non-current liabilities.
This punishment, in the case of Redomo is small due to the careful way the owners use to
administrate the farm as an ecological unit. Besides that, the technology adopted doesnt generate
negative externalities, just the opposite, Voisin Method generates positive externalities.
It was evident that Voisin method as well as Water Buffalo can increase the sustainability and
productivity of cattle growing systems in Latin America. The Redomo farm, since its foundation,
fifteen years ago, has been constantly improving its performance and the farm environment. Support
capacity, self-sufficiency and financial performance get better every year. To attest their success, the
farms support capacity is three times higher (1.5 heads/ha) than the average for the state of Rio
Grande do Sul. They are self-sufficient in food supply for the water buffalos. As a result, the farm
provides higher return rates than the average for farms of the same region. It can be observed that the
social conditions for employees are also better.
Although the ecological path is successful up to now, there are hints that this will become
even better, as the owners keep investing in environmental improvements. They expect to increase
support capacity up to 3 animals per hectare. Besides that, the farmers expect to duplicate the milk
production per milking animal in the next five years. Right now, they are recovering the local
vegetation, planting trees and shrubs. Nowadays, the region is mainly covered by degraded pasture
without forests. In the South of Brazil the law demands 20% of the farms land covered by native
forest.
CONCLUSIONS
1.
The bookkeeping accounting methods (BS and GLS) when applied to Redomo farm provides
good indicators of economic behavior, especially in terms of profitability.
2.
Emergy evaluation of Redomo farm provides indicators that show the low environmental impact;
very good renewability and high emergy yield ratio of the system studied.
3.
The combination of both methods demands not only a steady state analysis but also a history of
the activities of the enterprise in the region, in order to discover the environmental and social
actives and passives.
4.
Apparently, the combination of Emergy Evaluation and Bookkeeping is possible. As a result the
managers can (a) incorporate environmental supplies, (b) establish environmental assets and debts,
(c) introduces the values of negative and positive externalities, (d) planning for the long term.
5.
The relevance of the emergy-combined method is out of question and the goal here is cooperation
with accounting professionals. Nowadays, there are worldwide important debates among the
accountants organizations on how to measure environmental and social assets and liabilities, and
this essay could contribute to the subject.
6.
No matter how important this present study could be, it will need verifications, demand
adjustments and improvements. Other study cases with more negative impacts will have to be
considered and theoretical efforts, as those carried out by Daniel E. Campbell (2004), will have to
be taken in consideration.
7.
Emergy Accounting is a valuable tool, but in order to be widely used, it has to create an
appropriate interface with Bookkeeping, Accounting and Financial Managing; the approach
studied could help to face this challenge.
-224-
REFERENCES
Biennial Emergy Analisis. Emergy Synthesis: Theory And Applications Of The Emergy Methodology.
Gainesville, Florida. Center for Environmental Policy. University Of Florida. 2000.
Brown, M T. & Ulgiati, S. Emergy Analysis And Environmental Accounting. Encyclopedia Of
Emergy. Vol. 2. Ed. Elservier.2004.
Campbell, D. E. Using Financial Accounting Methods To Further Develop And Communicate
Environmental Accounting Using Emergy. Third Biennial Emergy Research Conference.
January 29-31, 2004. Gainesville, Florida.
Federacite, Federao Dos Clubes De Integrao E Troca De Experincias. Pastoreio Rotativo
Racional. Esteio-Rs. Ed. Ideograf. 2001.
Gitman, L. J. Princpios De Administrao Financeira. 7 Edio. So Paulo. Editora Harbra. 1997.
Marion, J.C. Contabilidade Bsica. 6 Ed. So Paulo: Atlas,1998. 208pp
Marion, J.C. Contabilidade Empresarial. 10 Edio Revista, Atualizada E Modernizada. So Paulo,
Editora Atlas - 2003.
Odum, H.T. Environment Accounting, Emergy And Decision Making. New York: J. Wiley, 1996.
370p.
Ortega, E. Introduo Aos Diagramas De Fluxo De Energia Em Ecossistemas, Conceitos Bsicos De
Eficincia Sistmica E Frmulas De Calculo Energtico Que Sero Utilizadas No Diagnstico
Scio-Ambiental. Faculdade De Engenharia De Alimentos, Unicamp. Fevereiro, 2002.
Http://Www.Fea.Unicamp.Br/Ortega/Plan-Disc/Ta530-1a.Htm
Romeiro, A.R, Mangabeira, J.A, Valladares, G.S. Biodiversidade, reflorestamento e Agropecuria no
Brasil. Texts for discussion. IE/UNICAMP. www.ie.unicamp.br/textos
APPENDIX
1. Externalities:
Negative externalities are costs which producers do not assume and manage to transfer to other
systems (society, environment, and employees). In this work, the monetary costs of externalities, as
well as their emergy values were inserted in the spreadsheets. The value of Social and environmental
externalities was subtracted to the Net Profit at the end of the Gain and Profit Statement. To
subtract externalities from profit is a form to charge enterprise owners by their omissions or faults.
(a) Unemployment: Each biome has a certain capacity to maintain the life of species. In the Amazon
jungle, the ecosystem can support 1 human in 20 hectares in a self-sustaining pattern. In the case of a
cattle growing that exports products the index could bigger: 1 human in 50 hectares. From that index,
we can estimate the quantity of labor posts that the farm could sustain (307/50 = 6 work places). If the
farm has 5 workers there is a deficit of 1. It means the wage of a rural worker including social benefits.
(b) Meat contamination:
When a farmer uses toxic chemicals in pastures or animals, such as hormones, or contaminated feed,
he is supplying the market with a dangerous product that jeopardizes consumers health. The effect is
an increase of costs of health system and taxes. These costs are difficult to identify and measure
because usually are not concentrated. The farm Redomo does not use toxic substances.
(c) Milk contamination: Consumers intoxication is not paid by the farmers but by families or
society. The farm under study has a good milking system and does not produce externalities of this
kind.
-225-

(d) Workers intoxication: The family or society pays the medical health treatment of intoxicated
workers. Farmers responsibilities are not assumed neither charged. The ecological farm does not
produce this kind of externalities because doesnt use toxic substances.
(e) Water contamination: If a rural enterprise uses chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, part
of these substances go to water streams and get the subsoil aquifer. Because it is a diffuse phenomenon
the polluters are not charged. There are costs due to water treatment and health treatment. The system
studied does no have this externality.
(f) Deforestation, soil erosion and Biodiversity loss: Cattle growers use to cut the trees and bushes
of the purchased land and, and after that, they put fire. Usually they invest as low as possible, working
with low productivity, losing soils fertility. It is not the case of Redomo; the farmer bought a terrain
of natural meadows that did not have forests due to the force of winds and soil was degraded by rice
production. The farmer is recovering grass diversity and seeding trees and bushes in corridors.
2. Water valuation:
As Active: In order to evaluate the value of the yearly water input of the system, it was obtained the
value of rain that hits the region (cubic meters/square meter/year). Multiplying the area with this value
allows knowing the water chemical potential, but not all this water is available for photosynthesis;
because part of it leaves the land as run-off and another part flows down and leaves the root area
without being absorbed. We assume that water is split in three flows: water used or evapotranspiration
(85%), run-off (5%) and seepage that get into the aquifer (10%). If there were no rainwater the water
would have to be purchased from outside sources in order to obtain the same quantity of biomass. It
should be paid at certain price per cubic meter.
As Passive: It was considered the volume of water retired from the well times its cost per cubic meter.
Financial Analysis (active, passive, results) with data from emergy analysis: For each item of
Balance Sheet (BS) and Gain and Loss Statement (GLS) the emergy value was included, side by side
with the monetary value. The emergy values were imported from the emergy flows calculation table.
Procedure to obtain Emergy values used in the BS and the GLS:
1- Each input flow is expressed in terms of its energy or matter flow;
2- These flows are transformed in their equivalent solar emergy Joules through the use of its
transformity. The emergy corresponds to the real energy cost of the input, in other words,
how much solar energy is needed to produce it;
3- The emergy flows can be expressed in terms of Emergy dollars or Em$ using an emergy/dollar
factor, which is obtained dividing the emergy used in nations economy by the Gross National
Product. We can compare Em$ and Dollars and discover hidden subsidies.
4- The emergy/dollar ratio gives an idea of buying power of a nations currency.
Depreciation of Permanent Assets in Balance Sheet:
Permanent Assets suffer depreciation during their time of use. This means that, every year, their value
is decreased and an amount of money is reserved to be able to substitute them in due time. The
traditional accounting due to use of norms of broad field of application establishes very strict
parameters to depreciate machinery with excessive safety that led to excessively reduced times to
renew equipment. In the emergy calculations we were able to get more close to what happens in real
life, therefore we consult the farm owners to verify the most probable life time of each permanent
asset, that time is usually bigger than legal depreciation time. Because of that, the emergy depreciation
becomes lower than traditional accounting values. In the farm studied we observed good quality
equipment and careful use and maintenance of it.
-226-

Table 4. Emergy flows of water buffalo system, Guaiba, RS, Brazil.
Ref Contribution
Value
Units
Renewable resources ( R )
1 Rain
6.5E+10
J/ha.y
2 Water from well
2.5E+09
J/ha.y
3 Nitrogen from air
120
kg/ha.y
4 Nutrients from soil minerals
69
kg/ha.y
5 Biodiversity
517
kg/ha.y
Non-renewable resources ( N )
6 Arable land erosion
8.6E+08
J/ha.y
Materials ( M ): depreciation
7 Land and well
10.70 US$/ha.y
8 Buildings (houses, barn)
4.09
kg/ha.y
9 Stainless steel (milk room)
0.10
kg/ha.y
10 Iron structures
1.21
kg/ha.y
11 Wood structures
2.44
kg/ha.y
12 Grass seeds
0
kg/ha.y
13 Project and training
0.87 US$/ha.y
14 Iron (fetch)
7.03
kg/ha.y
15 Animals (initial stock)
4.89 US$/ha.y
16 Plastic (water tubes)
0.10 Kg/ha.y
17 Drinking system (cement)
0.24 Kg/ha.y
18 Machinery)
0.36 US$/ha.y
Materials ( M ): consumption
19 Maintenance (paddocks)
6.34 US$/ha.y
20 Maintenance (equipment)
5.15 US$/ha.y
21 Cleaning products
0.66 US$/ha.y
22 Workers consumption
6.33 US$/ha.y
23 Semen, medicines, vaccines
13.44 US$/ha.y
24 Fuels
7.53E+08
J/ha.y
25 Electricity
4.2E+06
J/ha.y
26 Salt with minerals
1.80
kg/ha.y
27 Feed for chicken
0.98
kg/ha.y
28 Lime
72.00
kg/ha.y
Services (S): yearly expenses
29 Local manpower
4.71 US$/ha.y
30 External manpower
1.72 US$/ha.y
31 Administration
6.75 US$/ha.y
32 Transport
6.98 US$/ha.y
33 Technical information
0.50 US$/ha.y
34 Taxes
5.51 US$/ha.y
35 Animal robbery (8 heads/y)
10.28 US$/ha.y
Services (S): amortization
36 Doubt payment
0.00 US$/ha.y
Externalities
37 Work posts deficit
6.21 US$/ha.y
38 Intoxication of workers
0.02 labor/ha.y
39 Contamination of milk
169.78 liters/ha.y
40 Contamination of meat
227.95
kg/ha.y
41 Water pollution
1.800 m3/ha.y
Total
sej/dollar
Tr
sej/unit
1.82E+04
1.10E+05
4.61E+12
4.37E+12
9.04E+11
-227-
7.38E+04
3.70E+12
2.37E+12
6.70E+12
1.35E+12
3.90E+11
1.48E+12
3.70E+12
6.70E+12
3.70E+12
1.97E+12
1.97E+12
3.70E+12
3.70E+12
3.70E+12
3.70E+12
3.70E+12
3.70E+12
6.60E+04
4.00E+05
1.00E+12
2.45E+12
1.00E+12
3.70E+12
3.70E+12
3.70E+12
3.70E+12
3.70E+12
3.70E+12
3.70E+12
3.70E+12
3.70E+12
0
0
0
0
3.70E+12
Emergy
sej/ha.year
2.78E+15
1.18E+15
2.75E+14
5.53E+14
3.03E+14
4.67E+14
6.33E+13
6.33E+13
1.23E+14
3.96E+13
9.68E+12
6.55E+11
1.63E+12
9.53E+11
0
3.21E+12
4.71E+13
1.81E+13
1.93E+11
4.81E+11
1.33E+12
2.46E+14
2.34E+13
1.91E+13
2.44E+12
2.34E+13
4.97E+13
4.97E+13
1.69E+12
1.80E+12
2.40E+12
7.20E+13
1.35E+14
1.74E+13
6.37E+12
2.50E+13
2.58E+13
1.86E+12
2.04E+13
3.81E+13
0
0
2.3E+13
2.3E+13
0
0
0
0
3.37E+15
%
81.8
34.8
8.1
16.3
8.9
13.7
1.9
1.9
3.6
1.2
0.3
0.0
0.0
0.0
0
0.1
1.4
0.5
0.0
0.0
0.0
7.3
0.7
0.6
0.1
0.7
1.5
1.5
0.1
0.1
0.1
2.1
4.0
0.5
0.2
0.7
0.8
0.1
0.6
1.1
0
0
0.7
0.7
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
100.0
emUS$/ emUS$/y
ha.year
307 ha
751.8
230790
319.7
98157
74.3
22818
149.5
45901
81.8
25128
126.3
38787
17.1
5256
17.1
5256
33.2
10199
10.7
3284
2.6
803
0.2
54
0.4
135
0.3
79
0
0
0.9
267
12.7
3910
4.9
1500
0.1
16
0.1
40
0.4
111
66.4
20389
6.3
1945
5.2
1581
0.7
203
6.3
1945
13.4
4126
13.4
4126
0.5
140
0.5
149
0.6
199
19.5
5974
36.5
11192
4.7
1446
1.7
528
6.7
2071
7.0
2143
0.5
155
5.5
1692
10.3
3157
0
0
0
0
6.2
1905
6.2
1905
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
0.0
0
911.2
279731
-228-
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
17
Vivantary Responsibility and Emergy Accounting
ABSTRACT
Ecosystem processes represented by manifold material cycles and energy flows are a
necessary condition of life on Earth. Though our species is embedded in a matrix of ecosystem
processes mediated by networks involving millions of other species, human activities per se account
for an ever-increasing fraction of matter and energy budgets at every scale. Human agency is now
apparent in processes ranging from the global increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, to the
regional acidification of lakes and streams, to local changes in the organic matter contents of soils.
Human agency implies human responsibility. In the context of ecosystems, that responsibility
must be directed to the living network comprised of many millions of other living species on the planet,
the planetary life support system. The recently coined term, vivantary responsibility, is a specific
referent for exactly this specialized duty of care.
For vivantary responsibility to be realized in practice, it must be coupled to an appropriate
measure of value in ecosystems. Energy System Theory (EST) identifies such a value with energy as
the basis for selection. The differential between competing networks in units of emjoules determines
survival, just as a temperature differential directs the flow of heat. Since the future states of ecosystems
and human life are linked inextricably to human agency and to vivantary responsibility, we posit that
the maximum empower principle, as the basis for emergy accounting, gives a general criterion for
judging the impacts of human activities on the planet that is consistent with our vivantary duties.
INTRODUCTION
Under the prevailing rules, fiduciary responsibility means just one thing for a corporation:
maximize shareholders profit. That, according to the rules, is a legal duty. To do otherwise is a
violation of corporate law.
Mainstream investors in equities (stocks or shares) largely dismiss environmental concerns
because they are seen as moral issues outside their realm. Those in the financial community
who are contracted to manage funds for others point to their legal duty to maximize returns on
investments without reference to the morality of environmental damage or social justice
(Paine, 2003).
If fiduciary duty to a mainstream investor is a construct that excludes environmental concerns, then
any moral obligations that we have to the environment, such as those stemming from knowledge and
understanding of global ecology, inhere logically to the realm of ecological ethics, not the realm of
fiduciaries. Ecological ethics deals with the nature of morality in relationships involving humans and
the environment. The normative claim that we have duties and obligations in our relationships with
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Chapter 17. Vivantary Responsibility and Emergy Accounting
the environment is analogous to the normative claim in the realm of human ethics that we have duties
and obligations in our relationships with other humans (Taylor, 1986).
In this paper, we will refer to human duties and obligations to the environment as "vivantary
responsibility" (Franz, 2001). We review the basis for vivantary responsibility as an ecological ethic
of responsibility for the life support system that provides an ethical basis for our environmental
concerns. We then discuss the relationship between vivantary responsibility, energy systems theory,
and the emerging discipline of emergy accounting. We propose that the methods of environmental
accounting are a necessary step toward a full recognition of our debts to the life support system in
fulfillment of our vivantary duties.
THE LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM

Ecosystem processes represented by manifold material cycles and energy flows are a
necessary condition of life on Earth. Taken together, the Earths ecosystems function as a
bioregenerative system that supports life. This system that supports all human activities and all of our
machines is known most simply as the life support system (Odum and Franz, 1980). Though our
species is embedded in a matrix of ecosystem processes mediated by networks involving millions of
other species, human activities per se account for an ever-increasing fraction of matter and energy
budgets at every scale. Human domination of matter and energy budgets has increased to the extent
that human agency is now apparent in processes ranging from the global increase of carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere, to the regional acidification of lakes and streams, to local changes in the organic
matter contents of soils.
The most relevant facts of our relationship to the global life support system include the
following:
1) All human activity, including all currency-based economic activity, is utterly dependent
on the life support system. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the evaluation of the
Earths environmental systems using the procedures of environmental accounting
developed by H. T. Odum (1996).
2) Human activity is theoretically sustainable in the long run only at a carrying capacity
set in relation to the bioregenerative functions of the life support system (Odum and
Franz, 1980). Recent calculations suggest human demand may well have exceeded
the biosphere's regenerative capacity since the 1980s. According to this preliminary and
exploratory assessment, humanity's load corresponded to 70% of the capacity of the
global biosphere in 1961, and grew to 120% in 1999 (Wackernagle et al., 2002).
Similar results have been obtained using emergy analysis (Brown and Ulgiati, 1999)
and methods involving economic and resource base criteria (Brown et al., 2000).
3) The functioning of the life support system depends, inter alia, on the diversity of life
(Rosenfeld, 2002). In relation to this dependence, The current rate of biodiversity loss
threatens to disrupt greatly the functioning of ecosystems, with potentially significant
consequences for humanity (Luck et al., 2003).
VIVANTARY RESPONSIBILITY
Human agency implies human responsibility. In the context of ecosystems, that responsibility
must be directed to the living network comprised of many millions of other living species on the
planet, the planetary life support system. The recently coined term, vivantary responsibility (Franz,
2001), is a specific referent for exactly this specialized duty of care.
Vivantary is a neologism that is derived from a consideration of the roots and meaning of the
word fiduciary. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, fiduciary comes to English through
French from Latin roots. The suffix ary means in relation to. Taken together with the Latin
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fiducia meaning trust, fiduciary means literally, in relation to a trust. A common use and meaning of
the word is with reference to an individuals legal authority and duty in holding assets in trust for
someone else to make financial decisions on behalf of the other party. It was this relationship to the
other that suggested a logical parallel in the coining of a new term where the emphasis was to be on
the human obligation to others where others refers to the other species that comprise the life
support system and to the life support system as a whole. Taking the French word vivant which
refers to life or living systems as the stem with the suffix ary gives vivantary, literally meaning,
according to the derivation, in relation to living systems.
Given the ecological facts pertaining to the life support system, the ecological ethic that is
represented by vivantary responsibility can be adduced as follows:
First Premise: Human life is dependent on the life support system.
Second Premise: We ought to protect human life.
Conclusion: Therefore we ought not to do anything that imperils the life support system.
Vivantary responsibility thus stands for the human obligation to the life support system, an ecological
ethic of care (Franz, 2001).
By starting fresh, with the new word, vivantary, the concept of vivantary responsibility is
free of associations that might confuse and confound its meaning with uses in other contexts. Words
such as trustee/trusteeship and steward/stewardship, for example, though often used in the context of
human relationships to the environment, are not satisfactory substitutes for vivantary responsibility.
These concepts have long and deep associations with frameworks involving fiduciary obligation that
place ethical obligations to the environment outside their realm. To be clear about this, vivantary
responsibility is an ethical obligation to the life support system. It is new language for a concept that is
needed to provide the linguistic foundation for development of new frameworks to deal with our
environmental concerns.
RELATIONSHIP TO EMERGY ACCOUNTING

For vivantary responsibility to be realized in developing new frameworks for analysis, it must
be coupled to an appropriate measure of value in ecosystems. Energy System Theory (EST) identifies
such a value with emergy as the basis for selection. The maximum empower principle (Odum, 1996)
implies that the differential between competing networks in units of emjoules determines survival
among the networks, just as a temperature differential directs the flow of heat. Since the future states
of ecosystems and human life are linked inextricably to human agency and to vivantary responsibility,
we posit that the maximum empower principle (Odum, 1996), as the basis for emergy accounting,
gives a general criterion for judging the impacts of human activities on the planet that is consistent
with our vivantary duties. Environmental accounting that uses emergy makes it possible for us to
know the relationship between human activities and the life support system. The rules of the market
must change, however, if society is to act on this knowledge.
As currently constructed, the rules of the free market are permissive with respect to impacts
on the life support system. To change this will require that new rules for the market be constructed.
As it stands, the rules are designed to serve a limited set of interests. These interests dismiss
environmental concerns by defining them to be outside the realm of consideration. In addition, the
economic sector, including the financial markets involving equities and capital investments, seeks
short-term paybacks, undervalues environmental resources, and substantially discounts the future. The
routine use of accounting systems that do not reflect environmental costs, risks, and opportunities
provides biased information for financial decisions. By thus ignoring the moral imperative of
vivantary responsibility, corporations can profit by depleting resources and polluting the environment
(Schmidheiny and Zorraquin, 1996).
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As a logical first step, the new rules would need to acknowledge the ecological debts that
accrue from all transactions in the global system, rather than focus only on those economic
transactions linked directly to the flow of currency. In addition to changing the rules, new methods of
accounting will also be required.
We begin with the observation that categories of environmental debt can be represented by
particular pathways in the energy systems diagram (Figure 1). These debts would include, among
others, such categories as:
1) The emergy of renewable resources removed to be used in economic production when
use exceeds production.
2) Annual empower deficits suffered in impacted ecosystems as a result of resource removal
and/or impaired production from the effects of wastes, etc. (interest on the debt).
3) The emergy of nonrenewable resources removed for use in economic production.
4) The emergy storages destroyed through the extraction of renewable and nonrenewable
resources or the conversion of lands from natural to economic activities.
Since these debts represent emergy contributions to economic production that are not
compensated by the economy at present, the economy essentially operates on credit obtained from the
environment. Under the prevailing scheme of corporate accounting, no compensation is made for this
free work of nature. In the future, the magnitude of these debts should be tied to an environmental
liabilities account and the costs of the feedback necessary to reinforce and sustain the bioregenerative
systems of the environment paid for by the economy (Campbell, 2004).
Categories of Environmental Debt

(1) Renewable resource use (when use > production)
(2) Loss of annual empower [> (-) and/or < (+)]
(3) Nonrenewable resource use
(4) Loss of reserves from land conversion
Area R
(-)
(2)
(3)
Resource
(+) Reserves
Extraction
Damage
Land
Conversion
X
AreaP
Sun,
Tide,
Earth Heat
Material Recycle
(Wastes)
(4)
X
Environmental
Support Systems
Nonrenewable
resources
(2)
Environmental Economic Interface
(+) (-)
Environmental
Production
Systems
(1)
Economic
Production
Main Economy
Consumers
GWP
$
Global
System
Figure 1. Systems diagram illustrating flows that represent categories of environmental debt.
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REFERENCES
Brown, M. T. and S. Ulgiati. 1999. Emergy evaluation of the biosphere and natural capital. Ambio
28(6): 486-493.
Brown, M. T., C. A. S. Hall, and M. Wackernagel. 2000. Comparative estimates of sustainability:
economic resource base, ecological footprint and emergy. In: Hall, C. A. S. (ed).
Quantifying Sustainable Development: the future of tropical economies. Academic Press.
San Diego, California.
Campbell, D. E. 2004. Using Financial Accounting Methods to Further Develop and Communicate
Environmental Accounting Using Emergy. This volume.
Franz, E. H. 2001. Ecology, Values, and Policy. BioScience 51(6): 469-474.
Luck, G. W., G. C. Daily, and P. R. Ehrlich. 2003. Population diversity and ecosystem services.
TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution 18(7): 331-336.
Odum, E. P. and E. H. Franz. 1980. Whither the Life-support System. In: N. Polunin (ed) Growth
without Ecodisasters? Wiley. New York.
Odum, H. T. 1996. Environmental Accounting: Emergy and Environmental Decision Making. John
Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York.
Paine, L. S. 2003. Value Shift: Why Companies Must Merge Social and Financial Imperatives to
Achieve Superior Performance. McGraw-Hill. New York.
Rosenfeld, J. S. 2002. Logical fallacies in the assessment of functional redundancy. Conservation
Biology 16: 837-839.
Schmidheiny, S. and F. Zorraquin. 1996. Financing Change: The Financial community, Ecoefficiency and Sustainable Development. The MIT Press. Cambridge, MA.
Taylor, P. W. 1986. Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics. Princeton University
Press. Princeton, New Jersey.
Wackernagel, M., N. B. Schulz, D. Deumling, A. C. Linares, M. Jenkins, V. Kapos, C. Monfreda, J.
Loh, N. Myers, R. Norgaard, and J. Randers. 2002. Tracking the ecological overshoot of the
human economy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 99: 9266-9271.
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
18
Historical Solar Emergy Use in the United States and its Relation to
Technological Development
David R. Tilley
ABSTRACT
Technology development during the past two centuries has proceeded at an accelerating rate,
synchronized to the quickened use of rich fossil fuels and bountiful natural resources. Technology,
defined anthropologically as devices and the knowledge of how to use them, is a specialized form of
social memory that requires input energies for development and maintenance, serving as a powerful
and flexible agent for organizing subsequent energy and resource use. As an evolutionary process,
technology development is greatly influenced by knowledge availability and previous innovation.
Understanding how the dynamics of technology development are related to historical resource use is
important in a resource restrained world with competing demands for those resources. Emergy
evaluation, as a material-energy based accounting system that tracks the resources required to
produce something, was used to quantify the total natural resources required (in solar energy
equivalents) to develop and improve important communication technologies of the 20th Century. The
solar emergy of a new technology includes the solar emergy used during its evolutionary path.
Quantifying the solar emergy accumulated during the evolution of a technology required the use of
dynamic emergy accounting principles. Ways to allocate the historical solar emergy use of the U.S. to
the technological development of the satellite, the radio, the television and the telephone was explored.
Historical time series of the solar transformity (ST) of each technology reveals decelerating rates of
improvement in each, suggesting that there are macro-thermodynamic limits to improvements in each
technology.
INTRODUCTION
Technological optimists commonly claim that the economic importance of physical materials
will diminish in the future, while the prominence of information services will increase, possibly
eliminating the need to consume natural resources altogether. Certainly, information processing has
increased in many economic sectors and it has formed the basis of several new ones. Optimists point to
the proportional increase in gross domestic product (GDP) that is attributed to the information sectors,
the explosive increase in internet start-up companies, and the decline in the proportion that petroleum
and agricultural industries represent in the U.S. GDP as proof of their assertions. Certainly,
technological capabilities for processing information have improved in the past two centuries with the
invention of numerous communications technologies like telegraphy, telephony, radio, television and
the satellite.
But how well do we understand the energy basis of technology: its creation, usefulness,
improvement and maintenance? Technology development is an evolutionary process; current
successes depend on previous achievements and future innovations depend on current successes.
Diamond (1997) argued that the rate of technology improvement is closely tied to a cultures history,
environment and geography, rather than on the work of particular geniuses. In his view, the general
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Chapter 18. Historical Solar Emergy Use

theory of relativity, for which A. Einstein received much praise, would have been developed by
someone else eventually. If Diamonds view is appropriate, then two important questions concerning
technology development are (1) what level of resource and energy consumption is necessary to achieve
a certain rate of technological innovation and (2) how much energy and natural resources are required
to maintain technologies?
The goal of this paper is to explore the relationship between the rate of resource and energy
use in the U.S. (i.e., national metabolism) and the development rate of communication technologies. I
estimated the total resources required to invent and maintain commonly used technologies. I translated
all energy and resource requirements into units of solar emergy. Solar emergy is the total amount of
solar energy required both directly and indirectly to make a product or provide a service (Odum 1996).
Translation to solar emergy places all resource flows in the same units (solar embodied joules, sej),
which allows them to be compared on a common basis. This is critical when attempting to measure
national metabolism because the various units of natural resources, such as water, wood, soil, fossil
fuels, and non-fuel minerals can be converted to a single system unit for aggregated addition and
subtraction. Communication devices, like a telephone, consume a small amount of energy directly, but
require vast amounts of energy and natural resources during their creation and improvement. The solar
emergy required to create and improve per unit of energy consumed during use was calculated to
compare the resource intensity of each technology. This ratio, the solar emergy required to the
available energy used, was defined as the solar transformity (conjugation of transformation intensity)
by Odum (1988). The solar transformity of solar radiation is defined as 1 sej per Joule (sej/J, Odum
1996).
Although communication devices consume a relatively small amount of power during use, the
solar emergy required to create, support and improve them is potentially enormous. In a world
struggling with a decline in resource availability, understanding how much energy and natural
resources are required for our global communication activities is important and can add to the debate
on the substitutability of information for physical goods. In addition, environmental historians, may be
interested in relating past cultures rates of technological innovation to the availability of energy and
natural resources.
METHODS
The philosophy for allocating historical solar emergy to technologies was grounded in the
basic definition of solar emergy; namely that it is the total amount of solar energy required directly and
indirectly to make a product. Emergy accounting for developmental processes is sometimes called
dynamic emergy accounting (Tilley 1999, Odum 1996). Technology development is an evolutionary
process with past innovations absolutely necessary for present and future innovations. This reasoning,
taken to its fullest, would have us include the emergy of the Universes beginning, but our goals are
less ambitious. Selecting the analytical boundary is largely arbitrary, but related, in this case, to readily
available data and the date the country began. For the analysis presented here, 1790 was determined to
be the best year to start the calculations. Figure 1 presents an energy systems diagram that gives the
philosophy for how national emergy was allocated to technical innovations. The work of the nations
entire ecosphere is required to create Technology #1, while subsequent innovations (i.e., Technology
#2 and #3) required the solar emergy used to innovate Technology #1. This accounting philosophy
leads to a mathematical model shown in Figure 2. Typically, emergy input from environmental
energies is determined by only including the contribution of the largest renewable source to avoid
double counting. Here, precipitation is taken as the single emergy source that is renewed on the time
scale of a year. Soil loss and wood use were added to Mtotal under the assumption that they mostly
consisted of solar emergy preceding 1790. A strong argument could be made that much of our latterday domestic wood production is from secondary, regenerated forests, which consist of solar emergy
from the post-1790 period. This is a detail that should be improved upon in subsequent historical
emergy evaluations.
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Figure 1. Systems diagram of U.S. technology development.
Figure 2. Energy systems diagram with mathematical equations for estimating solar emergy to create and
improve technologies.
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The rate at which solar emergy was contributed by the main types of resources and energy
supplies was estimated annually for the period 1790 to 2000 for the United States. The solar emergy of
an input was either the product of its energy use and solar transformity (sej/J), the product of its mass
and its specific solar emergy (sej/g), or the product of its nominal dollar flow and the emergy-to-dollar
ratio (sej/$) for that year. Almost exclusively, the energy, mass and dollar flow data were taken from
published records of the U.S. Census Bureau. The specific solar emergy of a substance is the solar
emergy required to process it into its current form per unit mass. The emergy-to-dollar ratio is the total
annual emergy use divided by the gross domestic product, which makes it the mean solar emergy value
of each dollar transacted in the economy. Solar transformities and specific solar emergies were taken
from past emergy publications. Mean annual emergy-to-dollar ratios were estimated for the entire
period of analysis.
Solar Emergy of Inputs

The methods and equations used to estimate the historical solar emergy use of the United
States are presented for each type of input in the following sections.
Precipitation
The solar emergy of precipitation was found using Eq. 1.
Mpt = LtptSr
(1)
Where Mpt is solar emergy of precipitation of U.S. in year t; Lt is land area for year t; pt is
mean annual precipitation power; and Sr is solar transformity of precipitation.
Nation-wide precipitation rate for 1803 to 2000 was estimated as 915 mm y-1 (36 inches)
based on visual interpolation of digital maps with color-coded monthly precipitation rates (Shinker
2003). The 1790 to 1803 precipitation rate was 1112 mm y-1. Changes to land area (Lt) were taken
from Carter (1997) for the 1790-1970 period and from U.S. Census Bureau (2002) for post-1970. The
Gibbs free energy of freshwater precipitation was take as 5 J g-1-water. The solar transformity of
precipitation was a constant 18,200 sej J-1.
Soil Resources
The solar emergy of soil erosion in year t (Mot) was found using Eq. 2.
Mot = Ft(5.68 MT ac-1 y-1)(0.03 g-org. matter g-1-soil)*(22.6 kJ g-1-O.M.)(63,400 sej J-1) (2)
Where Ft is farmland area in acres for year t (1 ac = 4000 m2).
Ft was given by Carter (1997) for the period 1900-1970 and by the U.S. Census Bureau
(2002) for 1971-2000. For the 1850-1900 period, Carter (1997) only reported decadal records.
Therefore, we used straight-line interpolation to estimate inter-decade Ft. Pre-1850 Ft was estimated as
the product of population and the average per capita farmland for the 1850-1900 period (11.1 ac per
person). The 5.675 MT erosion rate is a weighted average (by area) of cropland (7.5 MT ac-1 y-1) and
pasture (1.3 MT ac-1 y-1). The average organic fraction of soil was assumed to be 3%.
Wood
The solar emergy of forestry product use in year t (Mwt) was found using Eq. 3a.
Mwt = 544 MJ ft-3(Wt)(41,000 sej J-1)
(3a)
Where Wt is cubic feet of wood consumption (green weight); (1 ft3 = 0.0283 m3)
Total annual wood consumption was determined using Eg. 3b.
W t = Wp + Wf + W i W e
(3b)
Where Wp is industrial equivalent roundwood production, which includes logs, plywood,
lumber, veneer, etc.; Wf is fuel wood consumption; Wi is imported roundwood equivalents; and We is
exported roundwood equivalents.
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Wood consumption for 1900-1970 was given by Carter (1997). Post-1970 Wt was given by
Howard (1999). Pre-1900 lumber and total roundwood production were given on a decadal basis by
Carter (1997). We used straight-line interpolation for interdecadal years. Per capita fuel wood
consumption for the pre-1900 period was assumed to be 70 ft3 per capita, which was multiplied by the
population estimate to determine Wf. The 70 ft3 per capita assumption was determined by
extrapolating backwards in time the per capita use trend between 1900 and 1950. The solar
transformity of forest products (41,000 sej J-1) was taken from Tilley (1999), which was based on
simulated values of a 200-year old forest.
Immigration
The annual solar emergy of immigrants arriving in the U.S. (Mit) was estimated using Eq. 4.
Mit = (0.1 x U.S. per capita emergy use)*(avg. immigrant age)*(net immigration rate)
(4)
Eq. 4 assumes that the solar emergy per immigrant is accumulated at a rate equal to one-tenth
of an American prior to their entrance to the U.S. The factor of 10% was based on the assumption that
through the course of history, immigrants are largely compelled to immigrate based on the economic
disparity between their home country and the U.S. Emergy evaluations of home countries could
provide a more precise estimate of solar emergy per immigrant. The average age of immigrants was
assumed to be 20 years, based on the fact that a majority of immigrants are young. The rate of net
immigration was given by Carter (1997) for the period 1820-1970. Immigration prior to 1820 was not
known so it was assumed to be zero, which is unlikely true. Post-1970 immigration was given by U.S.
Census Bureau (2002, 1993).
Fuels and Electricity
Eqs. 5a through 5e were used to calculate the annual solar emergy of crude petroleum (Mpt),
coal (Mct), natural gas (Mnt), hydroelectricity (Mht), and nuclear electricity (Mut) consumption,
respectively. Pt, Ct, Nt, Ht, and Ut are, respectively, annual crude petroleum consumption in barrels,
annual coal consumption in short tons (1 sh. Ton = 907.2 kg), annual natural gas consumption in cubic
feet (1 m3 = 35.3 ft3), annual hydroelectricity consumption in kWh, and annual electricity consumption
from uranium fission in kWh. The solar transformities were from Odum (1996).
Mpt = 6.28 E9 J/bbl x Pt x 54,000 sej/J
(5a)
Mct = 31.0 E9 J/short ton x Ct x 39,000 sej/J
(5b)
Mnt = 1.10 E6 J/cubic ft x Nt x 48,000 sej/J
(5c)
Mht = 3.606 J/kWh x Ht x 160,000 sej/J
(5d)
Mut = 3.606 J/kWh x Ut x 160,000 sej/J
(5e)
Non-fuel Minerals
The solar emergy consumed as non-fuel mineral k (MNFMk) for the 17901970 period was
estimated for minerals listed in Table 1 using Eq. 6a.
MNFMk = Cnfmk x mnfmk
(6a)
Where Cnfmk is consumption of non-fuel mineral k in grams and mnfmk is specific solar emergy
of non-fuel mineral k in sej per gram.
Data for the consumption of non-fuel minerals after 1970 was not as easily available, so in an
effort to complete the analysis we only evaluated the consumption of the three most common non-fuel
minerals during this period. Iron ore (Fe), phosphate rock (P) and copper ore (Cu) were greater than
78% of total solar emergy of non-fuel minerals consumption for the 1950-1970 period, therefore, we
used Eq. 6b to estimate total non-fuel mineral consumption for the 1971-2000 (MNFM2).
MNFM2 = (MFe+MCu+MP )/ 0.78
(6b)
Where MFe is solar emergy of iron ore; MCu is solar emergy of copper ore; and MP is solar
emergy of phosphate rock.
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Table 1. Solar emergy per unit of energy and mass used.
Solar
Mass Specific Solar
Item
Transformity
Emergy
sej J-1
sej g-1
Rainfall
18,200
Coal
39,000
Fuel Wood
41,000
Natural Gas
48,000
Crude Petroleum
54,000
Soil Erosion (O.M.)
63,400
Petroleum Products
66,000
Electricity
160,000
Fish
2,000,000
Phosphate Rock
3.90E+09
Aluminum
3.42E+09
Chromium
4.07E+09
Copper
6.58E+10
Gold
1.32E+14
Iron
2.04E+09
Lead
1.24E+10
Manganese
1.07E+10
Molybdenum
7.13E+11
Nickel
5.43E+10
Silver
3.29E+11
Tungsten
1.53E+11
Uranium
5.70E+11
Vanadium
1.02E+11
Zinc
1.58E+10
Source
Odum 1996
Odum 1996
Tilley 1999
Odum 1996
Odum 1996
Odum 1996
Odum 1996
Odum 1996
Odum 1996
Odum 1996
Odum and Brown 1993
Odum and Brown 1993
Odum and Brown 1993
Odum and Brown 1993
Odum and Brown 1993
Odum and Brown 1993
Odum and Brown 1993
Odum and Brown, 1993
Odum and Brown 1993
Odum and Brown 1993
Odum and Brown 1993
Odum and Brown 1993
Odum and Brown 1993
Odum and Brown 1993
*Odum and Brown's (1993) estimate for Mn was an order of magnitude greater than Fe-ore (the next largest emergy
input). Since this did not correspond to the importance of Mn in the U.S. economy, we used the solar transformity of
titanium, which had a crustal abundance similar to Mn.
Obviously, more detailed statistics exist for the 1971-2000 minerals use, so a subsequent
analysis could be improved with this type of data.
Foreign Trade
Determination of the solar emergy of net balance of trade was found by multiplying net
annual imports in US$ by estimates of annual mean US emergy-to-$ ratio (M$-1). We used Eq. 7a to
calculate the M$-1 for 1869-2000 period and Eq. 7b for the 1790-1869 period.
M$-1t = Mt/Gt for 1869 < t < 2000
(7a)
Where Mt is total annual solar emergy use in year t; Gt is gross domestic product for t.
(7b)
M$-1t =10(-0.0180t+48) for 1790 < t < 1868
Eq. 7b is based on a least squares fit (r2=0.96) of the log transformed data series from the
1869-2000 period.
The solar emergy of net imports (Mi) was determined from Eq. 7c.
Mit = M$-1t * Nit
(7c)
Where Nit is annual net imports in dollars for year t
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Data for Nit were taken from US Census Bureau (1970) for 1790-1970 period and US Census
Bureau (2002) for the 1971-2000 period.
Transformities for Technological Innovations

The solar transformities of satellites, telephones, radios, televisions, and mail were defined as
the total solar emergy required to create and improve the technology (Mtotal in Figure 2) divided by the
total power consumed by the total number of devices in operation. The critical variables for estimating
Mtotal were tc and Rt, which are given in Table 2. The power consumption used for each device is also
given in Table 2. Obviously, there have been energy efficiency improvements in the power
consumption of each communication technology during their lifetimes. We used the highest power
efficiency for each device, which likely causes the ST to be overestimated in a technologys early
history (i.e., the denominator is less). Better estimates of device power consumption could improve the
analysis in the future. Time series data on the number of devices in use came from the U.S. Census
Bureau (1972, 1993, 2002) and Carter (1997). Although the U.S. Postal Service was created when the
country began, we began our estimate of the solar transformity of mail in 1880. Since mail as a
communication technology was created long ago, we did not attempt to include its creation emergy;
we only included the Postal Service revenue to estimate its improvement emergy.

History of National Solar Emergy Use
Total solar emergy use in the U.S. is shown in Figure 3a. Several changes in emergy use are
remarkable. First, Thomas Jeffersons purchase of the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon in 1803
corresponded to an increase of 36% in solar emergy availability to America (Table 3). A series of land
acquisitions in the late 1840s (Texas, Oregon and the Mexican Cession) was of greater emergy value
(67% of annual use). The greatest period of decline in annual emergy use, on a percentage basis, was
the 1930s Great Depression (Figure 3a) with annual decline of 5.8%. The 1960s, lead by war-time
spending on the Vietnam War, was the period of greatest absolute increase in solar emergy use, with
an average increase in the rate of growth of 14.7 E22 sej (3.4% per annum). Emergy use in the 1970s
was turbulent with large intra-decadal swings and little change from beginning to end. Since 1982,
emergy use increased steadily with the exceptional years of 1990-91 when values decreased, but at a
slower rate than the 1960s.
Figure 3b and 3c break out the major components of total solar emergy use in the U.S. for the
1790-2000 period. Figure 3b shows the main renewable emergy inputs, while Figure 3c includes the
most important non-renewable inputs. Precipitation has always been the largest renewable source of
Table 2. Critical variables for estimating Mtotal in Figure 2 and device power consumption.
Technology
Satellite
tc
1965
Telephony
1870
Device Power
5.6 W per kg of
payload
1.0 W per set
Radio
1922
10 W per set
Television
1946
150 W per set
Mail
n.a.
103 kJ per piece
Rt
100% of U.S. GDP
Telephony sector estimated as 2.41% of GDP, which
was the average share for period 1980-2000.
Consumer spending for radio estimated as 0.02% of
U.S. GDP, which was average rate from 1995-2000.
Consumer spending for TV estimated as 0.5% of U.S.
GDP, which was average rate from 1995-2000.
U.S. Post Office revenue
-241-

9.0E+24
(a)
8.0E+24
Solar Emergy, sej
7.0E+24
Vietnam
War
6.0E+24
5.0E+24
4.0E+24
Texas
Oregon
Mexican
Cession
3.0E+24
2.0E+24
1.0E+24
"Great
Depression"
Louisiana
Purchase
0.0E+00
1790
1815
1840 1865 1890 1915
1940
1965
1990
2.5E+24
4.0E+23
(b)
Precipitation
Wood
3.5E+23
3.0E+23
2.0E+24
sej
2.5E+23
Soil
2.0E+23
Hydro.
1.5E+23
1.0E+23
1.5E+24
5.0E+22
sej
0.0E+00
1790
Immigration
1890
Fish
1990
1.0E+24
Precipitation
Wood
5.0E+23
Soil
Immigration
Hydro.
Fish
0.0E+00
1790 1815 1840 1865 1890 1915 1940 1965 1990
2.5E+24
Petrol.
(c)
2.0E+24
1.5E+24
sej
N.G.
1.0E+24
Coal
5.0E+23
Nuke
Minerals
Import
(Goods)
0.0E+00
1790 1815 1840 1865 1890 1915 1940 1965 1990
Figure 3. Historical solar emergy use in the U.S. (1790-2000), total (a), renewable (b), non-renewable (c).
-242-

emergy to the U.S., while wood consumption and soil erosion were historically the next most
important renewables (Figure 3b). In the last half of the 20th Century, decreased farmland area reduced
soil consumption, while consumption of forest products increased so that it contributed 5.7% of total
solar emergy use in 2000. Soil use, at 2-3% of total national emergy use in 2000, was equivalent to
hydroelectricity consumption.
Non-renewable emergy use was dominated early in the countrys history by coal. Total nonfuel mineral use was the second largest contributor up until the 1920s when it was overtaken by
petroleum (Figure 3c). Coal use was replaced by petroleum use as the #1 non-renewable emergy input
in 1949. Nine years later in 1958, natural gas use replaced coal use as the #2 non-renewable input.
The emergy of petroleum use was first greater than precipitation in 1948. In 2000, petroleum made up
40% of the non-renewable emergy input and 31% of total emergy use. Nuclear power electricity has
increased dramatically in the past 35 years to where it provided over 5% of total emergy consumption
in 2000. Global trade has always been an important part of the U.S. economy dating back to colonial
times. The importation of goods, excluding fuels and minerals, at 4% of total emergy use in 2000, has
become a substantial component of U.S. emergy consumption (Figure 3c). The solar emergy of nonfuel minerals peaked, as a percentage of total solar emergy in the 1940-50 period at about 12%, but
continue to provide 8% of total emergy consumption.
In the U.S., cumulative total solar emergy use grew continuously from 1790 to 2000 (Figure
4). The continuously increasing, rather smooth, cumulative emergy use curve highlights the fact that
the U.S. has never stagnated in its emergy use for any appreciable length of time. Noteworthy is the
cumulative value in 2000 (505 E24 sej), which is equivalent to 53 years of the Earths annual
endowment of input solar emergy (9.44 E24 sej y-1). In this sense the U.S. has consumed 53 total
earth-years of solar emergy in 210 years, although it only occupies about 5% of the Earths surface.
The pattern of change in the U.S. emergy use to gross domestic product (emergy-to-$) was
calculated for the period 1869-2000. For the prior period (1790-1869), the emergy-to-$ ratio was
estimated from the regression equation developed from the 1869-2000 data. The log transformed
emergy-to-$ ratio decreased linearly with time (Figure 5). For the 131 year period from 1869 to 2000,
the emergy-to-$ ratio showed a remarkable decrease of slightly more than two orders of magnitude. In
1869, it was 150 E12 sej/$ but by 2000 it was only 0.78 E12 sej/$. In 1790, each U.S. dollar was
backed by 6,030 E12 sej, nearly 8,000 times its 2000 value.
The long-term, regularly decreasing emergy-to-$ ratio indicates that the circulation of money
in the economy, as measured by gross domestic product, increased at a faster rate than emergy use. At
6.0E+26
5.0E+26
sej
4.0E+26
3.0E+26
2.0E+26
1.0E+26
0.0E+00
1790 1815 1840 1865 1890 1915 1940 1965 1990
Figure 4. Cumulative total solar emergy use in the U.S. (1790-2000).
-243-

the end of the Korean War, from 1952 to 1971, the rate of change in emergy-to-$ was a consistent 0.25
E12 sej $-1 y-1 (Figure 5), which is slower than the high inflation period of the 1970s when the rate of
decrease was 0.33 sej $-1 y-1, but faster than during the 1990s when the decrease was only 0.04 sej $-1
y-1.
The percent of the U.S. solar emergy derived from renewable supplies (% renewable)
declined slowly from 1790 to 1875, dived rapidly between 1875 and 1905, and continued a regressive
drop until the year 2000 at which time its value was 9.9% (Figure 6). The drop was heavily influenced
by the emergence of fossil fuel use. The mean annual Environmental Loading Ratio (ELR) of the U.S.,
a measure of economic intensity relative to environmental capacity, steadily increased from 0.10 in
1790 to 9.7 in 2000 (Figure 7). In general, the ELR tracked total solar emergy use (Figure 3a).
1.0E+16
Simulated
1.0E+15
sej/$
1.0E+14
1.0E+13
Measured
1.0E+12
1.0E+11
1790 1815 1840 1865 1890 1915 1940 1965 1990
Figure 5. Measured and simulated solar emergy per U.S. dollar (1790-2000).
100%
% Renewable
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
1790 1815 1840 1865 1890 1915 1940 1965 1990
Figure 6. Historical percentage of total solar emergy use in U.S. derived from renewable sources (1790-2000).
-244-
Environmental Loading Ratio (F+N)/R

10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
1790 1815 1840 1865 1890 1915 1940 1965 1990
Figure 7. Historical Environmental Loading Ratio (non-renewable to renewable solar emergy use) of U.S. (17902000).
Per capita solar emergy use is a measure of living standard. Nations with a high per capita
solar emergy generally have a populous that is wealthy, educated and healthy. On an annual basis, per
capita emergy use in the U.S. started at a phenomenal 90,000 E12 sej in 1790, but declined steadily
until 1890 when it began to fluctuate about a mean (Figure 8). For the next 70 years, until 1960, the
per capita emergy use ranged between 16,900 and 24,600 E12 sej with an average of 22,100 E12 sej.
The minimum occurred early in the Great Depression in 1932. In the most recent period (19702000), the average rose to 27,800 E12 sej with a maximum of 29,800 E12 sej in 1978. Most recently
(2000) it stood at 28,200 E12 sej.
2,000,000
90,000
1E12 sej per person

(annual)
80,000
Historic Accumulation
1,800,000
1,600,000
70,000
1,400,000
60,000
1,200,000
50,000
1,000,000
40,000
800,000
30,000
Annual Basis
600,000
20,000
400,000
10,000
200,000
1E12 sej per person

(historic)
100,000
1790 1815 1840 1865 1890 1915 1940 1965 1990

Figure 8. Per capita solar emergy on an annual basis (annual solar emergy per person) and historic
accumulation basis (cumulative solar emergy use per person).
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While an annually based per capita index may capture total resource use and indicate wellbeing, a new per capita emergy index is proposed that uses the cumulative solar emergy used since the
country began. We call this the per capita cumulative consumption of solar emergy (CCSE). We
believe the CCSE may more fully capture the importance of the pathway to affluence. In the U.S., the
CCSE increased rapidly during the first 40 years from 90,000 E12 sej to 1,480,000 E12 sej in 1827
(Figure 8). After a 70-year period of decline (1827-1897) the CCSE increased steadily with only one
period of stagnation (1946-1964). In the year 2000, the CCSE stood at 1,800,000 E12 sej.
People living today must attribute a large proportion of their knowledge, wealth and affluence
to the work of their forbearers. The CCSE would be particularly useful for comparing the affluence of
different countries or cultures throughout history. For example, some European and Asian countries
with much longer histories than the U.S., may have accumulated more historic emergy, but currently
use less on annual basis, which supports their ability to wield influence globally. Britain, for example,
through its colonization and control of a vast amount of the world over the past centuries, presumably
accumulated a large amount of solar emergy. Emergy used in the past is stored in institutions of
learning and government, which is then used to control energies in todays society. Historic emergy
accumulation is a means of measuring information storage as a capital stock. One could take the
emergy accumulation in the U.S. as an investment in democracy with emergy showing its value.
A fair and important question is, how is the historically used solar emergy stored? Is it in
written manuscripts, periodicals and books? Is it stored in the customs and mentality of the people? In
technologies? We believe it is ultimately stored in many information processing and storage devices
and the high transformity mental capacities of humans. As long as there is a temporal continuum that
connects historic events to people of the current age, then most, if not all of the historically used solar
emergy should accumulate. There is a question concerning the lag period with which historic emergy
use is added to current emergy use. Does emergy used in 1980 accumulate instantly in 1981? Say a
scientist publishes a paper in 1980 that possesses a large amount of historic solar emergy because it
drew heavily upon scientific knowledge produced within the last 50 years. The paper is read
infrequently for the first 10 years after publication, but suddenly finds large readership in 1990. In the
time interval between 1980 and 1990, the emergy stored with the content of the paper is not
contributing to knowledge production, so it should not be added to emergy accumulated. However,
after 1990 it is contributing significantly to scientific progress, which indicates that its emergy should
be added to accumulated emergy. The question in dynamic emergy accounting is to determine the
length of the lag period, if it exists at all.
Solar Transformity of Communication Technologies

The development and proliferation of technologies in the U.S. and the world during the past
two centuries is unprecedented in human history (Figure 9). The U.S. instituted a Patent Office shortly
after forming its constitutional government in the late 1700s. In the first year there were 3 patents
issued; 210 years later there were a record 158,014 issued in single year. Figure 9 shows that patent
growth has accelerated, especially in the late 1990s, presumably fueled by the inter-networking of
computers known as the World Wide Web. The typical household has five to six radios and nearly
two TVs. The rate of increase in total payload launches for the U.S. satellite industry increased
continuously from 1965 to 2000. Presently, the U.S. has about 1,200 working geostationary
communication satellites in orbit (Figure 9).
Figure 10 shows that the solar transformity of all five communication technologies decreased
since their commercial introduction. The solar transformity of geostationary communication satellites
decreased rapidly from 4,700 E12 sej/J in 1965 to 4.8 E12 sej/J in 2000. The solar transformity of
telephone communication dropped slightly more than two orders of magnitude during its first thirty
years, from 1,410 E12 to 11.5 E12 sej/J, and dropped another 96% over the next 100 years. The solar
transformity of television set output decreased rapidly from 58 E12 sej/J in its inaugural year (1946) to
12.6 E9 sej/J in 1955, and continued to decrease through year 2000 (0.72 E9 sej/J). The solar
-246-

1400
Satellites
Launched
millions,
except Patents-10,000's,
Satellites--number
1200
1000
800
400
Patents
Radios
Phones
(wired)
200
TV's
600
0
1850
1875
1900
1925
1950
1975
2000
Figure 9. Historical rate at which popular technologies accumulated in the U.S. from 1850 to 2000 (television
sets, wire-based telephones, radio sets, cumulative patents issued since 1780, cumulative geostationary
communication satellites launched successfully).
transformity of radio output decreased by over two orders of magnitude during its first ten years of
existence, but only dropped by only 9% during the most recent 10 year period (1990-2000) to a value
8.11 E9 sej/J. The solar transformity of mail decreased from 15 E6 sej/J in 1890 to 2.5 E6 sej/J in
2000 (83%).
Odum (1988) proposed that the solar transformity measured the position an energy form
occupied in the global hierarchy of energy transformation processes. Forms of energy small in quantity
are often high in quality. Higher quality energy forms produce more effect on system performance per
unit of their dissipation than lower quality forms. For the communication technologies evaluated here,
satellites occupied the highest position in the energy hierarchy (i.e., highest solar transformity), while
the other technologies were ordered as (high to low): telephony, radio, television and mail (Figure 10).
Satellites are the most global of the communication devices evaluated, allowing information to be
communicated between any two points on Earth with only millisecond delay. Mail, on the hand, is also
used to communicate globally, but its transmission rate is several orders of magnitude slower (days
rather than seconds). The rank order of the technologies fits our preconceived notions except for TV
and radio. We would have expected TV to have a higher ST than radio mainly due to the apparent
influence TV has had on American culture and the typical citizens daily intake of information via TV.
The most remarkable feature about the historical change of the technologies transformities
was their common regression toward lower levels (Figure 10). With the exception of mail, the
technologies exhibited similar paths of rapid decrease early in their existence, followed by slower
declines. Part of the reason for a decrease in ST was that the number of devices in use increased from
the time the technology was introduced, which increased total power output making the denominator
in the ST larger. The increase in units would also have allowed for economies-of-scale to be
achieved; lowered total resource consumption per unit operated. For example, the nations number of
TVs (and their total power consumption) grew faster than the television industrys costs of creating
and broadcasting TV programs. We assumed the highest efficiency for power consumption of each
device, so there was no temporal change in this variable. The fact that each technologys decline in ST
approaches a minimum indicates that there are system limits to the amount of solar emergy required to
-247-
-1
Solar Transformity of Technologies (sej J )

1.0E+16
1.0E+14
Satellites
1.0E+12
Telephony
Radio
1.0E+10
Television
1.0E+08
1.0E+06
1850
Mail
1875
1900
1925
1950
1975
2000
Figure 10. Time series of the solar transformity of communication satellites, telephony, radio, television, and
mail.
operate communication technologies. In other words, at the system scale of a nation, there appears to
be a thermodynamic limit to how much solar emergy is required to transmit information.
Does modern information technology increase a nations solar empower without necessarily
increasing its power consumption? In other words, do modern technologies increase the ratio of
empower to power? This is analogous, although not equivalent, to a type of system efficiency, i.e.,
getting more for less. This is difficult to answer for the U.S. because total power has not leveled; it
continued to increase to the year 2000. The question concerns two hypotheses about the temporal
behavior of a nations power spectrum (Figure 11). In the first case, a change from the original
Figure 11. Two hypotheses about the temporal dynamics of power spectra as system empower increases.
-248-

spectrum to a new spectrum occurs as a complete shift with the slope remaining the same. In the
second case, the new spectrum is generated by a rotation about the y-intercept. In each case power
and empower increase, but the ratio of empower to power increases more under rotation. In rotation,
use of high transformity energies (e.g., information) increases tremendously, whereas use of low
transformity energies (e.g., soil and fuels) increases only slightly. In a shifted spectrum, high and low
transformity energies increase in similar proportions. The implications of which hypothesis is correct
provide clues as to whether technological progress can continue in an energy limited world. In an
Odumesque prosperous way down view, the more important question may be, how does the power
spectrum change when resource availability and use is shrinking? Theoretically the higher
transformity units have longer turnover times than lower transformity ones, which would cause the
power spectrum to exhibit wave properties as a system develops. The wave starts on the left of the
spectrum with relatively high use of low transformity energies (e.g., water), propagates to the right
through mid-level transformities (e.g., fuels) to high transformity energies (e.g., information), and
remains on the right side while the left shrinks. This fits with Odums (1988, 1996) idea that shared
information has a longer turnover time. Memories remain long after the creating event has
disappeared. The question for humanity is: Are we creating the most memorable parts of the system?
REFERENCES
Carter, S.B. (ed.), 1997. Historical Statistics of the U.S., Colonial Times to 1970, electronic edition.
Cambridge University Press.
Diamond, J., 1997. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. W.W. Norton & Company,
Inc. New York. 494 pp.
Howard, J.L., 1999. U.S. Timber Production, Trade, Consumption, And Price Statistics 1965-1997.
U.S. Forest Service, General Technical Report FPL-GTR-116. Madison, WI. 76 pp.
Odum, H.T. and M.T. Brown, 1993. Methods For Evaluating Ecological Engineering (Final Report to
National Science Foundation #8818284). Center for Environmental Policy, University of
Florida, Gainesville.
Odum, H.T., 1996. Environmental Accounting: Emergy and Environmental Decision Making. New
York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Odum, H.T., 1988. Self Organization, Transformity, And Information. Science 242: 1132-1139.
Shinker, J., 2003. Global Climate Animations. Dept. of Geography, University of Oregon.
http://geography.uoregon.edu/envchange/clim_animations/ Last visited Jan. 2004.
Tilley, D.R. 1999. Emergy basis of forest systems. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida,
Gainesville, 298 pp. Available on-line: http://www.bre.umd.edu/tilley.htm
U.S. Census Bureau, 1972. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1981. U.S. Census Bureau,
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
U.S. Census Bureau, 2002. Statistical Abstract of the United States (CD-ROM). U.S. Census Bureau,
Data User Services Division, Washington, D.C.
-249-
-250-
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
19
Matrix Reloaded: The Emergy View
ABSTRACT
Brazil, like many countries, utilizes energy matrices (production x consumption) to build the
National Energy Balance. A yearly publication from the Ministrio de Minas e Energia is the base tool
for energy planning.
The 2002 National Energy Balance (base year 2001) is reloaded with emergy values to
compare with the energy results. Transformities are applied to the Brazilian fuels that make the energy
principal tables. A temporal series of National Energy and Emergy Balances are compared from 1986
until 2001, and two scenarios are presented: (1) increasing nonrenewable sources (now 45.8%), and
(2) the slow decrease of renewable sources (now 54.2% of primary emergy production).
INTRODUCTION
The Brazilian Government publishes the National Energy Balance every year (based on the
data from the previous year) as a tool for energy planning (MME, 2002). Over the last twenty-seven
years many new methodologies have been introduced into the matrix as a result of the research and
information gathering. In the National Energy Balance of 2002 (base-year 2001), the working team has
produced new calculations of the calorific contents of energy sources and has presented an historical
review of balances from 1940 through 2001. The 184 page publication is divided into the following
eight chapters: Energy Donor and Demand by Source, Energy Consumption by Sector, External
Commerce of Energy, Transformation Center Balances, Energetic Resources and Reserves, Energy
and Socio-economy, Annexes.
We are proposing a new chapter with the principal matrix calculated in emergy units as part
of the National Energy Balance and later as a National Emergy Balance publication.
This paper presents the first set of emergy calculations using the 2002 National Energy
Balance from Brazil.
METHODS
The work was based on the data from Production of Primary Energy (Table 1.1a on page 5 of
the 2002 National Energy Balance), which presents the renewable and non-renewable primary energy
production in Brazil from 1986 until 2001. Primary energy is defined as all energetic products directly
provided by nature such as oil, natural gas, coal, solar and wind energies, etc (MME, 2002, page 94).
In the Government publication all different types of energy are transformed into tons of oil equivalent
(toe), which is the same as 45.22 E9 Joules.
Table 1 presents the original information found in the 2002 National Energy Balance (MME,
2002). A new table was calculated by converting raw data on the energy produced by Brazil given in
-251-
Chapter 19. Matrix Reloaded: The Emergy View
different units to joules and then multiplying each energy inflow by the appropriate transformity
(Odum, 1996) to find its emergy value (see Table 2). Patterns in the relationship between the tons of
oil equivalents (toe) and emergy (seJ) used from 1986 to 2001 were examined.
RESULTS
The emergy evaluation table showing the Brazils primary energy production brings a
different look to the National Matrix.
The incremental increase of non-renewables through the years is smaller for the energetic
calculations. The government information has shown that from 1986 to 2001 the non-renewables
increased from 36.7% to 53.9%. In energy terms after the year 2000, Brazil produced more than a half
of its primary energy from fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal) and uranium. The renewables went from 63.3%
in 1986 to 46.1% in 2001.
Table 3, where energy quality is embodied in each energy source, shows that the trend cited
before is real, but Brazil still gets 54.2% of its primary energy production from renewables and 45.8%
from non-renewables (in 2001).
In general, all renewables decreased while oil and natural gas increased (40% and 48.8%
respectively) in the matrix partitioning. Hydraulic energy maintained almost the same percentage of
renewable inflow after 13 years. For example, in 1986 it was 32.4% and in 2001 it was 31.4%,
although it went up to 40.6% in 1995. Wood sources decreased from 19.8% to 8.8% (more than 55%)
in comparative terms. Sugar cane products production in energy and emergy units has changed very
little through the years.
Table 1 and Table 2 summarize the total energy and emergy use each year from 1986 to 2001
and can be used to determine the incremental increase over this time. Brazil produced 103.409 E3 toe
in 1986 and 150.878 E3 toe (a 46% increase) in 2001. In emergy it went from 3.24 E23 seJ to 4.91 E23
seJ (a 51% increase).
Figure 1 shows the partitioning among the energy sources in the Brazilian Primary Emergy
Production matrix.
Figure 2 depicts variations in the ratio of renewable to non-renewable emergy sources in
Brazil from 1986 to 2001. In 1993 renewable production was almost 2.5 times more than nonrenewable production. The mean ratio over the last decade was 1.76:1.
Figure 3 shows the variations in population and emergy production per person in Brazil, as
fossil fuel participation in the matrix exponentially increased from 1996 to 2001, permitting a jump in
the emergy available to Brazilians from 2.15 E15 to 2.85 E15 seJ/ person.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
The emergetic results give us a new picture of a country where the primary energy productive
matrix still is based upon many renewable sources (54.2%). One third of the total emergy from the
matrix comes from hydraulic sources and one fifth from biomass. In the World a mean of 14% is from
renewable sources while the Developed Countries have only 6% (MME, 2003).
An important trend for the non-renewable energies was observed, where oil production has
been increasing, from 21.7% in 1986 to 32.3% in 2001 and natural gas has doubled its matrix
participation (in energy terms from 3.7% in 1998 to 7.5% in 2002, MME 2003). The global use of
fossil fuels increased by 0.3% in 2001 (WWI, 2003).
The Brazilian National Balance shows the countrys energy structure at different times. The
energy policy to use more fossil fuels in Brazil still reigns while use of renewable sources has been
decreasing and this trend is expected to continue over the next few years.
-252-
-25316,781
Sugarcane products
Source: MMA, 2002
TOTAL
2,104
17,937
28,180
16,537
64,758
50
314
1,565
6,078
31,906
39,914
1990
2,313
19,525
26,367
17,423
65,628
0.0
144
1,920
6,386
31,518
39,968
1991
2,715
19,523
24,776
17,867
64,881
0.0
79
1,752
6,753
31,861
40,455
1992
2,950
18,858
24,493
18,805
65,107
0.0
37
1,751
7,120
32,551
41,458
1993
2,967
21,436
24,547
19,416
68,366
0.0
75
1,908
7,508
33,804
43,265
1994
2,887
21,217
22,.970
20,312
67,386
0.0
67
1,932
7,700
34,907
44,607
1995
Years
3,048
22,790
21,694
21,262
68,784
0.0
84
1,759
8,863
39,404
50,110
1996
3,242
25,261
21,392
22,318
72,213
0.0
57
2,072
9,511
42,777
54,417
1997
3,404
24,520
20,995
23,318
72,237
23
13
2,030
10,443
49,570
62,079
1998
3,755
23,959
21,260
23,431
72,405
0.0
19
2,041
11,517
55,252
68,829
1999
4,023
19,527
21,482
24,382
69,414
129
32
2,044
12,902
62,073
77,179
2000
4,187
22,206
21,655
21,451
69,499
657
2,128
13,596
64,989
81,379
2001
103,409 104,672 105,596 105,336 106,565 111,660 111,993 118,904 126,630 134,316 141,234 146,593 150,878
1,750
32,356
Wood
Others
14,594
65,481
358
Hydraulic energy
Renewables
Uranium
838
2,443
Vapor coal
Metallurgy coal
5,504
28,784
37,928
1986
Natural gas
Oil
Non-renewables
Sources
Table 1. Production of primary energy (E3 toe) in Brazil.
6.43E22
4.88E22
1.40E22
1.78E21
2.99E22
3.08E21
2.50E20
3.24E23
Sugarcane products
Syrup
Molasse
Bagasse
Vinasse
Others
TOTAL
1.88E22
Uranium
Wood
1.51E21
Metallurgy coal
1.05E23
4.11E21
Vapor coal
Hydraulic energy
1.13E22
Natural gas
2.18E23
7.03E22
Oil
Renewables
1.06E23
1986
Non-renewables
Sources
-2543.24E23
3.30E20
3.50E21
3.11E22
2.17E21
1.56E22
5.24E22
5.60E22
1.19E23
2.28E23
2.61E21
5.68E20
2.78E21
1.24E22
7.79E22
9.63E22
1990
3.29E23
3.47E20
3.95E21
3.33E22
2.20E21
1.76E22
5.71E22
5.24E22
1.25E23
2.35E23
0.0
2.61E20
3.36E21
1.31E22
7.70E22
9.37E22
1991
3.31E23
3.94E20
4.73E21
3.52E22
2.44E21
1.55E22
5.79E22
4.92E22
1.29E23
2.36E23
0.0
1.43E20
3.12E21
1.38E22
7.78E22
9.49E22
1992
Table 2. Production of primary emergy (seJ) in Brazil.
3.38E23
3.96E20
5.35E21
3.43E22
2.28E21
1.47E22
5.66E22
4.87E22
1.35E23
2.41E23
0.0
0.67E20
3.08E21
1.46E22
7.95E22
9.72E22
1993
3.54E23
3.33E20
5.81E21
4.00E22
2.84E21
1.54E22
6.41E22
4.88E22
1.40E23
2.53E23
0.0
1.36E20
3.40E21
1.54E22
8.25E22
1.01E23
1994
3.60E23
3.31E20
5.62E21
3.96E22
3.18E21
1.49E22
6.33E22
4.56E22
1.46E23
2.55E23
0.0
1.21E20
3.45E21
1.58E22
8.52E22
1.05E23
1995
Years
3.83E23
3.13E20
6.17E21
4.17E22
3.74E21
1.65E22
6.81E22
4.31E22
1.53E23
2.65E23
0.0
1.51E20
3.17E21
1.81E22
9.62E22
1.18E23
1996
4.07E23
3.47E20
6.47E21
4.65E22
3.72E21
1.85E22
7.52E22
4.25E22
1.61E23
2.79E23
0.0
1.02E20
3.77E21
1.95E22
1.04E23
1.28E23
1997
4.31E23
3.61E20
6.81E21
4.66E22
4.16E21
1.59E22
7.35E22
4.17E22
1.68E23
2.84E23
1.04E21
0.23E20
3.73E21
2.14E22
1.21E23
1.47E23
1998
4.43E23
4.41E20
7.41E21
4.67E22
4.50E21
1.39E22
7.25E22
4.22E22
1.69E23
2.84E23
0.0
0.34E20
3.78E21
2.36E22
1.35E23
1.62E23
1999
4.68E23
4.80E20
7.70E21
3.80E22
3.66E21
1.14E22
6.08E22
4.27E22
1.76E23
2.80E23
6.78E21
0.57E20
3.32E21
2.64E22
1.52E23
1.88E23
2000
4.91E23
5.52E20
7.66E21
4.33E22
4.17E21
1.29E22
6.80E22
4.30E22
1.54E23
2.66E23
3.44E22
0.17E20
3.82E21
2.78E22
1.59E23
2.25E23
2001
-25519.8
15.0
Wood
Sugarcane products
0.1
32.4
Hydraulic energy
Others
67.3
5.8
Uranium
Renewables
0.4
Metallurgy coal
1.3
Vapor coal
21.7
Oil
3.5
32.7
Non renewables
Natural gas
1986
Sources
0.1
16.2
17.3
36.7
70.3
0.8
0.2
0.9
3.8
24.0
29.7
1990
0.1
17.4
15.6
38.0
71.4
0.0
0.1
1.0
4.0
23.5
28.6
1991
0.1
17.4
14.8
39.0
71.3
0.0
0.1
0.9
4.2
23.5
28.7
1992
0.1
16.8
14.5
39.9
71.3
0.0
0.0
0.9
4.3
23.5
28.7
1993
0.1
18.1
13.8
39.5
71.5
0.0
0.0
1.0
4.2
23.3
28.5
1994
0.1
17.6
12.7
40.6
71.0
0.0
0.0
1.0
4.3
23.7
29.0
1995
Years
Table 3. Percentage distribution of the emergy production matrix from Brazil.
0.1
17.8
11.3
39.9
69.1
0.0
0.1
0.9
4.8
25.1
30.9
1996
0.1
18.5
10.4
39.6
68.6
0.0
0.0
0.9
4.8
25.7
31.4
1997
0.1
17.1
9.7
39.0
65.9
0.2
0.0
0.8
5.0
28.1
34.1
1998
0.1
16.3
9.4
37.9
63.7
0.0
0.0
0.8
5.3
30.2
36.6
1999
0.1
13.0
9.1
37.6
59.8
1,5
0.0
0.7
5.6
32.4
40.2
2000
0.2
13.8
8.8
31.4
54.2
7.0
0.0
0.8
5.7
32.3
45.8
2001
100%
Others
Sugarcane products
Wood
Hydraulic energy
Uranium
Metalurgy coal
Vapor coal
Natural gas
Oil
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
1986 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
Years
Figure 1. Energy partitioning in the Brazilian Emergy Matrix.
R/RN
3
2,5
2
2,48
1,99
2,25
Mean
1,5
1,49
1,18
1
0,5
0
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
Year
Figure 2. Ratio of renewable/non-renewable emergy sources from the Brazilian Emergy National Balance.
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180
3.00
170
2.80
160
2.60
150
2.40
140
2.20
130
2.00
1984
1988
1992
1996
2000
Emergy (E15 sej/person)
Brazilian Population (E06 person)
2004
Year
Figure 3. Primary emergy production per person and population in Brazil, from 1986-2001. Symbols: Brazilian
population (+ ) and Emergy ().
A nation so rich in natural capital (especially renewable sources) such as Brazil, needs to reload its
emergy matrix with the diversity of energies embodied in the territory. That is the only guarantee to a
prosperous future.
REFERENCES
MME. 2002. Ministrio De Minas E Energia. Balano Energtico Nacional BEN 2002.
DNPE/SEM/MME, Braslia. 184 p.
MME. 2003. Ministrio De Minas E Energia. Balano Energtico Nacional BEN 2003.
DNPE/SEM/MME, Braslia. 168 p.
Odum, H.T. 1996. Environmental Accounting. John Wiley & Sons, New York. 370 p.
Worldwatch Institute. 2003. Vital Signs 2003. W. W. Norton & Company, New York. 153.
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
20
Thermodynamic Input-Output Analysis of Economic and Ecological
Systems with Application to the U.S. Economy
ABSTRACT
A necessary step toward sustaining natural capital is to estimate its contribution to economic
activity. Most contemporary accounting techniques fail in this regard because they take ecosystems for
granted. Thermodynamic Input-Output (TIO) Analysis is a systematic approach that accounts for the
contribution of ecological and human resources to industrial processes, interactions between
industrial processes and the impact of industrial emissions on human and ecosystem health. It is based
on Ecological Cumulative Exergy Consumption (ECEC) Analysis, which, as an extension of traditional
Industrial Cumulative Exergy Consumption (ICEC) Analysis, includes ecological resources. It relies
on transformities to quantify the direct contribution of ecological resources, and on economic inputoutput data to represent the network of economic and human resource sectors. Under conditions of
identical analysis boundary, allocation methods and approaches for combining global exergy inputs,
ECEC is equivalent to emergy and transformities are equivalent to the reciprocal of the cumulative
degree of perfection in ICEC analysis. Thus, TIO analysis combines exergy analysis with the ability of
emergy analysis to account for ecological resources, without relying on any of the controversial
aspects of the later. This paper applies the TIO methodology to the 1992 U.S. Economy to get a unique
insight into the reliance of industrial sectors on ecosystems for obtaining their inputs and dealing with
their outputs. The paper proposes a separate ECEC/money ratio for each industrial sector, as opposed
to the single emergy/money ratio commonly used in emergy analysis. Separate ratios for each sector
permit more accurate inclusion of the emergy of economic goods and services.
INTRODUCTION
Ecological products and services are indispensable for any industrial, economic or social
activity on earth. Examples of ecological products include coal, timber, water and atmospheric oxygen,
while ecological services include rain, pollination, carbon sequestration and pollution abatement
(Tilman et al., 2002; Costanza et al., 1997; Odum, 1996). Despite their obvious importance, traditional
design methods in engineering such as material and energy balances, exergy analysis, and cumulative
exergy consumption analysis and those in economics such as total cost assessment have tended to
ignore the role of ecosystems by considering them to be an infinite sink or free. As a result,
business and policy decisions are usually made with a flawed accounting system that ignores the basic
life support system for all activity. The focus of such an approach tends to be on short-term gain, while
longer-term sustainability issues are ignored.
The importance of accounting for the contribution of ecosystems to economic activity or
emternalities (Pillet et al., 2000) is slowly being recognized in both academia and industry (Holliday,
2002). Techniques for total cost accounting to include environmental and social aspects along with
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Chapter 20. Thermodynamic Input-Output Analysis
economic aspects are being developed and used. Techniques such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) are
being standardized and adopted by many corporations to obtain more holistic and complete
information about the impact of their products and processes on the environment. However, LCA
focuses mostly on the emissions from industrial processes and their impact and on consumption of
nonrenewable resources. It does not account for the contribution of ecosystems to industrial activity. A
variety of techniques have attempted to quantify the contribution of ecosystems to economic activity.
All techniques face common challenges of combining information represented in a diverse set of units,
uncertain knowledge and lack of adequate data about ecosystems. These techniques may be broadly
categorized as preference-based and biophysical methods.
Preference based methods (Balmford et al., 2002, Bockstael et al., 2000) assign a monetary
value to ecosystem goods and services by relying on human valuation. A significant advantage of these
methods is that using a single unit permits ready comparison across economic and ecological aspects.
However, valuation methods are often controversial and rely on knowledge about the role of each
ecological product and service. Such information, along with satisfaction of scientific laws may be
provided by biophysical methods.
Biophysical methods rely on biological and physical principles to account for the role of
ecosystems.
Mass based methods (Adriaanse et al., 1997; Matthews et al., 2000) have been popular for
determining the physical basis of economic activity and its interaction with ecosystems. Most of
these studies are at the level of the entire economy and disaggregation to more detailed levels is
being developed. Since mass based methods do not capture many properties of materials, such as
their energetic contribution and impact, these studies are of limited use by themselves. However,
they can provide a good database for developing other more comprehensive methods.
Furthermore, existing methods are quite limited in their incorporation of ecosystem services,
which cannot be readily captured in terms of mass flow.
Exergy based methods satisfy the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and have been popular
for assessing the thermodynamic efficiency of industrial processes (Szargut et al., 1988) and for
analyzing the behavior of ecosystems (Jorgensen, 1997). Exergy is the energy available to do
useful work. It can capture various quality aspects of streams as indicated by their mass, energy,
concentration, velocity and location. (Connelly and Koshland, 1997). Extensions of exergy
analysis, such as Industrial Cumulative Exergy Consumption (ICEC) analysis (Szargut et al.,
1988) and Exergetic LCA (Cornelissen and Hirs, 1997) consider the exergy consumed in a few
selected processes that transform natural resources into economic products. However, exergy
based methods ignore the contribution of ecosystems, and the impact of emissions. Furthermore,
exergy analysis at the level of economic sectors is not yet available.
Emergy based methods (Odum, 1996) have also been used to analyze ecological and economic
systems. The key strength of emergy analysis is that it does account for the contribution of
ecological products and processes. However, emergy analysis often faces quantitative and
algebraic challenges, and its broad claims about ecological and economic systems can also be
controversial. Moreover, emergy analysis of the economy disaggregated to the level of industrial
sectors is missing, and consequently, emergy analysis uses a single emergy/money ratio to
represent the entire economy.
Recently, the concept of cumulative exergy consumption (CEC) has been expanded to include
ecosystems (Hau and Bakshi, 2004). The resulting Ecological Cumulative Exergy Consumption
(ECEC) provides insight into emergy analysis by exposing its thermodynamic underpinning, and
its close relationship with ICEC analysis. Under conditions of identical analysis boundaries,
allocation methods and approaches for combining global exergy inputs, emergy is shown to be
identical to ECEC. Moreover controversial aspects of Odum's work, such as the maximum
empower principle and the emergy theory of value are not relevant to ECEC calculations. Other
issues, such as considering the solar input from prehistory, are also not used in the proposed
approach since ECEC only includes concurrent exergy flows. Thus, ECEC combines the
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scientific rigor of exergy analysis with the ability of emergy analysis to account for ecological
products and services, without relying on the controversial aspects of emergy analysis.
This paper applies ECEC analysis to determine the ecosystem contribution to the 1992 U.S.
economy comprising 91 industrial sectors. Such analysis is comparable to doing an emergy analysis of
the economy disaggregated to the level of industrial sectors. The proposed analysis provides a unique
insight into the reliance of economic sectors on ecosystems for obtaining their inputs and for dealing
with their outputs. The application considers a variety of ecological products, ecosystem services,
human resources and impacts of emission on human health. It calculates ECEC/money ratio to
demonstrate the discrepancy between the thermodynamic work required to produce an ecological
resource and peoples willingness to pay for it. Such discrepancy could lead to a suboptimal allocation
of ecological resources through the economic system (Ayres, 1998). Moreover, the industry-specific
ECEC/money ratios are equivalent to industry-specific emergy/$ ratios under identical system
boundaries, allocation rules and approaches for combining global exergy inputs. Such industry-specific
ratios provide a more accurate alternative to a single emergy/money ratio (Odum, 1996) currently
being used in emergy analysis.
The rest of the paper discusses the algorithm of Thermodynamic Input-Output Analysis and
lists various ecological resources considered along with their respective data sources. This is followed
by results for the 1992 U.S. economy including aggregate and normalized metrics.
APPROACH: THERMODYNAMIC INPUT-OUTPUT ANALYSIS

A thermodynamic approach has been used in this analysis to include the contribution of
ecological products and services to the economic system that includes all industrial processes. A
thermodynamic approach provides a common currency or a way to deal with the diverse set of units
that exist in any system that considers both economic and ecological aspects in a network of energy
flows. Similarly thermodynamic methods such as ECEC analysis and emergy analysis can also deal
with partial information about underlying ecological networks. On the other hand, economic networks
are relatively well-understood, and hence, can be represented by input-output models. Thermodynamic
Input-Output Analysis (TIOA) recognizes the network structure of the integrated Economic-EcologicalSocial (EES) system shown in Figure 1. Such a system is driven by three fundamental sources of
energy, namely solar radiation, tidal forces and geothermal heat. The economy consists of a large
number of industrial sectors defined according to their Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes.
The ecological system consists of four conceptual ecospheres namely lithosphere (land), hydrosphere
(water), atmosphere (air) and biosphere. The social sphere, also referred to as human resources,
consists of consumers. Thermodynamically, the EES system is an open system with material and
energy flows across system boundaries. For instance, energy enters the system from the three
fundamental sources of energy and exits in the form of long wave radiation. Material enters the system
in the form of imports and exits in the form of exports. Consideration of imports and exports is,
however, beyond the scope of this paper. Solid lines in Figure 1 represent tangible interactions that
include raw materials from and emissions to ecosystems and human resources. Interactions shown with
dotted lines in Figure 1 are less tangible and occur as a consequence of emissions. For example, the
dotted line between the economy and ecosystems represents ecological services required for
dissipating industrial emissions and the impact of emissions on ecosystems. Similarly the dotted line
from human resources to economy represents impact of industrial emissions on human health. The
dotted line from ecosystems to human resources represents the impact of anthropogenic emissions on
human health.
-261-
Geothermal
Energy
Sun
Ecosystems
Lithosphere
Atmosphere
Biosphere
Hydrosphere
Ecosystem
impact due to
anthropogenic
emissions
Tidal
Energy
Natural Resources as raw

materials
Economy
Ecosystem services
for dissipation,
ecosystem impact
Emission
Emissions Consumption of
(CO2 in natural resources
(O2 in air)
respiration)
Impact of emission
on human health
Human Resources
Final
Demand
Value
Added
Figure 1. Integrated economic-ecological-human resource system. (Solid lines represent tangible interactions,
dotted lines represent intangible interactions occurring as a consequence of emissions).
The algorithm for Thermodynamic Input-Output Analysis focuses on the economic system and its
interactions with ecosystems and human resources. It consists of the following three tasks.
Task 1 is to identify and quantify ecological and human resource inputs to the economic system.
Such inputs include ecological goods such as coal, wood, water and atmospheric oxygen;
ecosystem services like wind, rain and carbon sequestration, impact of emission on human health;
and human resources in the form of human labor required for economic activities. At this point it
is necessary to acknowledge that the distinction between ecological and human resources is purely
based on whether they originate from the four ecospheres or from the sociosphere.
Task 2 is to calculate the ECEC values of ecological inputs using transformity values from
systems ecology, and to classify inputs as additive or non-additive. In general, non-renewable
resources are additive, while renewable resources are non-additive to avoid double counting.
Task 3 is to allocate direct ecological and human resource inputs to economic sectors based on
input-output data and the network algebra of ECEC analysis. More details about the determination
of ECEC for direct ecological inputs and their allocation through the economic system can be
found in Ukidwe and Bakshi (2003). The network algebra of ECEC analysis is based on a static
input-output representation of the economic system. Dynamic versions of input-output analysis
that consider temporal changes in the economic network are also available, and will be explored in
future publications. Also use of monetary data for allocation is not a limitation of the approach,
but is rather caused by lack of comprehensive material or energy accounts of inter-industry
interactions.
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DATA REQUIREMENTS AND SOURCES

This section describes the various resources considered in this analysis. All required data have been
obtained from the public domain and corresponding data sources have been provided at appropriate
locations in this section.
Ecosystem Products: Ecosystem products considered in this analysis have been divided into four
ecospheres depending on their mode of entry into the economic system. The four ecospheres are
lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere. Such classification of the ecosystem into four
ecospheres is not critical to the approach, and the approach will work equally well with any other userdefined classification scheme as long as renewable and non-renewable resources are distinguished.
The ecological products from the lithosphere include crude petroleum, natural gas (USDOE, 2002),
coal metallic and non-metallic minerals (USGS, 2002a) and nitrogen and phosphorous from
mineralization (Ayres and Ayres, 1998). Ecological products from biosphere include timber and
pasture (Ayres and Ayres, 1998), whereas those from hydrosphere and atmosphere include water
(USGS, 2002b) and CO2 for 24-hr photosynthesis (Ayres and Ayres, 1998) respectively.
Ecosystem Services: Ecosystem services refer to various natural functions that support economic
activities. Unlike ecological products, ecosystem services need not always be associated with material
or energy flows. For instance, dissipation of emissions by wind and use of geothermal heat for
electricity generation are examples of ecosystem services that are associated with mass or energy
flows. These are the supply-based services. On the other hand, ecosystem services required for
recreational and cultural purposes, are based on human valuation and are not necessarily accompanied
by material or energy flows. These are the value-based services. This analysis focuses only on the
supply-based services. The analysis considers sunlight for photosynthesis (USDA, 2003),
hydropotential, geothermal heat and wind for electricity generation (USDOE, 2002) and soil erosion
from agricultural and construction activities (Adriaanse et al., 1997; Matthews et al., 2000).
Impact of emissions: Every pollutant, once emitted to the environment, is diluted to a base
concentration by ecosystem services such as wind and water streams. Several spatial and temporal
factors, such as dispersion, diffusion and atmospheric chemistry, play an important role in determining
the base concentration. If the base concentration is more than a certain threshold value human and
ecosystem health is impacted. There are several established procedures for calculating impact
associated with emissions. The approach employed in this analysis uses eco-indicator 99 (Goedkoop
and Spriensma, 1999) which reports impact in terms of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs). A
list of pollutants considered in this analysis, the impact categories they belong to and their DALY
values are provided in Ukidwe and Bakshi (2004). Data on emissions are gathered from the US EPAs
Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) database (USEPA, 2001). DALY values are obtained from ecoindicator 99 (Goedkoop and Spriensma, 1999). The approach for converting DALY to ECEC is also
discussed in Ukidwe and Bakshi (2003). The analysis considers four bulk pollutants, namely CO2,
NOx, SO2 and PM10, and five non-bulk pollutants, namely methanol, ammonia, toluene, 1,1,1trichloroethane and styrene.
Transformities: The ECEC of ecosystem products and services is quantified via their transformity
values (Odum, 1996; Brandt-Williams, 2002; Brown and Bardi, 2001). Transformity represents the
amount of energy expended in ecological processes to make an ecological product or service.
Transformities used in this analysis correspond to the 1996 empower base of 9.441024 sej/yr (Odum,
1996).
Human Resources and Inter-Industry Allocation Matrix: This analysis considers human resources
consumed by industrial sectors as a function of the number of individuals employed and their skilllevel. Average annual payroll is assumed as a measure of skill-level. Data about the number of people
employed and their average annual payroll are available from US Department of Labors Bureau of
Labor Statistics (BLS, 2003).
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The inter-industry allocation matrix required to determine ECEC flow in the economic system
is obtained from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. This matrix represents monetary interactions
between industrial sectors on a yearly basis. The analysis presented in this paper uses the 91-sector
1992 U.S. input-output matrix, as most of natural resource consumption data are available for the early
1990s. If the materials count initiative undertaken by National Research Council (NRC, 2004)
materializes, more accurate allocation matrices could be used in the analysis.
AGGREGATE METRICS
The Thermodynamic Input-Output Framework described in previous sections was applied to
determine the contribution of ecosystem and human resources to industry sectors and human resources
lost due to impact of emissions from the industry sectors on human health. Figure 2 shows results for
the contribution of lithospheric resources. The sectors of metallic ore mining (SIC 5,6), coal mining
(SIC 7), crude petroleum and natural gas (SIC 8) and non-metallic mineral mining (SIC 9,10) receive
direct inputs from the lithosphere. The sectors of petroleum refining and related products (SIC 31),
stone and clay products (SIC 36), electric services (SIC 68A), gas production and distribution (SIC
68B) and industrial and other chemicals (SIC 27A) also have prominent peaks on account of indirect
consumption. Similar results have been obtained for other resources mentioned in the previous section,
and can be found in Ukidwe and Bakshi (2004).
To calculate the aggregate metrics, results for individual resources were combined. Such
aggregation is facilitated by the fact that results for individual resources are expressed in the single
consistent thermodynamic unit of solar equivalent joules (sej). Care must be taken in aggregating
ECEC values of individual resources because simple, across-the-board addition may lead to double
counting. The solution proposed in emergy analysis (Odum, 1996) and ECEC analysis (Hau and
Bakshi, 2004) is to divide the resources into two groups: additive and non-additive. Accordingly
renewable resources are non-additive and non-renewable resources are additive. In the context of this
paper, inputs from atmosphere, hydrosphere and ecological services are non-additive, whereas inputs
from lithosphere, biosphere, human resources and impact of emissions on human health are additive.
LITHOSPHERE
2.40E+24
Nonmetallic Minerals Mining

(SIC 9, 10)
1.90E+24
Petroleum Refining and Related

Products (SIC 31)
sej/yr
1.40E+24
Electric Services
(SIC 68A)
9.00E+23
4.00E+23
-1.00E+23
11
21
31
41
51
61
71
81
Industry Sectors
Figure 2. Contribution of ecological products from Lithosphere to U.S. industry sectors (Black parts represent
direct inputs, white parts represent indirect inputs).
-264-
91
Since the choice of allocation rules is usually subjective, the sensitivity of the results to different
allocation rules should be evaluated. It may also be possible to select system boundaries that avoid
allocation altogether. The application of such techniques to the analysis presented in this paper is a part
of the on-going work.
Total ECEC: Total ECEC of each industrial sector is shown in Figure 3. Figure 3 is a semi-log
plot that shows relative contributions of renewable resources, non-renewable resources, human
resources and human health impact of emissions to the total ECEC of each sector. The sector of nonmetallic mineral mining (SIC 9, 10) is found to have the highest ECEC. Other sectors with high ECEC
values are new construction (SIC 11), health services (SIC 77A) and petroleum refining and related
products (SIC 31). Sectors with the lowest ECEC are footwear, leather, and leather products (SIC 33,
34), tobacco products (SIC 15), and pipelines, freight forwarders and related services (SIC 73D).
Total ECEC requirement is similar to the concept of ecological cost proposed by Szargut as the
cumulative consumption of non-renewable exergy in all links of the production network and connected
with the fabrication of the considered product (Szargut, 1999). ECEC enhances ecological cost in two
aspects: unlike ecological cost, total ECEC considers renewable and non-renewable resources; and
ECEC also accounts for the exergy consumed in the ecological links of a production network. Figure 3
is potentially useful in determining industry-specific pro-ecological tax proposed by Szargut and
others (Szargut, 2002). ECEC by itself is of limited use for sustainable decision-making. A
normalized metric that compares ecosystem contribution to economic activity is more insightful, and is
discussed next.
ECEC/Money Ratio: This ratio accounts for ecological and economic throughputs in economic
sectors. Figure 4 shows the ratio of the throughput of ECEC to money for 91 industrial sectors on a
semi-log plot. This ratio is calculated by dividing the total ECEC throughput shown in Figure 3 by the
total economic throughput of each sector. The ECEC/money ratio is analogous to the emergy/money
ratio, and similar ratios suggested in exergy analysis (Szargut, 2002). However, unlike emergy or
exergy analysis where a single ratio is used for the entire economy, Figure 4 provides a separate ratio
for each sector. The variation in Figure 4 confirms the heterogeneous nature of the economy. The ratio
of the direct ecological inputs to the 1992 GDP of the U.S. is 2.101012 sej/$, which is close to the
Non-Renewable
1.00E+25
Non-metallic Minerals
Mining (SIC 9, 10)
Renewable
Human Resources
Petroleum Refining and

Related Products (SIC 31)
Human Health Impact of Emissions
1.00E+24
sej/yr
1.00E+23
1.00E+22
1.00E+21
1.00E+20
1
11
21
31
41
51
Industry Sectors
Figure 3. Total ECEC requirements of Industry Sectors.
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61
71
81
91
1.00E+15
Non-metallic Minerals
Mining (SIC 9, 10)
sej/$
1.00E+14
Gas Production and

Distribution (SIC 68B)
1.00E+13
1.00E+12
1.00E+11
1
11
21
31
41
51
61
71
81
91
Industry Sectors
Figure 4. ECEC/money ratio for industry sectors.
emergy/$ ratio of 1.441012 sej/$ obtained by Odum (1996). The former ratio is slightly higher because
it also includes the human health impact of emissions, which is ignored in emergy analysis. The
ECEC/money ratio does not support or debunk any theory of value, but is rather meant to provide an
insight into the magnitude of discrepancy between thermodynamic work needed to produce a good or
service and peoples willingness to pay for it. ECEC/money ratios can be used to quantify ECEC of
purchased inputs. Such industry-specific ratios provide a more accurate alternative to the single
emergy/$ ratio used in emergy analysis, and similar ad hoc procedures used in thermoeconomics. At
this point it is necessary to note that normalization with respect to money is possible because monetary
outputs of industrial sectors are well known. Normalization with respect to exergy to determine
transformities of industrial sectors is more difficult due to lack of information about exergetic outputs
of industrial sectors.
A few salient features of this ratio are as follows.
The ECEC/money ratio for the sectors of non-metallic mineral mining (SIC 9, 10) and metallic
ore mining (SIC 5, 6) are larger than those for any other sector. Sectors with the smallest
ECEC/money ratios are owner-occupied dwellings (SIC 71A) and advertising (SIC 73D).
Specialized sectors such as tobacco products (SIC 15), drugs (SIC 29A) and computer and office
equipment (SIC 51) have smaller ECEC/money ratios than basic sectors such as petroleum
refining and related products (SIC 31) and primary iron and steel manufacturing (SIC 37).
The average ECEC/money ratio for mining sectors (SIC 5-10) is 22 times the average
ECEC/money ratio for service industrial sectors (SIC 69A-79).
Among sectors that lie at the economy-ecosystem interface, agricultural, forestry, livestock,
fisheries and water and sanitary services sectors (SIC 1-4, 68C) have an average ECEC/money
ratio that is 11% of the average ECEC/money ratio for mining sectors (SIC 5-10).
The wide variation in ECEC/money ratios indicates the discord between ecological activity
and corresponding economic valuation. This may be because market prices do not fully reflect the
contribution of ecosystems. Since economic value is not inherent in objects but is a product of a
variety of consumer judgments, variation in ECEC/money ratios also reflects a lack of consumer
awareness about ecosystem contribution to economic activity.
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The ECEC/money ratio also tends to decrease along supply chains of industrial processes.
Basic infrastructure sectors that rely heavily on non-renewable resources have higher ECEC/money
ratios. This suggests that these sectors tap into a countrys natural capital in a manner disproportionate
to their contribution to its economic capital. These observations match other work on the relationship
between environmental impact and economic value along supply chains of industrial processes (Clift
and Wright, 2000), but require further analysis. Potential implications of the ECEC/money ratio to
outsourcing and sustainability and to adjust trade policy are currently being explored, and will be
included in future publications.
The ECEC/money ratio is particularly useful in hybrid thermodynamic analysis of industrial
systems (Suh et al., 2004). A hybrid analysis integrates process models or product systems with
economy-scale input-output models. In the process, it combines process-specific information that is
narrow in scope and low in uncertainty with economy-scale information that is broad in scope but
more uncertain. Consequently, a hybrid analysis is more powerful as it combines the two most critical
attributes of an environmental decision tool, specificity and a broad system boundary. The
ECEC/money ratio can come in handy in this context as the interactions of a product system with the
rest of the economy are typically measured in monetary units in routine accounting practices.
CONCLUSION
This paper presents and illustrates an approach for including the contribution of ecosystems to
economic sectors. It synthesizes available data and methods from multiple disciplines, including
studies of the contribution of ecosystems at the global or national scales, economic input-output
analysis, systems ecology, and life cycle assessment. The concept of ecological cumulative exergy
consumption permits integration of inputs from ecosystems and human resources and the impact of
emissions. Transformity values from emergy analysis have been used to determine ECEC of ecological
products and services. Economic input-output data have been used to allocate inputs of ecological
resources in the economic system.
The results obtained in this analysis have two prominent implications for emergy analysis.
First, industry-specific ECEC/money ratios calculated in this analysis present a more accurate
alternative to a single emergy/$ ratio currently in use. Such industry-specific ratios do a better job of
capturing the heterogeneous nature of economic products and services than an aggregate emergy/$
ratio. Furthermore, the average ECEC/money ratio matches well with the aggregate emergy/$ ratio.
Secondly, the proposed approach is potentially useful in determining renewable and non-renewable
components of purchased inputs. This may have a direct effect on several emergy indices such as
percent renewables, environmental loading ratio (ELR) and environmental sustainability index (ESI).
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
21
Emergy Synthesis of Socio-Economic Metabolism
Chun-Lin Lee and Shu-Li Huang
ABSTRACT
Recently, awareness of global climate change and limited natural resources has encouraged
research about the metabolism of socio-economic systems. The Industrial Transformation project of
the International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP) has identified socio-economic metabolism
as an important component of systems analysis. After the World Resources Institute (WRI, 1997 and
2000) and EuroStat (2001) promoted the Material Flows Accounts (MFA), many nations around the
world adopted the MFA as a common foundation of comparison. However, there are still many
unresolved issues about the MFA, such as its units, aggregation, and omitted energy flows. Therefore,
this article can be separated into two parts. First, methodological issues about the MFA will be
explored through a review of the literature. Second, an attempt will be made to apply emergy synthesis
to evaluate the socio-economic metabolism of Taiwan. Those results will be compared with the results
of MFA, and methodological issues will be discussed. We find that MFA incompletely describe a
socio-economic system because they undervalue the role of energy, a critical concern for Taiwan
given its increasing dependence on energy use. In Taiwans experience, some MFA indicators give
very different results from emergy indicators and there are some situations, like transformation of
resource consumption and material requirement change, that cant be discovered from just a material
flow point of view. In addition, focusing on weights, as MFA does, ignores differences between
qualities of material flows.
INTRODUCTION
Recently, awareness of global climate change and limited natural resources has encouraged
research into the interaction between human systems and the natural environment. After many
interdisciplinary experiences, several concepts from ecology have been adopted by the social sciences.
The study of the metabolism of socio-economic systems has become an important field in
interdisciplinary research.
Purves et al. (1992) pointed out that each cell carries out thousands of biochemical reactions
to sustain the processes of life and the sum of all biological reactions constitutes metabolism. REQM
(Residuals and Environmental Quality Management) defines metabolism as the amount of chemical
reactions in an organism. However, the definitions above are both from a viewpoint of cells or
organisms. Wolman (1965) utilizes the concept of metabolism to analyze the influence between the
urban and non-urban environment. H.T. Odum and E.P. Odum (1973) apply metabolism to discuss
every biological level from the cell to organism to whole ecosystem. H.T. Odum and E.C. Odum
(1982) and H.T. Odum (1996) describe the flows of energy and matter within economic and ecological
systems, as a way to quantify the driving forces of a systems metabolism. Beyond that, the application
of metabolism to socio-economic systems is now being discussed extensively.
Fischer-Kowalski (1998) recently reviewed research on the application of metabolism to the
social sciences from 1860 to 1998 and she feels that, after long debate, consensus is emerging for a
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Chapter 21. Emergy Synthesis of Socio-Economic
theoretically stringent approach. The study of socio-economic metabolism can be separated into two
viewpoints about systems. The first regards socio-economic systems as the core of analysis and
emphasizes input and output of the system. This approach has a social science emphasis, often applied
to the metabolism of countries, with methods such as Material Flows Accounts (MFA). The second
views socio-economic systems as a part of a larger system (i.e. human-ecosystem from Abel and
Stepp, 2003) and this approach emphasizes the environment and interactions between the two systems,
as in studies of socio-economic metabolism using emergy analysis.
The Industrial Transformation project of the International Human Dimensions Programme
(IHDP) has identified socio-economic metabolism as an important variety of systems analysis. After
the World Resources Institute (WRI, 2000) and EuroStat (2001) promoted the MFA, many nations
around the world adopted it as a common method of comparison. However, there are still many
unresolved issues about the MFA, such as its units, aggregation techniques, and omitted energy flows.
Even though Haberl et al. (2004) and IFF Social Ecology incorporate material and energy flow
accounting (MEFA), which includes energy flows in the accounting system, the units and aggregation
issues remain. Emergy accounting (Odum, 1996) on the other hand, has been rejected by classical and
neoclassical economists and has not yet been applied to the comparison of socio-economic metabolism
for countries around the world. However, we believe that emergy synthesis can solve many of the
problems of MFA as it is applied to socio-economic metabolism.
Therefore, this article will be divided into two sections. First, methodological issues
confronting the MFA will be explored in the literature review1. Second, an attempt will be made to
apply emergy to analysis of the socio-economic metabolism of Taiwan and compare those results with
MFA results to argue our position.
MFA CURRENT STATUS AND METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES

Early material flow analyses focused on identifying material flows in socio-economic
metabolism. In order to provide a more convenient tool for summarizing the sustainability of countries,
the complex process of material flow analysis has been simplified to material flow accounts (MFA). At
this time, most research on socio-economic metabolism addresses sustainable development (Haberl,
2001). MFAs have focused on creating sustainable development indicators.
Material Flow Accounts (MFA)

MFA is patterned after traditional accounting practices by providing an aggregate overview
by weight of annual material inputs and outputs of an economy, including inputs from a countrys
natural environment, outputs to the environment, and trade accounting for imports and exports in terms
of physical quantities traded. MFA constitutes a basis from which a variety of material flow based
indicators can be derived. Wernick and Ausubel (1995) utilize MFA to evaluate socio-economic
metabolism. WRI (2000) adopted the structure and estimated The Weight of Nations, which
considered the loss during the process of extracting, production, and transit. EuroStat (2001)
established a standard procedure of MFA, which used similar structure to WRI and defined the loss as
hidden flows and indirect flows, in Economy-wide material flow accounts and derived indicators: A
methodological guide (Figure 1).
Importantly, MFA includes hidden flows of domestic origin (domestic unused extraction) and
indirect flows (upstream material flows associated with imports) to account for material flows that
would be ignored in other analyses of socio-economic systems. A multi-level material balance scheme
In order to explore the influence of omitted energy flows and the roles of energy flows in Taiwan, we adopt MFA
instead of MEFA as the compared target with emergy synthesis.
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Main categories
Data gathering
Indicators
of flows
& Evaluation
analysis
Classification
The material
of materials
balance
Figure 1. MFA analysis construction (source: EuroStat, 2001).
Table 1. Composite MFA with derived resource use indicators.

INPUTS (origin)
Domestic extraction
Fossil fuels (coal, oil)
Minerals (ores, sand)
Biomass (timber, cereals)
Imports
DMI direct material inputs
Unused domestic extraction
From mining/quarrying
From biomass harvest
Soil excavation
TMI - Total material input
Indirect flows associated to imports
TMR - Total Material Requirement
OUTPUTS (destination)
Emissions and wastes
Emission to air
Waste land-filled
Emission to water
Dissipative use of products and losses
DPO - Domestic processed output to nature
Disposal of unused domestic extraction
From mining/quarrying
From biomass harvest
Soil excavation
TDO - Total Domestic Output to nature
Exports
TMO - Total Material Output
Net additions to stock
Indirect flows associated to exports
Source: EuroStat (2001)
has been designed. Finally, MFA also provides some typical indicators constructed using specific
material categories that enable comparison between nations. Table 1 and Figure 2 show the main
material flow categories supporting a national economy.
Methodological Issues of MFA

Currently, MFA has become an important tool for discussing the problem of sustainable
development, adopted for use by large-scale international panels of researchers (Fischer-Kowalski and
Huttler, 1998). There remain, however, some unresolved issues about MFA and these issues will be
discussed below and analyzed in comparison to an emergy synthesis of Taiwans socio-economic
metabolism.
Omitted Energy Flows
Ostwald (1909), a Nobel Prize chemist, was the first to study socio-economic systems from
an energy viewpoint. Odum (1971, 1983) added autocatalytic designs, based on general systems theory,
that consumers could feedback small amounts of energy to get more energy from a system. MartinezAlier and Schlupmann (1987) dealt with the study of energy flows and the analysis of the economy
from the ecological point of view. Adams (1988) also considered energy to be a trigger of human
civilization in which a society gets more energy after using some energy to pull the trigger (another
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Input
Domestic Extraction:
Fossil fuels
Minerals
Biomass
Unused Domestic
extraction
Economy
Output
Material accumulation
(net addition to stock)
To nature:
Emissions to air
Waste landfill
Emissions to water
Material throughput
(per year)
Imports
Unused Domestic
extraction
Exports
Indirect flows
associated to
imports
Recycling
Indirect flows
associated to
exports
Figure 2. Main aggregated material flow categories supporting a national economy (source: EuroStat, 2001).
example of autocatalytic design). Giampietro et al. (1992) assessed the amount of power used to alter
ecosystems during the process of socio-economic metabolism. Material flows and energy flows,
therefore, should be considered as two different aspects of socio-economic metabolism. Only when
materials and energy are both considered, can socio-economic metabolism be adequately evaluated
(Haberl, 2001). However, most current research on socio-economic metabolism, like MFA, ignores
energy flows because of the difficulty of comparing materials and energy with the same units. Energy
flows are omitted in the standard evaluation of MFA, and indeed this is its most contentious issue. In
principle we therefore know that MFA is an incomplete methodology by its omission of energy flows,
but the actual impact of omitting energy flows in a real world case has seldom been discussed. We will
explore these shortcomings with an emergy synthesis of Taiwans socio-economic metabolism.
System Boundary
An MFA of socio-economic metabolism focuses on the flows between economy and
environment, and only flows that cross the system boundary are counted. For this reason, flows within
the economy are not accounted for in MFA and the interactions between elements are ignored.
However, the relations between a socio-economic system and its natural environment are very
complex and difficult to separate. MFA attempts to simplify the flows as inputs and outputs through
the socio-economic system boundary. However, this omits countless flows and interactions within and
between the natural environment and socio-economic system.
Units
Material flows are measured in mass units. This common practice presents the following
problems:
(1) Aggregation of materials
It is necessary to aggregate material flows for an overview of a socio-economic system, but
during the process of aggregation the material characteristics, quantity and quality are ignored. The
quantity of material flows are known, but the identity of the materials is lost, with a subsequently
dramatic effect on MFA policy indicators, i.e., heavy materials of some kind will drive the direction of
policy.
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(2) System elements

MFA inputs and outputs are chosen by weight, and it is therefore very likely that critical
materials associated with a socio-economic system will be omitted from analysis because their weights
do not reach the threshold.
EMERGY SYNTHESIS OF TAIWANS SOCIO-ECONOMIC METABOLISM

We will now use an emergy synthesis of Taiwans socio-economic metabolism. We will then
compare and discuss MFA and emergy indicators.
Taiwans Ecological, Economic and Social System

Taiwans socio-economic system is represented by means of energy systems symbols in
Figure 3. The diagram explicitly incorporates the socio-economic system, natural land, agricultural
land, renewable resources, imports and exports. The resource elements in the system are selected on
the basis of a 95% threshold (by weight) from each material category in Taiwans MFA by Lin (2000),
and a 95% threshold (in emergy units) from Taiwans emergy synthesis table in Huang and Odum
(1991) to identify important items of resource flows in Taiwans ecological, economic and social
system.
Emergy Synthesis of Taiwans Socio-Economic system

A synthesis of Taiwans emergy flows from 1981 to 2001 is provided in Table 2. We find that
the use of the renewable resources of water and hydroelectricity is increasing. Non-renewable
domestic extraction of marble and electricity use are also rising, as well as the demand for many kinds
of energy and mineral imports from foreign countries, such as coal, petroleum, crude oil and industrial
minerals. Among exports, petroleum and metal products have risen. For a macro viewpoint of
Taiwans socio-economic metabolism, we aggregate the resource use in Table 3, which contains
material flows, energy flows, and eco-economic emergy flows, into the overview diagram of resource
use of Taiwan in Figure 4.
Taiwans socio-economic system underwent a transition from an agricultural society to an
industrial society during the period 1981 to 2001. In Table 3 and Figure 4, we can see that during this
industrial transition, Taiwans DMRs (domestic renewable materials), such as rice, sugarcane,
vegetables, fruits, etc., have recently become stable. However, because Taiwan is an island, which is
not rich in some natural resources, the storages of DMNR (domestic non-renewable materials) have
diminished and have needed to be supplemented by imports TMI (imported material flows).
Nevertheless, due to the requirements of the socio-economic system, the consumption of IME
(imported energy) and F (imported fuels and minerals) has increased substantially with industrial
development. A rising U (total emergy used) follows the same trend as resources use. TMR (total
material requirement), on the other hand, has stabilized in recent years because the industrial society
has become a service industry society that uses fewer materials.
The total material requirement (TMR) is stable, indicating that the material use of Taiwan has
not changed significantly from 1991 to 2001. However, EXM (exported material flows) increased
rapidly during the same period, as has imported energy. This is not reasonable from the material
balance standpoint of MFA, but is understandable if Taiwans socio-economic system is conceived as
driven by energy use. Energy inputs are the trigger of Taiwans development. It appears that some kind
of technical progress or industrial transformation has taken place in Taiwan in which the same amount
of materials is being used to export more goods via increased energy inputs.
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P
Woods
& prep.
Crude
Oil
P
Cereals
& prep.
P
Oil seeds
& flours
Livestock
products
Industrial
minerals
Iron &
steel
P products
P
Rain
Limestone
Buildings
Portland
Cement
Ballast
Flint Shingl
Socio-Economic
Land
Transport
infrastructure
Clinkers
(kinetic)
Metal
products
Waste
Slag
landfilled waste
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Emission
to air
Emission
to water
Ocean
Sun
Petrolem
products
Others
Petrolem
products
P
Iron ore
and
concentrat
Cultivated Land
Agricultural Land
Fishery
production
Livestock
Fish &
production
Mollusca
Sugar- Vegecane tables
Indirect flows
assoication to
exports
Rice
Fruit
Figure 3. Taiwans socio-economic system.
Indirect flows
assoication to
imports
Chapter 21. Emergy Synthesis of Socio-economic...
Woods &
their prep.
Money
Humans
Sand &
gravel
Natural Land
Wind
P
Petrolem
gas
Marble
Unused
domestic
extraction
Coal
Table 2. Taiwans emergy analysis table 1981~2001.

Resources Item
1981
1986
1991
1996
Solar Emergy (1020 sej)
2001
Renewable Resources
1. Sun; J
2. Wind(kinetic); J
3. Typhoons; J
4. Rain(geopotential); J
5. Rain(chemical); J
6. Tide; J
7. Geologic uplift; J
8. Wood consumption; J
9. Hydroelectricity; J
10. Water used; J
11. Sugar-cane; g
12. Rice; g
13. Fruits; g
14. Vegetables; g
15. Livestock production; g
16. Fishery production; g
2.72
212.19
21.34
54.26
96.02
0.64
33.84
2.31
273.43
45.78
32.09
104.50
106.44
369.17
0.00
649.02
2.72
212.19
17.07
51.18
90.56
0.64
33.84
2.19
424.22
65.74
22.87
86.85
113.94
394.11
327.11
779.24
2.72
212.19
12.80
43.05
76.18
0.64
33.84
0.36
314.60
77.94
17.28
80.02
152.19
360.85
442.66
937.32
2.72
212.19
12.80
57.27
101.33
0.64
33.84
0.22
517.28
89.24
15.96
69.40
151.45
385.48
313.68
882.50
2.72
212.19
21.34
50.26
88.93
0.64
33.84
0.19
507.02
93.17
8.31
61.44
159.21
383.62
476.47
937.50
Non-renewable Resources
17. Sand and gravel; g
18. Electricity used; J
19. Nuclear electricity; J
20. Marble; g
21. Limestone; g
22. Erosion; T
0.00
214.71
58.33
4.73
132.21
147.74
0.00
308.54
148.13
5.64
124.54
147.74
0.01
464.19
194.24
6.51
153.47
147.74
0.02
637.23
208.32
9.63
113.31
147.74
0.02
816.52
212.12
11.26
49.01
147.74
Import
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
Coal; J
Petroleum gas; J
Crude oil; J
Petroleum products; J
Marble & Granite; g
Woods & their prep.; g
Iron ore and concentrate; g
Industrial minerals; g
Iron & steel products; g
Cereals & their prep.; g
Oil seeds & flours; g
Livestock products; g
Goods & services; $
60.49
5.77
418.66
62.83
0.00
31.40
14.60
14.37
40.57
312.46
0.00
0.00
476.19
128.32
13.86
418.17
48.56
0.03
26.09
32.42
14.46
89.62
357.93
131.18
125.04
598.91
426.14
60.00
545.68
139.68
0.31
31.73
51.02
34.98
67.03
481.74
157.25
145.18
1522.62
717.59
82.28
813.67
183.10
0.72
24.97
60.95
42.33
59.48
527.69
195.72
201.80
2437.97
1136.08
137.38
916.41
228.16
1.16
19.38
94.21
79.19
94.63
473.04
177.81
180.15
2520.34
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
Sand and gravel; g

Petroleum products; J
Woods & their prep.; g
Flint, ballast & shingle; g
Fruits & prep.; g
Cereals & prep.; g
Vegetables & prep.; g
Metal products; g
Slag waste; g
Portland Cement; g
Cement clinkers; g
Fishes & their prep.; g
Mollusca &their prep.; g
Hides, skins & their prep.; g
Goods & services; $
0.00
36.32
0.24
0.00
16.83
6.56
60.43
10.71
0.76
245.31
16.66
114.22
0.00
3.99
495.59
0.00
70.96
0.29
0.00
12.34
13.90
70.21
182.95
26.05
277.92
28.80
134.29
53.96
37.55
912.42
0.00
72.95
0.26
4.70
10.11
13.23
34.83
94.91
16.57
262.10
40.46
225.57
39.20
54.73
1683.59
0.00
168.64
1.01
3.04
7.72
9.38
19.24
122.84
73.41
320.06
261.42
256.95
21.08
143.94
2624.89
0.00
230.62
0.65
5.60
5.58
14.48
10.77
288.43
55.03
1003.36
98.17
325.42
32.42
118.02
2835.56
27.47
270.63
39.44
386.88
46.77
549.88
53.55
661.81
55.90
551.07
Export
Waste produced
51. Waste water
52. Solid waste
Note: The normal text items come from Huang and Odum (1991), bold items come from Lin (2000) and the
underlined items come from both of them.
-277-
Table 3. Aggregate of resource flows (The categories and structure of material flow items in Table 2 come
from MFA. The bold numbers mean annual flow quantity by kilogram).
Total material requirement(DM + TMI)

= Domestic material flows + Imported material flows
TMI
TMInr
DM
o
l
TMIr
DMnr
1981
Solar Emergy (1020 sej)

1986
1991
1996
2001
1813.88
62.07
2633.27
71.65
3119.92
98.25
3055.31
140.05
3206.58
135.67 E9 kg
Imported material flows(TMInr + TMIr)

= Imported non-renewable materials
+ Imported renewable materials
Imported non-renewable materials
= Marble & Granite + Industrial minerals
+ Iron ore and concentrate + Iron & steel products
413.40
16.40
776.78
24.22
969.23
32.13
1113.65
35.14
1119.57
45.62 E9 kg
69.54
6.38
136.54
12.15
153.34
16.86
163.47
19.67
269.19
32.27 E9 kg
Imported renewable materials

= Woods & their prep. + Cereals & their prep.
+ Oil seeds & flours + Livestock products
343.86
10.03
640.24
12.07
815.89
15.27
950.18
15.47
850.38
13.36 E9 kg
1400.48
45.67
1856.49
47.44
2150.69
66.13
1941.66
104.91
2087.01
90.05 E9 kg
136.94
28.89
130.18
31.62
159.99
51.19
122.96
91.03
60.29
77.49 E9 kg
1263.54
16.77
1726.30
15.82
1990.70
14.93
1818.69
13.88
2026.73
12.56 E9 kg
512.03
3.20
909.20
5.63
869.61
5.64
1408.73
9.91
2188.56
14.17 E9 kg
309.77
2.15
586.68
4.33
491.68
4.56
949.41
8.83
1681.22
13.09 E9 kg
Domestic material flows(DMnr + DMr)

= Domestic non-renewable materials
+ Domestic renewable materials
Domestic non-renewable materials
= Sand and gravel + Limestone + Marble
Description
TMR
Code
Domestic renewable materials

= Rice + Sugar-cane + Vegetables + Fruits
+ Wood consumption + Livestock production
+ Fishery production
EXM Exported material flows(EXMnr + EXMr)
= Exported non-renewable materials
+ Exported renewable materials
EXMnr Exported non-renewable materials
= Slag waste + Sand and gravel + Portland Cement
+ Flint, ballast & shingle + Cement clinkers +
+ Petrolem products + Metal products
E n e r g y F l o w s
DMr
EXMr
Exported renewable materials

= Cereals & prep. + Vegetables & prep. + Fruits & prep
+ Hides, skins & their prep. + Fishes & their prep.
+ Mollusca & their prep. + Woods & their prep.
202.26
1.05
322.52
1.29
377.92
1.08
459.32
1.09
507.34
1.08 E9 kg
Total material flows(TMR + EXM)

= Total material requirement + Exported material flows
2325.91
65.27
3542.47
77.28
3989.52
103.89
4464.03
149.96
5395.14
149.84 E9 kg
TER
Total energy requirement(DEI + IME)

= Domestic energy inputs + Imported energy
1092.34
1394.10
1893.17
2735.07
3349.99
DEI
Domestic energy inputs

= Renewable resources + Hydroelectricity
+ Nuclear electricity
Electricity used
544.59
785.18
721.66
938.43
931.96
214.71
572.35
508.83
725.60
719.13
547.75
24.71
608.92
30.36
1171.50
66.09
1796.65
104.45
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
1092.34
1394.10
1893.17
2735.07
3349.99
ELEC
IME
EXE
E
Imported energy
= Coal + Petroleum gas + Crude oil
+ Petrolem products
Exported energy
Total energy flows(TER + EXE)
= Total energy requirement + Exported energy
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2418.03
148.34 E9 kg
Renewable resources in Taiwan

= Wind(kinetic) + Tide
212.83
212.83
212.83
212.83
212.83
Non-renewable resources in Taiwan
614.13
848.09
816.20
996.08
926.98
N0 Primary resource
= Erosion - Wood consumption
N1 Concentrated used resource
= Hydroelectricity + Nuclear electricity
+ Sand and gravel + Limestone + Marble
N2 Direct export
= Sand and gravel + Flint, ballast & shingle
145.43
145.56
147.38
147.52
147.56
468.70
702.53
668.82
848.56
779.42
0.00
0.00
4.70
3.04
5.60
Imported fuels and minerals

= Coal + Petrolem gas + Crude oil + Petrolem products
+ Industrial minerals + Iron ore and concertrate
+ Marble & Granite + Iron & steel products
617.29
745.46
1324.84
1960.12
2687.22
Imported good and services

= Woods & their prep. + Cereals & their prep. +
+ Oil seeds & flours + Livestock products +
343.86
640.24
815.89
950.18
850.38
Total emergy used

= R+N0+N1+G+F+IMS
1844.54
2566.76
3447.75
4530.26
5074.39
IMS
Imported services
56.43
120.14
277.99
411.05
396.99
EXS
Exported services
47.92
123.19
175.23
329.27
402.73
298.10
426.33
596.64
715.35
606.97
Pop
Population
1.81E+07
1.95E+07
2.06E+07
2.15E+07
2.24E+07 per
GDP
4.68E+10
8.03E+10
1.83E+11
2.79E+11
2.72E+11 US$
P2
Emergy / Money (World)
1.98E+12
1.98E+12
1.98E+12
1.98E+12
1.98E+12 sej/$
P1
Emergy / Money (Taiwan)

= Total emergy used / GDP
(R+N0+N1+G+F+IMS) / GDP =
3.94E+12
3.20E+12
1.88E+12
1.62E+12
1.87E+12 sej/$
R+N0+N1=
826.96
1060.92
1029.03
1208.91
1139.81
F+G+IMS=
1017.58
1505.84
2418.72
3321.35
3934.59
EXM+EXS=
559.95
1032.39
1044.84
1738.00
2591.29
Waste produced
Domestic Resources Use

Imported Goods & Services
Exported Goods & Services
DISCUSSION
After initial discussion of Taiwans socio-economic metabolism, some comparative analyses
with indicators will be made to argue our position regarding MFA. In Table 4 we calculate some
indicators and then use them in Figures 5 through 7 to compare MFA and emergy viewpoints.
The Relative Contribution of Material Flows

In Figure 5, the ratio of total material requirements to total emergy used has decreased over
time, which indicates that the consumption of material flows plays a less important role in Taiwans
socio-economic metabolism. Moreover, the system imports more materials from foreign countries as
seen in the increase of the ratio of imported material flows to total material requirements. However,
despite the increase of imported material flows, the ratio of imported material flows to total imported
-279-
emergy is decreasing; or in other words, the importance of imported material flows is diminishing
among all imported resources (material flows, energy flows and services). Finally, the ratio of
exported material flows to total material flows is increasing, which reveals the export-oriented policies
of Taiwans socio-economy.
The Dependency on Material Flows and Energy Flows

The dependency on materials and energy is an important issue in the paper. In Figure 6, the ratio of
total material requirements to total energy requirements was over 1.0 from 1981 to 1996, which
indicates the important role that material flows played at the time. However, that ratio has decreased to
0.96 in 2001 indicating that energy is starting to play an ever more important role in Taiwans socioeconomic system. Taiwan is facing a transformation of resource consumption in which more energy
TMIr
TMInr
IME
IMS
U = 5074.39
TMR = 3206.58
Natural
Area
N0
N1
269.19
147.56
2418.03
850.38
N2
779.42
5.60
F 2687.22
60.29
396.99
GNP
GDP
DMnr
2.79E+11 $
Productive
Area
DMr
2026.73
EXM
Socio-Economic
Area
212.83
2188.56
402.73
606.97
EXS
Taiwan Eco-economic System

Unit: E20 sej
3934.59
Domestic
Resources Use
(R,N0,N1)
1139.81
Imported Goods
& Services
(F, G, IMS)
Exported Goods
& Services
(EXM, EXS)
Socio-Economic
System
W
Taiwan Ecoeconomic System
606.97
Unit: E20 sej
Figure 4. Aggregate diagram of resource use in 2001.
-280-
2591.29
Table 4. Indicators analysis table.

Indicators
Equation
(1) Ratio of total material requirements to total

emergy used
(2) Ratio of imported material flows to total
material requirements
(3) Ratio of imported material flows to total
imported emergy
(4) Ratio of exported material flows to total
material flows
(5) Ratio of total material requirements to total
energy requirements
(6) Ratio of imported material flows to
imported energy
(7) Per GDP total material requirements (kg)
(8) Per GDP total material requirements (sej)
(9) Per capita total material requirements (kg)
(10) Per capita total material requirements (sej)
1981
1986
1991
1996
2001
= TMR / U
0.98
1.03
0.90
0.67
0.63
= TMI / TMR
= TMI /
(TMI+IME+IMS)
0.23
0.29
0.31
0.36
0.35
0.41
0.52
0.40
0.34
0.28
= EXM / M
0.22
0.26
0.22
0.32
0.41
= TMR / TER
1.66
1.89
1.65
1.12
0.96
= TMI / IME
0.75
1.28
0.83
0.62
0.46
= TMR(kg) / GDP
1.33
0.89
0.54
0.50
0.50
= TMR(sej) / GDP 3.87E+12 3.28E+12 1.70E+12 1.10E+12 1.18E+12
= TMR(kg) / pop
3,422
3,683
4,768
6,506
6,055
= TMR(sej) / pop 1.00E+16 1.35E+16 1.51E+16 1.42E+16 1.43E+16
Rati o
1.2
(1) Ratio of total material

requirements to total emergy used
(2) Ratio of imported material flows
to total material requirements
(3) Ratio of imported material flows
to total imported emergy
(4) Ratio of exported material flows
to total material flows
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
1981
1986
1991
1996
2001
Year
Figure 5. Indicators analysis A.
and fewer materials are used. The MFA, which does not consider these energy flows, does not
recognize this phenomenon. Another important observation related to material and energy is that the
ratio of imported material flows to imported energy is less than 1.0 from 1991 to 2001. This change in
the ratio indicates that dependency on imported energy is increasing, following the trend of
dependency on total energy requirements.
Weight vs. Emergy

The use of weight, or mass, for evaluating socio-economic metabolism is not only the most
common but also the most disputed feature of the MFA procedure. Characteristics of the materials are
-281-

Rati o
2.0
(5) Ratio of total material requirements

to total energy requirements
1.8
1.6
(6) Ratio of imported material flows to

imported energy
1.4
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
1981
1986
1991
1996
2001
Year
Figure 6. Indicators analysis B.
ignored during the process of material aggregation by weight. In this section we compare mass and
emergy to determine the characteristics that are omitted by the socio-economic metabolism approach
The measure of total material requirements per unit of economic product (TMR/GDP) is a
familiar indicator of progress in production techniques in MFA. In Figure 7, mass-based TMR/GDP
for Taiwan decrease from 1981 to 1991 and are stable from 1991 to 2001, which suggests that the
production efficiency of industries in Taiwan has improved from 1981 to 1991 and has not changed
significantly from 1991 to 2001. In contrast, emergy-based TMR/GDP reveal that Taiwans industries
use less emergy per unit of GDP and can utilize more raw materials with lower emergy cost because of
technical progress. This is evidence that Taiwans industries are evolving from traditional processing
industries to high-tech industries, which can process more raw materials.
Furthermore, mass-based TMR/capita shows that the people in Taiwan consumed increasing
amounts of materials from 1981 to 1996 and then decreases from 1996 to 2001. Comparatively,
emergy-based TMR/capita began to decrease in 1991. The reason for the increase of mass-based
TMR/capita and decrease of emergy-based TMR/capita from 1991 to 1996 is that Taiwans socioeconomic system consumed significant amounts of materials from lower in the energy hierarchy (e.g.
sand and gravel).
CONCLUSION
In the methodological comparison of MFA and emergy synthesis, we find that MFA includes
hidden flows of domestic origin (domestic unused extraction) and indirect flows (upstream material
flows associated with imports) in accounting for the material flows of a socio-economic system, and it
does work to describe a system more closely approximating the real world.
However, because the hidden flows and indirect flows are included in estimates of total
amount, it is not easy to recognize where the flows go? Due to the lack of information on the items of
materials of hidden and indirect flows, we did not calculate the emergy of hidden flows and indirect
flows in this paper. Furthermore, the material categories in MFAs socio-economic system do not
contain energy flows, electricity used, and services, which play increasingly important roles in
Taiwans socio-economic metabolism. Given the trend of resource use toward fewer materials and
more energy, the fact that energy flows, electricity use, and services are omitted leads to bias in the
evaluation of socio-economic metabolism.
-282-

(7) Per GDP total material requirements (kg)
7.0
(8) Per GDP total material requirements (sej)*E+12
6.0
(9) Per capita total material requirements (kg)*E+3
5.0
(10) Per capita total material requirements (sej)*E+16
4.0
3.0
2.0
1.0
0.0
1981
1986
1991
1996
2001
Year
Figure 7. Indicators analysis C.
The second goal of this paper was to illustrate, for the case of Taiwan, some limitations of
MFA analysis, and to demonstrate the usefulness of an emergy synthesis of socio-economic
metabolism. After completing an emergy analysis of Taiwans socio-economic metabolism and
comparing indicators calculated from mass against similar indicators calculated with emergy, we
found that MFA could not identify the essential fact of Taiwans increasing dependence on energy use.
We contend that the MFA will not adequately describe socio-economic metabolism without increased
attention to energy flows. In the comparison of MFA and emergy synthesis indicators for Taiwan,
MFA indicators apparently do not recognize changes in types of materials consumed; for instance,
while the industrial economy of Taiwan was transformed to rely more heavily on materials belonging
to lower levels of the energy hierarchy, this change did not translate into a change in the MFA
indicator values. This was largely because the use of mass ignores energy quality differences among
materials. In addition, neither MFA nor emergy synthesis identified the transition from industrial
society to service economy because domestic services are ignored. In summary, we feel that emergy
synthesis allows a deeper understanding of Taiwans socio-economic metabolism than MFA.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We sincerely appreciate the comments and suggestions from three reviewers and Thomas
Abel for the improvement of this paper.
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
22
Energetic Mechanisms and Development of
Urban Landscape System
Shu-Li Huang
ABSTRACT
Viewing urbanization as a change in the source and amount of energy flows from rural to
urban core provides a biophysical perspective of urban development. In this paper we begin by
expanding energetic principles to an urban setting and relate them to spatial hierarchy. Based on past
research in urban energy theory and system modeling we develop a spatial model to simulate the
evolving spatial hierarchy of an urban system due to changing energy flows. Using an energy circuit
diagram, the model consists of three interacting subsystems natural area, agricultural area, and
urban area representing a simplified entity of a grid within a city-region. Taipei metropolitan region
is used as an example and is divided into grids of 1 km x 1 km to reveal the spatial heterogeneity of the
urban landscape system. The spatial simulation is performed using GIS. As a result, the model shows
an increase in the urban energy hierarchy and reveals a pattern of spatial convergence. The energetic
mechanisms of the evolving spatial hierarchy of urban landscape systems are discussed.
INTRODUCTION
The existence and maintenance of an urban region and of its internal structure depends on the
flows of goods and services in, out, and through the city. Past efforts on the development of spatial
organization of urban systems have been centered on socio-economic viewpoints; the biophysical
perspectives of the evolving urban spatial system were frequently ignored. Complex urban ecological
systems are the product of an evolutionary process; the implications of the process of evolution on the
form and function of the components of urban landscapes are yet to be completely understood. A
systems approach can be used to conceptualize urban region as an entity with interacting objects and
attributes. When studying the urban landscape system, the question we have is: what is the reason for
the spatial distribution of different zones (natural area, agriculture, residential area, urban center, etc),
and what will be their evolution? Aggregated urban system models have been criticized for ignoring
spatial organization and the development of GIS has provided the capability to integrate spatial
processes in the modeling effort (Alberti, 1999). Cellular automata have recently received much
attention as a tool to investigate principles of urban evolution in a spatial context by setting state and
rules of change (for example, see Batty and Xie, 1994). However, the evolution of the urban
landscape system depends not only on its previous state but also on exogenous conditions and driving
forces such as renewable energy inflows and imported goods and services, which affect the change of
land use in a city-region. The development of urban landscape systems, interactions between cities and
their surrounding life-support environments, and diffusions in urban hierarchies are also part of the
larger process of urbanization.
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Chapter 22. Energetic Mechanisms and Development

It has been hypothesized that the spatial configuration of urban landscape depends largely on
energy production and consumption conditions (Huang, 1998b, Huang et al., 2001). Using emergy as a
common unit for combining the energy flows from natural environment and economic system, Huang
(1998a) classified Taiwan into four urban ecological economic systems: agricultural settlement;
suburban industry; urban metropolis; and resource production. The energy hierarchy of the city of
Taipei was also assessed. Huang also (1998b) developed a system model to examine the evolution of
urban zones in relation to energy flows using a simulation model; the underlying theme was examining
the hypothetical effect of energetic flows on urban zonation, and how different zones organize
hierarchically in space. Five consecutive zones were hypothesized to represent Taipei metropolis
spatial configuration, but the spatial data were not incorporated for the analysis. In order to study the
effect of energy flows on the spatial organization of urban zonation, Huang et al. (2001) further
employed emergy concept and GIS to classify Taipei metropolitan region into six energetic zones to
reveal its spatial hierarchies.
Recent progress of computer modeling capability and the development of GIS have made
possible to link human and ecological systems and to provide the capability to integrate spatial
processes. Costanza et al. (1995) developed a spatially explicit regional model which integrated human
and environmental systems. Alberti (1999) developed a framework of urban ecosystem model for
simulating the environmental pressures associated with human activities under alternative
socioeconomic and environmental scenarios; the spatial heterogeneity in land uses, human activities,
and management practices were taken into consideration in the modeling effort. However, the greatest
challenge for integrating urban and environmental modeling is still in interfacing the various
disciplines involved.
In this paper, we begin by expanding energetic principles to an urban setting and then relating
them to spatial hierarchy. The hypotheses of spatial energetic hierarchy of urban landscape systems are
supported by data from Taipei metropolis. In order to reveal the spatial evolution of an urban
landscape due to energy flows, a system model of spatial dynamic using Odums energy circuit
language is developed. After formulating a macro model of a self-organizing urban landscape system,
we used data from Taipei metropolis to interpret the evolution of spatial hierarchy due to energy flows
through the application of a GIS-based simulation model. The results of the simulation are presented
and discussed, and conclusions are then given.
URBAN ENERGETICS AND SPATIAL HIERARCHY

The spatial organization of cities can be described as a hierarchy. There are many small towns
scattered throughout the region, fewer medium cities, and only one or two very large urban centers.
One reason for the hierarchical organization of cities in the landscape is the distribution of goods and
services as described by Friedman (1973). Another reason for this hierarchical organization is the
convergence of energy (Odum, 1988a). Not only are cities in the landscape organized in hierarchies,
but each city and its hinterlands are themselves arranged in a spatial hierarchy.
The urban landscape system is more than the sum of its parts; it reflects a far-fromequilibrium situation in which the spatial hierarchical order among the central places is developed,
maintained and then transformed by means of interaction, fluctuation, and dissipation of incoming
energy sources. Renewable energy enters the ecosystem evenly spread out on a broad landscape
surface. Solar energy is captured by plants and either radiated as heat or transformed into biomass.
Dilute solar energy captured by plants is concentrated into plant biomass and converged spatially
towards consumer centers. The energy reaching the consumers is much less than the original energy,
according to the second law of thermodynamics, but it has higher quality. As energy is transformed,
the products flow toward concentrated centers and materials and services circulate between the centers
and the sparse areas (Odum and Odum, 2001). This converging and diverging design can be observed
in an urban landscape system. For example, urban areas receive food supply and other life-support
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services from rural areas and provide labor and equipment to manage their life-supporting
environments and return the waste materials released during the consumption process.
In an attempt to define the theory of biophysical value that is applicable with equal facility to
ecological and economic system, Odum proposed two terms emergy and transformity to take into
account the varied qualities of energy inherent in the hierarchy of system components (Odum, 1988b;
Odum, 1996). Emergy is all the available energy that was used in the work of making a product and
expressed in units of one type. Transformity is the emergy of one type required to make a unit of
energy of another type. Transformity measures the relative position in a scale of increasing quality of
energy and can be regarded as the index of energy hierarchy. The spatial characteristics of energy
hierarchy of an urban landscape system can be shown by the example of Taipei metropolitan region
(Figure 1). The urban center in the Taipei area has the highest fuel emergy density and the lowest
environmental emergy. Fossil fuels are a concentrated energy source, which can be easily transported
in huge amounts, and are a primary driving force behind urban areas. In contrast, the spatially diffuse
renewable energy sources such as solar insolation, rain and wind, provide essential life-support
services for cities both directly and indirectly. The diversity of energy flow is also highest in urban the
center. Due to the higher energy intensity in urban centers, the emergy density, transformity, and
emergy investment ratio of Taipei decrease with its distance from the urban center (Huang, 2003).
The urban system is far-from thermodynamic equilibrium, which involves non-linear
interactions between system components; the new states have been called dissipative structure to
emphasize their dependence on the flows of energy and matter from their surroundings (Allen, 1982).
According to Odum (1995), during self-organization, system designs develop and prevail that
maximize power intake, energy transformation, and those uses that reinforce production and efficiency.
The basic idea of this maximum power principle is that a system that can draw more resources and use
them appropriately to maintain and enhance its structure will outcompete the systems that have fewer
resources to drive their activities or make less adaptive use of those resources that are available.
SPATIAL MODEL OF URBAN ENERGETICS

Viewing urbanization as a change in the source and amount of energy flows from the rural to
urban core (see Figure 1) provides a conceptual link between urbanization and natural environment. In
this section, a macro-model of an urban system is presented for describing system components and
interactions of flows and storages for simulation of the spatial dynamics of urban land uses. To employ
ideas of General System Theory (von Bertalanffy, 1968) and techniques of energetic analysis for the
study of spatial urban evolution (Odum, 1983), one needs to divide a region into small areas and to
identify the major components of the urban system. The urban landscape system model developed in
this paper consists of three interlinked subsystems natural, agricultural, and urban each
representing a simplified entity of its own and interacting with the others through energy flows. Figure
2 represents an overview diagram of the macro model, using Odums energy circuit language; shown
is the ecological economic system of an individual grid within a city-region. The energy circuit
language can be translated into first order differential equations to describe the energy balance and
cycling of materials in urban system. A description, explanation, and mathematical representation of
these energy symbols can be found in Odum (1983) and Odum and Odum (2000).
The main means of storage that have been chosen to represent each subsystem are area (Ln,
La, Lu) and asset (B, Aa, Au). The urban area subsystem further includes population (Pu). The system
components are inter-connected by energy flows marked with coefficients (k101, ., k316). The
natural area provides the nutrient base for the agricultural area and important life-support services to
human population in urban areas. Most urban models simply ignore these forces and treat biophysical
processes as exogenous variables. Urban areas can be seen as a heterotrophic system that is highly
dependent on vast inputs of energy and materials from outside the system. The supply lines of food for
cities frequently extend across city boundaries. As with food, water needs of large cities often exceed
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nearby supplies, forcing municipalities to pump and convey water over great distances. In the macro
model developed in this section, in addition to flow-limited renewable energies (E), nonrenewable
energies (N) and population (P) are two major inflows to urban areas. The convergence of energy from
rural areas and inflows of nonrenewable energies and population combine to affect the spatial
distribution of activities and ultimately the spatial heterogeneity of natural processes and land uses.
The completed diagram of the urban landscape system is a rigorous representation of the differential
equations and they can be translated without further thought because each symbol has its mathematical
equivalent with one term for each pathway. Using difference equations, Table 1 describes the urban
hierarchy by expressing the interacting behaviors of different components of the system.
Emergy Density of Renewable Sources

1.0E+9 sej/ /yr
Emergy Density of Fuel Use

(1.0E+12 sej/ /yr)
2000
1500
R2 = 0.8826
1000
500
0
0
10
15
20
25
Distance to urban center
30
600
400
R = 0.6023
200
0
0
35
10
15
20
25
30
35
km
km
4500
1.4
4000
1.2
3500
Emergy Density
(1.0E+12 sej//yr)
Emergy Diversity
800
R = 0.7396
0.8
0.6
0.4
2500
2000
1500
0.2
1000
500
10
15
20
25
30
R = 0.8634
3000
35
km
10
15
20
25
30
35
km
30
35
R = 0.7998
10Distance15to urban20center 25
30
35
km
Figure 1. Spatial energy hierarchy of Taipei area.
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60
50
(1.0E+2)
Emergy Investment Ratio
Transformity
(1.0E+6 sej)
70
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
R2 = 0.8191
40
30
20
10
0
0
10
15
20
Ditance to urban center
25
km
k310
k104
k304
k106
k111
k110
k305
k109
Ln
k209
Pu
k108
Lu
k105
k102
k307
Ru
Au
k302
k211
Rn
Natural Area
k306
k101
k308
k113
k103
k301
k303
k316
k112
k205
k206
La
Urban Area
k204
k311
k212
k202
Aa
k201
k107
Ra
Agricultural Area
k203
Figure 2. Energy diagram of urban landscape system.
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k207

Table 1. System equations of the urban landscape model.
Natural area
R: environmental remainder of natural area
Rn = E*Ln / (1 + k101*B)
B: biomass
dB/dt = k102*Rn*B k103*B k104*B*Lu k105*B*La k112*B k113*B +
(k106-k107)*B
Ln: natural area
dLn/dt = k108*La*B k109*Ln*Aa + k110*Lu*B k111*Ln*Au
Agricultural area
Ra: environmental remainder of agricultural area
Ra = E*La / (1 + k201*Aa)
Aa: agricultural asset
dAa/dt = k112*B + k202*Ra*Aa k203*Aa k204*Aa*Lu k205*Aa*Ln + (k206
k207)*Aa k212*Aa
La: agricultural area
dLa/dt = k109*Ln*Aa + k209*Lu*Aa k108*La*B k211*La*Au
Urban area
Ru: environmental remainder of urban area
Ru = E*Lu / (1 + k301*Ru*Au*Pu*(N*Au))
Au: urban asset
dAu/dt = k302*Ru*Au*Pu*(N*Au) + k212*Au + k113*B k303*Au k304*Au*Ln
k305*Au*La k306*Au*Pu + (k310 k311)*Au
Lu: urban area
dLu/dt = k111*Ln*Au + k211*La*Au k110 *Lu*B k209*Lu*Aa
Pu: urban population
dPu/dt = k307*Au*Pu + P*Au k308*Pu*Pu k316*Pu
The formulations of system equations for the three subsystems are basically identical. Using
natural area subsystem as an example, the production of biomass (B) in natural area relies mainly on
the flow-limited renewable energies (E). The finite inflow of renewable sources is represented by a
Michaelis-Menten type equation, Rn = E*Ln / ( 1+k101 *B), which imposes a limit to growth. The
accumulated storage in biomass B will feedback to produce biomass (k102*Rn*B) and converge to
support the storages of higher hierarchy (k112*B; k113*B). In addition, the accumulated storage of
biomass B will contribute to affect the conversion of agricultural land and urban area into natural area,
which are expressed mathematically as k105*B*La and k104*B*Lu respectively. Similarly, the
accumulation of agricultural asset (Aa) and Urban Asset (Au) will also contribute to convert natural
area into agricultural area (k205*Aa*Ln) and urban area (k304*Au*Ln). Changes in areas will affect
the amount of renewable energies (E*Ln; E*LA; E*Lu) captured by natural, agricultural and urban
subsystems. The production of urban assets (Au) is generated by an autocatalytic interaction, which is
expressed as PRU = Ru*Au*Pu*(N*Au). The accumulated urban assets (Au) will affect the inflows of
nonrenewable energies (N) and population (P). Population in urban areas (Pu) is also an autocatalytic
production. The natural increase of population is a function of urban assets and population and is
described as k307*Au*Pu; the death rate is assumed to be proportional to population (k316*Pu).
Migration also occurs as a crowding effect (k308*Pu*Pu). For representing spatial dynamics of the
urban landscape system, the energy transfers of biomass (B), agricultural asset (Aa), and urban assets
(Au) across each cell boundary are included in the model. Storage of biomass in each grid area will
receive biomass from upstream grids (k106*B) and drain to grids downstream (k107*B). The
accumulation of agricultural asset and urban asset will attract from (k206*Aa; k310*Au) and lose to
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(k207*Aa; k311*Au) neighboring cells depending on the storage difference between any given cell
and neighboring cells.
The non-linearity of system equations will result in hierarchical system self-organization. The
spatial dynamics of an urban landscape system depend strongly on the internally self-organized
behavior of each individual grid and the interactions with neighboring grids. The model provides a
basis for developing integrated knowledge of the process and mechanisms that govern system
dynamics of urban spatial development patterns.
SIMULATION RESULTS
A Macro View of the Development of Urban Landscape System
In this section, the evolving urban landscape system is described through simulation runs.
Taipei metropolitan region, encompassing 1724 km2, is used as a case study to provide numerical data
to run the simulation model. Like most early cities, Taipei is located at the mouth of a river (in this
case the Tamsui River Figure 3), which was used as major route for transporting goods to and from
overseas. In addition, the physical energy of water running downhill was used to spread water and
nutrients out in the low-lying basin where it historically stimulated agricultural productivity of the
land. The present-day landscape of land uses in Taipei metropolitan region is a result of the past
pattern of natural processes, population growth, urbanization, and energy use (Figure 3).
To reveal and model the spatial heterogeneity of the urban landscape system, the Taipei
metropolitan region is divided into grids of 1 km x 1 km; the urban landscape system of each grid can
be represented by the model diagram shown in Figure 2. After collection and estimation of data of land
use, population, environmental inputs, etc, the coefficients for each pathway in the model diagram (see
Figure 2) can be estimated. Table 2 summarizes the values of assumed storages and flows of the urban
landscape model. The most recent land use map of 1995 was used as a basis for estimating the values
of areas and assets in each grid cell. The assumed flows in each grid cell are consistent with known
turnover times when inflows and outflows are equal and storage is maximum. Coefficients in the
system model can be calibrated from the assumed flows. In order to simulate the spatial pattern of
urban ecological economic system, the spatial analysis capability of the raster-based geographic
information system, Idrisi (Clark Labs, 1999), is used as a modeling tool to simulate the spatial
dynamic of Taipeis urban landscape system.
Land use data from 1960 are used as initial values for simulation. Figure 4 summarizes the
simulation results of natural area, agricultural area, and urban area of Taipei metropolitan region
during 1960-2010. The simulated spatial patterns of land uses are identical to land use maps of 1981
and 1995. The natural area in the low-lying basin where streams converge has been converted to
agricultural use, which then developed into urban area nowadays. The present urban area in Taipei
metropolitan region is surrounded by hilly slopes and forest with scattered agricultural lands in
between urban area and natural area. Over time, the energy converged from rural biomass to
agricultural asset then to urban asset in the hierarchical center of the Taipei metropolitan region. With
the accumulation of agricultural and urban assets, natural areas in the center basin were converted to
agricultural land and urban area (Figure 5). The growth of urban assets accelerated the inflows of
nonrenewable energies and population into the urban area. It is expected that this growth will continue
in the Taipei metropolitan region and eventually, the central basin will be fully developed with higher
population density.
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Figure 3. Land use map of Taipei metropolitan region.
Energetic Mechanisms and Spatial Hierarchy of Urban Landscape System

According to the simulation results of the urban landscape system, the energetic mechanisms
for the evolving spatial hierarchy of urban landscape system can be summarized as follows:
Spatial Convergence of Energy
The distribution of natural energy is characterized with spatial heterogeneity in landscape
system. The geo-potential energy carries water and nutrients downhill, spreads out in the river mouth
and flood plains and stimulates agricultural productivity for human settlements. For the case of Taipei
metropolitan region, the low-lying basin in the central portion is the center of energy convergence. The
accumulation of natural energy in the basin stimulated agricultural productivity in the past and became
the current city of Taipei - the hierarchical center of the urban ecological economic system. Due to its
hierarchical position and high intensity of energy flows, both natural and economic energy flows from
surrounding areas are converged spatially toward the city of Taipei.
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Table 2. Values of storages and flows of Taipeis urban landscape system.
Name
Mathematical
Value and basis
expression
Natural area
Ln
Agricultural area
LA
Urban area
Lu
Biomass of natural area
Agricultural asset
Aa
Urban asset
Au
Urban population
Pu
Env. Input
Env. remainder of natural

area
Rn=E*Ln - K101*Rn *B
Env. remainder of
agricultural area
Ra=E*Lu - K201*Ra *Aa
Env. Remainder of urban

area
Ru=E*Lu - K301*Ru* Au
* Pu*(N*Au)
Population immigration
Nonrenewable emergy
Env. use by natural area
K101*Rn*B
Biomass production
K102*Rn*B
Biomass depreciation
K103*B
Biomass use to convert

urban area into natural
area
Biomass use to convert
agricultural area into
natural area
Spatial flow of biomass
K104*B*Lu
Change of agricultural
area to natural area
0.4 km2
(Assumed 40% of the 1 km * 1 km grid)
0.1 km2
0.5 km2
0.4 * 1010 g
(natural area 0.4 km2 * 1.0 * 1010 g km-2)
1*10-3 km2
(agricultural area 0.1 km2 * 1%)
0.15 km2
(floor area of urban structure=150% of
urban area)
3.62 * 103 pop km-2
(maximum population)
3*106 m3 km-2 yr-1
(rain=3000 mm yr-1* 10-3 m mm-1 * 106 m2
km-2)
0.12*106 m3 km-2 yr-1
(10% of env input on natural area = 0.1*3*
106 m3 km-2 yr-1 * Ln ; Ln assumed to be
40% of total area)
0.09*106 m3 km-2 yr-1
(30% of env. input on agricultural area=0.3
*3*106 m3 km-2 yr-1 * La ; La assumed to
be 10% of total area)
0.9*106 m3 km-2yr-1
(60% of env. input on urban
area=0.6*3*106 m3 km-2 yr-1 * Lu ; Lu
assumed to be 50% of total area)
0.241*103 pop km-2 yr-1
(assumed P*Au to be 1% of Pu)
2.13*1020 sej km-2yr-1
(Huang et al., 2001)
1.08*106 m3 km-2 yr-1
(90% of env input on natural
area=0.9*3*106 m3 km-2 * 0.4 km2)
2.8*108 g yr-1
(assumed growth rate of 7%)
1.6*108 g yr-1
(assumed 4% depreciation rate)
0.5*108 g km-2yr-1
(assumed to be 1.25% of biomass)
K105*B*La
0.1*108 g km-2yr-1
(K106-K107)*B
Coefficient is calculated based on elevation

difference with neighboring grids
1*10-3 km2 km-2 yr-1
(assumed to be 1% of agricultural area)
K108*La*B
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1*10-3 km2 km-2 yr-1
(assumed to be 0.25% of natural area)
8*10-3 km2 km-2 yr-1
(assumed to be 1.6% of urban area)
8*10-3 km2 km-2 yr-1
(assumed to be 2% of natural area)
0.5*108 g km-2 yr-1
0.1*108 g km-2 yr-1
0.21*106 m3 km-2 yr-1
(70% of env input on agricultural area = 0.7
* 3*106 m3 km-2 * 0.1 km2)
1*10-4 km2 km-2 yr-1
(based on a growth rate of 10%)
2*10-5 km2 km-2 yr-1
(based on a turnover period of 50 years)
1*10-5 km2 km-2 yr-1
(assumed to be 1% of agricultural asset)
Change of natural area to

agricultural area
Change of urban area to
natural area
Change of natural area to
urban area
Conversion of biomass to
agricultural asset
Conversion of biomass to
urban asset
Env. use by agricultural
area
K109*Ln*Aa
Production of agricultural
asset
Depreciation of
agricultural asset
Agricultural use to convert
urban area into agricultural
area
Agricultural use to convert
natural area into
agricultural area
Spatial convergence of
agricultural asset
Change of urban area to
agricultural area
Change of agricultural
area to urban area
Conversion of agricultural
asset to urban asset
Env. Use by urban area
K202*Ra*Aa
Production of urban asset
K302*Ru*Au*Pu*(N*Au)
Depreciation of urban
asset
Urban asset use to convert
natural area into urban
area
Urban asset use to convert
agricultural area into urban
area
Urban asset consumed by
people
Population growth
K303*Au
K307*Au*Pu
Population emigration
K308*Pu*Pu
Spatial convergence of
urban asset
Death of population
(K310-K311)*Au
K110*Lu*B
K111*Ln*Au
K112*B
K113*B
K201*Ra*Aa
K203*Aa
K204*Aa*Lu
K205*Aa*Ln
1*10-5 km2km-2yr-1
(K206-K207)*Aa
Coefficient is calculate based on the

difference of asset with neighboring grids
5*10-4 km2 km-2 yr-1
(assumed to be 0.1% of urban area)
5*10-4 km2 km-2 yr-1
(assumed to be 0.5% of agricultural area)
1*10-4 km2 km-2 yr-1
0.6*106 m3 km-2 yr-1
(40% of env input on urban area=0.4*3*106
m3 km-2 * 0.5 km2)
2*10-3 km2 km-2 yr-1
(assumed growth rate of 2%)
8*10-4 km2 km-2 yr-1
(assumed turnover period of 200 yr)
4.75*10-4 km2 km-2 yr-1
(assumed to be 0.32% of urban asset)
K209*Lu*Aa
K211*La*Au
K212*Aa
K301*Ru*Au*Pu*(N*Au)
K304*Au*Ln
K305*Au*La
1.25*10-4 km2 km-2 yr-1

(assumed to be 0.08% of urban asset)
K306*Au*Pu
1*10-3 km2 km-2 yr-1

(assumed to be 0.67 of urban asset)
54.3 pop km-2 yr-1
(based on 1.5% growth rate)
36.2 pop km-2 yr-1
(assumed to be 1% of population)
Coefficient calculated based on the difference
of asset with neighboring grids
54.3 pop km-2 yr-1
(based on 1.5% death rate)
K316*Pu
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Figure 4. Simulated results of land use in Taipei metropolitan region.
Energy Transformation and Urban Development

Within each grid of the urban landscape system, the stored biomass energy and agricultural
asset also converge towards the urban center through hierarchical energy transformation. Together
with inflows of nonrenewable energies, goods and services, and immigration of population, urban
assets accumulate. In order to accommodate growth, urban assets feedback energy to convert natural
and agricultural areas into urban areas in the local neighborhood.
Urban Sprawl and Constraint of Environmental Resources
As natural and agricultural areas are converted to urban use, urbanization extends outward from
urban center to rural area. The accumulation of urban assets tends to attract more inflows of
nonrenewable energies, goods and services and population from outside system, and results in the
continuing growth of urban system. However, urban sprawl is not without limitation. The urban area
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Figure 5. Simulated results of storages of Taipeis urban landscape system.
has to rely on its surrounding rural system for life-support services and due to the phenomenon of
urban sprawl, rural areas have been converted to urban use, resulting in decreased life-support
capability. Although the urban population and urban assets are likely to continue to grow, the area of
urban land use is somehow stabilized.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
The relationship between spatial organization and energy hierarchy of city-regions, and its
implication to urban planning has been addressed by Huang (1998b), Huang et al. (2001) and Odum
and Odum (2001). In this paper, I build on past research on urban energetics and urban system
modeling to develop a model to simulate the evolving urban spatial pattern as a consequence of energy
flows and convergence. The spatial model developed in this paper uses Taipei metropolitan region as
an example of urban landscape change for discussion of underlying energetics. The results of the
simulation not only describe the evolving urban landscape system in Taipei, but also reveal its
underlying energetic mechanisms.
The evolving urban landscape system exhibits dynamic self-organization, which planners
must take into account. The flow of energy and matter through the boundaries of each cell allows the
urban system not only to spontaneously self-organize, attain a certain structure and maintain it far from
equilibrium conditions; the spatial order also appears spontaneously. This structure is the distribution
of different land use activities in space, including the relative abundance of assets of different types of
land uses. Furthermore, the urban landscape system develops hierarchical spatial patterns to organize
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the urban economy and its surrounding natural environment and agricultural land geographically. Selforganized systems are thus said to be creative.
The simulation approach adopted in this paper advocates models capable of generating
complexity in the phenomena of interest, while retaining simplicity in model structure the key
feature of general systems model. Energy system models emphasize the general principles of system
behavior and simplify the micro interactions of urban and environmental systems by reducing human
behaviors into several differential equations. Urban planners and decision makers were skeptical about
the usefulness of energy system modeling. The purpose of developing the spatial simulation model in
this paper is neither for predicting future land use change nor for analyzing the impacts of urban
development on ecosystems. The intention is for exploring the hypothesis of spatial energetic
hierarchy of urban landscape system. Although energy system modeling has never been used to
develop operational urban simulation models, the concept has laid out the basis for urban ecological
research and made important progress with respect to understanding how urban ecosystems operate
and how they differ from natural ecosystems (Alberti, 1999).
This paper has restricted the discussion to the use of a system model and GIS for spatial
simulation. There is every reason to believe that this is just one example of a wide range of approaches
that demonstrate similar behavior. We envisage the continuing application of energy theory and spatial
simulation for studying urban landscape system in several directions:
1) The spatial model of the urban landscape system can be further expanded by including the
flows of life-support services and materials flows between grid cells to study the relations between
different zones: competing, mutually cooperative, or symbiotic?
2) Emergy can be included in the simulation and indices such as empower density, land use
transformity, emergy investment ratio, net emergy yield ratio, etc can be calculated to study the
difference of urban energetics between urban sprawl and compact city.
3) Compare the difference of energetic mechanisms between city-regions of different
characteristics of natural features (e.g. coastal region vs continental region), or between cities with
different hierarchical position (e.g. economic center vs agricultural town).
REFERENCES
Alberti, M. 1999. Modeling the urban ecosystem: a conceptual framework. Environment and Planning
B: Planning and Design 26: 605-630.
Allen, P.M. 1982. Human settlement as self-organizing open systems. Human and Energy Factors in
Urban Planning: A Systems Approach Eds P Laconte, J Gibson, A. Rapoport (Martinus
Nijhoff, The Hague) pp 81-119.
Batty, M. and Xie, Y. 1994. From cells to cities. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design
21: 531-548.
Clark Labs 1999. Idrisi 32. Clark University, Worcester, MA.
Costanza, R., Wainger, L. and Bockstael, N. 1995. Integrated ecological economic systems modeling:
theoretical issues and practical applications. Integrating Economic and Ecological Indicators
Eds J W Milton. J F Shogren (Praeger, London) pp 45-66.
Friedman, J. 1973. Urbanization, Planning and National Development. Sage, Beverly Hills, CA.
Huang, SL. 1998a. Urban ecosystems, energetic hierarchies, and ecological economics of Taipei
metropolis. Journal of Environmental Management 52: 39-51.
Huang, SL. 1998b. Ecological energetics, hierarchy, and urban form: a system modeling approach to
the evolution of urban zonation. Environmental and Planning B: Planning and Design 25:
391-410.
Huang, SL. 2003. Theory of Urban Energetics and Mechanisms of Urban Development. A report to
the National Science Council ROC; Grant#: NSC90-2415-H-305-005, NSC 91-2411-H-305003. (Graduate Institute of Urban Planning, National Taipei University, Taipei, Taiwan). (in
Chinese)
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Huang, SL., Lai, HY. and Lee, CL. 2001. Energy hierarchy and urban landscape system.
Landscape and Urban Planning 53: 145-161.
Odum, H.T. 1983. Systems Ecology. John Wiley, New York.
Odum, H.T. 1988a. Energy, Environment and Public Policy: A Guide to the Analysis of Systems
UNEP Regional Seas Reports and Studies number 95, Oceans and Coastal Areas Programme
Activity Center, United Nations Environment Programme, PO Box 30552, Nairobi, Kenya.
Odum, H.T. 1988b. Self-organization, transformity, and information. Science 242: 1132-1139.
Odum, H.T. 1995. Self-organization and maximum power. Maximum Power: The Ideas and
Applications of H. T. Odum Ed C A S Hall, U of Colorado Press. Niwot, CO. pp 311-330.
Wiley, New York.
Odum, H.T. and Odum, E.C. 2000. Modeling for All Scales. Academic Press, San Diego.
Odum, H.T. and Odum, E.C. 2001. A Prosperous Way Down. Univ. Press of Colorado. Boulder.
von Bertalanffy, L. 1968. General System Theory. Ceorge Braziller, New York.
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
23
The Need for Emergy Related Measures of Economic Productivity
Donald L. Adolphson
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this paper is to generate a wider acceptance of emergy analysis a decisionmaking tool in both the public and private sectors. The key to increasing the application of this
powerful tool is to link it to productivity. Much of business and public policy decision-making is based
on productivity and related efficiency measures. The productivity measures in common use today are
narrow and non-systemic and often lead to decisions that are sub-optimal at best and destructive of
real productivity at worst.
There are many economic practitioners who have observed and recognized the need for
economic measures that are more comprehensive and more systemic. The thesis of this paper is that
these insights from economic practitioners are conceptually close to energy systems theory but lack the
unifying principles of energy systems theory needed to make them operational. By making the mindset
of these selected economic practitioners explicit, we see more clearly how compatible their ideas are
with energy systems theory, and empower these practitioners to utilize the power of energy systems
theory and associated emergy analysis tool to provide the decision making information needed to
improve the practice of business strategy and community economic development.
INTRODUCTION
Most of the literature on Energy Systems Theory (EST) and its environmental accounting
tool, emergy analysis is either concerned with developing and extending the theoretical foundation or
applying the tool to specific human ecosystems. This paper is intended to fill a different need by
establishing conceptual links between a growing set of economic practitioners and energy systems
theory. The economic practitioners all recognize the need for more comprehensive measures of
economic productivity, but lack a unifying theory that will enable them to present operational
alternatives to current theory and practice. We will show in this paper that energy systems theory
provides a unifying framework for this new body of literature and that emergy related productivity
measures fill the need that is being recognized by these practitioners.
We will highlight those features of EST that are most relevant to economic productivity. In
Section I, we show that the systemic perspective of EST clarifies embeddedness relationships among
economic and other related systems. In Section II, we show how EST provides valuable insights into
money and capital, which lead to better economic indicators. In Section III, we show how optimization
principles associated with EST can help to choose among economic development strategies. In Section
IV, we discuss the importance of having objective measures of economic value from EST. We will
conclude with some examples showing the need for emergy related productivity measures to filter into
mainstream economic decision-making.
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Chapter 23. The Need for Emergy Related Measures
I. EMBEDDEDNESS OF SYSTEMS
Management professor Peter Senge has recognized the need for modern economics to take a
more systemic approach to management decision-making. He has also recognized the power that our
subconscious mental models have over the way we perceive and process information, which in turn
heavily influences decision-making. A major focus of Senges management training process is
designed to help managers bring their mental models to the level of consciousness. His observations
are that:
The impact on managers understanding is profound most report that they see for the first
time in their life that all we ever have are assumptions, never truths; that we always see the
world through our mental models and that mental models are always incomplete, and
especially in Western culture, chronically nonsystemic. (Senge, 1990, p. 185)
When Senge describes our mental models as being chronically nonsystemic, he is referring to
two primary weaknesses of nonsystemic models: 1) they ignore the influence of the larger systems that
contain the system of interest; 2) they ignore the interaction between parts of a system. Energy
Systems Theory and Energy Systems Diagrams overcome both of these problems.
The first step in drawing an energy systems diagram is to identify the boundary between the
system and its environment, and then to identify the energy sources from the containing system that
flow into the system of interest. The energy sources from outside the diagram constrain what can be
done within the system. The key observation of Odum that links the economy to the physical
environment is that:
Everything which we regard as being of real [economic] value has to be produced and
maintained by work processes from the [physical] environment, sometimes helped by people
and sometimes not. (Odum, 1996, p. 6)
This observation suggests that an economic system is always embedded in an ecological system
because all work involves transformation of energy but only some of this work occurs with the
interaction of humans. From this perspective, we can think of the ecological system as natures
infrastructure for the economical system. The ecological system does not always contribute directly to
economic value, but without the ecological support system, there will be no economic value created.
Measures of economic value that fail to include the supporting role of ecological systems can be
misleading. In this paper, we will also distinguish between work done by humans within a formal
exchange economy and work done by humans outside of the formal exchange economy. We will refer
to the system associated with human work outside of the formal economy as the social system.
Figure 1 shows two different mental models for thinking about economic value and
productivity. The top part of the diagram shows the mental model behind conventional economic
thinking, while the lower part of the diagram shows the mental model behind economic thinking that is
compatible with energy systems theory. To clarify the differences between these we will clarify the
distinction between money and capital.
II. MONEY AND CAPITAL

The diagram in Figure 1 shows two very different paradigms, or mental models, for thinking
about economic value and prosperity. No mental model is complete, but each mental model highlights
certain features of reality and hides others. In this section, we consider Senges observations that
western models, such as the conventional model in Figure 1, are highly non-systemic by showing that
the conventional model hides an important distinction between money and capital.
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Figure 1. Mental Models of Economic Thought.
Money is a medium of exchange, necessary for the operation of a formal market economy.
Monetary measures convey important, but incomplete, information about the capacity of an economic
system to create and maintain economic prosperity. Capital is a complex concept that is related to
money, but is more comprehensive as an indicator of the capacity of an economy to generate and
maintain wealth. A good working definition of capital is that capital is capacity for work. We will now
show how this definition links Odums approach to economics to that of other economic practitioners.
Information Infrastructure
Peruvian economist, Hernando de Soto, has done extensive research on issues of poverty and
economic development. Through his empirical research, he has discovered a surprising paradox: the
poor of the world have a lot of money. In Egypt, for example, the wealth that the poor have
accumulated is more than fifty times the amount of foreign direct investment that has been received by
Egypt. In Haiti, the total assets of the poor are more than 150 times the foreign investment received
since achieving independence from France in 1804 (De Soto, 2000, p. 5).
The obvious question from de Sotos statement is how people can be so poor if they have so
much money. De Sotos response draws on the distinction between money and capital, which he
illustrates by contrasting home ownership in primitive versus advanced economies. In a primitive
economy, a home provides shelter; in an advanced economy, the home still provide shelter, but can
also be leveraged to obtain more capital and perform more useful work. The home is like a seed that
can be eaten directly to provide a small amount of sustenance, but if planted in fertile soil and
furnished with sun and rain, it can be leverage to provide a large amount of sustenance.
De Sotos argument is that a home without access to a formal property rights system is like a
seed without access to sun and rain. It is the leveraging ability of the information infrastructure of the
legal property rights system that converts dead money into live capital. Economic measures that fail to
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account for the leveraging power of the information infrastructure, can lead to bad decisions and can
make the process of exporting market economies to developing nations appear much simpler than it is.
The false optimism about the ease of exporting market economies is due in part to economic measures
that fail to recognize and account for the portion of wealth that is generated by the information
infrastructure of advanced nations. He compares the process to exporting the features of a fertile river
delta, without recognizing that the source of fertility lies in the upstream river.
From an energy systems theory perspective, it takes energy to create legal and information
infrastructure and this infrastructure is an important store of energy that can be used to create future
wealth. Odum shows in detail how to use emergy analysis to evaluate information and human services,
such as the information infrastructure that de Soto identifies as a critical source of wealth in market
economies (Odum, 1996, pp. 220-241).
Human Capital and Innovation

Jane Jacobs, a lifelong student of economic development, takes a systemic view of economic
well-being consistent with the alternate perspective in Figure 1 and with energy systems theory. Jacobs
notes that If we stop focusing on things . and shift attention to the processes that generate the
things, distinctions between nature and economy blur (Jacobs, 2000, p. 9). By focusing on processes
rather than on things, Jacobs discovered an interesting paradox that the difference between a rich
backward economy and a poor backward economy is not all that great (Jacobs, 1984, p. 63). The
apparent contradiction is explained by making the same distinction that de Soto made between money
and capital. The terms rich and poor refer to money, while the term backward economy refers to
capital.
The context for Jacobss statement was the economy of Uruguay in the middle of the 20th
century, when Uruguay was viewed by many as being the economic miracle of South America. The
country had a population skilled in farming and animal husbandry. A high demand for meat, leather,
and wool enabled the country to generate significant amounts of export income. However, the high
degree of specialization in these products sowed the seeds of their downfall. The temporary success of
this specialized economy reduced incentives to create innovative products and to learn how to replace
imported goods with local production. The specialized economy appeared to be productive, but its
vulnerabilities were exposed by a series of events that caused a sharp decrease in demand for
Uruguayan exports. These events included substitution of products developed in Europe and the
United States, revived competitive European markets, and expanding markets in New Zealand and
Australia. The end result was a severe decline in the Uruguayan economy.
This example highlights the difference between money and capital. During the height of
Uruguays animal husbandry industry, they were able to generate significant amount of export income
and were rich in this sense. However, they lacked the ability to create innovative products or to replace
existing products with their own productive capacity. In this sense, they were a backward country on
the road to poverty, which is why Jacobs concludes that there is really very little difference between a
rich and a poor backward economy. Measures of economic value that focus on money alone will fail
to signal the weakness in a rich backward economy, such as that of Uruguay in the 1950s Measures of
economic value that focus on capital can recognize and signal shortages in the human capital needed to
support an economy.
From an energy systems perspective, the deficiency in the Uruguayan economy was a culture
that no longer supported innovation, learning and adaptation. However, a culture that supports these
attributes requires energy to build and maintain it. This energy in the form of human capital is an
important source of economic value and productivity. Measures of economic well-being that focused
exclusively on money failed to signal the weakness of the Uruguayan economy, but emergy measures
that include the value of information and human services could have identified the weakness of
Uruguays economy.
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Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services

Amory Lovins is a business strategy consultant who recognizes the untapped value of natural
capital in most business organizations and industries. Lovins interest in natural capital led him and his
co-authors to identify four important types of capital:
Human Capital, in the form of labor and intelligence, culture and organization
Financial capital, consisting of cash, investments, and monetary instruments
Manufactured capital, including infrastructure, machines, tools, and factories
Natural capital, made up of resources, living systems, and ecosystem services. (Hawken et al.,
1999, p. 4)
Lovins' four-way classification is consistent with the three-way distinction in Figure 1, if we lump
together financial and manufactured capital. This combination is justified by recognizing that the types
of infrastructure that Lovins includes in manufactured capital are made with money and define a store
of financial capital from past work that represents capacity for future work.
Lovins et al. go to great lengths to distinguish natural capital from natural resources. The
distinction is one of money versus capital and can be illustrated with a forest:
Resources and ecosystem services both come from the earth even from the same biological
systems but they are two different things. Forests, for instance, not only produce the
resource of wood fiber but also provide such ecosystem services as water storage, habitat, and
regulation of the atmosphere and climate. (Lovins et al., 1999)
Natural resources are tangible, have obvious market value, and are included in conventional
financial accounting systems. However, silent and invisible ecosystem services must also be preserved
and maintained if we are to maintain prosperity for ourselves and future generations. Lovins proposes
a new form of capitalism that he calls Natural Capitalism, which is motivated by the observation that
there are severe accounting fallacies in our current system. The fallacies derive from what Lovins et al.
describe as a system where with dangerously narrow focus, our industries look only at the
exploitable resources of the earths ecosystems its oceans, forests, and plains and not at the larger
services that those systems provide for free (Lovins et al., 1999).
Lovins recognizes the need for more comprehensive accounting systems that include all
forms of capital, but he fails to provide an example of such alternate accounting system. What Lovins
is calling for is energy systems theory, which allows one to account for all forms of capital on a
common scale, in other words, emergy analysis.
Generalized Input-Output Analysis

Ecological economist Herman Daly has clearly recognized the need to include the physical
environment in measures of economic value. He proposed generalizing economic input-output analysis
by including the physical environment as one of the sectors (Daly, 1993). In the simplest version of
Dalys generalized input-output analysis, all conventional economic sectors are aggregated into a
single sector while the physical environment is treated as the second sector. Three additional types of
interactions are included in this framework:
Environment to Economy
Economy to Environment
Environment to Environment
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The flows in Dalys framework are energy flows rather than cash flows since the environmental sector
deals with energy, a form of capital, rather than money. Dalys work builds on the work of economist
Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, who was one of the first to recognize that economic processes are really
energy transformations and that energy must be incorporated into measures of real wealth (GeorgescuRoegen, 1975).
Representation of Capital
Odums contributions to economic thinking are that he was able to see things others did not
see, to create a unifying theory to explain his insights, and to create a representational system to help
others see what he saw. Hernando de Soto fully recognizes the importance of representational systems
in the context of property rights when he observes that in the West every parcel of land, every
building, every piece of equipment, or store of inventories is represented in a property document that is
the visible sign of a vast hidden process that connects all these assets to the rest of the economy.
Thanks to this representational process, assets can lead an invisible, parallel life alongside their
material existence (de Soto, 2000, p. 6).
This idea of representational systems provides the link between de Sotos view of economics
and Odums views of economics. De Soto states, One of the greatest challenges to the human mind is
to comprehend and to gain access to those things we know exist but cannot see. Not everything that is
real and useful is tangible and visible. (de Soto, 2000, p.7). He observes that cultures have flourished
through history by inventing representation systems that allow people to grasp with the mind what
human hands could never touch (de Soto, 2000, p. 8). Energy systems theory augmented with energy
systems diagrams is such a system, allowing decision makers to grasp energy flows with their minds
that cannot be touched with their hands.
The point of this discussion is that productivity measures which are based only on the
physical and tangible aspects of a good or service cannot capture the potential energy available for
work that the good or service represents. The real value of a good or service includes its potential for
future work as well as its present capabilities.
III. OPTIMIZING PRINCIPLES

Systems that account for capital rather than money require principles of organization and
design that will lead to the most effective use of all available resources. In this section, we show that
Odums generalized maximum power principle is a natural extension of commonly accepted
optimization principles in business and economic development.
Nobel prize winning economist, Milton Freidman, has argued vigorously for the principle of
profit maximization as a guiding principle of economics and business strategy. For Friedman, the
impact of the principle of profit maximization goes far beyond a specific firm.. Friedman argues that
profit maximization is crucial in sending clear signals through the economic system, in the form of
prices, that will lead to an optimal allocation of resources and ultimately to the greatest benefit to the
greatest number of people. In his argument, a manager who fails to maximize profits for his or her firm
is guilty of distorting the market signals needed for the market to identify the best allocation of
resources (Friedman, 1962). Friedmans maximum profit principle can be stated as:
Maximum Profit Principle: Those firms that survive will be those that are able to attract and
use available financial resources most effectively.
We will argue that Friedman is articulating an important principle, but that the practices growing out
of his principles may not lead to the desired result because his principles are focused too narrowly on
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the formal exchange economy and ignore the constraints that the supporting natural and human
systems place on human economic preferences and choices.
One argument supporting the general theme of Friedmans Maximum Profit Principle is that
an analogous principle has been discovered in the pure working of natures economy. Russian
biologist Alfred Lotka formulated the Maximum Power Principle in 1922, which can be stated as:
Maximum Power Principle: Natural systems that survive are those that are most successful at
capturing available energy and using it effectively, within the carrying capacity of their
environments (Lotka, 1922).
Energy systems theory argues that the height of a tree, or the shape of a leaf, or the strength of the jaw
bone of a beaver have all achieved their current state by operating according to the maximum power
principle. Those species or individuals that fail to operate by and adapt to the maximum power
principle will not survive.
The analogy between the maximum profit and maximum power principles can be seen more
clearly from the following example, given independently by two avid fishermen familiar with energy
systems theory (Blackham, 2001; Hall, 2001, personal communications). If trout feed in slow moving
waters, the advantage is that little effort is required to obtain food, but the disadvantage is that there is
little food to be found. On the other hand, if trout feed in rapidly moving water, the advantage is that
there is more food to be found, but the disadvantage is that more energy is required to obtain this food.
In order to thrive, trout have been able to identify a moderate strategy where they swim in moderately
moving water, and spend a moderate amount of energy to obtain a moderate amount of food. This
strategy is consistent with the maximum power principle.
Figure 2 shows the trout principle more clearly. The horizontal axis represents water speed
and the vertical axis represents energy. The lower line shows the energy expended to obtain food and
the upper line shows the energy obtained from the food. The optimal strategy that trout have
discovered is the one that maximizes the differences between the energy spent and the energy
obtained. In other words, trout are energy profit maximizers, just like the human money profit
maximizers for which Friedman argues.
To summarize, Friedman proposes a normative principle, but one that is limited to the formal
human economy. Lotka proposes a parallel optimizing principle that is descriptive, rather than
normative, and applies it only to the portion of natures economy that operates without human
interaction.
The limitation of Lotkas maximum power principle is that it does not include human choice
and actions. Odum, however, has generalized Lotkas Maximum Power Principle to include the human
economy:
Generalized Maximum Power Principle: Those human-nature partnerships that capture and
use all sources of energy as effectively as possible will be the ones that will be economically
viable, in the long run.
Like Friedmans principle, Odums statement is normative, providing humans with direction about
what they should do to make effective use of available resources. Unlike Friedmans principle,
Odums optimizing principle is not limited to the human economy, but applies to the whole greater
economy, including natures economy as well as the human economy.
Many economic practitioners, including development expert Jane Jacobs, have articulated the
need for emergy related productivity measures, such as the generalized maximum power principle,
even though they are unfamiliar with energy systems theory. Jacobs has enough ecological
understanding to recognize the analogy between natures pure economies and economies involving
humans. Jacobs observes that an ecosystem can be described as an energy conduit with energy
infusions entering the system and energy discharges leaving the system.
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Energy
Trout Fishing Illustration of the Maximum Power

Principle
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Energy Spent
Energy Obtained
Maximum Gap
10
Water Speed
Figure 2. Trout Example of Maximum Power Principle
Jacobs illustrates the connection between economies and ecosystems by contrasting a barren
desert with a lush rain forest. The difference that Jacobs observes is that the barren desert has little
capacity to capture energy that enters the system; therefore, most energy is dissipated in the form of
lost heat with very little evidence that significant amounts of energy have entered the system. In the
rain forest, the energy is not only captured, but is passed around from species to species and reused and
recycled. She describes the energy flow paths in the rain forest as being dilatory and digressive. This
means that the energy entering the system gets cycled and recycled, used and reused. The result is that
that energy flows through more parts of the system and therefore supports more life (Jacobs, 2000).
Jacobs concludes from this contrast that what happens inside the conduit is what is important
for measuring the productivity of the system. You cannot understand what is happening merely by
measuring the output; it is what the system does to transform the energy into high quality energy that is
important for measuring productivity.
Jacobs likens an economic system to an ecosystem by associating imports with energy
infusions and exports with energy discharges. She observes that the economic development of any
region always begins with a gift from nature. In Venice, the gift was salt from the sea. In
Copenhagen the initial gift was herring. In other places such as Paris, Chicago, and San Francisco, the
gift was in the form of a suitable trading location. Jacobs conceptualizes these gifts of nature as
imports over time rather than more traditional imports over space, since they have always been in
the same place, but were created at an earlier time.
Jacobs correctly identifies these gifts from nature as natural capital and also recognizes that
human capital and natural capital must interact to produce a form suitable for human use. The
Venetians, for example, became very clever at guiding salt water into a series of evaporations ponds to
extract the salt in a usable form. Financial capital entered the picture when the Venetians became
proficient enough at salt extraction to produce a surplus, which could then be used as exchange
currency to import goods and services that they could not effectively supply for themselves.
Looking at economic development from this perspective, Jacobs realized that the way to
measure and track productivity was to create an "Import Stretching Ratio, defined as the value of the
exports from a region compared to the value of the imports. Imports include imports over time as well
as imports into one place from another. She sketches out how an import-stretching ratio might be
computed, but not being familiar with emergy, she failed to realize that the ratio she was describing
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was the ratio of the emergy output to emergy input for a region or that the strategies that would
maximize the import stretching ratio are those strategies that are most consistent with the maximum
power principle.
IV. PERCEPTION AND REALITY

Another weakness of non-systemic measures of economic well-being is that they rely solely
on human perception of value, while ignoring the limitations of the larger energy systems that contain
the economic system. Even well meaning efforts of ecological economists to include environmental
values in the economic arena suffer from this shortcoming.
Energy systems theorist Charles Hall describes the fundamental difference between
ecological economics and emergy analysis by looking at the questions asked in both approaches.
According to Hall, the question asked by ecological economists is How can we measure the
contributions of nature to the human economy in terms relevant to human beings? (Hall, 1995, p.
205). Hall contrasts this with the fundamental question asked by emergy analysts: How can we fit the
activities of humans into the grand energy schemes of the world around us, which sooner or later will
determine what we do anyway? Hall is saying that humans are free to choose what we do and what
we value, but we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions. Our actions will only bring
prosperity if they are consistent with the larger patterns of nature.
It is difficult for many to see the danger of measuring economic value and productivity by
perceived monetary value, since money has been around for a long time and will probably continue as
the measurable medium of exchanges. However, the Internet boom and bust of the late 1990s
provides a compressed time scale in which to observe the ultimate futility of currencies based solely on
perceived value.
Marshall Blackham, a venture capitalist of the late 1990s, observes that in the early days of
the Internet boom, companies had no profits and little revenues early on so they used Internet traffic,
or number of hits as a measure of success. As Internet stocks climbed higher and higher, the
traditional measures of value didnt work. Instead stock prices became highly correlated to hits on
the website. Once people saw the connection between hits and value in the market, hits acquired a
perceived value and became a legitimate form of currency, as long as venture capitalists and buyers of
stock had a perception of a direct link between hits and real money.
While reflecting on the implications of energy systems theory, Blackham drew the following
insights from his experience as a venture capitalist. When hits were a legitimate form of currency,
startup companies began to develop their business strategies around maximizing hits, assuming this
was a good surrogate for maximizing money (profits). As the perceived link between hits and money
was broken, hit currency became seriously devalued and the companies who had a large portion of
their capital in the form of hit currency found themselves in big trouble.
The analogy here is that hits are to money as money is to energy. Hits served as a surrogate
for money when new Internet startups did not know how to measure the value of their companies. But
when the strategies for maximizing hits diverged from strategies for making money, hit strategies
failed. The convergence of hit strategies and money strategies seems to be correlated with money
supply. The more money available, the stronger the link between maximizing hits and maximizing
dollars: the less money available, the weaker the link between hits and money. In other words, when
money was available to fund Internet companies and money was available to buy their stock,
everybody believed that the number of hits translated into value. Once money became scarce, those
companies that were not generating money found themselves in trouble because hits didnt pay the
rent, hits didnt pay their employees, and hits didnt even buy lunch. They needed money not hits.
The analogy is that energy is the real currency for measuring wealth. When energy is
abundant, money is a good surrogate for energy. However, as energy becomes more scarce, the link
between maximizing money and maximizing power (in the energy use context) weakens. In times of
abundant energy, strategies for maximizing profits may coincide with strategies for effective energy
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use. In times of limited energy sources, strategies for maximizing profits may involve increasingly
externalizing the costs and result in ineffective uses of energy. This is the time when a biophysical
perspective on economics becomes necessary so that energy effectiveness is measured directly by
energy flows rather than indirectly by money flows.
Just as the Internet companies crashed by assuming that a hit maximizing strategy was
consistent with a dollar maximizing strategy, we as a society run the same risk (if the analogy is valid)
of crashing by pursuing dollar maximizing strategies under the assumption that they will automatically
result in effective energy use.
We see from this analogy that money is a secondary form of wealth, while energy is a
primary form of wealth. By this, we mean that money cannot satisfy any real economic need directly;
it only satisfies an economic need when it is exchanged for energy in some form or another (food,
water, clothing, shelter, education, etc.). Money is only capable of satisfying economic needs
indirectly when the economic exchange system is embedded in a social system that supports the
exchange economy. The requisite social system includes not only a legal framework, but also a
perception of economic value in the minds of the participants in the economic exchange system.
Without such a support system, money is absolutely worthless. Consider the extreme case of being
stranded alone on a desert island with a pocket full of money, but without access to any form of energy
that can satisfy the need for food, water and shelter. The money is of no value in this situation.
V. EXAMPLES
Two examples suffice to illustrate the need to shift our thinking about economic prosperity
towards emergy related measures. Traditional measures of economic growth were improving in the
United States in early 2004, but high unemployment levels persisted. Economists began to see the
connection between unemployment and productivity measured as economic output per hour of labor.
The incentives to increase labor productivity favor replacing human labor with machines; therefore, as
we increase labor productivity, we also increase unemployment. "Productivity gains are going to
prevent the kind of job growth creation [seen] in the 1990s," says John Challenger, CEO of the
Chicago-based outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which tracks labor issues. (Christian
Science Monitor, March 8, 2004)
What is missing from the key measure of labor productivity is that the process of human work
creates economic value by increasing the workers capacity for further work. This is especially true in
an information economy. Odum observes that information, especially in the form of human services
has a high transformity, and is, therefore, capable of generating high economic value (Odum, 1996, p.
220). He suggests that human services can be quantified by multiplying the energy expended by a
human being by the transformity of the individuals education and experience. By measuring
productivity in this manner, the process of human labor is a benefit in terms of increasing transformity,
as well as a cost. Redefining productivity in this way would move us away from a system with
incentives not to invest in the development of the human capital in a society.
As a second example, we consider the case of the North Atlantic cod fishing industry. The
cod fishing industry had been the mainstay of the local economy along the North Atlantic coast of the
United States and Canada for centuries. However, in the 1960s, both the number and the size of cod
began to decrease. Fisheries scientists and ecologists recognized that the only way to preserve the
industry was to allow the ecosystem to heal so that fish sizes and quantities could return to former
levels; however, this information never filtered into market signals, which were badly distorted by
government subsidies to keep the industry in business.
The exchange economy was embedded in a legal and social framework that supported
economic exchange, and fish customers were certainly willing to pay the artificially low prices of the
fish. However, the whole industry collapsed in the early 1990s because the natural system supporting
the social system was no longer capable of supplying the energy in the form of healthy cod to meet the
demand that customers were willing to pay for.
-308-
What people wanted in this case was to continue to eat cheap cod; on the other hand the
biophysical realities limited the amount of fish caught to the amount of fish in the bays. Even though
ecologists and fisheries scientists foretold the decline in both the number and size of fish, the economic
signals demanded more fish than could be caught. It was biophysical reality not human preference that
dictated the outcome in this case.
This example illustrates a divergence between traditional economic measures and emergy
related measures. By traditional measures the economy of the North Atlantic region appeared strong
until the sudden collapse. In contrast, if emergy measures had been in place, different decisions might
have been made while there was still time to avert the social, ecologic and economic disaster that
occurred.
CONCLUSION
Many thoughtful observers and practitioners of economic life have recognized shortcomings
in the way we define and measure economic productivity. The critiques highlighted in this paper can
be strengthened and unified by placing them in an energy systems theory context. The conceptual
framework that links the formal exchange economy to emergy analysis is a triple-economy model,
with the formal exchange economy nested within the larger human services economy which is also
nested within natures service economy. The common currency of all three economies is energy rather
than money, which points to the need for comprehensive energy accounting tools to manage the triple
economy. Emergy analysis provides a broader framework for thinking about economic productivity.
This reduces the likelihood of unanticipated negative side effects and leads to better decision making
and management of the triple economy.
REFERENCES
Blackham, M., Personal Communication, 2002.
Brown, Mark T. Ed., 1999, Emergy Synthesis: Theory and Applications of the Emergy Methodology,
Center for Environmental Policy, University of Florida.
Christian Science Monitor, 2004, Why a growing economy refuses to create new jobs, March 8,
2004.
Cleveland, C., Costanza, R., Hall, C., Kaufmann, R., 1984, Energy and the U.S. Economy: A
Biophysical Perspective, Science, Vol. 225, pp. 890-897.
Daly, H. and Townsend, K. 1993. Valuing the Earth: Economics, Ecology, and Ethics, MIT Press.
De Soto, H. 2002. The Mystery of Capital.
Friedman, M. 1962. Capitalism and Freedom, University of Chicago Press.
Georgescu-Roegen, N. 1975. Energy and Economic Myths, Southern Economic Journal 41, no. 3.
Hall, Charles, A.S. ed. 1995. Maximum Power: The Ideas and Applications of H.T. Odum,
University Press of Colorado.
Hall, C., Lindenberger, D., Kummel, R., Kroeger, T., Eichhorn, W., 2001. The Need to Reintegrate the
Natural Sciences with Economics, BioScience, Vol. 51 No. 8: 663-673.
Hall, C., Personal Communication, 2001.
Hawken, P., Lovins, A.B. and H.L., 1999. Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution,
Little, Brown and Company.
Jacobs, J. 1984. Cities and the Wealth of Nations: Principles of Economic Life, Vintage Books.
Jacobs, J, 2000. The Nature of Economies, Vintage Books.
Lotka, A.J. 1922. Contributions to the energetics of evolution. Proc. Nat. Acad,Sciences, 8:147-151.
Lovins, A.B. and H.L., Hawken, P. 1999. A Roadmap to Natural Capitalism, Harvard Business
Review, May-June.
-309-
Lucas, R.E. 1988. On the Mechanics of Economic Development, Journal of Monetary Economics,
Vol. 22, pp. 3-42.
Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Senge, P. 1990. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization,
Doubleday.
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
24
Combined Use of Emergy Synthesis and GIS
for Environmental Sustainability Assessment:
The Case of the Roccamonfina Natural Park, Italy
ABSTRACT
The natural park area of Roccamonfina (Central Italy) was investigated by means of the
combined use of the emergy synthesis method and Geographical Information System (GIS), in order to
evaluate the environmental and economic resources in the area, as well as the environmental support
driving the sustainable development of the local economy and natural environment. Two and 3dimensional maps of the investigated area were developed to assess geological and hydrological
features, land use, natural park planning and management, and human settlements. Statistical data
from local and regional databases were used to monitor the matter and energy flows, as well as the
main economic activities and income sources. Forest production sectors in terms of wood and
chestnuts have also been investigated. Natural and economic flows have been converted to emergy
units and emergy-based indicators were calculated in order to evaluate the dynamics of the local
system from a holistic point of view. Results suggest that compatibility between local economic
activities and increasing environmental protection is possible, provided that the population density is
relatively low and that local renewable sources are used to a significant extent.
INTRODUCTION
Several methods used for environmental analysis are characterized by a purely qualitative
approach in determining the effects of human activities on ecosystems. Most of these approaches rely
on an erroneous evaluation of the natural capital, which is considered to lack any market value. The
natural capital is therefore underestimated, or even excluded, from conventional neo-classical
economic assessments (IWAES, 1998; Herendeen, 2000). Ecological Economics, on the contrary,
faces the challenges imposed by the bio-physical laws ruling the planet and considers economic
systems as subsystems, open in thermodynamics terms and belonging to a broader ecological system
(Ruth, 1993). Such an approach implies the awareness of limits to economic growth, for the economic
system completely relies on resource inputs coming from the natural system. Some authors estimated
the ecological and economic values of services supplied both by the environment and the natural
capital, using merely economic approaches or more integrated economic and physical approaches
(Costanza et al., 1997; Pimentel et al., 1997; Patterson, 2002; Tainter et al., 2003). In so doing, an
assessment of the indirect economic value of services supplied by the environment has been made
possible. For instance, a tree produces, during 50 years of life, $31,000 in terms of oxygen, $62,000 in
terms of pollution mitigation, $31,000 in terms of erosion control and $37,000 in terms of recycling
(Costanza et al., 1997). Its direct market value, as wood and wood pulp, is far less important. However,
apart from a few monetary estimates, the indirect economic value of natural capital is generally
ignored or undervalued in almost all the conventional and official accounting systems (as pointed out
by Cialani and Giannantoni, 2001). It is of paramount importance to revise the models of
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Chapter 24. Combined Use of Emergy Synthesis and GIS...
environmental analysis in order to include the natural capital, along with other productive factors,
namely human capital and labour. In recent years, some new thermodynamics models have been
applied to productive and territorial systems, including the emergy synthesis method. It deals with
energy evaluation and environmental sustainability assessment outside of the neoclassical economic
framework. Emergy analysis is a methodology rooted in thermodynamics and systems science, which
is able to give a scientific framework to the evaluation of the organisation, complexity and
sustainability characteristics of a specific system (Odum, 1988, 1996; Brown and Ulgiati, 2001, 2004).
In particular, emergy analysis allows the quantitative assessment of economic, ecological and
thermodynamics variables on a common basis, namely the environmental work provided directly and
indirectly by the biosphere.
This work deals with the emergy analysis of Roccamonfina (Central Italy) municipal territory,
located within the large crater of an extinct volcano and included within a Regional Natural Park. Such
a district has important naturalistic, geological and archaeological features that appear to be putting
severe constraints on several different strategies for regional economic development. The specific
objective of this study is to integrate the survey of the district, carried out using Geographic
Information System (GIS) tools, with a thermodynamics analysis of its environmental resources.

GIS Analysis
A geographic information system named GIS-Roccamonfina was created using ArcView
GIS software (http://www.esri.com/). GIS-Roccamonfina was used to highlight spatial resources,
both natural and anthropogenic, characterizing the Roccamonfina Regional Park, with special reference
to the Roccamonfina volcano and the Roccamonfina municipal territory. The GIS was used as a
support tool for the emergy evaluation. The first step consisted of making cartographic and
aerophotographic maps, from which some thematic layers have been vectorized (boundaries, roads,
buildings, contour lines, etc.). In addition, raster maps were developed from four topographic maps and
four aerial photographs of 1:25,000 scale, geo-referenced by affine transformation. The geometric
elements belonging to each thematic layer (dots, curves, polygons) were linked to thematic databases.
Afterwards, an urban and environmental characterization of the area was created by overlapping the
raster background with vector layers. A map describing seven different land uses in the municipal
territory of Roccamonfina and a geo-lithological map of the Roccamonfina volcano were also made.
Contour lines and quoted points were vectorized and provided with an elevation value in order to make
a three-dimensional map of the area by the triangular interpolation known as Triangulated Irregular
Network (Burrough, 1998) as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Volcano of Roccamonfina: Digital Elevation Model (T.I.N.).
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Vector bi-dimensional themes (roads, buildings, etc.) were converted to vector threedimensional files and merged with the digital elevation model (DEM). Finally, the two and threedimensional maps and related databases were used for a quantitative spatial analysis of environmental
resources.
Emergy Analysis
The main steps of the emergy analysis carried out during this study were:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Identification of the boundaries of the study area.

Modeling of the thermodynamic system by means of an energy flowchart (economic and
natural resources).
Calculation of matter and energy flows.
Conversion of matter and energy flows into Solar Equivalent Energy (emergy) flows by
means of suitable Transformities, updated to the new baseline for biosphere flows (total
emergy driving the biosphere: 15.83 E24 sej/year (Brown and Ulgiati, 2004).
Balance of the total emergy used by the system.
Calculation of new transformities and environmental sustainability indices.
The boundaries of the investigated area correspond to the administrative area of the municipality of
Roccamonfina. The formal description of the energy and matter flows through the system is shown in
Figure 2, using the symbolic energy language developed by Odum (1996).
The data used to implement the emergy analysis were obtained from: a) the annual handbooks
of the Italian Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), b) a local database (ANCITEL), c) the analysis made
through the GIS-Roccamonfina and finally, d) from direct evaluations of the study site. All data refer
to the year 2000. The integration between GIS and emergy analyses allows us to understand the role of
the environment in the economic dynamics of the investigated area. These aspects are usually not
included in the official databases and statistics.

The general framework of the area is consistent with a district characterized by agro-forestry
activities with low chemical and mechanical input and lacking productive plants with high
environmental impact. The investigated area does not experience water shortages, due to the presence
of ground water and many springs that surround the volcanic caldera. Nevertheless, the area is almost
totally dependent on external inputs such as electricity and fossil fuel, as well as machinery, food items
and consumer goods. This dependence on external inputs results in a lack of complete sustainability,
although the overall performance of the area is significantly better than the Italian average, primarily
due to lower population density and low impact activities.
Tables 1, 2, and 3 show the main input and output flows respectively of the entire
Roccamonfina area and for two main production sectors (chestnut and timber production), expressed
both in raw units (J, g) and emergy units.
Locally available free environmental inputs (mainly the chemical potential of rain and the
deep heat flow) account for about 9.7% of total emergy supporting the Roccamonfina economic and
natural system (Table 1). An additional contribution of about 10.6% comes from local nonrenewable
flows of topsoil used up and water from underground storages. The renewable and non-renewable
flows combined represent about 20.3% of the total emergy use in the area. The local emergy
contribution in this area is lower than the national average for the same year, which is about 25%. It
reflects, however, a decreasing nationwide trend, from the 44% in the year 1984 to the 23% of the year
2002 (Cialani et al., 2004), which can be attributed to the increased use of emergy from imported fossil
fuels in the last two decades. In fact, fossil fuels and electricity account for about 31.9% of the total
-313-
Figure 2. Emergy systems diagram of the Roccamonfina municipality, year 2000.
emergy supporting the local economy of Roccamonfina, due to a substantial demand for transport,
domestic uses, and agricultural machinery (mainly for forestry). The emergy of imported goods
(including food items) is not very large (8.1%). Total imports (fuels and goods together) account for
about 40% of total emergy use, the highest emergy flow to the system.
Services associated with the production and supply of fuels and goods account for about
28.8% (39.7% if services for governmental activities are included). The emergy flow associated with
services was estimated globally, based on the cost of all imported items (including fuels), as well as on
the amount of taxes paid to local and national governments for activities supporting the life of the local
community (school, health services, governmental offices, etc.). Local labor was not included in this
total in order to avoid double counting since it is supported by both the local environmental emergy
flows and the imported flows of energy and goods, which were previously accounted for. The large
flow of emergy supporting services (an amount practically equal to the amount of emergy for fuels and
goods) seems to indicate a dependence of the local community on support from the larger national
economy.
Chestnut production (Table 2) uses about 62% of the total area of Roccamonfina and is the
largest economic activity based on local resources. Since chestnut harvesting is generally performed in
the month of October, it is clearly a seasonal activity, to which a large fraction of labor is supplied by
part-time workers. Workers invest about 15% of their yearly working time in this activity. Oak
harvesting (Table 3) is less seasonal than chestnut harvesting, but it is also a part-time activity for
several of the local people. Only 8.5% of the Park area is dedicated to oak production. Environmental
emergy flows are, as expected, very important inputs to the local sub-sectors of chestnut and oak
production, accounting for 56.1% and 43.4%, respectively. Labor and services, evaluated respectively
-314-
Table 1. Emergy flows supporting the natural park of Roccamonfina in the year 2000.
Amount
Solar
Ref.
Solar
#
Item
Unit
(unit/yr) Transformity
for
Emergy
(sej/unit)
Transf
(sej/yr)
(All flows are evaluated on a yearly basis. Numbers in the first column refer to calculation
procedures in the Appendix I)
Renewable inputs
1 Sunlight
2 Wind (kinetic energy)
3 Earth cycle (thermal energy)
4 Rain (chemical potential energy)
5 Rain (geopotential energy)
Nonrenewable inputs from within the
area
6 Net loss of topsoil
Water (from underground
7 reservoirs)
Imports and outside sources
8 Gasoline for agriculture
9 Diesel for agriculture
10 Gasoline for transport
11 Diesel for transport
12 Natural gas
13 Electricity
14 Agricultural machinery (steel)
15 Agric. machinery (plastic and tires)
16 Transport machinery (steel)
Transport machinery (plastic and
17 tires)
18 Textiles
19 Food items
20 Services associated to imports
21 Taxes paid to central government
Different kinds of products, area level
22 Gross economic product of area
23 People supported for one year
References for transformities
[a] By definition.
[b] Odum, 1996.
[c] Brown and Arding, 1991.
[d] Our estimate.
[e] Odum and Odum, 1983.
[f] Brown and Ulgiati, 2002.
J/yr
J/yr
J/yr
J/yr
J/yr
1.31E+17
2.72E+14
5.29E+13
5.93E+13
1.08E+14
1.00E+00
2.51E+03
5.76E+04
3.05E+04
1.76E+04
[a]
[b]
[b]
[b]
[b]
1.31E+17
6.84E+17
3.05E+18
1.81E+18
1.90E+18
J/yr
2.47E+12
1.05E+05
[c]
2.58E+17
J/yr
1.69E+12
3.05E+06
[f]
5.15E+18
J/yr
J/yr
J/yr
J/yr
J/yr
J/yr
g/yr
g/yr
g/yr
1.19E+11
3.68E+12
3.09E+13
1.53E+13
4.34E+13
2.79E+13
8.26E+05
9.18E+04
9.36E+05
1.11E+05
9.39E+04
1.11E+05
1.11E+05
8.75E+04
2.51E+05
1.12E+10
7.21E+09
1.12E+10
[b]
[d]
[b]
[b]
[i]
[f]
[e]
[e]
[e]
1.32E+16
3.45E+17
3.42E+18
1.69E+18
3.80E+18
7.01E+18
9.28E+15
6.62E+14
1.05E+16
g/yr
J/yr
J/yr
/yr
/yr
1.04E+05
1.81E+11
1.75E+13
4.88E+06
1.85E+06
7.21E+09
6.37E+06
1.68E+05
3.01E+12
3.01E+12
[e]
[h]
[d]
[g]
[g]
7.50E+14
1.16E+18
2.94E+18
1.47E+19
5.56E+18
/yr
#
4.01E+07
3.82E+03
1.27E+12
1.33E+16
[l]
[m]
5.10E+19
5.10E+19
[g]
[h]
[i]
[l]
Cialani et al., 2004; average for Italy last 10 years.

Odum and Odum, 1987.
Bargigli et al., 2003.
Emergy per of Gross Local Product; seJ/;
this study.
[m] Emergy per person per year; seJ/person/yr; this study.
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as 33.0% and 49.8% of the total emergy used for chestnuts and oaks, also play a significant role in
supporting the local economy. The larger importance of labor in oak production overshadows other
smaller emergy inflows, making it difficult to compare the use of these minor flows between chestnut
and oak production. Machinery, fuels and topsoil do not represent very significant emergy flows for
both production activities.
Table 2. Emergy evaluation of chestnut forest production in the natural park of Roccamonfina, year
2000.
Amount
Solar
Ref.
Solar
#
Item
Unit
(unit/yr)
Transformity
for
Emergy
(sej/unit)
Transf.
(sej/yr)
procedures in the Appendix II)
Renewable inputs
1 Sunlight
area
Agric. machinery (plastic and
10 tires)
11.1 Human labour
11.2 Services for imports
Total Production, chestnut
Total production for outside
12.1 market
12.2 Total production, Joules
12.3 Total market value of production
References for Transformities
[a] By definition.
[b] Odum, 1996.
[c] Brown and Arding , 1991.
[d] Our estimate.
J/yr
J/yr
J/yr
J/yr
J/yr
8.15E+16
1.70E+14
3.30E+13
3.70E+13
6.74E+13
1.00E+00
2.51E+03
5.76E+04
3.05E+04
1.76E+04
[a]
[b]
[b]
[b]
[b]
8.15E+16
4.27E+17
1.90E+18
1.13E+18
1.18E+18
J/yr
2.42E+12
1.05E+05
[c]
2.54E+17
J/yr
J/yr
g/yr
1.13E+11
3.47E+12
8.26E+05
1.11E+05
9.39E+04
1.12E+10
[b]
[d]
[e]
1.24E+16
3.25E+17
9.28E+15
g/yr
9.18E+04
work/yr 1.41E+02
/yr
4.96E+04
7.21E+09
1.18E+16
3.01E+12
[e]
[f]
[l]
6.62E+14
1.67E+18
1.49E+17
1.03E+09
1.54E+05
1.21E+12
[g]
[h]
[i]
5.51E+18
5.51E+18
5.51E+18
g/yr
J/yr
/yr
[f]
[g]
[h]
[i]
[l]
5.35E+09
3.58E+13
4.54E+06
Emergy per person per year; seJ/person/yr; this study.

Emergy per Kg of chestnut;seJ/Kg; this study.
Emergy per Joule of chestnut; seJ/J; this study.
Emergy per Euro of sold Product; seJ/; this study.
Cialani et al., 2004. Average value last 10 years.
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Table 4 shows a comparison between the investigated area, mainly rural, and two selected areas with
different environmental and economic characteristics: the Wine Spring Creek National Forest
watershed, USA (Tilley and Swank, 2003) and the Italian economic and environmental system in the
year 2000 (Cialani et al., 2004). The values of the emergy density (1.65E+12sej m-2 year-1) and the
emergy per person (1.33E+16 sej person1 year-1) shown in Table 4 and compared to systems at
different development levels help to estimate respectively the pressure of the economic activity on the
area and the potential living standards of the municipality in terms of availability of resources and
goods. The environmental loading ratio (ELR = 9.31) and the emergy indicator of sustainability (ESI =
0.13) reflect a larger use of local renewable resources in the investigated area, compared to Italian
Table 3. Emergy evaluation of wood production in the natural park of Roccamonfina, year 2000.
Amount
Solar
Ref.
Solar
#
Item
Unit
(unit/yr)
Transformity
For
Emergy
(sej/unit)
Transf.
(sej/yr)
procedures in the Appendix III)
Renewable inputs
1 Sunlight
area
Agric. machinery (plastic and
10 tires)
11.1 Human labour
Forest production, wood
Total production for outside
12.1 market
12.2 Total production, Joules
12.3 Total market value of production
References for transformities
[a] By definition.
[b] Odum, 1996.
[c] Brown and Arding , 1991.
[d] Our estimate.
J/yr
J/yr
J/yr
J/yr
J/yr
1.11E+16
2.31E+13
4.50E+12
5.04E+12
9.18E+12
1.00E+00
2.51E+03
5.76E+04
3.05E+04
1.76E+04
[a]
[b]
[b]
[b]
[b]
1.11E+16
5.82E+16
2.59E+17
1.54E+17
1.61E+17
J/yr
3.30E+11
1.05E+05
[c]
3.46E+16
J/yr
J/yr
g/yr
6.88E+09
2.12E+11
8.26E+05
1.11E+05
9.39E+04
1.12E+10
[b]
[d]
[e]
7.61E+14
1.99E+16
9.28E+15
g/yr
9.18E+04
work/yr 4.00E+01
/yr
3.03E+03
7.21E+09
1.18E+16
3.01E+12
[e]
[f]
[l]
6.62E+14
4.73E+17
9.11E+15
5.26E+08
3.49E+04
5.26E+12
[g]
[h]
[i]
9.68E+17
9.68E+17
9.68E+17
g/yr
J/yr
/yr
[f]
[g]
[h]
[i]
[l]
1.84E+09
2.77E+13
1.84E+05
Emergy per person per year; seJ/person/yr; this study.

Emergy per g of wood; seJ/g; this study.
Emergy per joule of wood; seJ/J; this study.
Emergy per of sold Product; seJ/; this study.
Cialani et al., 2004. Average value last 10 years.
-317-
averages. In fact, although Italy benefits from 25% indigenous resources, this figure mainly accounts
for the nonrenewable emergy of minerals, which translates into a higher ELR. The area is still highly
dependent on purchased inputs in terms of energy supply (electricity and fossil fuel).
The forestry economic value is exclusively based on chestnut and oak wood production,
obtained by means of a low input traditional technique. Table 5 compares the local subsystems of
wood and chestnut production with an industrialized corn production system in Italy (Ulgiati and
Sciubba, 2003). Both production sectors do not require high-chemical input or intensive
mechanization. In addition, the cover crop practice, widely used in the area, contributes to the
reduction of soil erosion. Small soil surfaces are devoted to a low chemical input horticulture, mainly
to meet family needs. The exploitation of the chestnut sector provides an annual income of 4.54E+06
Table 2). In addition, the wood sector provides a constant annual income of 1.84E+05 Table 3). The
environmental loading ratio and emergy sustainability indicator values (Table 5) confirm the relatively
good sustainability of chestnut and wood production in the park area and a notable difference
compared to Italian industrialized corn production.
CONCLUSION
The combined use of emergy synthesis and geographical information systems (GIS) is capable of
providing synergic information on the dynamics of human-dominated systems at any level.
Environmental and landscape information from the GIS and economic and social information from
Table 4. Comparison of emergy based indicators for selected systems, year 2000.
Item
Item
Unit
Wine Spring Creek Roccamonfina

(North Carolina,
(Italy)
USA)*
Characteristics of system
1
2
3
4
Area
Population of area
Wood produced
Fraction derived from local
sources, renewable and
nonrenewable
Environmental Loading
5 Ratio (ELR)
6 Emergy density
7 Emergy use per person
8 Emergy Yield Ratio (EYR)
9 Emergy/GDP ratio
10 Sustainability index (ESI)
m2
people
J
seJ/m2/yr
seJ/person/yr
SeJ/
* Tilley and Swank, 2003
Cialani et al., 2004
-318-
Italy
Fully
environmental
Rural
National
industrialized
economy
1.13E+07
0.00E+00
4.10E+09
3.09E+07
3.82E+03
2.77E+13
3.01E+11
5.70E+07
n.a.
0.93
0.20
0.25
0.42
2.13E+08
n.a.
2.20
n.a.
5.24
9.31
1.65E+12
1.33E+16
1.25
1.27E+12
0.13
16.94
7.21E+12
3.75E+16
1.35
1.94E+12
0.08
Table 5. Comparison of selected photosynthetic production systems.

Item
Name of the flow
Fraction derived from local

sources
Ratio (ELR)
EMpower density
(seJ/m2/yr)
Emergy Yield Ratio (EYR)
Emergy/Money Value of
Product (seJ/)
Sustainability index
(EYR/ELR)
2
3
4
5
6
Wood production
Chestnut production
(Roccamonfina, 2000)
(Roccamonfina,
2000)
Corn
(Italy, 2000)*
0.57
0.67
0.12
0.87
0.60
7.42
3.86E+11
1.98
2.94E+11
2.63
4.70E+11
1.20
5.26E+12
1.21E+12
5.85E+12
2.27
4.41
0.16
* Ulgiati and Sciubba, 2003.
statistical databases can be fruitfully integrated within the conceptual framework of emergy synthesis,
contributing to local policy making, as well as to understanding the relationship between the local and
national economies. Results suggest that compatibility between some economic activities and
increasing environmental protection is possible, provided that the population density is relatively low
and that local renewable sources are used to a considerable extent. Sustainable economic activities can
provide economic support to the local population, thus preventing people from abandoning the area for
better living conditions. This relatively favorable situation could be further improved by starting the
procedure for EMAS and ISO 14001 (Eco Management and Audit Scheme, International Organization
for Standardization) certifications in the Roccamonfina area. As a consequence of this voluntary
process for environmental certification the environmental protection level of the area could be
increased and its natural capital reinforced.
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Costanza R., R. dArge, R. de Groot, S. Farberk, M. Grasso, B. Hannon, K. Limburg, S. Naeem, R.V.
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Henning, D., 1989. Atlas of the Surface Heat Balance of the Continents. Gebruder Borntrager, Berlin.
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Giampietro, R.A. Herendeen, and K. Mayumi, Editors. SGE Publisher, Padova, Italy. Pp. 629636.
Ministry of Finance, Government of Italy, 2004, Personal communication.
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Odum H.T. and Odum E.C., 1983. Energy Analysis Overview of Nations. WP-83-82; International
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Economics 41: 457-478.
Pimentel D., C. Wilson, C. McCullum, R. Huang, P. Dwen, J. Flack, A. Tran, T. Saltman, B. Cliff,
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Ruth, M. 1993. Integrating Economics, Ecology and Thermodynamics. Kluwer.
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Tyrrhenian Sea. Terra Nova 15 (6), 425-432.
-320-
APPENDIX I: CALCULATIONS FOR TABLE 1

1. Solar energy
Land Area
Insolation
Albedo of land
Land Energy (J/yr)
2. Wind kinetic energy
Wind energy on land
(Wind energy on land)(area)
= 3.09E+07 m2
[Ancitel database]
= 1.26E+02 Kcal/cm2/yr
[Campania Agro-Meteorological network]
= 0.20 (fraction of solar energy reflected)
[Henning, 1989]
= (land area)(avg. insolation)(1-albedo)
= 1.31E+17 J/yr
= 8.80E+06 J/m2/yr
= 2.72E+14 J/yr
3. Earth cycle (steady state uplift balanced by erosion)

Heat flow per area
= 1.71E+06 J/m2/yr
Land area
= 3.09E+07 m2
Energy (J/yr)
= (land area)(heat flow per area)
= 5.29E+13 J/yr
[Our estimate]
[Zito, 2003]
[Ancitel database]
4. Rain chemical potential (evapotranspired water)

Land Area
= 3.09E+07 m2
[Ancitel database]
Rain (average)
= 0.97 m/yr
[Campania Agro-Meteorological network]
Evapotranspiration rate from land = 0.400 (40% of total rainfall)
[ISTAT, 1991]
Evapotranspired water
= 0.39 m/yr
= 1.20E+13 g/yr
Gibbs energy of water
= 4.94 J/g
[Odum, 1996]
Total energy input to photosynthesis on land, measured by Gibbs energy of evapotranspired water
= 5.93E+13 J/yr
5. Rain, geopotential energy (runoff)
Area
= 3.09E+07 m2
[Ancitel database]
Rainfall
= 0.97 m/yr
Average Elevation
= 612 m [Ancitel database]
Runoff rate
= 0.600 (60% of total rainfall)
Total runoff water
= 0.58 m/yr
Total mass of water
= 1.80E+13 g/yr
Energy(J/yr)
= (area)(runoff rate)(water density)(avg. elevation)(gravity)
= 1.08E+14 J/yr
6. Loss of topsoil
(areas with mature untouched vegetation are assumed to have little net gain or loss of topsoil)
Farmed area subject to erosion
= 1.96E+07 m2
[Ancitel database]
Erosion rate of farmed area
= 2.00E+02 g/m2/yr
% organic in soil
= 3.00%
[Odum, 1996]
Ener. cont. per g organic
= 5.00 kcal/g
[Odum, 1996]
Net loss
= (farmed area)(erosion rate)
= 3.93E+09 g/yr
Energy of net loss (J/yr)
= (net loss)(% org.in soil)(5.0 Kcal/g)(4186 J/kcal)
= 2.47E+12 J/yr
7. Water from underground reservoirs
Total used
= 3.42E+11 g/yr
-321-
[Ancitel database]

Total free energy in water
= 4.94
= 1.69E+12 J/yr
[Odum, 1996]
8. Gasoline for agriculture

Total used
HHV of gasoline
Total energy from gasoline
= 3.40E+03 liters/year
= 3.51E+07 J/liter
= 1.19E+11 J/yr
[U.M.A. agency]
[Ellington et al, 1993, p. 408]
9. Diesel for agriculture

Total used
HHV of gasoline
= 3.56E+07 J/liter
= 3.68E+12 J/yr
[U.M.A. agency]
10. Gasoline for transport

Total used
HHV of gasoline
= 3.51E+07 J/liter
= 3.09E+13 J/yr
[local Q8 fuel station]

11. Diesel for transport

Total used
HHV of gasoline
= 3.56E+07 J/liter
= 1.53E+13 J/yr
[local IP fuel station]

12. Natural gas for domestic heating (70 % of demand met by means of local wood)
Total used
= 1.12E+06 m3 NG/yr
[Our estimate]
Mass of natural gas
= 7.84E+05 Kg/yr
Total energy
= 4.34E+13 J/yr
13. Electricity
Total used
Energy (J/yr)
= 7.75E+06 KWh/yr
= (Yearly Import)(3.6E+6 J/KWh)
= 2.79E+13 J/yr
14. Agricultural machinery (steel)

Number of tractors
= 62 units
Number of agric. Motorcycles
= 19 units
Average mass of tractors
= 9.00E+03 kg
Average mass of motorcycles
= 1.80E+02 kg
Fraction of machinery that is stee = 0.90
Average lifetime
= 10.00 yrs
Total steel in machinery
= 8.26E+05 g/yr
15. Agricultural machinery (plastic material and tires)
Number of tractors
= 62 units
Number of agric. Motorcycles
= 19 units
= 9.00E+03 kg
= 1.80E+02 kg
Fraction of machinery is plastics = 0.10
Average lifetime
= 10.00 yrs
Total plastics in machinery
= 9.18E+04 g/yr
-322-
[Ancitel database]
[U.M.A. agency]
[U.M.A. agency]
[Our assumption]
[Our assumption]
[U.M.A. agency]
[U.M.A. agency]
[Our assumption]
[Our assumption]
16. Transport machinery (steel)

Number of cars
Number of trucks and buses
Average mass of cars
Average mass of trucks & buses
Fraction of machinery is steel
Average lifetime
Total steel in transport machinery
= 1843 units
= 241 units
= 4.00E+02 kg
= 1.00E+04 kg
= 0.90
= 10.00 yr
= 9.36E+05 g/yr
17. Transport machinery (plastic material and tires)

Number of cars
= 1843 units
Number of trucks and buses
= 241 units
Average mass of cars
= 4.00E+02 kg
Average mass of trucks & buses = 1.00E+04 kg
Average lifetime
= 10.00 yrs
Total steel in transport machinery = 1.04E+05 g/yr
[Ancitel database]
[Ancitel database]
[Our assumption]
[Our assumption]
[Our assumption]
[Our assumption]
[Our assumption]
[Our assumption]
18. Textiles, clothes

Total population
= 3.82E+03 persons
[Ancitel database]
Average textile items per person per year
= 3.00E+03 g/person/yr
[Our estimate]
Total textiles, whole population
= 1.15E+07 g/yr
Energy content
= 1.50E+07 BTU/t
[Odum and Odum, 1987]
= (1.50E+7 BTU/t)(1055 J/BTU) =
= 1.58E+04 J/g
Total energy
= 1.81E+11 J/yr
19. Food items
Total population
Average food per person per day
Average food per person per year
Total import, whole population
Av. energy content of food items
Total energy in food items
= 3.82E+03 units
= 6.00E+02 g/day
= 2.19E+05 g/yr
= 8.37E+08 g/yr
= 5 kcal/g
= 20930 J/g
= 1.75E+13 J/yr
[Ancitel database]
[Our estimate]
[Our estimate]
[Our estimate]
20. Services associated to imports

[globally estimated as 40% of the emergy of purchased inputs, based on the national average]
Fraction of purchased emergy input that is services
= 0.30
[Est. on Italian average Cialani et al., 2004]
emergy of services
Services
= 8.74E+18 seJ/yr
= 4.88E+06 /yr
21. Taxes paid to Government (services for central administration, schools, health services, etc)
Total paid
= 1.85E+06 /yr
[Ministry of Finance]
22. Total economic product of area
Gross Area Product (GAP)
= 4.01E+07 /yr [Gross income available to local population]
-323-
23. Total population supported for one year

Average, last 5 years
= 3823 units/yr
[Ancitel database]
APPENDIX II: CALCULATIONS FOR TABLE 2

1. Solar energy
Land Area
Insolation
Albedo of land
Land Energy (J/yr)
Wind energy on land
= 1.93E+07 m2
[Ancitel database]
= 1.26E+02 Kcal/cm2/yr [Campania Agro-Meteor. network]
[Henning, 1989]
= 8.15E+16 J/yr
= 8.80E+06 J/m2/yr
[ISTAT 1991]
= (Wind energy on land)(area)
= 1.70E+14 J/yr

Heat flow per area
= 1.71E+06 J/m2/yr
Land area
= 1.93E+07 m2
Energy (J/yr)
= 3.30E+13 J/yr
[Zito, 2003]
[Ancitel database]

Land Area
= 1.93E+07 m2
[Ancitel database]
Rain (average)
= 0.97 m/yr
[Campania Agro-Meteor. network]
Evapotranspiration rate from land = 0.400 (40% of total rainfall)
[ISTAT 1991]
= 0.39 m/yr
= 7.49E+12 g/yr
= 4.94 J/g
[Odum, 1996]
= 3.70E+13 J/yr
Area
= 1.93E+07m2
[Ancitel database]
Rainfall
= 0.97 m/yr
[Campania Agro-Meteor. network]
Average Elevation
= 612 m
[Ancitel database]
Runoff rate
[ISTAT 1991]
Total runoff water
= 0.58 m/yr
Total mass of water
= 1.12E+13 g/yr
Energy(J/yr)
= 6.74E+13 J/yr
6. Loss of topsoil
Forest area subject to erosion
= 1.93E+07 m2
[Ancitel database]
Erosion rate of forest area
= 2.00E+02 g/m2/yr
% organic in soil
= 3.00%
[Odum, 1996]
= 5.00 kcal/g
[Odum, 1996]
Net loss
= (forest area)(erosion rate)
= 3.86E+09 g/yr
-324-

Total used
HHV of gasolina
Total energy from gasolina

= 2.42E+12 J/yr
= 3.51E+07 J/liter
= 1.13E+11
[U.M.A. agency]
[Ellington et al., 1993, p. 408]

Total used
Higher Heating Value of gasoline = 3.56E+07 J/liter
= 3.47E+12
[U.M.A. agency]

Number of tractors
= 58 units
Number of agricult. Motorcycles = 18 units
= 9.00E+03 kg
= 1.80E+02 kg
= 0.90
Average lifetime
= 10.00 yrs
= 8.26E+05 g/yr
[U.M.A. agency]
[U.M.A. agency]
[Our assumption]
[Our assumption]

Number of tractors
= 58 units
= 9.00E+03 kg
= 1.80E+02 kg
Average lifetime
=10.00 yrs
= 9.18E+04 g/yr
[U.M.A. agency]
[U.M.A. agency]
[Our assumption]
[Our assumption]
11. Labor
11.1 Active in agricolture
= 939 persons
[based on statistical data, several sources]
Fraction of time spent for chestnuts 15%
[Our estimate]
Total labour for chestnuts
= 141 work-years
= 8.89E+16 seJ
Services
= 4.96E+04 /yr
12. Forest production, chestnut
Total production
= 5.94E+09 g/yr
Caloric content of chestnut
= 1.60 Kcal/g
Fraction exported to market
= 0.90
Market value per Kg
= 0.85 /Kg
12.1 Production sold to outside market
= 5.35E+09 g/yr
12.2 Energy of exported production
= 3.58E+13 J/yr
12.3 Total market value
= 4.54E+06 /yr
[Municipality of Roccamonfina]
APPENDIX III: CALCULATIONS FOR TABLE 3

1. Solar energy
Land Area
= 2.63E+06 m2
-325-
[Ancitel database]
Insolation
Albedo of land
Land Energy (J/yr)
Wind energy on land
= 1.26E+02 Kcal/cm2/yr
[Campania Agro-Meteo network]
[Henning, 1989]
= 1.11E+16 J/yr
= 8.80E+06 J/m2/yr
= (Wind energy on land)(area)
= 2.31E+13 J/yr

Heat flow per area
= 1.71E+06 J/m2/yr
Land area
= 2.63E+06 m2
Energy (J/yr)
= 4.50E+12 J/yr
[ISTAT 1991]
[Zito, 2003]
[Ancitel database]

Land Area
= 2.63E+06 m2
[Ancitel database]
Rain (average)
= 0.97 m/yr
Evapotranspiration rate from land=0.400 (40% of total rainfall)
[ISTAT 1991]
= 0.39 m/yr
= 1.02E+12 g/yr
= 4.94 J/g
[Odum, 1996]
= 5.04E+12 J/yr
Area
= 2.63E+06 m2
[Ancitel database]
Rainfall
= 0.97 m/yr
Average Elevation
= 612 m
[Ancitel database]
Runoff rate
[ISTAT 1991]
Total runoff water
= 0.58 m/yr
Total mass of water
= 1.53E+12 g/yr
Energy(J/yr)
= 9.18E+12 J/yr
6. Loss of topsoil
Forest area subject to erosion
= 2.63E+06 m2
[Ancitel database]
Erosion rate of forest area
= 2.00E+02 g/m2/yr
% organic in soil
= 3.00%
[Odum, 1996]
= 5.00 kcal/g
[Odum, 1996]
Net loss
= (forest area)(erosion rate)
= 5.26E+08 g/yr
= 3.30E+11 J/yr
Total used
HHV of gasoline
= 3.51E+07 J/liter
= 6.88E+09
-326-
[U.M.A. agency]

Total used
HHV of gasolina
= 3.56E+07 J/liter
= 2.12E+11

Number of tractors
= 4 units
= 9.00E+03 kg
= 1.80E+02 kg
= 0.90
Average lifetime
= 10.00 yrs
= 8.26E+05 g/yr
Number of tractors
= 4 units
Number of agricult. motorcycles = 1 units
= 9.00E+03 kg
= 1.80E+02 kg
Average lifetime
= 10.00 yrs
= 9.18E+04 g/yr
[U.M.A. agency]
[U.M.A. agency]
[U.M.A. agency]
[Our assumption]
[Our assumption]
[U.M.A. agency]
[U.M.A. agency]
[Our assumption]
[Our assumption]
11. Labor and services

HUMAN LABOR (renewable for 9.5 %)
Active in agricolture
= 200 persons
Fraction of time spent for wood harvest = 20%
11.1 Total labour for wood
= 40 work-years
Services for imports
= 5.43E+15 seJ/yr
11.2 Services
= 3.03E+03 /yr
12. Forest production, wood
Total production
= 2.63E+09 g/yr
Caloric content of wood
= 3.60 Kcal/g
Fraction exported to market
= 0.70
Market value per Kg
= 0.10 /Kg
12.1 Production sold to outside market
= 1.84E+09 g/yr
12.2 Energy of exported production
= 2.77E+13 J/yr
12.3 Total market value
= 1.84E+05 /yr
-327-
-328-
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
25
An Emergy-Based Model for Diver Carrying Capacity
On Coral Reefs
ABSTRACT
During visits to coral reef locations, divers support the economy by spending money on goods
and services provided by local businesses. However, divers also impact reefs during their visits,
causing stress and reducing reef metabolism. In this presentation an emergy-based carrying capacity
model for regulating diver visits to coral reefs is described. The model predicts the optimal number of
divers that can visit a reef based on the balance between dollar value of their spending subsidy versus
the em-dollar equivalents of the metabolic stress they cause. The spending subsidy is calculated by
accounting for purchases made during diving trips, including food, lodging, and diving expenses. The
metabolic stress is calculated with graphical relationships of levels of stress impact on coral coverage
and of metabolism generated from coral coverage. The reduction of reef metabolism derived from the
graphical relationships is then converted into em-dollars with an emergy calculation. An application
of the model is presented with data gathered for the Red Sea coral reefs at Hurghada, Egypt. The
model indicates a carrying capacity of 13,000-14,000 dives/site/year, which is within the range of
values estimated by other methods.
INTRODUCTION
Recreational SCUBA diving is a rapidly growing component of the international tourist
industry. As coral reefs have become more accessible and facilities for visitors improved, the number
of people diving on this potentially fragile ecosystem has increased exponentially (Hawkins and
Roberts, 1993). With the increase in popularity of recreational SCUBA diving, physical damage
inflicted by divers and boat anchoring has increased significantly. As a result, reef degradation
attributed to diving pressure has become a widespread concern and risk that needs to be properly
assessed and that, in turn, requires effective management strategies.
Several previously described studies investigated how reef walking (Woodland and Hooper,
1997; Hawkins and Roberts, 1993; Liddle and Kay, 1987), snorkeling, and diving activities (Hawkins
and Roberts, 1992) damage coral tissue by either breakage or abrasion. These studies provided a
quantitative analysis of damage due to divers, who are thought to be the main cause of mortality at
frequently visited dive sites. Significant differences in coral cover between heavily used and so-called
pristine sites have been found. Riegl and Velimirov (1991) showed that in heavily dived sites, there
was more coral breakage, algal overgrowth, and tissue loss than in low frequency dive sites. Similarly,
Hawkins and Roberts (1992; 1993), showed that there was a significantly high number of damaged
colonies, loose fragments, and abraded coral colonies in heavily used dive sites. Furthermore,
increased sediment loading on the reef due to diving activities may stress the corals and lead to
mortality (Rogers, 1990).
Coral reefs are highly productive, diverse, and attractive ecosystems which, according to
Spurgeon (1992), provide a wide range of benefits for mankind. Nevertheless, reefs worldwide are
-329-
Chapter 25. An Emergy-Based Model for Diver
under siege, being damaged by over exploitation and indirect human impacts. Part of the problem
stems from the fact that the overall economic value of the coral reef is rarely considered and
appreciated. In this study, an emergy-based approach to investigate and estimate diver carrying
capacity on coral reef systems is proposed.
The carrying capacity model described predicts the optimal number of divers that can visit a
particular site based on the balance between dollar value of their spending subsidy and the em-dollar
equivalents of the metabolic stress they cause. The spending subsidy is calculated using average daily
expenditures of diver tourists. The metabolic stress is calculated from graphical relationships and
converted to em-dollars. The studys primary objective is to model what levels of use by divers could
be sustainable without harming Hurghadas economy, which is dependent on diving tourism.
Furthermore, it is hoped that the assessment results can be used as a basis for management plans that
aim to regulate dive operations and decrease diving pressure in the region.
STUDY SITE
Egypt lies at the northeastern tip of Africa. The Mediterranean Sea borders Egypt to the north
separating it from Europe, while the Red Sea, marking its eastern border, separates it from Asia
(Figure 1). Starting at its southern most tip, the straits of Bab El-Mandeb, literally known as Gate of
Lamentation, and ending by the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba to the north, the Red Sea has a
length of more than 2,250 km and a maximum depth of 3,040 m. This sea occupies a major zone of
depression and faulting known as The Great Rift Valley. From a historical standpoint, the earths crust
has been separating in this region for the last 50 million years, making the Red Sea a rare example of
an early stage in ocean development (Beltagi, 1997).
Extending between 13 degrees N and 30 degrees N, the Red Sea is characterized by warm
water temperatures, ranging from 21C to 30C, in its most northerly latitudes (Hawkins and Roberts,
1994). The depth of the Red Sea offers a quality of clarity that is due to very low levels of sediment resuspension and nutrient concentrations. Very low rainfall in the region and a lack of freshwater runoffs
are also responsible for low nutrient content, and hence, low planktonic activity. According to
Hawkins and Roberts (1994), the combination of calm seas, clear waters and rich marine life form the
basis for the Red Seas rising popularity as a tourist destination.
Figure 1. Geographical location of study site with respect to the Middle East.
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Diving tourism started to boom in the 1980s and almost a decade later the region witnessed a
veritable explosion of Red Sea tourism. With mainly water-based activities, Hurghada, on the Egyptian
Red Sea coast, became a prime destination with an economy thriving on the revenues generated by
diving operations. Over the last couple of decades, the town has been undergoing tremendous
development attributed to tourism and tourist villages now sprawl for almost the entire 60 km to the
neighboring Port of Safaga, south of the resort. Starting off as a small fishing village, Hurgahada is
now one of Egypts premiere resort cities.
The existing and proposed tourist facilities are huge and pose a major threat to the marine
natural resources in the region. Activities such as land reclamation and beach filling (to extend existing
beaches over reefs) are common, and consequently, the fringing reef that stretched along the entire
length of the coast has been completely degraded. Instead, soft sandy beaches are maintained to
accommodate visitors that are interested in other activities (e.g swimming and sun-bathing) and shorebased water sports. As a result, diving pressure has moved to offshore sites (40 sites). Only seven out
of those forty sites are located within bays or around offshore islands that protect them from northerly
winds and wave exposure, becoming more accessible to daily diving operations. Seventy percent of
diving activity is restricted to these seven sites. Considering the number of divers visiting Hurghada
every year, the potential impact could be detrimental to the fragile coral reefs in the region.
METHODS
Dose-Response Analysis
Dose-response relationships can be used to estimate the level of damage caused by a
particular stressor. Due to the lack of information regarding direct relationships between SCUBA
diving and coral health, a previously described general model illustrating the relationship between reef
stress and coral cover was used in this study (Figure 2). The model aggregates data from different
locales in the Caribbean and the Pacific equatorial belt quantifying the effects of different natural and
anthropogenic disturbances on coral reefs systems. Using that general analysis, Knowlton (1997)
shows that the relationship between reef stress and its cover is typically non-linear and a small increase
in stress level can result in a large decline in reef health over certain portions of the stress gradient. For
The effect of increasing diving pressure on coral
cover
100
% coral cover
90
80
70
60
50
40
0
20000
40000
60000
dives/site/year
Figure 2. A relationship between reef stress and coral cover.
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80000
100000
the purpose of our proposed model, it was assumed the cause of stress on Hurghadas offshore reefs is
related to diving activities. Since these offshore sites are less likely to be influenced by land-based
pollution and are subject to favorable sea and weather conditions all year round, the assumption that
SCUBA diving impact is the prime stressor, seems to be justified. The x-axis in Figure 2 quantified
diver use (# of dives/year) and was calibrated using aggregated data from South Africa, The
Caribbean, and the Northern Red Sea (Table 1). The y-axis, represented percentage coral cover and
was calibrated (with the same data) using percentage values assuming that there is 100% coverage at
zero dives/year (pristine conditions) and 0% coverage at a maximum number of dives/year
(maximum stress conditions). The pattern of the dose-response curve was then overlain on these axes
to estimate the damage caused by a particular level of diving.
The other relationship investigated for our proposed approach was between coral cover and
reef metabolism. Again, due to the lack of information in literature, a data set developed by Kinsey
(1991) was implemented to construct a graphical model. Kinsey presents a table for metabolic
performance of three main types of benthic substratum: continuous coral, algal pavement, and
sand/rubble (Table 2). We constructed a graph with this data set relating primary productivity (kg
C/m2/yr) to coral cover using linear regression (Figure 3). Coral cover was presented in percentage
values and the axis was calibrated using the three types of substratum, aforementioned, assuming that
continuous coral is 100% coverage, whereas, sand and rubble represents 0% coverage. The points on
the graph represent reef metabolism attributed to a particular level of coral coverage.
We related diver use and metabolic stress using these two different relationships (i.e. diver use
vs. coral cover and coral cover vs. metabolism), previously described. Different levels of diver use
were selected for determining the percent coral cover, using the first graphical representation (coral
cover vs. diver use). These percentages were then plugged into the second graphical representation
(coral cover vs. metabolism) and the primary productivity generated from the first curve was
estimated. Thus, reduction in reef metabolism due to diver related stress could be quantified. This
procedure was repeated several times at different stress levels (diver use) to generate an independent
data set of reef metabolism loss at different levels of diving. The reef metabolism values were then
converted into em-dollars using emergy-based calculations.
Table 1. Quantitative studies on effects of diver-related stress on coral reef systems.
Dose
Response
Location
Reference
0-25,000 dives/year
0-25% coral damage
South Africa
Schleyer & Tomalin 2000
1,000-4,000 dives/3 mo. 8-70% coral damage
Red Sea
Zakai & Chadwick-Furman 2002
400-19,000 dives/year
3-17% coral damage
Red Sea &

Caribbean
Hawkins & Roberts 1997
20-400 dives/6 mo.
2-18% soft coral;

1-11% stony coral damage
Chadwick-Furman 1997
Caribbean
Table 2. Standards for metabolic performance for three main types of benthic substratum (Source:
Kinsey 1991).
Substratum Type
Photosynthesis (g Cm-2 day-1)
Continuous coral
20
Algal pavement
5
Sand/rubble
1
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Re e f metabolism vs. coral cover
primary productivity (kg

C/m2/yr.)
8
y = 0.0656x
R2 = 0.9053
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
0
20
40
60
80
100
% coral cove r
Figure 3. Coral cover vs. metabolic performance.
Emergy Calculations
To simulate reduction in metabolism, we first determined reef metabolism at 100% coral
cover and converted that value to em-dollar equivalents as a starting or reference point. The calculation
was done as follows:
From the coral cover vs. metabolism graphical relationship (Figure 3), 100% coral cover yielded
5.4 KgC/m2/yr. To proceed with the emergy calculation, the metabolic value was converted to
Kcal/m2/yr and ultimately Joules/m2/yr using 10Kcal/gC and 4,184 J/Kcal (Odum, 1971), respectively.
The rate of flow of the input (i.e. metabolic value) was then multiplied by a solar transformity for
estuarine gross production (4.7 E3 sej/J; Odum, 1996) to determine empower. Accordingly, annual
em-dollar flow was calculated using 1.1 E12 sej/$ as the global emergy/money ratio (Brown and
Ulgiati, 1999). Finally, the em-dollar/m2/year index was applied to a typical dive site, assuming that
area swum by divers was 50m x 20m (Medio et al., 1997). The result was:
((5.4 KgC/m2/yr)(10Kcal/gC)(4184J/Kcal)(4.7 E3 sej/j)/(1.1 E12 sej/$))(1,000 m2/site) = $965.36.
The emergy calculation procedure was repeated at different levels of diver use. The em-dollar
values of coral reef metabolism at different stress levels was represented as a graphical relationship
relating revenues generated and numbers of dives/site/year.
RESULTS
The diver carrying capacity investigated in this study is a threshold point, which provides a
balance between metabolic loss describing ecological impact and economic gain attributed to revenues
generated by diving tourism in the region. Metabolic loss from an emergetic standpoint was
previously described. The spending subsidy of divers visiting Hurghada was graphically presented on
the same axis, assuming, on average, a diver spends $50 a day (expenses include dive trip, lodging,
and other daily expenditures; field data). The point where the metabolic loss curve and the spending
subsidy curve intersect represents a balance between these two factors defining the diver carrying
capacity under study (Figure 4). Quantitatively, the carrying capacity derived from the graphical
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Spending subsidy vs. metabolic loss
revenues 100$
10000
1000
revenues generated
by diving activities
em-dollar equivalents
of reef metabolism
100
10
1
0
10000 20000 30000 40000 50000

# dives/site/year
Figure 4. A graphical representation of economic gain vs. ecological impacts caused by intensive diving (point of
intersection represents a carrying capacity 13,000-14,000 dives/site/year).
representation exhibited a range of 13,000 14,000 divers/site/year. Theoretically, any level of use
lower than the threshold point determined represents more economic gain than metabolic loss.
However, beyond that range, the system will suffer more ecological impact than economic gain.

Population biologists and ecologists generally define the term carrying capacity or k as the
number of individuals of a given species that could be sustained indefinitely in a given area (Miller Jr.,
1996). In ecological terms, the size of a population in a given place and time is determined by the
interplay between its biotic potential and the habitats resistance. Because humans vary so widely in
their impact on life-supporting processes, social scientists added a second dimension, humans and
intensity of use, to the concept of carrying capacity (Odum 1997). Using this paradigm, Salm (1986)
introduced a new definition for the term carrying capacity, which he called tourist or diver carrying
capacity. The latter represents the number of tourists or divers a reef can tolerate without being
significantly degraded, accounting for ecological sustainability. For the purpose of our study, a
different perspective was added to the definition Salm introduced. Taking the regions economy into
account, we defined the term diver carrying capacity as the regional balance between the economic
benefits the divers contribute and their ecological impact. However, it is important to note that reef use
below or within the threshold range does not imply economic sustainability.
The diver carrying capacity value (13,000-14,000/site/year) estimated by the emergy-based
approach lies within the range of values described in literature. Dixon et al. (1994) analyzed coral
cover in the Bonaire Marine Park and estimated that the diver carrying capacity threshold for the
Bonaire Park is 4,000-6,000 dives/site/year. Similarly, Hawkins and Roberts (1997) surveyed percent
of damaged coral colonies in the Red Sea Ras Mohammed National Park and suggest 10,000-15,000
dives/site/year as a good rule of thumb. Sampling a variety of hard, soft, and hydro-corals,
Chadwick-Furman (1997) found the threshold for reef use in the US Virgin Islands to be 500
dives/site/year and attributed the significantly low estimate to the fragility of the community in the
study area.
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These reef carrying capacities can be used to effectively design and plan proposed tourist
development so it is in balance with potential diving generated economic revenues. However, these
indices are rarely considered by planners and developers, and coral reef managers have to fight
uphill battles to convince authorities involved to limit the volume of diving tourism. Since the
volume of diving tourism directly impacts local and regional economies, reef diver carrying capacity is
usually a very sensitive political and economic subject (Jameson et al., 1999). Understanding of this
subject by scientists, managers, and politicians is still very limited. Further region specific assessments
are encouraged for sustainable development.
In conclusion, a new emergy based measure of diver carrying capacity on coral reefs is
presented. The measure evaluates the balance between the positive and negative aspects of diver use in
a regional context. This approach can be used for policy development and management planning of
coral reef systems.
REFERENCES
Beltagi, A. 1997. Report on the oceanographic conditions in the coastal area of the Egyptian Red Sea.
GEF, Red Sea, Egypt.
Brown, M. and S. Ulgiati (1999). Emergy evaluation of the bioshere and natural capital. Ambio 28:
468-493.
Chadwick-Furman, N. 1997. Effects of SCUBA diving on coral reef invertebrates in the US Virgin
Islands: Implications for the management of diving tourism. Proc. 6th Int. Coelen. Biol. pp.91100.
Dixon, J., L. Scura, and T. Vant Hof. 1994. Ecology and micro-economics as joint products: The
Bonaire Marine Park in the Caribbean. In: C. Perrings et al. (eds) Biodiversity Conservation:
problems and politics. Kluwer Academic Press, Dordrecht
Hawkins, J. and C. Roberts. 1992. Effects of recreational SCUBA diving on fore-reef: Slope
communities of coral reefs. Biological Conservation. 62: 171-178.
Hawkins, J. and C. Roberts. 1993. Effects of recreational SCUBA diving on coral Reefs: Trampling of
reef flat communities. Journal of Applied Ecology 30: 25-30.
Hawkins, J. and C. Roberts. 1994. The growth of coastal tourism in the Red Sea: present and future
effects on coral reefs. Ambio 23: 503-508.
Hawkins, J. and C. Roberts. 1997. Estimating the carrying capacity of coral reefs for SCUBA diving.
Proc. 8th Int. Coral Reef Symp. 2: 1923-1926.
Jameson, S., M. Ammar, E. Saadalla, H. Mostafa, and B. Riegl (1999). A coral damage index and its
application to dive sites in the Egyptian Red Sea. Coral Reefs 18: 333-33
Kinsey D. 1991. The coral reef: an owner-built, high density, fully serviced, self sufficient, housing
estate in the desert: Or is it? In: Terence, J., J. Ogden, W. Weibe and B. Rosen. 1996.
Functional roles of biodiversity: a global perspective. (eds.) Mooney, H., J. Cushman, E.
Medina, O. Salsa, and E.-D.Schulze. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Knowlton, N. 1997. Hard decisions and hard science: research needs for coral reef management In:
Coral Reefs: Challenges And Opportunities For Sustainable Management. Proc. 5th Annual
World Bank Conferenceon Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Management. pp. 183187.
Liddle, M. and A. Kay. 1987. Resistance, survival, and recovery of trampled corals on The Great
Barrier Reef. Biological Conservation 42: 1-18.
Medio D., R. Ormond, and M. Pearson. 1997. Effect of briefings on rates of damage to corals by
SCUBA divers. Biological Conservation 79: 91-95.
Miller, Jr., T. 1996. Living In The Environment. Wadsworth Publishing Company. pp. 727.
Odum, E. P. 1971. Fundamentals Of Ecology, 3rd ed. W.B. Saunders Co., Philadelphia, PA.
Odum, E.P. 1997. Ecology: A Bridge Between Science and Society. Sinauer Associates, Inc.,
Sunderland, Massachussetts. pp. 330.
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Odum, H.T. 1996. Environmental Accounting, Emergy, and Decision making. J. Wiley and Sons.
New York. pp. 370.
Riegl, B. and B. Velimirov. 1991. How many damaged corals in Red Sea reef systems? A quantitative
survey. Hydrobiologia 216/217: 249-256.
Rogers, C. S. 1990. Responses of coral reefs and reef organisms to sedimentation. Mar.Ecol. Prog.
Ser. 62: 185-202.
Salm, R.V. 1986. Coral reefs and tourist carrying capacities: the Indian Ocean Experience. UNEP
Ind. Environ. 9: 11-14.
Schleyer, M. and B. Tomalin. 2000. Damage on South African coral reefs and an assessment of their
sustainable diving capacity using a fisheries approach. Bull.Mar.Sci. 67: 1025-1042.
Spurgeon, J.P. 1992. The economic valuation of coral reefs. Mar. Poll. Bull. 24: 529 536.
Woodland, D. and N. Hooper. 1997. The effect of human trampling on coral reefs. Biological
Conservation 11: 1-4.
Zakai, D. and N. Chadwick-Furman. 2002. Impacts of intensive recreational diving on reef corals at
Eilat, Northern Red Sea. Biological Conservation 105: 179-187.
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
26
Emergy Evaluation of Welfare: A Case Study in Italy
ABSTRACT
The combined expressions of human behaviour affect the external environment in different
ways that can be measured and evaluated by means of several approaches and indicators. Emergy
evaluation is a suitable tool for measuring the real impact of human activity on a territory as a result
of resource use.
In order to provide a complete picture of a socio-economic system, other indicators should be
considered, such as the economic performance of the system; for example, the local GDP. While GDP
is a purely economic indicator for an anthropogenic system, other instruments are more suitable for
measuring the socio-economic aspects, such as welfare. In particular, the Index of Sustainable
Economic Welfare (ISEW) was introduced in 1989 by Herman Daly and John Cobb Jr. as a critical
alternative measure of quality of life. The results of its applications in various countries reveal that
today GDP and ISEW (both expressed in monetary terms) vary considerably. Since the latter accounts
for the social and environmental implications and damage produced by human activities, it often
results in lower values than those for GDP.
This paper presents the results of emergy evaluation for a territorial system: the Province of
Siena (central Italy), together with its ISEW, which is calculated for the first time at a local level. The
aim is to determine the environmental cost of welfare within a socio-economic system by observing the
ratios of emergy to GDP and to ISEW.
INTRODUCTION
Emergy evaluation, calculated for a given territorial area, provides an accounting system for
all the inputs supporting all the processes, both natural and anthropogenic, within the territory. In
general, it is arduous to ascertain the sustainability of a geographically circumscribed system, which is
only separated from its surroundings by administrative boundaries. However, to supply policy-makers
with guidelines concerning the proper management of resources and land in such systems, analytical
tools must be developed to evaluate the behaviour of the populace of a territory. Assigning a nonmarket value to assets allows for a deeper knowledge of the system and may encourage the efficient
management of resources from a sustainability perspective. An emergy approach may also be chosen
to drive the development of a system, not as an alternative, but as a complementary tool with respect to
traditional national (or even local) accounting instruments. There is a substantial difference between
attaching a value to resources through emergy evaluation and assigning them a market price. Emergy
determines the weight of a good or a service on the basis of a common unit (for example, solar
energy), which is objective. On the contrary, a market price is the product of the individual preferences
and benefits expressed by producers and consumers. Furthermore, emergy methodology embraces all
the assets involved in a process, while economic systems evaluate assets without market relevance
only indirectly. Therefore, a variety of methodologies are most likely to bring together a set of
parameters capable of guiding decisions in terms of land use, resource management and territorial
planning by policy-makers.
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Chapter 26. Emergy Evaluation of Welfare
From the theoretical perspective, in-depth research into the relationship between economic
and emergy evaluations and their interaction is still required. In particular, this paper presents a
comparison of the environmental performance of a territorial system measured in terms of emergybased indicators, and its economic performance in terms of GDP (in this case study at the local level,
we will use a measure of local GDP). Furthermore, in order to reveal a complete panorama of the
system, additional aspects will be considered. While GDP is a purely economic indicator of wealth,
other instruments are more suitable when measuring the socio-economic aspects, such as welfare, of an
anthropogenic system. In other words, GDP is strongly linked to economic or technological conditions
and it does not completely reflect the extent of social well-being that a local populace truly enjoys. On
the contrary, it is necessary to introduce a measure of regional well-being which might be compared
with the local GDP. In 1989, the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) was introduced by
Herman Daly and John Cobb Jr. as a critical alternative measure of welfare with respect to GDP. Since
then, many studies have been published at the national level (see, for example, Stockhammer et al,
1997; Guenno and Tiezzi, 1998; Castaeda, 1999), together with some critical (Neumayer, 1999,
2000) or supporting (England, 1998; Lawn, 2003) positions regarding this indicator. This paper
represents the first local application of the ISEW and investigates the implications arising from a
comparison of the ratios of emergy to local GDP and emergy to ISEW. Our aim is to give a qualitative
dimension to the outcome of economic and emergy evaluations concerning the behaviour of a
populace within a territorial system.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Emergy and Economics
The results of an emergy evaluation at a territorial level can be related to several economic or
socio-economic parameters such as GDP, employment, the import of goods and services, industrial
and urban settlements. In particular, the so-called emergy/money ratio, attained by dividing total
annual emergy use (the sum of indigenous resources used and imports) by the gross economic product,
is defined as the amount of real wealth that circulating money buys (Odum, 1996, p. 202). The
emergy/money ratio might also be useful for evaluating the emergy contribution in goods and
services where data are given in dollars. The inverse of the emergy/money ratio, vice versa, may be
calculated to put emergy wealth in economic terms familiar to most people (Odum, 1996, p. 312). In
general, the emergy/money ratio can indicate the amount of resources supporting the economic
performance of a territorial system. However, when dealing with sustainability, the meaning of its
value is not univocal and depends on several factors such as the makeup of emergy (its percentage of
renewability and non renewability, its dependence on other ecosystems, etc.) and economic results (the
foreseen outcome of private consumption, investments and public expenditure). In particular, while
GDP is a good indicator of the capacity of the system to generate marketable products and a good
measure of this aspect of its economic performance, at the same time, it is not a sustainability indicator
because it does not account for numerous factors that are fundamental to environmental, social and
even economic sustainability. Emergy accounting is useful in revealing assets not contemplated by
economic accounting systems, but must be related to other indicators capable of providing additional
qualitative information.
The Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare

As an alternative to the GDP, the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare is a list of
economic, social and environmental factors that provide an integrated index of economic welfare. The
ISEW methodology was introduced by Daly and Cobb (1989) with the purpose of adjusting GDP in
order to produce a more accurate measure of economic well-being (Castaeda, 1999). It can also
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provide necessary information for drawing up good economic policy, calculating its impact on the
environment and its sustainability. Daly and Cobb tried to design an aggregate measure of welfare by
arguing that the flow of services to the populace from all sources, rather than the output of marketable
commodities, is indicative of economic welfare (England, 1998).
The ISEW calculation starts with private consumption, which is directly connected to wellbeing, and incorporates some adjustments to official variables of GDP in order to obtain the
sustainable flow of useful services. Then private consumption is adjusted on the basis of Ginis index
of income distribution to account for social inequality. This index is based on the principle that an
additional thousand dollars in income adds more to the welfare of a poor family than it does to a rich
family (Daly and Cobb, 1989, p. 445). Hence, this revised level of consumption expenditure is more
representative of the real well-being of a population.
Afterwards, the factors that are considered to have a positive effect on welfare are added to
the adjusted private consumption, while those that are considered to have a negative effect on welfare
are subtracted from it. For example, positive benefits include services, which depend on domestic
labor, durable goods and the transportation network. Negative items include health and private
education costs (because they are defensive expenditures), costs for the acquisition of durable goods,
the cost of commuting and road accidents. Other costs include environmental damage such as air,
water and noise pollution, the loss of farmland and wetlands, long-term environmental damage and the
depletion of non-renewable resources, since in general, the consumption of natural capital corresponds
to a cost for future generations that should be subtracted from the account of the present generation.
The result of the whole calculation is expressed in monetary terms and can be compared to GDP.
Several experiences with national-level analyses show how in recent decades the level of ISEW is
decreasing relative to a growing level of GDP. In other words, economic growth does not necessarily
indicate a real increase in well-being, as measured by the ISEW.
The ISEW index has been criticized in the literature. For example, we may consider
comments by Eric Neumayer (1999, 2000) concerning the arbitrary selection of certain variables to be
included or excluded from the index, the method of calculation and the idea that the GDP is not an
indicator of economic welfare when, in reality, it is compiled as an indicator of total economic
productive output. However, as Daly has said, ISEW is like putting a filter on a cigarette. Its better
than nothing (England, 1998, p. 101).
CASE STUDY: THE PROVINCE OF SIENA

Description of Study Site
The Province of Siena is located in Tuscany, has a population of 252,972 (in 1999) and
comprises 36 municipalities. It is one of the largest provinces in Italy. The main economic activities
are tourism, trade, banking and agriculture with a very low level of industrial activity, with the
exception of several mines and a renowned crystal-making district. The main commercial products are
wine (Brunello di Montalcino, Chianti, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and Vernaccia di San
Gimignano), cheese and olive oil. In 1999, in a survey published by the most authoritative Italian
financial and economic newspaper, Il Sole 24 ore (1999), Siena was ranked 9th among 103 Italian
Provinces for its quality of life. Moreover, in the Province of Siena there are three UNESCO World
Heritage sites: San Gimignano, Siena and Pienza. These are much more than tourist attractions because
they require a strict policy to preserve and maintain their natural and historical integrity (OECD,
2002).
Emergy evaluation for the Province of Siena

In order to assess the sustainability of the Province of Siena, an environmental accounting
methodology, such as emergy evaluation, is necessary due to the complexity of the system. All the
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results of the analysis were compiled as part of the SPIn-Eco Project1. The collection of raw data first
shows which inputs support all the activities inside the system. All the inputs (expressed in terms of
energy or mass) are converted into solar emjoules and then aggregated as either renewable (R), non
renewable (N) or imported (F). Finally, some synthetic indicators are calculated. Table 1 presents both
the emergy flows and the indicators calculated for the Province of Siena.
The most relevant values are related to the exploitation of local non-renewable resources, in
particular the materials extracted from the earths crust, and to the importing of both the energy (F1)
and goods and services (F2) necessary to support the needs of the population rather than the local
productive system. However, a visible imbalance emerges between local resources and those that are
purchased, which respectively account for 71% and 29% of total emergy. Local renewables represent
8.57% of total emergy, due to the environmental inputs and the use of geothermal heat to produce
electricity (which is partially renewable).
The ELR (10.65) and ED (2.53x1012 sej/m2 per year) values reflect contained exploitation of
the territory, and are some of the lowest values ever seen in Italian systems thus far (Niccolucci et al.,
2003). These results are representative of a system with an economic structure principally centred on
services and tourism and mostly characterized by small artisan undertakings. The EPP (3.83x1016
sej/person per year) may be considered to represent resource availability in the case of renewable
resources and resource consumption in the case of non-renewable resources. In the Province of Siena
the EPP is relevant and highly dependent on non-renewables, but the low level of population density
Table 1. Emergy flows and indicators for the Province of Siena.
Expression
Unit
Province
of
Siena
Emergy flows
Local renewable sources
sej/year
0.83x1021
Local non-renewable sources
sej/year
5.98x1021
Imported energy
F1
sej/year
1.69x1021
Purchased goods
F2
sej/year
1.18x1021
F = F1 + F2
sej/year
2.87x1021
U=R+N+F
sej/year
9.68x1021
(N + F) / R
10.65
U / area
sej/m /year
2.53x1012
U / population
sej/person/year
3.83x1016
R +N+F / F
3.38
Emergy flows and indicators
Total imported emergy

Total emergy Use
Emergy Indicators
Environmental loading ratio (ELR)
Emergy density (ED)
Emergy used per person (EPP)
Emergy yield ratio (EYR)
The SPIn-Eco project (Sustainability study of the Province of Siena based on ecodynamic indicators) is an
ambitious three-year research program whose purpose is to assess the sustainability of human impact on the
Province of Siena (Italy) and in all its 36 municipalities by means of several approaches such as Emergy
Evaluation, Ecological Footprint calculations, Exergy Analysis, Greenhouse Gas Inventory, Remote Sensing
Analysis and Life Cycle Assessment.
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should also be considered, given the low levels of ELR and ED. The EYR value (3.38) confirms that
the Province of Siena can clearly be labelled a consumer of local resources, rather than a transformer
of imported goods and services.
In general, the low level of environmental stress is the result of a territorial settlement (urban
and productive) that is highly integrated with the features of the territory. Nowadays, natural resources
do not represent a limiting factor, but rather contribute to the richness of the territory.
The ISEW for the Province of Siena

The results of emergy evaluation are strengthened by the calculation of the ISEW for the
Province of Siena, expressed in monetary terms. Table 2 lists all the factors considered, in particular
those which most influence the final value: among marketable commodities, expenditures for durable
consumer goods like cars, TVs and washing machines; among environmental items, the most
significant value is that of exhaustible resources depreciation calculated by considering mined products
such as sand, clay, gravel, limestone, marble and travertine. Household services provide another very
interesting figure, even if they are not methodologically included in the traditional economic
accounting system.
The final result demonstrates the difference between the value of the ISEW with respect to
local GDP, with the former representing approximately 71% of the latter. This gap arises from the
different ways in which the two indicators are calculated: GDP value is obtained by considering
merely economic evidence; the ISEW, on the contrary, gives a more realistic and qualitative view of
local or national economic welfare and for this reason can supply data to supplement GDP.
Furthermore, the results of ISEW and Emergy Evaluation are similar in kind: ISEW methodology
supports environmental analysis better than GDP, as it takes into account elements that are not
influenced by market prejudices.
DISCUSSION
The natural extension of the study is a comparison between the environmental work
supporting the territorial system (measured in solar emjoules) and the economic parameters related to
human activity (local GDP and ISEW measured in monetary terms). The ratio of Emergy to local GDP
for the Province of Siena in 1999 was 2.15 x1012 sej/. This is typical of a territory dedicated to
commerce, service and tourism rather than industry, since a good portion of income is produced
without great exploitation of resources. However, the Emergy/GDP ratio presents the same lack of
qualitative information as GDP concerning the actual living conditions of the population. Even emergy
sometimes gives a slanted view of development trends. In other words, GDP and Emergy give
information about how much is produced in monetary terms or how many resources are used over a
period, but they do not specify anything about the different ways in which money is spent or resources
are used. In order to direct policy-making towards sustainable development, it is necessary to integrate
additional elements such as, for example, the value of ISEW. The ratio of Emergy to ISEW for the
Province of Siena in 1999 is 3.01x1012 sej/. It is higher than Emergy/GDP by 40%, indicating that
only a fraction of the emergy necessary to obtain a certain level of market wealth, as measured by
GDP, is translated into real well-being. This last ratio might be a good indicator for policy-makers
because it illustrates how much social or environmental degradation is related to the use of the
resources supporting the local lifestyle.
Even if the two indicators are both expressed in sej/, they do not represent the same
information (i.e. the relative purchasing power of a monetary unit), because they are the result of
different calculations. The difference between the Emergy/GDP and Emergy/ISEW ratios is similar to
the difference between growth and development, so the application of this integrated methodology
might help to determine the point beyond which economic growth becomes dis-economic and why this
takes place.
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Table 2. Calculation of ISEW for the Province of Siena.

Items
Values (in Euro, )
Year
1999
Personal consumption expenditure
Index of distribution inequality (adimensional)
Weighted personal consumption expenditure [=B/(1+C)]
(+)
2,676,060,404
Services of domestic labour
(+)
931,977,688
Consumer durables services
(+)
1,604,156,791
Services of road and highways
(+)
1,755,953
Public expenditure on health and education
(+)
82,392,693
Expenditures on consumer durables
(-)
676,984,208
Defensive private expenditures on health and education
(-)
115,129,206
Local advertising expenditure
(-)
Data not available
Cost of commuting
(-)
203,306,989
Cost of urbanisation
(-)
30,595,423
Cost of car accidents
(-)
2,944,063
Cost of water pollution
(-)
581,964
Cost of air pollution
(-)
531,166
Cost of noise pollution
(-)
NA
Loss of wetlands*
(+)
7,224
Loss of agricultural land
(-)
11,089,879
Exhaustible resources depreciation
(-)
1,034,711,527
Long-term environmental damage
(-)
328,884
Net capital growth
(+)
52,374
Local ISEW (= sum of all positive and negative items)
Local ISEW per capita
Local GDP
Local GDP per capita
3,492,258,828
0.305
3,220,199,819
12,729
4,510,000,000
17,836
Population
252,972
* In 1999, an increase in wetlands was computed by the statistical office of the Province of Siena.
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CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

The development of ISEW methodology was corroborated during the 90s by ecological
economists who addressed the environmental problems correlated to economic growth. In particular,
Max-Neef (1995) proposed a so-called threshold hypothesis stating that economic growth brings
about an improvement in the quality of life, but only up to a point beyond which, if there is more
economic growth, the quality of life may begin to deteriorate. One of the most efficient methods for
preventing such problems and damage is to support economic analysis with environmental analysis
such as emergy evaluation. In the course of this paper we have explained why it is appropriate to
measure the economic performance of a system together with its environmental condition, and how an
approach aimed at determining the economic wealth of a system differs from an approach aimed at
determining well-being. We consider Max-Neefs threshold hypothesis of utmost importance, since
even in a territorial system subjected to a low level of environmental stress, a substantial fraction of the
expenditures (emergy or Euro) supporting market activity can either fail to support or undermine the
populations well-being. As this calculation had never previously been carried out at the local level, in
future research we aspire to process a larger set of data representing more districts and longer time
series.
REFERENCES
Castaeda, B.E. 1999. An index of sustainable economic welfare (ISEW) for Chile. Ecological
Daly, H.E. and Cobb, J.B. 1989. For the common good. Beacon Press, Boston.
England, R.W. 1998. Measurement of social well-being: alternatives to gross domestic product.
Ecological Economics 25: 89-103.
Guenno, G. and Tiezzi, S. 1998. The Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) for Italy.
Worknote 5.98. Fondazione Enrico Mattei, Milano, Italy.
Il Sole 24Ore (Italian financial newspaper). 1999. Dossier - La qualit della vita., December 27th: 2540.
Lawn, P.A. 2003 A theoretical foundation to support the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare
(ISEW), Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), and other related indexes. Ecological Economics
44: 105-118.
Max-Neef, M. 1995. Economic growth and quality of life: a threshold hypothesis. Ecological
Neumayer, E. 1999. The ISEW - not an index of sustainable economic welfare. Social Indicators
Research 48: 1, 77-101.
Neumayer, E. 2000. On the methodology of ISEW, GPI and related measures: some constructive
suggestions and some doubt on the threshold hypothesis. Ecological Economics 34: 347361.
Niccolucci, V., Ridolfi, R. and Facchini, A. 2003. The emergy analysis of the Province of Siena in the
SPIn-Eco project. In Ecosystems and Sustainable Development IV (E. Tiezzi, C.A. Brebbia,
J.L. Us eds.), WIT Press, Southampton, pp. 377-385.
Wiley & Sons, New York.
OECD 2002. Territorial Reviews. Siena Italy. OECD, Paris.
Stockhammer, E., Hochreiter, H., Hobermayr, B. and Steiner, K. 1997. The index of sustainable
economic welfare (ISEW) as an alternative to GPD in measuring economic welfare. The
result of the Austrian (revised) ISEW calculation, 1955 - 1992. Ecological Economics 21: 1934.
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
27
Emergy and Socio-Ecological Principles in Sustainability
Assessment: Methodological Considerations from a
Wastewater Treatment Case Study
Erik Grnlund, Anders Klang, and Per-ke Vikman
ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on the methodological aspects for emergy analysis (EA) and socioecological principles (SEP) methods that were previously used for sustainability assessment in a
wastewater treatment case study (Grnlund et al. 2004). Grnlund et al. (2004) constructed a model of
a microalgae wastewater treatment plant (ALGA), located in Sweden at latitude 60N, and tested it by
comparing it to both a conventional three-step treatment plant and a mechanical and chemical
treatment plant complemented with a constructed wetland. Based on a chosen framework (the R
framework) defining sustainability and sustainable development and the results from the two
assessment methods, the ALGA model was considered to have a better position for sustainable
development than the other two. In this paper the performance of the methods are compared,
including a discussion on how they relate to the concept of sustainability, which reveals different
underlying views on the concept of sustainability and uncertainties in the methodological procedures.
The SEP method fits well into the chosen framework of sustainability, while the EA method is more
open to other definitions of sustainability. Regardless of some fundamental differences between the
methods, the ranking of different options were identical in the case study. This result may appear
reassuring, but the methodological discussion clearly suggests that more studies are needed on the
operationalization of sustainable development and the related tools for its assessment.
INTRODUCTION
Grnlund et al. (2004) made an attempt to assess the sustainability of a microalgal wastewater
treatment model (ALGA) by comparing it to two existing treatment plants, using two different
assessment methods - emergy analysis (EA) and a socio-ecological principles method (SEP) in the
context of the framework (from here labelled the R framework) for sustainability assessment
developed by Robrt (2000) and Robrt et al. (2002). This paper compares the two methods and their
application to sustainability assessment.
Sustainability The Final Frontier

Many methods for assessing sustainability relate to the general definition of sustainable
development expressed by the Brundtland Commission (1987) as, development that meets the needs
of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This
general definition is often quoted, but also often criticized for being too anthropocentric and vague
(Carter 2001). Research to determine how to define the needs that must be fulfilled has been carried
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Chapter 27. Emergy and Socio-Ecological Principles...
out and often relates to the work regarding basic human needs by Manfred Max-Neef and Abraham
Maslow (Hland 1999, Vikman 2001).
Lately sustainability has become an important factor when discussing wastewater treatment
techniques. As in many other fields there is no generally accepted method for assessing sustainability
of wastewater treatment; many different approaches have been used by different authors. Sustainability
of wastewater treatment has been discussed from a life cycle analysis perspective by Bengtsson et al.
(1997), from an exergy perspective by Hellstrm and Krrman (1997), from an emergy perspective by
Bjrklund (2000), and Geber and Bjrklund (2001), and from a system analysis perspective by Chen
and Beck (1997) and Hellstrm et al. (2000).
THE CASE STUDY

The following case study is reported in full in Grnlund et al. (2004). This section only
provides the minimum information necessary to follow the discussion in part 3.
The Compared Wastewater Treatment Plants

In the case study a microalgae wastewater treatment plant model (ALGA), presented below,
was compared to two existing wastewater treatment plants: the Surahammar treatment plant (WWTP)
and the Oxelsund treatment plant (TP+CW). These plants are located at approximately latitude 60N
in the middle of Sweden and serve approximately 10,000 persons. The WWTP is a conventional threestep plant, with mechanical treatment, followed by simultaneous biological active sludge treatment and
chemical phosphorous precipitation with iron sulfate. The sludge is treated anaerobically in a digester
and the biogas produced is used to produce electricity for the treatment plants internal use. The
TP+CW uses mechanical treatment followed by chemical precipitation with aluminum sulfate. The
sludge is treated anaerobically in a digester. Due to higher demands on nitrogen reduction, the plant
was complemented with a wetland of 22 ha, consisting of two parallel systems of shallow vegetated
ponds, intermittently loaded. The WWTP and TP+CW were described and evaluated by Bjrklund et
al. (2001) and Geber and Bjrklund (2001).
The ALGA model was designed to be comparable to the WWTP and the TP+CW. It was,
therefore, designed to serve 10,000 people and to operate under the same climatic conditions as the
other plants. The main microalgae treatment step, the high-rate pond (HRP), was assumed to perform
from late April to early October, about 5.5 months. Therefore, the first pond in the ALGA model, the
facultative pond, was designed to have a storage capacity of 6.5 months. The ALGA model was
assumed to produce approximately 1 vertical meter of microalgae biomass sludge in the algae settling
pond (ASP) per year, which was dewatered (to minimize the transportation of the sludge to landfill) by
freeze-thawing on a gravel bed, as was also done to the primary sludge from the facultative pond. A
graphic view of the ALGA model is given in Figure 1.
The Sustainability Framework

A framework for sustainability principles and for monitoring of sustainable development was
suggested by Robrt (2000) and Robrt et al. (2002) (here labeled the R framework). According to this
framework, five hierarchical levels can be identified and should be distinguished when discussing
sustainability. The first three R framework levels (RFL) are:
RFL 1. The constitution of the system (e.g. ecological and social principles).
RFL 2. A favorable outcome of planning within the system (principles of sustainability).
RFL 3. The process to reach the favorable outcome (sustainable development). A plan of action is
developed to attain the favorable outcomes.
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The fourth level (RFL 4) is the action level, which includes recycling and switching to renewable
energy. The fifth level (RFL 5) is the monitoring and audit level, where, for example, indicators are
used to determine if RFL 4 actions are in compliance with principles for the desirable process set up at
RFL 3 and to determine the status of the system. The two methods for assessing sustainability used in
this case study are both part of RFL 5.
The Socio- Ecological Principles (SEP) Method

One of the chosen methods is based on the four socio-ecological principles or systems
conditions (hereafter named SCs) given by Holmberg et al. (1996), which state that:
In a sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematically increasing,
SC 1. concentrations of substances extracted from the earth's crust,
SC 2. concentrations of substances produced by society,
SC 3. degradation by physical means (decreasing biocapacity),
and, in that society:
SC 4. human needs are met world-wide.
These SCs are part of level 2 (RFL 2) in the R framework described above, but Azar et al. (1996) have
suggested that the SCs can be used as a basis for developing indicators to evaluate and monitor
Figure 1. The ALGA model graphic view of area relations. Figure from Grnlund et al. (2004).
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sustainability and sustainable development at the 5th level (RFL 5). This is done by assessing to what
degree an activity violates each of the four SCs. The activity that least violates the four SCs is
considered to be in a better position to initiate or continue a process of sustainable development (RFL
3), leading to sustainability (RFL 2).
The SC 1 implies that rare elements in the ecosphere often cause trouble, even if taken from
the lithosphere in only small amounts. It also implies that large amounts from the lithosphere of
substances common in the ecosphere also often cause trouble. Azar et al. (1996) suggest the use of
lithospheric extraction rates (human extraction per natural weathering and volcanic activity) and
accumulated lithospheric extraction (accumulation in the technosphere compared to ecospheric
content) as possible indicators to estimate the status of SC 1. For the sustainability analysis in this
case, indicators of the former type were used in a quantitative method to assess which of the three
suggested treatment systems violates the SC 1 the most (Grnlund et al. 2004).
SC 2 points to substances produced in the technosphere, foreign to natures decomposing and
recirculation system, and therefore often persistent and accumulative in nutrient chains and loops. SC 2
also refers to substances that exist naturally, but for which the anthropogenic emissions threaten to
disturb or disrupt natural cycles. Indicators relating anthropogenic production of these substances to
natural production have been suggested as one way of monitoring this aspect of sustainability (Azar et
al. 1996). The underlying assumption is that as long as the anthropogenic production is only a fraction
of the amount released from natural production, the risk of environmental damage as a result of
anthropogenic influence is low. In the case study, violations of SC 2 were addressed with a qualitative
approach (Grnlund et al. 2004). Specifically, attention was paid to the use of chemicals in the
wastewater treatment.
SC 3 recognizes that it is not enough to protect the ecosphere systems from increasing
amounts of disturbing substances; the systems size must also be maintained, to not reduce the
physical conditions for the long-term production capacity in the ecosphere or the diversity of the
biosphere (Azar et al. 1996). To assess a systems performance in accordance with SC 3, the total
area of land changed by human structures was used, as suggested by Azar et al. (1996). That is land
covered by concrete, asphalt or other biologically non-productive surfaces.
While the first three conditions concentrate on maintaining life supporting ecosphere systems,
the 4th condition complements them, with the recognition of the problems associated with a growing
global population and uneven distribution of life-supporting wealth. To meet the needs of people living
today with a low standard of living and tomorrows increased population, our use of resources must be
more efficient and more equally distributed both among and within human societies. Violations of SC
4 were evaluated in a semi-quantitative way by comparing the different systems use of available free
resources as opposed to the use of human made, unevenly distributed resources (Grnlund et al. 2004).
The Emergy Analysis (EA) Method

The emergy evaluation method (Odum 1996) was chosen because there were different
contributing factors important to the wastewater treatment systems and this method is able to compare
these different types of inputs with emergy as the common unit. There is no generally accepted method
to assess sustainability by emergy evaluation. Many authors discuss sustainability using emergy
indices (e.g., total resource use, percent indigenous renewable, percent import). Many of these indices
were suggested by Brown and Ulgiati (1997) and Ulgiati and Brown (1998), who also introduced an
Emergy Sustainability Index (ESI), which is a ratio between wanted yield and environmental load on
the system; the ESI indicates if a process provides a suitable contribution to the user with a low
environmental pressure. They claimed that an index that incorporates these aspects would shed
light on sustainability issues and the fit of human economies with that of the biosphere (Brown and
Ulgiati 1999). Odum and Odum (2001) stated that sustainability, normally viewed as seeking a
sustainable steady state, should rather be viewed as adapting to the pulsing of resources. Pulsing seems
to be a general design principle for systems on all scales the pulsing paradigm (Odum 1994, Odum
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et al. 1995). Sustainability is then focused on finding the right strategy to persist through the four
repeating main phases of pulsing: growth, transition climax, descent, and low-energy restoration
(Odum and Odum 2001).
Emergy accounting for the case study was performed according to Odum (1996). The total
resource use and two indices, percent local renewable and the Emergy Sustainability Index (ESI)
(Brown and Ulgiati 1997; Ulgiati and Brown 1998), were used to assess sustainability. The pulsing
view on sustainability of Odum and Odum (2001) was not considered. The alternative showing the
least resource use, the highest part of renewable resources, and the highest Emergy Sustainability
Index (ESI), was considered to be in a better position to initiate or continue a process of sustainable
development according to the R framework. The old baseline of Odum (1996) was used.
Results and Conclusions from the Case Study

Using two assessment methods the socio-ecological principles method and emergy analysis
Grnlund et al. (2004) considered the ALGA model as having a better position for sustainable
development according to the R framework, than the two comparison treatment plants. SC 1 was
calculated least violated by the ALGA model, since its sum of indicator value was about 8 times lower
than the other two alternatives (Table 1). The violation against the SC 2 and SC 3 were considered
equal for the three alternatives. For SC 2 this was because the toxic substances in the wastewater were
modeled equal for all three alternatives and for SC 3 this was because all three alternatives required
slightly less than 1 ha of constructions. SC 4 was found least violated by the ALGA model since it
used the least unfairly distributed materials such as oil, iron and copper, and was also the most
resource efficient solution except when considering land use. Considering all four SCs the ALGA
model was found to be the most favorable system from the SEP perspective. In terms of emergy the
ALGA model had about half the resource use of the other two alternatives (Table 2) and used the
highest proportion of local free environmental resources. The ALGA model also used the most local
free environmental resources, and both it and the Oxelsund mechanical-chemical-wetland treatment
plant used much more than the Surahammar conventional three-step treatment plant because of the
larger area of the ALGA model and the constructed wetland.
Recirculation of nutrients back to society or production of economically viable products from
the treatment by-products would strongly influence the sustainability assessment. The ALGA model
has a potential advantage due to interesting biochemical contents in the microalgae biomass,
depending on what species will become dominant.
METHODOLOGICAL DISCUSSION
General Aspects on Measuring Sustainability
There is no scientific consensus on how to operationalize sustainability, even though this
concept ranks high on the political agenda of many countries. Grnlund et al. (2004) made choices in
two steps. First there was a choice of the sustainability definition. The chosen framework by Robrt
(2000) and Robrt et al. (2002), in this paper labeled the R framework, has a high level of acceptance,
given the wide range of authors experienced in addressing sustainability represented in Robrt et al.
(2002). There are, however, other approaches. The R framework assumes that there is a desirable
outcome for sustainability that is possible to define as a goal, at least in some aspects, and that
sustainable development is the path leading to this outcome. Another view regards sustainability as
impossible to describe in goal terms. In this case the focus is on the development part. Sustainable
development can then be defined as development that is competitive enough to persist in the system.
This persistence has two components: the short term component, and the long term component. The
short t time scale component can be expressed as having to be there tomorrow, to also be able to be
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Table 1. Substances violating the 1st systems condition (SC1) in the SEP method. Indicator values
(dimensionless) from Azar et al. (1996). Table from Grnlund et al. (2004).
Substance
Raw unit per year
Recalculated by indicator values
i
j ALGA Unit Indicator
Ind*
Ind*
Ind*
WWTP TP+CW
values WWTP TP+CW ALGA
Electricity (1/3 of total) a
840
1,320
420
GJ
0.0027
2.3
3.6
1.1
Oil b
1,020
47.8
30
GJ
130.3 132,907 6,228 3,909
Iron total
20,900
180
60
kg
1.4 29,260
252
84
Machinery c
1,140
40
320
kg
1.4 1,596
56
448
Copper
125
12.5
1.25
kg
24 3,000
300
30
Chemical precipitation d
320,000 430,000
kg 0.26/0.60 84,592 257,992
Concrete e
108,000 118,000 8,810
kg
0.053 5,776 6,311
471
Bricks f
1,670
1,780
kg
0.057
96.1 102.4
Gravel f
61,000
kg
0.057
3,510
g
Asphalt
34,500
5,800 65,500
kg
0.39 13,393 2,252 25,427
Rock wool f
325
71.3
2.8
kg
0.057
18.7
4.1
0.16
Plastic h
20
147
430
kg
5.2 103.8 762.8 2,232
Polymer h
2,000
kg
5.2
10,378
Sum of indicator
270,000 280,000 36,000
values*weight
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
i.
j.
Recalculated as kilograms of extracted uranium, corresponding to the used electricity

Recalculated as kilograms of carbon, using carbon content in heating oil.
Calculated as iron.
Calculated from content of iron and sulfur (WWTP i), and aluminum and sulfur (TP+CW j).
Calculated from a mixture of cement and the chemical composition of medium rock from Swedish
lithosphere.
Calculated as Swedish medium rock (see above)
Calculated to consist of 6% bitumen (oil-based) and 94% Swedish medium rock (above).
Calculated as carbon, using medium carbon content of common combustible plastics.
Surahammar conventional three step plant.
Oxelsund mechanical-chemical-wetland plant.
Table 2. Aggregated emergy flows and emergy indices. Table from Grnlund et al. (2004).
Flow or Index
Surahammar
Oxelsund
ALGA model
conventional three
mechanicalstep plant
chemical-wetland
plant
R, local renewable
0.5 E+15 sej/yr
12.5 E+15 sej/yr 50.0 E+15 sej/yr
N, local non-renewable
0.1 E+15 sej/yr
F, purchased resources from society
2123 E+15 sej/yr
2411 E+15 sej/yr 928 E+15 sej/yr
U = R+N+F, total resource use
2123 E+15 sej/yr
2424 E+15 sej/yr 978 E+15 sej/yr
EYR = U/F, Emergy Yield Ratio
1.000
1.005
1.054
ELR = (F+N)/R,
4246
193
18.6
Environmental Loading Ratio
ESI = EYR/ELR, sustainability
0.24 E-3
5.2 E-3
57 E-3
index
% local renewable = R/U
0.02%
0.5%
5.1%
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there in a 100 years. The long time scale component addresses the means to achieve competitiveness,
which must not affect the possibilities of being competitive in the long run. For example, this could be
agriculture using cheap phosphate fertilizer with high cadmium content to be competitive in the short
run, but making the soil hazardous for food production in the long run.
It is our opinion that the R framework, as presented by Robrt et al. (2002), is goal oriented,
but we also realize that a development oriented method can arguably fit into the R framework if the
process management tools are defined as tools leading to sustainability and, therefore, RFL 2 and RFL
3 in the R framework are the same. In other words the process of sustainable development is in itself
the favorable outcome.
The second choice made by Grnlund et al. (2004) was the two methods by which to evaluate
sustainability. The socio-ecological principles (SEP) method is a goal oriented method and fits easily
into the chosen R framework, since it defines sustainability with the system conditions (SCs) and
offers the possibility of ranking alternatives by the degree to which they violate the given SCs. From
this ranking it is possible to say which alternative is closer to the chosen sustainability definition. The
emergy analysis (EA) method does not as easily fit into the R framwork. Grnlund et al. (2004)
adapted the EA method to the SEP methods SC 4 of efficient resource use and the general suggestion
from SC 1 and SC 2 of using the highest possible percent of renewable resources. However, in this
goal oriented framework Grnlund et al. (2004) had trouble interpreting the Emergy Sustainability
Index (ESI). We believe these troubles were caused by the ESI being a development-oriented measure
according to the discussion above, which was not made explicit by Grnlund et al. (2004). An emergy
paper more obviously using a development-oriented definition of sustainability is Tilley and Swank
(2003), who present a definition of sustainability using the Emergy Investment Ratio (EIR) of a
process in the context of the regional EIR. Their argument was that the EIR must closely match the
regional EIR, neither too large (overuse) or too small (poor utilization). Though highlighting the short
time competition part, it is not obvious how such a measure takes into account the implicit assumption
of system stability in the long run, for example, by not increasing concentrations of substances harmful
to the system dealt with in SC 1 and SC 2 in the SEP method. The ESI deals with this problem by
encouraging a maximized yield per investment (Emergy Yield Ratio, EYR) from the system in the
numerator, while encouraging as low an environmental load (ELR) as possible in the denominator.
Details of the SEP and EA Methods

As described above the conditions in the SEP method are conditions of sustainability (RFL
2), and the degree of violation against each condition can be used as a measure of how far an activity is
from this aspect of sustainability. However, if there are contradictory answers between the four system
conditions, the method does not give any guidance on how to weigh these contradictions. Grnlund et
al. (2004) met no such contradictions, but it can be questioned if it is correct to estimate that the
violation against the third condition (SC 3) is equal between the three compared treatment alternatives.
Is it really appropriate to consider a wetland or the different ALGA ponds equal to the land taken out
of production, which was probably an agricultural field or forest? If not, the WWTP would take much
less land out of production than the wetland and the ALGA ponds. Another methodological problem is
the outcome of the nuclear power calculations, since a life cycle perspective is not applied in this
approach. Thereby the mining of uranium ore, the processing of the ore (e.g. sulfuric acid use), and the
treatment of the radioactive waste (e.g. the copper used to seal the waste for long time periods) are not
included in the assessment, influencing the results concerning SC 1. Furthermore, the discussion of
risks around nuclear power seems difficult to include in the SEP method.
As pointed out above the EA method does not easily fit into the R framework. So far
sustainability approaches evaluated by EA seem to be of the development oriented type mentioned
above. However, this is not necessarily the only approach using emergy calculations, since it should
also be possible to use them in goal oriented frameworks as done by Grnlund et al. (2004). One
important characteristic of EA, not found in the SEP methods or in many other methods, is the
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evaluation of the non-monetary ecosystem contribution to the wastewater treatment plants. The high
importance of the economic inputs compared to the material and energy flows is a striking result of the
EA.
On the other hand there are other aspects addressed by the SEP method that are not included
in EA. For example, we conclude that EA does not (yet) handle the SC 2 of foreign substances in the
biosphere (although it may address SC 2 indirectly in the Environmental Loading Ratio [ELR]).
Furthermore, its ability to consider SC 1 of increasing concentrations in the biosphere of hazardous
substances from mining, oil and gas production appears limited. The questions of productivity and
regenerating capacity, dealt with in SC 3, are more easily addressed within current EA. SC 4,
regarding efficiency, is also dealt with in EA; however, it also includes ecosystem services, which are
not commonly included in SC 4. The equity part of SC 4 is explicitly discussed with the EA method,
especially in the case of fair trade in international exchange (Odum 1996).
Both SEP and EA have the ability to handle scenario approaches, which can be useful when
comparing development options. For example, the energy mix used for calculations in this case study
represent old energy technology, but the effect of future technology in the energy mix could be studied
in a separate scenario. Scenario techniques could also be a way to include the pulsing approach to
sustainability (Odum and Odum 2001). This case study only considers landfill use of the microalgal
sludge, but scenarios could also address the question of alternative uses for the microalgal sludge,
which seems to be an important potential.
From a communication point of view the SEP method has been proven efficient, mainly by
the work of The Natural Step organization, which has successfully popularized the method. The EA
method has not yet found such a broad audience. The reason for this is sometimes attributed to the fact
that part of the foundation for the emergy concept, the energy hierarchy hypothesis (suggested as a 5th
law of thermodynamics [Odum 1996]), and the maximum empower hypothesis (suggested as a 4th law
of thermodynamics [Odum 1996], and important for the interpretation of the emergy calculations), are
not yet as well known and accepted as the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics, which are important
foundations for both methods. Pedagogic efforts have been made and are developing also for EA (e.g.
Odum et al. 1998), with icon-based modeling software, like EXTEND, as promising examples (Odum
and Odum 2000).
CONCLUSIONS
The comparative use of two methods for sustainability assessment has revealed different
underlying views on the concept of sustainability and uncertainties in the methodological procedures.
Still, the results of the assessments gave the same ranking order between the studied systems for
wastewater treatment. This result may appear reassuring, but the methodological discussion clearly
suggests that more studies are needed on the operationalization of sustainable development and the
related tools for its assessment.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The discussion part was greatly improved by the stimulating comments from one anonymous reviewer.
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Bengtsson, M., M. Lundin, and S. Molander. 1997. Life Cycle Assessment of Wastewater Systems.
Case studies of conventional treatment, urine sorting and liquid composting in three
Swedish municipalities. Technical environmental planning, Gteborg.
Bjrklund, J. 2000. Emergy analysis to assess ecological sustainability. Strengths and weaknesses.
Department of Ecology and Crop Production Science, Uppsala.
Bjrklund, J., U. Geber, and T. Rydberg. 2001. Emergy analysis of municipal wastewater treatment
and generation of electricity by digestion of sewage sludge. Res. Cons. Recycl. 31: 293-316.
Brown, M. T., and S. Ulgiati. 1997. Emergy-based indices and ratios to evaluate sustainability:
monitoring economies and technology toward environmentally sound innovation. Ecol.Eng.
9:51-69.
Brown, M.T. and S. Ulgiati. 1999. Emergy evaluation of the biosphere and natural capital. Ambio 28:
486-493.
Brundtland Commission. 1987. Our common future. Oxford University Press.
Carter, N. (2001). The Politics of the Environment - Ideas, Activism, Policy. Cambridge Univ. Press.
Chen, J., and M. B. Beck. 1997. Towards designing sustainable urban wastewater infrastructures: a
screening analysis. Water Science and Technology 35: 99-112.
Geber, U., and J. Bjrklund. 2001. The relationship between ecosystem services and purchased input
in Swedish wastewater treatment systems -- a case study. Ecological Engineering 18: 3959. (corrected version in (2002) 19: 97-117).
Grnlund, E., A. Klang, S. Falk, and J. Hanaeus. 2004. Sustainability of wastewater treatment with
microalgae in cold climate, evaluated with emergy and socio-ecological principles.
Ecological Engineering (in press).
Hellstrm, D., U. Jeppsson, and E. Krrman. 2000. A framework for systems analysis of sustainable
urban water management. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 20: 311-321.
Hellstrm, D., and E. Krrman. 1997. Exergy analysis and nutrient flows of various sewerage systems.
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Holmberg, J., K.-H. Robrt, and K.-E. Eriksson. 1996. Socio-ecological principles for a sustainable
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Hland, W. (1999). On needs - a central concept in the Brundtland report. In Towards sustainable
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Odum, H. T. 1994. Ecological and general systems - an introduction to systems ecology. Univ. Press
of Colorado, Niwot.
Odum, H.T. 1996. Environmental accounting. Emergy and environmental decision making. John
Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York.
Odum, H. T., and E. C. Odum. 2000. Modeling for All Scales, Harcourt Publishers Ltd.
Odum, H. T., and E. C. Odum. 2001. A Prosperous Way Down: Principles and Policies. University
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Odum, H. T., E. C. Odum, and M. T. Brown. 1998. Environment and Society in Florida. Lewis Publ.,
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Odum, W. E., E. P. Odum, and H. T. Odum. 1995. Nature's pulsing paradigm. Estuaries 18: 547-555.
Robrt, K.-H. 2000. Tools and concepts for sustainable development, how do they relate to a general
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Robrt, K.-H., B. Schmidt-Bleek, J. Aloisi de Larderel, G. Basile, J. L. Jansen, R. Kuehr, P. Price

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Ulgiati, S., and M. T. Brown. 1998. Monitoring patterns of sustainability in natural and man-made
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
28
The Introduction of Emergy Indices in the Certification of Organic
Products: Adaptation and Potential
ABSTRACT
Organic Agriculture, based on commitments to sustainability and social justice, has been
growing worldwide and has made important gains in environment preservation. However, these two
parameters are neither evaluated nor quantified in the certification process. The present work
proposes and discusses the use of the Emergy indices for the evaluation of both sustainability and
social justice in certification of organic products. The certification process, carried out by a
certification body (CB), is composed of seven steps: preparation of a control plan, contract between
the farmer and the CB, external control, laboratory analyses, report preparation, comparison between
the standard and the data and, finally, the emission of a Certification Decision, when the Organic
Stamp may be granted. The calculation of the Emergy indices can be easily incorporated without
additional costs. The majority of the data necessary for the emergy calculations are already collected
in the inspection procedure and those that are not can be easily obtained. These indices complement
the analyses and the inspection report in the evaluation of the farms performance and fulfillment of
requirements. For the evaluation of sustainability and social justice, the proposed indices are:
Renewability (% R), Environmental Loading Ratio (ELR), Labor Services Ratio (LSR), Labor
Empower Ratio (LER) and Local Work Ratio (LWR). The inclusion of such indices makes possible the
quantitative differentiation of farms in respect to their sustainability and the existing degree of social
justice.
INTRODUCTION AND JUSTIFICATION

The market of organic products has been growing globally, not only in Europe and North
America, but also in developing countries. The total organically cultivated area is already more than 22
million hectares (Yussefi and Willer, 2003). IFOAM, the International Federation of Organic
Agriculture Movements, with approximately 750 members in 100 different countries (IFOAM, 2004),
defines organic agriculture as, a whole system approach based upon a set of processes resulting in a
sustainable ecosystem, safe food, good nutrition, animal welfare and social justice, and lists fifteen
basic principles for organic production (IFOAM, 2002). In each one of these principles there is a
direct and clear reference to the commitment of organic agriculture to sustainable production and
social justice. The following recommendations, among others, are presented:
9
9
Operators should maintain a significant portion of their farms to facilitate biodiversity and
nature conservation.
Operators should respect sustainable resource management and the common good.
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Chapter 28. The Introduction of Emergy Indices
9
9
9
The operator should provide for the maintenance and sustainability of the ecosystem when
harvesting or gathering the products.
The operator should positively contribute to the maintenance of natural areas.
Operators shall have a policy on social justice.
However, according to current regulations of organic production, there is no requirement for

quantification or evaluation of these parameters.
The National Organic Program (7 CFR Part 205) of United States establishes a national
standard for the production and handling of organically produced products. Only in Subpart C Organic Crop, Wild Crop, Livestock, and Handling Requirements, 205.200, there is a reference to the
conservation of natural resources, determining that any organic production unit must maintain or
improve the natural resources relied upon in the operation, including soil and water quality. However,
this same standard does not require the evaluation of these parameters in the certification process. All
the other determinations and demands, which should be checked by the certification body, are,
basically, of two types: i) positive list of permitted inputs and handling procedures, ii) requirement of
record keeping of all production and control procedures. In the same way, there is reference to
renewable resources and sustainable agriculture only in item 1.3 of Annex 1, Principles of the Organic
Production, of the regulation CEE N. 2092/91 of the European Communities (EC, 1991). In Rule
CEE N. 1804/99 (EC, 1999), for animal production, there is no reference to sustainability. Therefore,
sustainability, or the lack of it, is not considered as an eliminatory parameter to grant the Organic
Stamp, as is, for instance, the use of forbidden inputs (FAO/WHO, 1999; IFOAM, 2002; EC, 1991,
1999; USA, 2002).
However, in spite of not quantifying sustainability, the standards concerning organic
production represent progress in relation to conventional agriculture and can result in benefits to the
environment and society. The FAO document "Organic agriculture: the challenge of sustaining food
production while enhancing biodiversity", from April 2003, attests that organic agriculture should be
considered as an appropriate starting point for combining commodities production with conservation
of the environment and lists a series of current environmental benefits observed in different areas of
the planet where organic agriculture has been adopted. The crucial issue is how to evaluate
sustainability and social justice and how to incorporate it into the organic production standards.
Panzieri et al. (2003) propose the use of emergy indices, together with other indices, for
environmental certification by the Environmental Performance Evaluation (EPE) program. This is
justified because the emergy methodology identifies all energy and materials flows that circulate in the
system and classifies them in terms of origin and their renewability level. Moreover, these indices
include in the calculations natural resources that are not usually considered. The authors still point out
that the emergy indices are relatively easy to measure and understand, in spite of being based on solid
scientific concepts. The emergy methodology has also been used by different authors to evaluate and
compare the viability of different methods of agricultural production (Comar, 2000; Lagerberg, 2000;
Lanzotti et al., 2000; Ortega et al., 2000; Ortega et al., 2002 and Bastianoni et al., 2001). In all of these
works, this methodology was shown efficient in the evaluation of the environmental impacts and
survival of the project over time.
The present work discusses how some emergy indices can be included in the certification of
organic products, specifically seeking the evaluation of their sustainability and associated social
justice.
ORGANIC CERTIFICATION PROCESS

One of the basic characteristics of organic production requirements is the need for external
certification. The FAO/WHO (1999) define the certification process as a " procedure by which official
certification bodies (CB), or officially recognized certification bodies, provide written or equivalent
assurance that foods or food control systems conform to requirements." The requirements of the
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Farmer
seeking for
certification
Farm and
Production
data
Regulations
IFOAM
certification
body
Control Plan
Preparation
Contract
Laboratory
External Inspection
Unicamp
Physicochemical
Microbiological
Analysis
Inspection
Report
Emergy
Evaluation
Verification of the
accordance with
regulations
Is there
disagreement?
Serious?
N
Positive Certification
Decision
Adjustment
requirement
Certified
Product
Certification
Denied
Figure 1. Organic product certification process. Bold line shows the LEIA's (Laboratory of Ecological
Engineering and Applied Computer Science of UNICAMP-State University of Campinas) proposal.
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inspection process and control are described in several regulations (FAO/WHO, 1999; IFOAM, 2002;
EC, 1991, 1999; USA, 2002). Owing to its nature, the certification process establishes the practice of
external inspection (in the field and of the product) and the consequent regular evaluation of the
productive unit, making it possible to evaluate the efficiency of practices adopted, as well as identifiy
and correct any observed deviations. Figure 1 presents the flowchart for the certification process.
As the organic certification is not mandatory, but voluntary, the first step is the contact
between the interested producer and a certification body (CB) that should be accredited by some
organization of national or international accreditation (e.g., IFOAM). At this stage the producer
informs the CB of a series of production data (size and location of the producing unit, cultivated area
and volume produced by product, characteristics of the production, etc.). Based on these data and on
the rules of organic production, a control and an inspection plan are prepared, where the control type internal control, external inspection and laboratory analyses - and their frequency are defined. At this
stage, if preliminary data already indicate that it won't be possible to grant certification, the CB can,
justifiably, refuse to complete the certification. To proceed ahead, a contract is signed between the
producer and the CB.
During the external inspection, conducted by an enabled inspector, the information previously
supplied by the producing unit and the monitored data (or internal control) are checked in situ.
External inspection can also include some measurements and analyses, as well as the collection of
samples for the physicochemical and microbiological analyses of soil, water and farming products.
The results are sent directly to the CB and a copy is sent to the producer. The inspector prepares a
report where the observed conditions and the collected data are compared with the standards for
organic production.
With these data (inspection report and analyses results) the CB issues a Certification Decision
with three possible decisions: a) granting of the Organic Stamp when the production method is in
agreement with the effective regulations; b) an adaptation request when small deviations are observed
with concession of the stamp after adaptation; c) the stamp is denied when serious divergences are
observed.
THE INCLUSION OF EMERGY EVALUATION

The Laboratory of Ecological Engineering and Applied Computer Science (LEIA) of Unicamp
(State University of Campinas) proposes the inclusion of the emergy indices to complement the
conditions considered in the certification decision. Figure 1 presents the certification flowchart with
the inclusion of the calculation of these indices.
In order to conduct the emergy evaluation it is necessary to prepare a flowchart of the agricultural unit
showing all the inputs and outputs of the system, as presented in Figure 2, and to collect the data for
the emergy flows calculations. According to the LEIA proposal, the diagram of the farm unit will be
prepared as part of the control and inspection plan, while the necessary data for the emergy evaluation
of the agricultural unit will be collected during the inspection and sent to an accredited body
(Unicamp), together with the results of physiochemical analyses. These data will be used in the
calculations, with software now in development at LEIA, that will supply a report on the sustainability
and social justice of the producing unit. Therefore, the inclusion of emergy evaluation does not
represent additional cost to the certification process.
Table 1 presents the necessary data for these calculations and compares these data with data
already requested for CBs. This table was elaborated based on literature papers that used the emergy
methodology to evaluate agricultural production (Bardi & Brown, 2000; Brandt-Williams, 2002;
Comar, 1999; Lagerberg, 2000; Lanzotti et al. 2000; Odum, 1996; Ortega et al., 2000; Ortega et al.,
2002).
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FR
FN
R3
R2
SRL
Forest
Products
and
Services
R1
Products
Figure 2. Aggregated energy flows diagram of rural system with local administration. (adapted from Ortega et
al., 2002). Where: F - Forest; A - Agriculture; R - Renewable resources from nature; N - Non-renewable
resources from nature; FR - Renewable Feedback from Economy (SR+MR); FN - Non-Renewable Feedback from
Economy (SN+MN); SRL- Local Labor or Local Renewable Service.
Most of these data are already requested by the certification bodies are easy to include. The
data considered difficult to include in the certification process are:
Evapotranspiration - parameter necessary for calculation of renewable resources. It depends

on the climatic conditions of the area and on the type of evaluated culture. It has been
calculated by simulations that consider historical data (Brandt-Williams, 2002). Such data are
not available for all areas. Hence, they cannot be used in the certification process. Some
authors (Ortega et al. 2002; Comar, 1999; Lanzotti et al. 2000) calculated the emergy of rain
as a substitution for evapotranspiration.
Fuel volume - hours of work classified by function and the investments in improvements.
When the property is not registered (as is frequently the case with small properties), it can be
easily, and in a quite reliable way, estimated (Ortega et al. 2002).
Table 2 presents the indices suggested by Ortega et al. (2002) for the evaluation of the
sustainability of the agricultural activities. Ortega et al. (2002) propose the differentiation between
renewable and non-renewable portions of the services and materials from the economy and the
identification and segregation of local labor. They also include the externalities in the renewability
calculation. In the present work the externalities are not considered since they are still difficult to
estimates. However, they should be included in the future, as well as in the studies of life cycle
assessment of agricultural products.
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Table 1. Data required for emergy analysis and their availability status.
Available
Not available
Needed Data
C
Farm area
DB
Evapotranspiration
Average insolation
Eddy diffusion coefficient
Wind gradient
Annual precipitation
Mean elevation
Runoff
Type of landscape
Type of present vegetation
Type of agricultural handling
Soil organic matter

Seeds:
Types
Volumes
Seedling:
Types
Volumes
Fertilizer:
Types
Volumes
Pesticide / Herbicide:
Types
Volumes
Fuel:
Types
Volumes
Machinery:
Type
Depreciation
Manpower:
Type of work
Working hours
Buildings and improvements:
Investments
Depreciation
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Legend: C- already asked by CB; T- table data; DB database; A- data from Analysis;
E easy to obtain; D difficult to obtain
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POTENTIAL AND BENEFITS

The inclusion of emergy indices in the certification process supports the IFOAM
recommendations, since it allows the evaluation of sustainability and social justice, to which organic
agriculture is committed, while maintaining the universality of the IFOAM rule. Emergy evaluation
greatly improves the ability to evaluate adherence to these rules because, even though the economic
and environmental characteristics and particularities of the process and its geographic area are being
considered, it supplies indices that can compare these elements on a common basis for different
projects. The inclusion of emergy makes it possible to quantitatively differentiate between a family
producer and a large organic monoculture enterprise (Ortega et al. 2002), both of which, under the
current certification process, receive the same Organic Stamp. Such differentiation can be important
for defining agricultural politics, government investments and, also, influencing consumer decisions.
The calculation of the renewable portion of each agricultural product (% R) could also be
used in emergy evaluation of following stages of the productive chain, for instance to evaluate the
production of orange juice. Finally, as the certification process demands regular inspections of the
unit, environmental conservation and the social performance can also be regularly evaluated and
monitored, allowing for effectiveness in the correction of observed deviations.
Table 2. Proposals for emergy indices (adapted from Ortega et al. 2002).
Modified Emergy Indices
Formula
Concept
Renewability *
R* = (R + MR + SR) / Y
Renewable/Total
Environmental Loading ratio*
ELR* = (N+MN+SN) / (R+MR+SR) Non renewable/renewable
New Emergy Indices
Formula
Concept
Labor Services Ratio
LSR = SR / S
Labor/Services
Labor Empower Ratio
LER = SR / Y
Labor/Empower
Local Work Ratio
LWR = SRL / (SR+SN)
Local labor/Labor
Where: R= Renewable resources from nature; N: Non-renewable resources from nature;

MR: Renewable Materials and Energy; MN: Non-renewable Materials and energy; S: Services (S=SR+SN); SR:
Labor Services (SR = SRL+SRE); SN: Non-renewable Services ; SRL: Local Renewable services; SRE : External
Labor Service and Y: Total Emergy
* Indicates different calculation of indices (according to Ortega et al., 2002)
REFERENCES
Bardi, E. and M.T. Brown. 2000. Emergy Evaluation of Ecosystems: A basis for Environmental
Decision Making. Proceedings of the First Biennial Emergy Analysis Research Conference.
September 1999. University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. p. 81-100.
Bastianoni, S., Panzieri, M., Tiezzi, E. 2001. Sustainability Assessment of a Chianti Area (Italy).
Journal of Cleaner Production 9: 365-373.
Brandt-Williams, S. L. 2002. Handbook of Emergy Evaluation: A Compendium of Data for Emergy
Computation - Folio #4 (2nd printing) - Emergy of Florida Agriculture Center for
-361-
Environmental Policy. http://www.ees.ufl.edu/cep/downloads/Folio%204%20.pdf (Accessed

in: 01/12/2004)
Comar, V. 2000. Emergy Evaluation of Organic and Conventional Horticultural Production in
Botucatu, So Paulo State, Brazil. Proceedings of the First Biennal Emergy Analysis
Research Conference. Gainesville, Florida, September 1999. Brown, M. T. (ed.). The Center
for Environmental policy, P. O. Box 116450, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 326116450. p. 181-195
European Communities (EC). 1991. Council Regulation (EEC) No 2092/91 of 24 June 1991 on
organic production of agricultural products and indications referring thereto on agricultural
products and foodstuffs.
European Communities (EC). 1999. Council Regulation (EC) No 1804/1999 of 19 July 1999
supplementing Regulation (EEC) No 2092/91 on organic production of agricultural products
and indications referring thereto on agricultural products and foodstuffs to include livestock
production.
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). 2003. Organic Agriculture: The Challenge of Sustaining
Food Production While Enhancing Biodiversity. N. El H. Scialabba (Secretary) Priority Area
for Inter-Disciplinary Action on Organic Agriculture. Food and Agriculture Organization of
the United Nations, Rome, Italy.
Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health Organization (FAO/WHO). 1999. Codex
Alimentarius: Guidelines on Production, Processing, Labeling and Marketing of OrganicallyProduced Foods (GL 32 - 1999, Rev. 1 - 2001).
IFOAM. 2004. Directory of member organizations and associates.
Web page: http://www.ifoam.org/directory/IFOAM_Directory_04.pdf .
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IFOAM. 2002. IFOAM Basic Standards for Organic Production and Processing.
Web Page: http://www.ifoam.org/standard/norms/cover.html .
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Lagerberg, C. 2000. Emergy Analysis of Tomato Production Systems. Proceedings of the First
Biennial Emergy Analysis Research Conference. September 1999. University of Florida,
Gainesville, Florida. p. 101-105.
Lanzotti, C.R., Ortega, E., Guerra, S.M. 2000. Emergy Analysis and Trends for Ethanol Production in
Brazil. Proceedings of the First Biennial Emergy Analysis Research Conference. September
1999. University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. p. 281-288.
Odum, H. T. 1996. Environmental Accounting: Emergy and Environmental Decision Making. John
Ortega, E.; Miller, M.; Anami, M. H. 2000. Avaliao ecossistmica - Emergtica de Processos
Agrcolas e Agroindustriais. Estudo de caso: a Produo de Soja. I Seminrio Internacional de
Agroecologia do Rio Grande do Sul, EMATER-RS, Porto Alegre, 21 de novembro de 2000.
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Panzieri ,M., Marchettini, N. and Ridolfi, R. 2003. Environmental Certification: A Scientific Tool for
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Yussefi, M. and Willer, H. (Eds.). 2003. The World of Organic Agriculture - Statistics and Future
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Part. 205. National Organic Program, Final Rule 2002.
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
29
Emergy Assessment for Urban Sustainable Development
Hong-fang Lu, Sheng-fang Lan, and Shao-lin Peng
ABSTRACT
This paper is a study of the use of emergy indices for the evaluation of sustainable urban
development. The Emergy Exchange Ratio (EER) and Emergy Waste Index (EWI) were introduced into
the Emergy Sustainability Index (ESI) to establish a new index that reflects the emergy benefit per unit
cost of environmental impact, which includes the market exchange and pollution/waste flow in the
measurement of the systems sustainability. The new index was named the Emergy Index for
Sustainable Development (EISD). Furthermore, the new EISD has been employed to conduct a case
study to evaluate the development of three typical urban ecosystems in China from 1996 to 2000. The
general EISD of the city of Zhongshan is 8.4 times higher than that of Beijing and 1.2 times higher
than that of Guangzhou. Although the degree of urbanization of Guangzhou is similar to Beijing, the
general EISD of Guangzhou is 3.2 times higher than that of Beijing, partly due to the superior
environment bearing capacity of the natural subtropical ecosystem. The EISD of these three urban
ecosystems generally declined following initial increased urbanization at the beginning of the period.
The EISD of Beijing and Guangzhou rose again from 1999 to 2000 as a result of environment
protection and industry reorganization. All of the three cities, especially Beijing, need further
reorganization of their industrial structure to improve the Emergy Exchange Ratio (EER) of their
products and decrease environmental impacts, and finally, to improve their ability for sustainable
development. The case study shows that EISD can assess the sustainable development ability for
different sites, considering environmental impact and social-economic effects at the same time.
INTRODUCTION
Urbanization has become the inevitable development trend of the world. Consequently, a
mechanism to evaluate the sustainable development in urban regions has become more and more
necessary. A central point and continuing challenge is how to evaluate the sustainable development
ability of those ecological-economic systems in a quantitatively manner. Over the years, researchers
have been trying to solve this problem in different ways (Liu 1999, Liverman and Hanson 1988, Li
2000), but most of them employ separate accounting levels and the evaluations fail to consider
simultaneously both the systems environmental impact and the social-economic effect.
Towards the end of the 1980s H.T.Odum developed the theory of emergy analysis (Lan and
Qin, 2001). With a common unit of analysis, emergy theory can bridge the natural system and socialeconomic system, and evaluate the sustainable development ability of ecological-economic systems
from a new perspective. Ecologists and economic ecologists have applied the theory all over the world
(Huang and Odum 1991, Ulgiati and Odum 1994, Brown and Ulgiati 1997, Lan et al. 1998, Yan and
Odum 1998, Sui et al. 1999, Sui and Lan 2001, Odum 2000). The development and use of ESI
(Emergy Sustainability Index, Brown and Ulgiati, 1997) provides an emergy index to evaluate
sustainable development and stimulated the study of sustainable development. Nonetheless, both
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Chapter 29. Emergy Assessment for Urban Sustainable Development

traditional emergy analysis and ESI have neglected to assess the impact of pollution. To include
pollution impact assessment in the emergy analysis method and to optimize the emergy indices for
sustainable development, the Emergy Index for Sustainable Development (EISD) is suggested.
Furthermore, based on the newly developed EISD, a case study of the sustainable development of
three Chinese cities from 1996 to 2000 follows.
EMERGY SUSTAINABILITY INDEX (ESI)

Based on energy, ecology, systems ecology, ecological engineering and economic ecology,
emergy analysis provides a common unit of analysis, emergy (Lan and Qin, 2000). Emergy theory
broke through the "energy quality wall" of traditional energy theory, achieving a unified assessment of
energies with different quality and type. Emergy theory has moved energy analysis into a new phase
and enriched the evaluation methods of sustainable development. However, for a long time it lacked
different emergy indices to evaluate a systems sustainable development ability, until Brown and
Ulgiati established one such index in 1997. The index was named ESI (Emergy Sustainability Index),
and was defined as the Emergy Yield Ratio (EYR) divided by the Environmental Load Ratio (ELR).
EYR is the ratio of the total emergy output to the purchased emergy input. ELR is the ratio of
nonrenewable resource emergy input to the renewable resource emergy input. Through a case study,
they quantified the ESI as: ESI>10 means environmental overloading; 10>ESI>1 means developed
economies; ESI<1 means developing economies. The introduction of ESI has been a great
advancement in emergy evaluation for sustainable development, but to completely fill the need of
sustainable development evaluation, there are at least two points that still need to be improved.
First, although all the outputs of a system are valuable from an ecological point of view, our
current knowledge and technology are limited to make full use of them. Thus, not all the outputs of a
system are beneficial to our current ecological- economic system. Some of them are harmful and have
negative impacts, such as waste and pollution. So, not all the systems with high EYR are beneficial or
promote sustainable development, since the environmental effects of waste and pollution maybe high
at the same time. At the same time, market price is influenced by several elements, such as market,
culture, ethics, time and location. Therefore, even the same EYR can bring different reward for the
system after market exchange. This is expressed as the fluctuation of Emergy Exchange Ratio (EER),
the emergy our system got by sold out unit of emergy. Thus, systems with the same EYR can have
different effects on the respective systems sustainable development.
Secondly, environment is both a source of resources for economic processes and a sink for
by-products from these economic processes (Ulgiati and Brown, 2002). A system's environmental
pressures are expressed not only as the consumption structure of resource, but also as the
environmental impact of expelled pollutants. ELR, as defined by H.T.Odum (1996), is the quotient of
nonrenewable resource input and renewable resource input, which can only reflect the environmental
impacts of consumed resources and neglects the environmental impacts of expelled pollutants.
THE EMERGY INDEX FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT (EISD)

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de
Janeiro in 1992 (http://www.un.org/geninfo/bp/envio.htm) defined sustainable development as
development that accommodates modern needs without harming the ability of future generations to
accommodate their needs. In addition, sustainable development needs to promote economic growth,
conserve natural resources, and preserve the natural environment, that is, sustainable development
needs to harmoniously develop the economy, society, resources and the environment (Wang and Peng,
1996; Peng and Ren, 2001). This definition has two implications: (1) the social and economic sectors
must continue developing, (2) the natural environment must be sustainable (Yin and Wang 2004, Lu
and Lan et al. 2003). The social-economic development requires that the systems emergy output bring
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high benefit for us. Simply speaking, EYREER must be high. The natural environments
sustainability requires the environmental impact of the system to be low. Since the environment is both
a source of resources for economic processes and a sink of by-products and wastes from these same
processes (Ulgiati and Brown 2002), the index used to measure environmental impact should include
the environment impact from resources consumed as well as the emission of waste or by-products.
The systems EER is all the emergy contained in the rewards, which are obtained as the result
of trading units of emergy for money. The ELR is the ratio of nonrenewable resource emergy input to
renewable resource emergy input. To include the pollution/waste flow into accounting, and give it the
same weight as the ELR, we establish a new index, the Emergy Waste Index (EWI) and define it as the
ratio of waste emergy output to the renewable resource emergy input. Huang and Odum (1991)
proposed a ratio of waste emergy output to total emergy used in the system, the EWR. However, the
authors feel that the EWI better reflects the environmental impacts of waste emissions since it is the
ratio of waste emergy to the renewable emergy used only. In this manner, the environmental impact of
waste emission and resource consumption are given the same weight, since ELR accounts for all of the
nonrenewable emergy input to renewable emergy input used to measure the resource consumption.
Evaluating the emergy of waste is a difficult problem in current emergy studies. Although
waste is a co-product for current systems, the reason that waste output negatively affects human
society is due to the lack of technology or a process that would make full use of the waste material and
energy. Nonetheless, waste can be measured by calculating the emergy cost required to produce it.
For smaller simple systems, it is easy to go back along the production flow of the waste
and calculate its emergy, since this flow is clearly distinguishable and the data are available. But for
larger complex systems, such as urban systems and larger geographic areas, there are so many waste
sources and data for the production process are unavailable, belonging to some business secrets. To
improve comparability of the measurements the same emergy transformity values should be used for
large-scale studies.
The sum of ELR and EWI is the environmental impact of a system. We name it the
Environmental Impact Index (EII). By using the EII in place of the ELR, the waste and pollution
impact can be included. It can express the environmental impact of the urban system in multiple sites.
From the above concepts we know that there is no correlation among EYR, EER, ELR and
EWI. So, we can use them in combination to develop an index for sustainable development, which
takes both the systems social economic benefits and the natural environmental impacts into
consideration simultaneously. Considering that the social economic benefits are directly proportional
to the urban systems sustainable development and the EIR is inversely proportional to the systems
sustainable development ability, we put the EYREER as the numerator, and put the EIR as the
denominator, to construct a new emergy index named Emergy Index for Sustainable Development
(EISD). The EISD is directly proportional to the systems sustainable development ability. It can be
expressed as:
EISD =
EYR EER
ELR + EWI
The higher the EISD is the higher the social economic benefit per unit of environmental
impact. This equates to a higher ranking in sustainable development.
Associated with the other emergy indices, such as EYR, EER, ELR and EWI etc., the EISD
can be used in the following two ways:
1. To compare different systems that have the same output. The higher the EISD, the more
competitive the system is in the long-term regarding sustainable development.
2. To make before and after comparisons for current or growing systems. Based on the
original system, the systems EYR and EER can be improved and its dependence on
nonrenewable resources and the environmental impact can be minimized through the
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continuous introduction of new technical innovations. Finally, the benefit per unit ELR
can be improved and system optimization can be achieved.
CASE STUDIES
With increasing urbanization worldwide and the consequently serious pollution problem, the
study of urban ecology has become an important part of the ecology field. As a developing country,
China must be serious in choosing its own way to carry out its urbanization while practicing
sustainable development. We selected the cities of Beijing, Guangzhou and Zhongshan, as a case to
study the review their sustainable development ability from 1996 to 2000, using the newly developed
EISD index, since both economic development and pollution control are key problems in these cities.
Guangzhou and Beijing are two of the three biggest economic metropolitan areas of China,
along with Shanghai (not evaluated in this study). Located in northeast China in the temperate zone,
Beijing is the capital of China and the center of Chinese policy, environment and culture. Located in
the subtropical zone and near Hongkong and Macao, Guangzhou is one of the three biggest economic
metropolitan areas of China. In southeastern China, Zhongshan is one of the satellite cities of
Guangzhou. Famed for its landscape industry, Zhongshan is one of the six landscape cities of China.
Taiwans transformity of waste (Huang and Odum 1991) was used in the following case
study, because the cities in this case study are comparable to those in Taiwan in terms of culture and
degree of urbanization.

Table A-1 in the Appendix presents data for the emergy evaluation of Guangzhou city from
1996 to 2000. Evaluations from Zhao (2001) and Zhu (2000) were used for the summary data of
Zhongshan and Beijing, respectively. Using the summary data presented in table 1, we can calculate
the emergy indices of the three urban ecosystems from 1996 to 2000 (Table 2). According to the
results of EISD, Zhongshan had the greatest ability in sustainable development, since its mean EISD
over the period of study (1996-2000) is 8.42 times higher than that of Beijing, and 1.58 times higher
than that of Guangzhou. This is attributed to its industrial structure and the superior environmental
bearing capacity of the subtropical zone. On the other hand, the study shows that the EISD of
Zhongshan decreased from 0.0204 in 1996 to 0.0105 in 2000, as a consequence of a decrease in EER
and an increase in the ELR and EWR. That dynamic shows that Zhongshan still needs to pay attention
to reorganizing its industrial structure, such as trying to produce final products with high EER instead
of raw materials with low EER, reinforcing of its landscape for development and introducing some
production process to reuse its current pollution disposals.
Although the urbanization degree of Guangzhou and Beijing are similar, the mean EISD of
Guangzhou is 3.66 times higher than that of Beijing for the period of study (1996-2000), partly due to
differences their regional environmental state (Table 2), especially the rainfall quantity of subtropical
area is much higher than that of temperate zone. All three cities, especial Beijing, need to reorganize
their industrial structure in order to increase their EER and decrease their EII. Under the pressure of
serious environmental problems, both Beijing and Guangzhou city have done some work on
environment protection and industrial adjustments. This has made their EISD rise by 13 and 10 percent
respectively, compared to their value in 1999.
For Beijing and Guangzhou, both the EISD and ESI decreased between 1996 and 2000, and
the EISD was a little lower than the ESI in quantity, due to waste problems in the two cities (Table 2).
The difference between EISD and ESI is bigger in Guangzhou than in Beijing, since the EER of
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Table 1. Summary values of the three urban ecosystems from 1996 to 2000.
Zhongshan urban
ecosystem a
Guangzhou urban
ecosystem
Beijing urban
ecosystem b
System
Year
Rc
Nd
Fe
Yf
Wg
GDP
(US$)
Emergy/$h
1996
4.95E+20
8.77E+19
1.23E+23
1.24E+23
7.72E+22
2.07E+10
6.79E+12
1997
3.04E+20
8.77E+19
1.31E+23
1.31E+23
7.88E+22
2.26E+10
6.19E+12
1998
5.17E+20
8.77E+19
1.39E+23
1.40E+23
8.14E+22
2.47E+10
5.74E+12
1999
1.89E+20
8.77E+19
1.47E+23
1.47E+23
8.59E+22
2.63E+10
5.48E+12
2000
2.62E+20
8.77E+19
1.63E+23
1.63E+23
8.92E+22
3.00E+10
4.94E+12
1996
1.06E+21
5.52E+19
1.25E+23
1.26E+23
3.84E+22
1.74E+10
6.79E+12
1997
1.40E+21
5.52E+19
1.31E+23
1.32E+23
4.01E+22
1.98E+10
6.19E+12
1998
1.22E+21
5.52E+19
1.37E+23
1.39E+23
4.10E+22
2.22E+10
5.74E+12
1999
1.09E+21
5.52E+19
1.49E+23
1.50E+23
4.07E+22
2.48E+10
5.48E+12
2000
1.26E+21
5.52E+19
1.56E+23
1.57E+23
4.38E+22
2.86E+10
4.94E+12
1996
2.39E+20
2.58E+16
1.23E+22
1.26E+22
2.59E+21
2.32E+09
6.79E+12
1997
2.39E+20
2.58E+16
1.25E+22
1.27E+22
2.56E+21
2.67E+09
6.19E+12
1998
2.39E+20
2.58E+16
1.47E+22
1.50E+22
2.54E+21
3.01E+09
5.74E+12
1999
2.39E+20
2.58E+16
1.72E+22
1.75E+22
3.57E+21
3.29E+09
5.48E+12
2000
2.39E+20
2.58E+16
1.83E+22
1.86E+22
4.87E+21
3.78E+09
4.94E+12
Modified from Zhao 2001

Modified from Zhu 2000
c
R (Renewable local resources emergy input ) = maxim of solar radiation emergy, wind emergy, rain chemical
emergy, rain potential emergy and earth cycle emergy
=rain chemical emergy
=area rainfall rain density Gibbs number ETR (Odum, 1996)
b
=(____m2)(1.6916m/yr)(1000kg/m3)(4.94103J/kg)(1.54104sej/J)
d
N (Nonrenewable local resources emergy input) = erosion of the surface soil emergy
= area erosion ratio of the surface soil organic percent of soil energy of unite soil organic ETR
=(___m2)(2.00E+02g/m2/a)(2.63E-02)(5.40Kcal/g)(4186J/Kcal)(6.25E+04sej/J)
F (Purchased resource emergy input) =
i =1
i =1
Fi =
(nonrenewable resources purchased inputi ETRi)
Y (Emergy yield)=R+N+F
W (Waste emergy output) =
i =1
i =1
Wi =
(wastesi ETRi)
Zhao 2001
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0.0023
0.0016
1.07
689.31
259.28
430.03
1.00
1997
Emergy Sustainability Index (ESI)
454.55
777.35
1.00
1999
340.42
621.06
1.00
2000
0.0037
0.0024
1.02
0.0013
0.0008
0.98
0.0016
0.0009
0.91
426.29 1231.90 961.48
157.43
268.86
1.00
1998
Beijing city ecosystem
Emergy Index of Sustainable Development (EISD)
Emergy Exchange Ratio (EER)
Environmental Impact Index (EII)
Emergy Waste Index (EWI)
Environmental Loading Ratio (ELR)
Emergy Yield Ratio (EYR)
ESI =EYR/ELR
0.0040
0.0028
EISDf=(EYR*EER)/EII
1.13
405.47
EER =GDP/(Y/(sej/$))
EII =ELR+EWI
EWI =W/R
156.00
249.47
ELRb =(F+N)/R
1.00
1996
EYR =Y/F
Item
0.0085
0.0061
0.94
254.20
36.23
117.98
1.01
1996
28.64
93.61
1.01
1997
0.0108
0.0077
0.93
0.0090
0.0064
0.92
145.95
33.61
112.34
1.01
1998
0.0074
0.0052
0.91
174.09
37.34
136.75
1.01
1999
Guangzhou city ecosystem
122.25
Table 2 Emergy indices of the three urban ecosystems from 1996 to 2000.
0.0081
0.0057
0.90
158.62
34.76
123.85
1.01
2000
0.0197
0.0204
1.25
62.49
10.85
51.64
1.02
1996
0.0195
0.0209
1.29
63.01
10.70
52.31
1.02
1997
0.0165
0.0162
1.15
72.22
10.64
61.58
1.02
1998
0.0141
0.0121
1.03
86.98
14.95
72.034
1.01
1999
Zhongshan city ecosystem
0.0132
0.0105
1.01
97.02
20.38
76.64
1.01
2000
Chapter 29. Emergy for Assessing Urban Sustainable Development
0.025
EISD and ESI
0.02
0.015
0.01
0.005
0
0
1
1996
2
1997
3
1998
4
1999
5
2000
EISD(Beijing)
ESI(Beijing)
EISD(Guangzhou)
ESI(Guangzhou)
EISD(Zhongshan)
ESI(Zhongshan)
Figure 1. The EISD and ESI of the three cities from 1996 to 2000.
Zhangzhou is lower than that of Beijing , and the pollution problem in Guangzhou is more serious than
in Beijing (Table 1). For Zhongshan, the EISD was higher than the ESI before 1998, as a result of the
higher EER of Zhongshan in that period. After that, the EISD became lower than ESI in Zhongshan as
a result of the quickly worsened pollution problem.
CONCLUSION
Considering the aim of showing social-economic benefit per unit of environment impact,
EISD provides a more complete analysis of the sustainable development ability of particular systems,
due to its sensitivity to both the economy and waste problems, shown as the effect of EER and EWI.
The EISD can be higher than the ESI when the EER of the target system is high, and can be lower than
ESI when the EWI of the target system is high. The analysis of EISD and its four sub-indices, EYR,
EER, ELR and EII, can provide a better reference for policy makers to evaluate sustainable
development. EISD is more sensitive than ESI in the assessment of the systems sustainable
development ability and in the discovery of the systems development result.
The new EISD does not express the social-political and social-cultural effects, which are
essential functions of urban ecosystems. Following the global integration trend of social economy,
different cities have different functions in their regions, nations and even the world. The sustainable
development ability of urban ecosystems should be evaluated on even larger scales, such as regional,
national and even worldwide scales. In this case study, Beijing is the capital of China and has a large
influence on political and cultural in China. Without considering those contributions, the result of
EISD undervalued the sustainable development ability of this cities, especially for Beijing. To improve
the study of sustainable development, the social-political and social-cultural benefits should be
included in EISD, taking into consideration the function of the target urban ecosystem in its mother
ecosystem.
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When comparing urban areas with dike-pond agro-ecological engineering modes (Lu and Lan
et al., 2001), the EISD of dike-pond agro-ecological engineering modes is much higher (3.0 on
average) than the EISD of a city, even when compared with Zhongshan city. So with the accelerated
urbanization of our country, we should apply more ecology principles to the development of urban
systems.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The study is supported by the Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(30270282, 30170147, 30070146), Guangdong Group Project (003031), and Director Foundation of
South China Institution of Botany CAS.
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Appendix Table A-1. Emergy Evaluation of Guanzhou, 1996-2000 (Data from Guangzhou Statistics Bureau, 1997-2001,
Transformity values from Sui, 2000).
Item
Original Data (J,t)

1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
Transformity
(sej/unit)
Solar Emergy (sej)

1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
Renewable input from local environment

Sun light (J)
3.13E+19
2.49E+19
2.71E+19
3.12E+19
3.20E+19
1.00E+00
3.13E+19
2.49E+19
2.71E+19
3.12E+19
3.20E+19
Wind (J)
1.54E+16
1.54E+16
1.54E+16
1.54E+16
1.54E+16
6.63E+02
1.02E+19
1.02E+19
1.02E+19
1.02E+19
1.02E+19
5.83E+16
7.68E+16
6.73E+16
6.01E+16
6.94E+16
1.82E+04
1.06E+21
1.40E+21
1.22E+21
1.09E+21
1.26E+21
Rain, Geopotential (J)
1.16E+16
1.52E+16
1.33E+16
1.19E+16
1.38E+16
1.05E+04
1.22E+20
1.60E+20
1.40E+20
1.25E+20
1.45E+20
1.06E+21
1.40E+21
1.22E+21
1.09E+21
1.26E+21
Subtotal (R)
Nonrenewable input from local environment
Loss of surface soil (J)
8.83E+14
8.83E+14
8.83E+14
8.83E+14
8.83E+14
6.25E+04
Subtotal (N)
5.52E+19
5.52E+19
5.52E+19
5.52E+19
5.52E+19
5.52E+19
5.52E+19
5.52E+19
5.52E+19
5.52E+19
Nonrenewable input feedbacks from social economy
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Steels(t)
1.69E+06
1.75E+06
1.79E+06
1.89E+06
2.01E+06
4.65E+15
4.50E+21
4.49E+21
4.55E+21
4.52E+21
4.33E+21
Iron (t)
7.39E+05
7.05E+05
7.15E+05
7.49E+05
7.86E+05
8.60E+14
1.72E+20
1.19E+20
1.15E+20
1.15E+20
1.03E+20
Copper (t)
3.59E+04
3.76E+04
4.27E+04
4.70E+04
5.44E+04
6.80E+16
2.44E+21
2.55E+21
2.91E+21
3.20E+21
3.70E+21
Aluminium (t)
6.96E+04
5.99E+04
6.29E+04
6.76E+04
7.14E+04
1.63E+16
1.13E+21
9.77E+20
1.03E+21
1.10E+21
1.16E+21
Lead (t)
7.50E+03
8.65E+03
9.50E+03
1.05E+04
8.41E+03
1.60E+16
1.20E+20
1.38E+20
1.52E+20
1.67E+20
1.35E+20
Zinc (t)
2.89E+04
2.69E+04
3.09E+04
3.40E+04
3.21E+04
1.80E+15
5.19E+19
4.84E+19
5.57E+19
6.12E+19
5.79E+19
Tin (t)
2.11E+02
7.78E+02
8.26E+02
8.89E+02
7.40E+02
1.90E+15
4.01E+17
1.48E+18
1.57E+18
1.69E+18
1.41E+18
Rubber (t)
5.67E+04
5.63E+04
6.48E+04
6.95E+04
7.23E+04
3.01E+15
1.71E+20
1.69E+20
1.95E+20
2.09E+20
2.18E+20
Cement (t)
2.52E+06
2.71E+06
2.87E+06
3.10E+06
3.12E+06
3.30E+16
8.30E+22
8.95E+22
9.47E+22
1.02E+23
1.03E+23
Wood (m3)
1.02E+06
1.07E+06
1.09E+06
1.13E+06
1.20E+06
4.84E+14
4.94E+20
5.17E+20
5.26E+20
5.45E+20
5.82E+20
Coal (t)
1.04E+07
9.50E+06
9.45E+06
1.04E+07
1.26E+07
1.27E+15
1.32E+22
1.21E+22
1.20E+22
1.32E+22
1.61E+22
Charcoal (t)
7.17E+04
8.42E+04
2.27E+05
1.81E+05
1.78E+05
1.27E+15
9.12E+19
1.07E+20
2.89E+20
2.30E+20
2.27E+20
Crude oil (t)
4.35E+06
4.70E+06
5.19E+06
5.90E+06
6.51E+06
1.88E+15
8.20E+21
8.85E+21
9.78E+21
1.11E+22
1.23E+22
Gasoline (t)
1.51E+05
1.14E+05
1.17E+05
1.28E+05
1.33E+05
2.49E+15
3.76E+20
2.83E+20
2.91E+20
3.19E+20
3.31E+20
Kerosene (t)
3.83E+05
3.89E+05
3.83E+05
3.95E+05
4.74E+05
2.26E+15
2.25E+20
2.10E+20
1.77E+20
1.22E+20
2.76E+20
Diesel oil (t)
2.27E+06
2.32E+06
2.23E+06
2.42E+06
2.63E+06
2.35E+15
5.32E+21
5.46E+21
5.23E+21
5.69E+21
6.18E+21
Power (kwh)
9.02E+05
9.40E+05
9.46E+05
1.05E+06
1.23E+06
5.76E+15
5.19E+21
5.41E+21
5.45E+21
6.06E+21
7.08E+21
1.25E+23
1.31E+23
1.37E+23
1.49E+23
1.56E+23
1.26E+23
1.32E+23
1.39E+23
1.50E+23
1.57E+23
Subtotal (F)
Output
Yield (Y)
GDP ($)
1.74E+10
1.98E+10
2.22E+10
2.48E+10
2.86E+10
Liquid wastes (t)
1.03E+09
1.05E+09
1.08E+09
9.35E+08
9.59E+08
3.30E+08
3.41E+17
3.48E+17
3.57E+17
3.09E+17
3.17E+17
Solid wastes (t)
3.15E+06
3.29E+06
3.36E+06
3.34E+06
3.59E+06
1.22E+16
3.84E+22
4.01E+22
4.10E+22
4.07E+22
4.38E+22
3.84E+22
4.01E+22
4.10E+22
4.07E+22
4.38E+22
Subtotal of wastes
Rain, Chemical (J)
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
30
An Exploration of the Use of EMERGY in Sustainability Evaluation
ABSTRACT
This paper has the goal of exploring the possibility of using EMERGY in sustainability
evaluation. A case study that compares the sustainability of two maize irrigation systems (furrow vs.
solid set sprinkler, both with electric pumping) is used as the basis of the discussion.
The furrow irrigation system presents a lower total EMERGY, yielding a lower transformity.
The main reason is the lower electricity needs for pumping. This system also has a lower Investment
Ratio and Environmental Loading Ratio, due to both higher renewable resource consumption (lower
water efficiency) and less use of market purchased resources (lower electricity use).
EMERGY analysis allows the comparison of the use of different resources, which is important
for sustainability evaluations, when evaluating technologies in terms of impacts on resources. For
example, it accounts for labor and services, which are not commonly considered in other biophysical
methods. One major limitation is the absence of threshold values, making the analysis of EMERGY
results more complex.
Total EMERGY still has some limitations when used to evaluate sustainability but, with further
development, it has strong potential.
INTRODUCTION
Sustainability comes from the root sustain, meaning: to hold up, to prolong, and to support the
life of (Chambers Concise Dictionary, ECIFM, 2004). According to Brundtland (1987), sustainable
development is defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This concept considers environmental, economic
and social conditions in order to satisfy present needs. It also incorporates time when referring to
future generations needs and when considering the environmental (e.g. protection of biodiversity
ensuring environmental stability in the future) and social aspects (such as literacy, health, poverty of
future generations). Sustainability, as used in this paper, is defined as the capacity of a system to
achieve sustainable development, or to become closer to a sustainable development.
EMERGY analysis is currently used for environ-economic evaluations of systems. The
objective of this paper is to explore the applicability of EMERGY analysis to sustainability evaluations
by comparing the sustainability of two agricultural systems.
We begin by defining the criteria we use to discuss EMERGY. Then we present the case study,
its description and major results, followed by a discussion on the applicability of EMERGY analysis to
sustainability evaluations, considering the criteria defined in the following section.
CRITERIA FOR A SUSTAINABILITY INDICATOR

Specific criteria were considered in our assessment of the capacity of EMERGY analysis to
evaluate sustainable development. There are two types of criteria: classification criteria and evaluation
criteria. Classification criteria are used to characterize the method, while evaluation criteria are used to
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Chapter 30. An Exploration of the Use of EMERGY
determine its applicability. Three major groups of criteria can be identified. The first group of criteria
is concerned with the goal and scope (these criteria are evaluation criteria unless indicated otherwise):
(i) Basis of the method of analysis: i.e., whether it is a scientifically based or a stakeholder
based evaluation system (classification criterion).
(ii) Classification according to pressurestateresponse (PSR) approach (OECD, 1993), this
approach is based on a concept of causality: human activities introduce pressure on the
environment (pressure) and change its quality and the quantity of natural resources (state);
society responds to these changes through policies, e.g. environmental and economic policies
(response) (classification criterion).
(iii) Spatial scale of applicability, which includes the economic (business and product scales,
economic sectors, life cycle of a product or service) and the regional scale (such as cities,
countries, bio-regions) of applicability; it is desirable that a methods applicability range be as
wide as possible.
(iv) Temporal dimension: if the method of analysis includes evaluations of trends, it is
considered dynamic, i.e. if the analysis explicitly defines indicators that refer to variations in
time of some aspects included in the analysis. An indicator is not considered dynamic if it just
carries out two or more evaluations at different instants.
(v) Temporal scale of applicability: this aspect, not related to the dynamic criterion, refers to
the range of time scales covered, i.e. the time scales of the inputs considered by the analysis.
(vi) Acceptance/acceptability of the method by multiple stakeholders, namely whether its
units are easy to understand and whether it is possible to convert these units into other more
user-friendly units.
The second group of criteria considers the existence of target values and their relation to
indicators in other evaluation techniques. The comparison of EMERGY analysis results with target
values or indicators in other methods allows a better understanding/acceptance of the results of
EMERGY analysis. In this group the following criteria were considered:
(i) The potential to produce desirable or threshold levels, which should be based solely on
scientific (Walker and Reuter, 1996) or socio-economic information (Krotscheck and
Narodoslawsky, 1996) and be independent of inflow and outflow values, which may vary
with time and place. This criterion helps in the interpretation and use of the results of EMERGY
analysis.
(ii) The potential for using the results for regulatory purposes.
(iii) Compatibility with other methods, i.e. the resemblance between the results of EMERGY
analysis and the results of other evaluation methods, such as ecological footprint (EF), life
cycle assessment (LCA), material flow analysis (MFA), mass input per service (MIPS) or
total economic value (TEV).
The third group of criteria for assessing EMERGY analysis addresses the extent of the data used
and the feasibility of collecting these data, specifically:
(i) Environ-social-economic aspects considered, i.e. types of resources considered, emissions,
other environmental items, such as noise or visual amenities, economic items (different
sectors of the economy, households, human labor, traded goods, market resources,
services,) and social items (e.g., safety, literacy, health, crime, inequality,).
(ii) Cost-effectiveness, which can be defined as the ratio of the accuracy of the results and
computed indices to the cost of calculating them. Error evaluations are costly to carry out, so
in this paper we only analyze where the major costs of an EMERGY evaluation occur.
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CASE STUDY: TWO MAIZE IRRIGATION SYSTEMS

Methods
The case study is a comparison of two maize irrigation systems: furrow irrigation with
electric pumping (Maize I), and solid set sprinkler irrigation with electric pumping (Maize II).
Production data for the region of Ribatejo and Oeste in Portugal were used for 10 ton/ha.yr of maize
production. Most of the data are from GPPAA (2001) and Esteves et al. (1995). The first source is a
compendium of representative Portuguese farm data on crop production; the second is an energy
analysis of two irrigation systems. The main categories of inputs are presented in Figure 1. This
evaluation considers maize production through the end of maize transport (after the harvesting phase)
to the drying facility.
To avoid counting the same environmental energy source twice, all work that can be
attributed to dispersion of solar energy insolation and rain was calculated and listed, but only rain
was considered to determine total EMERGY flows. Evapotranspiration was not considered in this study
since no estimates were available.
Total average daily caloric consumption for manual labor was that assumed necessary to
support an average eight-hour workday. The transformity for uneducated labor (Odum, 1996) was
applied. Manual labor was separated from services provided by humans with a higher level of
education (e.g. farm management).
Net topsoil loss was not accounted for due to lack of data for calculating transformity.
Similarly, sequestered CO2 (carbon dioxide) was not considered since no transformity for atmospheric
CO2 is available.
Table 1 presents data on maize production with a furrow irrigation system and Table 2
presents data on maize production with a solid set sprinkler system. All calculations and references are
presented in the notes for Table 1 and Table 2 in the Appendix. Transformities used in the evaluations
are listed in the notes. When using transformities from previously published works (before 2000), we
multiplied them by a factor of 1.68 (Odum et al., 2000) to adjust them to the new baseline.
Figure 1. Simplified EMERGY diagram for the Maize production system under analysis.
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Table 1. EMERGY used to produce 10 tons/ha.yr of maize using furrow irrigation with electric
pumping (1 hectare of production on yearly basis).
Transformity
Solar EMERGY
Unit
Note
Item
Data
Unit
or Specific
(E14 seJ/ha/yr)
EMERGY
1 Sun
7.66E+13 J
1.00E+00
seJ/J
0.77
2 Water
6.00E+09 g
1.28E+05
seJ/g
7.67
3 Fuel
7.20E+08 J
6.60E+04
seJ/J
1.29
4 Electricity
2.18E+09 J
3.36E+05
seJ/J
7.31
5 Potash
7.39E+04 g K
1.74E+09
seJ/g K
1.29
6 Pesticides
6.50E+03 g
1.48E+10
seJ/g
0.96
7 Phosphate
2.86E+04 g P
2.20E+10
seJ/g P
6.30
8 Nitrogen
2.19E+05 g N
2.41E+10
seJ/g N
52.8
9 Labor
2.38E+08 J
4.50E+06
seJ/J
10.7
10 Services
8.01E+02
3.68E+12
seJ/
29.5
11 Total EMERGY
117
Table 2. EMERGY used to produce 10 tons/ha.yr of maize using a solid set sprinkler irrigation
system (1 hectare of production on a yearly basis)
Transformity
Solar EMERGY
Unit
Note
Item
Data
Unit
or Specific
(E14 seJ/ha/yr)
EMERGY
1 Sun
7.66E+13 J
1.00E+00
seJ/J
0.77
2 Water
3.60E+09 g
1.28E+05
seJ/g
4.60
3 Fuel
4.78E+08 J
6.60E+04
seJ/J
0.32
4 Electricity
7.39E+09 J
3.36E+05
seJ/J
24.8
5 Potash
7.39E+04 g
1.74E+09
seJ/g K
1.29
6 Pesticides
6.50E+03 g
1.48E+10
seJ/g
0.96
7 Phosphate
2.86E+04 g P
2.20E+10
seJ/g P
6.30
8 Nitrogen
2.19E+05 g N
2.41E+10
seJ/g N
52.8
9 Labor
1.05E+08 J
4.50E+06
seJ/J
4.73
10 Services
9.88E+02
3.68E+12
seJ/
36.4
11 Total EMERGY
132
Some EMERGY based indices were also calculated, namely: transformity (T) for maize, i.e.
per unit energy; EMERGY yield ratio (EYR), maize EMERGY per unit EMERGY of market
purchased resources; EMERGY investment ratio (EIR), the EMERGY of market purchased resources per
unit of EMERGY of local resources (water, in this case); Environmental Loading Ratio (ELR), EMERGY
of market purchased resources and local non-renewable resources (the latter not accounted for in this
paper) per unit EMERGY of local renewable resources (water); and Empower Density (ED), maize
EMERGY per unit area. A brief definition of these indices is presented in Table 3. Results for the case
study are presented in Table 4.
Monetary conversion evaluation could not be performed, since it is necessary to first carry out
a national or global EMERGY analysis to derive the EMERGY Money Ratio (EMR) of Portugal. The
particular case of services (accounted for in the case studies) was carried out through a conversion (by
using exchange rates) from dollar values to euros, where emdollar values were known from the
literature.
EMERGY
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Table 3. Description of EMERGY based indices used in this study.

Index
EMERGY Yield Ratio
EMERGY Investment
Ratio
Ratio
EMERGY Money Ratio
Empower Density
Symbol
EYR
EIR
ELR
EMR
ED
Definition
Y/F
Units
seJ/seJ
seJ/seJ
Note
(a)
Source
1, 2, 3
(b)
1, 2
(F+N)/R
seJ/seJ
(c)
1, 2, 3
Total Emergy/GDP
Total Emergy/area/yr
seJ/Money Units
seJ/ha/yr
(d)
(e)
1, 2
1, 2, 3
F/(R+N)
Symbols: R renewable resources (local); N non-renewable resources (local); F inputs purchased from the
economy; Y product.
(a) EYR: Indicates whether the process can compete in supplying a primary energy source for an economy. Its
value is always greater than or equal to one (due to the use of local resources). Lower values indicate less return
will be obtained per unit of EMERGY invested, when comparing alternative processes (less competitive EMERGY
sources have a higher cost due to local conditions, but they can become competitive when others approach
scarcity or are used up).
(b) EIR: Evaluates the EMERGY input from the economy needed to exploit a unit of local resource. If the system
receives less from the economy, the ratio is lower and the price of the local resource will be lower, increasing
its market competitiveness. The tendency of a company will be to increase the use of purchased inputs so as to
process more output and more money (Bastianoni et al., 2001). Hence, this tendency must be changed to equal
the regional (environ-socio-political regions) investment ratio.
(c) ELR: Indicates the economic purchased and local non-renewable inputs needed to explore a unit of EMERGY
from local renewable resources. A large ratio suggests a high technological level in EMERGY use as well as a
high level of environmental stress.
(d) EMR: Refers to the EMERGY consumption of a country divided by the total amount of money flow generated
in that country. It can be set as an economic efficiency ratio, where lower values represent higher efficiencies.
Rural countries have a higher EMERGY/money ratio because more of their economy involves unpaid inputs of
direct environmental resources.
(e) ED: Is a measure of the spatial concentration of EMERGY flow within a process or system. Very
industrialized countries or areas have higher values, followed by areas characterized by less concentrated or
rural economies. A high empower density eventually suggests that land will be a limiting factor for future
economic growth (but not development) and that there exists high environmental stress.
(1) Odum (1996); (2) Ulgiati et al. (1994); (3) Bastianoni et al. (2001).
Results and Discussion

Maize II has higher total EMERGY than Maize I (although the values are similar). This is due
to higher EMERGY for electricity (used for pumping) and services (due to higher fixed and variable
costs with machinery), Table 5. Despite this, Maize II presents lower EMERGY values for water
consumption (higher water efficiency), fuel consumption (it does not require a tractor for opening the
furrows) and labor (the irrigation system requires less labor).
The major contributing factors to the EMERGY of both case studies are labor, nitrogen from
fertilizer, phosphates from fertilizer, and water. In order to reduce EMERGY from fertilizers, the use of
rotation crops, such as legumes, which introduce nitrogen into the soil and reduce the need for nitrogen
fertilizer, should be considered. However, this would increase the area needed for maize production,
decreasing empower density.
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Table 4. EMERGY based indices for the two case studies.

Solar
Tb
EYRc
EMERGYa
(seJ/J)
(seJ/ha.yr)
1.17E+16
8.48E+04
1.07E+00
Maize I
1.32E+16
9.58E+04
1.04E+00
Maize II
EIRd
ELRe
EDf
(seJ/ha.yr)
1.43E+01*
2.77E+01*
1.43E+01*
2.77E+01*
1.17E+16
1.32E+16
Maize I refers to maize crop production using a furrow irrigation system with electric pumping.
Maize II refers to maize crop production using a solid set sprinkler irrigation system.
*These two indices are not useful for this case study since local non-renewable resources were not considered.
a EMERGY values obtained from Tables 1 and 2.
b Transformities obtained by dividing solar EMERGY from the previous column by the energy of crops, using
the specific energy of 1.38E+07 J/kg, StoraEnso (2002). Transformity (seJ/J) = Solar EMERGY
(seJ/ha.yr)/1.38E+07 (J/kg) x 10,000 kg/ha/yr of maize.
c EYR obtained by dividing solar EMERGY of maize by the EMERGY of items 3 10 from Table 1 (for Maize
I) or Table 2 (for Maize II).
d EIR obtained by dividing the EMERGY of items 3 to 10 by item 2 from Table 1 (for Maize I) or Table 2 (for
Maize II). EMERGY from local non-renewable resources was not determined.
e ELR obtained by dividing the EMERGY of items 3 to 10 by the EMERGY of item 2 from Table 1 (for Maize I)
or Table 2 (for Maize II). EMERGY from local non-renewable resources was not determined.
f ED is equal to the solar EMERGY values since values are already per unit area.
Table 5. Emergy for both systems considering the inputs where the differences occur
Item
Maize I (seJ/ha.yr)
Maize II (seJ/ha.yr)
Water
7.67E+14
4.60E+14
Fuel
1.29E+14
3.16E+13
Electricity
7.31E+14
2.48E+15
Labor
1.07E+15
4.73E+14
Services
2.95E+15
3.64E+15
Total EMERGY
1.17E+16
1.32E+16
Maize I corresponds to maize production with furrow irrigation and Maize II to maize production with a solid
set sprinkler system.
Maize I presents a lower transformity than Maize II (Table 4), revealing higher energy
efficiency (lower inputs per unit energy of maize). EYR is similar between the two systems since the
difference between market purchased resources is low, however Maize II presents a lower value and
thus it should have higher investment costs. EIR and ELR are equal since local non-renewable
resources were not considered. These two indices are not useful for this case study since local nonrenewable resources were not considered.
The analysis carried out did not considered net topsoil loss, which could alter the results. For
labor, a transformity for Florida was used. Since it is an important factor contributing to the results,
Portuguese labor transformity should be determined.
Data availability was crucial for this analysis. In Portugal this is a very important issue for
sustainability analysis since data is scarce. The interpretation of results is not always easy, namely
because there is a lack of similar case studies for Portugal, which could be used as benchmarks.
However, this is a problem related to any biophysical analysis to be carried out since this is a new
subject in Portugal.
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DISCUSSION ON THE APPLICABILITY OF EMERGY ANALYSIS IN

SUSTAINABILITY EVALUATION
This discussion is presented in the same order that the criteria for a sustainability indicator were
presented in section 2.
Goal and Scope of EMERGY Analysis

(i) EMERGY is based on using biophysical constraints to evaluate natural and non-natural
(human) systems on earth, converting flows into the same unit. These biophysical constraints are
scientific, thus EMERGY is a scientific based analysis. Total EMERGY of a product or service aggregates
all these flows into a single value. For this reason, total EMERGY of a product or service can be called a
biophysical aggregate indicator.
(ii) According to OECD (1993) and the fact that total EMERGY quantifies the emergy used to
make something expressed in energy units of the same quality, total EMERGY of a product or service
can be identified as a pressure indicator. For example, it is possible to say that Maize II introduces a
higher pressure on the environment than Maize I (although it is not possible to say whether the
differences between the two systems are significant).
(iii) EMERGY analysis can be used to evaluate national, sub-national, local, business and
product scales. It can be used also to evaluate any sector of the economy and the entire life cycle of a
product or service. Total EMERGY can also be compared across countries. However, global average
data (easy to find) is not useful for comparisons between different regions. In this aspect, regional data
is preferable to global data so that EMERGY analysis can detect regional differences. This is also a
problem for other evaluation methods, but EMERGY analysis allows the possibility for improvement
through the determination of site-specific transformities.
(iv) Total EMERGY of a product or a service is a static indicator, not providing knowledge of
trends of evolution of that state. However, total EMERGY values can be compared over time. Recent
research has revealed the possibility of dynamic EMERGY analysis using simulation models (e.g.
Huang, 2004).
(v) EMERGY calculations cover a wide range of time scales: from direct sunlight (minutes, e.g.
direct sunlight arrival to the Earths surface) to biological evolution and geological processes (millions
of years, e.g., formation of fossil fuels, rocks, and minerals).
(vi) Solar EMERGY is expressed in a unit that is difficult for the general public to understand:
solar EMERGY Joules (seJ). In this sense, it is difficult to use to persuade policy-makers or the general
public that a given policy is good or bad for the environment. There is the possibility of converting seJ
into monetary units, which are more user-friendly. Odum (1996) describes the method for money
conversion: the Emergy Money Ratio (EMR) is determined by dividing total solar EMERGY used in a
year by a given entity (country, state, region) by the gross economic product of the entity. The
emmoney (e.g. emdollar, EM$) is then calculated by multiplying money flows by the appropriate
EMR for the region. This is a very explicit connection between the environment and the economy,
although it is not a direct measure since solar energy has no direct market price. The conversion factor
to EM$ (gross economic value per annual EMERGY budget) is an average value for the entire economy
of a country, and should not be applied to monetary flows at much more detailed levels. This
application (the use of a single factor for all products to convert from EMERGY to money) assumes that
the economy is a homogeneous system, which it is not. Also, EMERGY is silent about when and to
which economic sector the costs apply, making it difficult to use in policy discussions (Herendeen,
1999), for instance, if the costs, in monetary terms, should apply to consumers or producers.
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Target Values and Relation with Other Evaluation Techniques

(i) According to Bastianoni et al. (2001), transformity can be used to compare energy
efficiencies (but only when comparing equal products with different production technologies). Maize I
present a lower use of EMERGY per unit energy than Maize II, and thus, has higher energy efficiency.
Natural renewable resources have the lowest transformity (water has a lower transformity
than fertilizers and pesticides; sun radiation transformity is lower than electricity, labor and services).
The resources with the highest transformities are those purchased from the economy, since present
economic production is very dependent on fossil fuels. However, EMERGY does not explicitly
introduce threshold values in order to compare with limits.
EMERGY flows can be influenced both positively and negatively by an economic activity. For
example, Maize II reduces the amount of water needed for irrigation (4.60E+14 seJ/ha.yr compared
with 7.67E+14 seJ/ha.yr for Maize I), and thus reduces the amount of leaching released, but Maize II
increases the electric energy consumption for pumping (4.15E+14 seJ/ha.yr compared with 2.94E+14
seJ/ha.yr for Maize I). These different influences together with the absence of a threshold value make
it difficult to define policies for a better development (a sustainable development). EMERGY helps to
analyze this trade-off through the use of the same unit for all inputs (seJ) and through the different
EMERGY based indices, leading to the conclusion that the increase in electricity consumption offsets
the saving in water.
In EMERGY, as in most other analyses, there is not yet a biophysical carrying capacity, i.e. a
threshold value dependent solely on biophysical conditions. Ulgiati et al. (1994) refer that the carrying
capacity is determined by the net EMERGY per unit time; however further developments should be
made in order to determine threshold values. The existence of such a value is important in order to
allow benchmarking and to determine whether the impacts introduced are significant or negligible.
The existence of targets in EMERGY analysis is demonstrated by the consideration of the
maximum empower principle (Odum, 1996), i.e. the systems that prevail are those whose design
maximizes empower, showing better adaptation to surrounding conditions. However, the principle
refers to an unspecified optimality criterion and does not clarify things adequately for policy
application (Herendeen, 1999).
Other EMERGY related indices have been introduced to better assess various aspects of the
efficiency or sustainability of a system under study (Table 3 and Table 4), which help in the
interpretation of EMERGY results. Maize I presents a higher EYR revealing possible higher investment
costs.
(ii) EMERGY, at its present level of development, cannot be used to evaluate the conformity of
firms with environmental legislation. Most environmental legislation is linked to emission values,
rather than resource consumption. This is a negative point since many industries environmental and
sustainability actions are linked to regulatory compliance, rather than to a genuine concern with the
environment.
(iii) EMERGY has many similarities with other analyses, such as EF, LCA or TEV. The major
difference, in terms of methodology, is related to a different consideration of allocation in co-products,
which can lead to: (1) important differences between final results in the analysis or (2) different
inventory data for the analysis, when co-products are involved.
Extent of Data Used

(i) EMERGY considers almost all environmental resources: energy, agriculture, forests,
minerals and soil, water, wind, and direct solar radiation. Economic aspects (different sectors of the
economy, households, human labor, traded goods and market resources) are also included. The
analysis of the maize production systems has shown the possibility of including all resources used
(resources such as net topsoil loss, steel, rubber and PVC, were not included because of lack of data
and not due to limitations of EMERGY analysis).
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Some limitations are related to consumption of CO2 and oxygen (O2), where data for
transformities are difficult to obtain. This aspect is particularly important when there is a comparison
of different crops to produce the same product (for instance, the comparison of eucalyptus trees and
hemp crops as alternative fiber sources for the paper industry). However, this is due not to a
methodological shortcoming, but to a lack of published data on this subject. Other aspects not taken
into account are emissions to the environment and land use in terms of visual amenities and the effect
of soil loss on productivity. EMERGY analysis has difficulties in applications to the sustainability: e.g.
literacy (although it can distinguish between educated and uneducated labor), health, crime, inequality,
etc. are not usually evaluated. Due to this, for a complete evaluation of sustainability it needs further
development.
(ii) The costs of EMERGY analysis are mainly associated with data gathering and time spent on
analysis of results.
With respect to data gathering, EMERGY requires a relatively large amount of local
biophysical processes data (e.g. the amount of energy required to produce local rain) and other
consumption data such as soil, food, housing, consumables, services, etc. In addition, information on
national net EMERGY use is needed to include services and labor or to compute indicators such as
emdollar. These kinds of information can be costly. However, for a less specific (in terms of location)
and less rigorous (increasing the error) analysis, global values for natural production of inputs can be
used.
EMERGY computation is simple and there are several published transformity values. Since
EMERGY computation is linear, the complexity can come from the amount of data to be processed and
the verification of the conditions related to co-products.
CONCLUSIONS
In this paper a general discussion of the applicability of EMERGY analysis to sustainability
evaluation was presented. Some criteria were defined to discuss the application of EMERGY to
sustainability evaluation.
A case study comparing two maize irrigation systems (furrow irrigation with electric pumping
and a solid set sprinkler system) was carried out. The furrow irrigation system presents a lower total
EMERGY, yielding a lower transformity. This is due mainly to the lower electricity needs for pumping.
Also, it presents lower EIR and ELR, due to higher renewable resource consumption (lower water
efficiency) and lower use of market purchased resources (lower electricity use).
For sustainability evaluation, EMERGY analysis allows the comparison of the use of different
resources, which is important when evaluating technologies in terms of consumption of resources. It
accounts for labor and services, which are often not addressed by other biophysical analyses. One
major limitation is the absence of threshold values, making the analysis of EMERGY results more
complex. Its applicability to firms is also limited due to the fact that EMERGY cannot be used to
evaluate the compliance of firms with environmental regulators (which are based on emission values).
Summing up, total EMERGY still has some limitations regarding its application to
sustainability evaluations, but it is a method with strong potential for further development.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Ins Azevedo, Nuno Cegonho and Tnia Sousa for their discussions on the subject.
This work was supported by: POCTI under grant General Theory of Sustainability and Application to
Agriculture, POCTI/MGS/47731/2002, and FLAD under grant 631/03. The work of Ana Simes is
financed by the PhD scholarship SFRH/BD/5432/2001 supported by Fundao para a Cincia e
Tecnologia, Ministrio da Cincia e do Ensino Superior.
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Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, Paris.
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Odum, H.T., Brown, M.T., Brandt-Williams, S., 2000. Handbook of Emergy Evaluation: Introduction
and Global Budget, Folio #1. Center for Environmental Policy, University of Florida,
Gainesville.
Ortega, E. 1998. Tabela de Transformidades (emergia/Joule, emergia/kg, emergia/US$) de recursos
naturais, consumos industriais e produtos de ecossistemas. LEIA/DEA/FEA/Unicamp,
www.unicamp.br/fea/ortega/ (October, 2002).
StoraEnso. 2002. Environment and Resources 2001. StoraEnso. Helsinki.
Ulgiati, S., Odum, H.T., Bastianoni, S. 1994. Emergy Use, Environmental Loading and Sustainability.
An Emergy Analysis of Italy. Ecological Modelling 73: 215-268.
Vieira, R. 2002. Avaliao Economico-ecolgica Comparativa de Papel de Fibra de Eucalipto e de
Cnhamo. Relatrio 2, Trabalho Final de Curso. Licenciatura em Engenharia do
Ambiente. IST, Lisboa.
http://meteo.ist.utl.pt/~jjdd/LEAMB/LEAmb%20TFC%20site%20v1/20012002_PPT97.htm (September, 2002).
Vieira, R., Domingos, T. 2004. A New Embodied Solar Energy Indicator Based on Odums EMERGY.
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Walker, J., Reuter, D.J., 1996. Key Indicators to Assess Farm and Catchment Health. In: Walker, J.
W., Reuter, D.J. (Eds.), Indicators of Catchment Health A Technical Perspective. CSIRO
Publishing, Melbourne, pp. 21-33.
APPENDIX
Notes to Table 1
1. Transformity of 1 seJ/J, by definition. Average annual insolation of 6.28E+09 J/m2/yr (Instituto do Ambiente,
http://atlas.isegi.unl.pt/website/atlas/din/viewer.htm, visited in December 2003). Crop area of 1 ha. (10,000 m2.yr).
Albedo of 18%. Sun energy = (average annual insolation)x(area)/(1-albedo).
2. EMERGY per unit mass from Odum (1996). Water pumping needs of 6E+06 kg/ha/yr (GPPAA, 2001).
3. Fuel includes diesel and lubricants and uses the transformity of petroleum products. Transformity for fuel from
Odum (1996). Fuel energy = (direct fuel use in tractor, 3.36E+08 J/ha/yr) + (indirect fuel use, 3.77E+08
J/ha/yr)+(lubricant use for tractor, 6.65E+06 J/ha/yr), (Esteves et al., 1995).
4. Electricity used by the pump. Transformity obtained from Ulgiati et al. (1994). Pump with 10.07 kW power and
100 m3/hr water flow (Esteves et al., 1995). The electricity needed is given by 10.07 kW x 1000 W/kW / (100
m3/hr/3600 s/hr) x 6E+06 kg of water (dm3 of water) / 1000 dm3/m3.
5. EMERGY per unit mass from Odum (1996). The mass of K2O is 1.05E+05 g/ha.yr (GPPAA, 2001). This value
was multiplied by: 19 g K/ mol K/(0.5(19x2+16) g K2O/mol K).
6. Pesticides used are Lindano and Alacloro. EMERGY per unit mass from Brandt-Williams (2002). Mass of
pesticides is from GPPAA (2001).
7. EMERGY per unit mass from Brandt-Williams (2002). The mass of P is 1.05E+05 g P2O5 /ha.yr (GPPAA, 2001).
This value was multiplied by: (15 g P/ mol P)/(0.5(15x2+5x16) g P2O5 /mol P).
8. EMERGY per unit mass from Brandt-Williams (2002). N mass from GPPAA (2001).
9. Labor is assumed to be primarily migrant so we used a transformity for uneducated labor equal to 4.50E+06
seJ/J (Brandt-Williams, 2002). This transformity value is specific to Florida and considers US$. Given the lack of
a transformity for Portuguese conditions, this value was used. The energy consumption per hour is 3.13E+02
kcal/hr (Brandt-Williams, 2002). The number of work hours is 1.82E+02 hr/yr (GPPAA, 2001). Labor energy is
given by: (energy consumption per hour)x(the number of work hours)x(4,186 J/kcal).
10. Services include: variable costs of machinery (200.68 /ha.yr); fixed costs of machinery, which include
depreciation (209.08 /ha.yr); overhead costs, 5% of input prices (28.17 /ha.yr); land rent (361.38 /ha.yr); and
interest on circulating capital, 1.5% (1.91 /ha.yr). All costs were obtained from GPPAA (2001). The emdollar
used was 1.55E+12 seJ/US$ (of 1990), which was converted to (of 1997) by using the exchange rate to (2004)
and the inflation rates obtained from the Bank of Portugal. Thus, the emeuro obtained was 3.68E+12 seJ/ (of
1997).
11. Total EMERGY determined by the sum of all inputs EMERGY with the exception of sun EMERGY (to avoid
double counting).
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Notes to Table 2
1. Transformity of 1 seJ/J, by definition. Average annual insolation of 6.28E+09 J/m2/yr (Instituto do Ambiente,
http://atlas.isegi.unl.pt/website/atlas/din/viewer.htm, visited in December 2003). Crop area of 1 ha. (10,000 m2.yr).
Albedo of 18%. Sun energy = (average annual insolation) x (area)/(1-albedo).
2. EMERGY per unit mass from Odum (1996). Water pumping needs of 3.60E+06 kg/ha.yr (GPPAA, 2001).
3. Fuel includes diesel and lubricants and uses the transformity of petroleum products. Transformity for fuel from
Odum (1996). Fuel energy = 4.78E+08 J/ha.yr. Data on fuel amounts was obtained from Esteves et al. (1995).
4. Electricity used by the pump. Transformity obtained from Ulgiati et al. (1994). Pump with 18.6 kW power and
a water flow of 32.64 m3/hr water flow (Esteves et al., 1995). The electricity needed is given by 18.6 (kW) x 1000
(W/kW)/(32.64 m3/hr/3600 s/hr) x 3.60E+06 kg of water (dm3 of water)/1000 dm3/m3.
5. EMERGY per unit mass from Odum (1996). The mass of K2O is 1.05E+05 g/ha.yr (GPPAA, 2001). This value
was multiplied by: (19 g K/ mol K)/(0.5(19x2+16) g K2O/mol K).
6. Pesticides used are Lindano and Alacloro. EMERGY per unit mass from Brandt-Williams (2002). The mass of
pesticides is from GPPAA (2001).
7. EMERGY per unit mass from Brandt-Williams (2002). The mass of P is 1.05E+05 g P2O5 /ha.yr (GPPAA, 2001).
This value was multiplied by: (15 g P/ mol P)/(0.5(15x2+5x16) g P2O5 /mol P).
8. EMERGY per unit mass from Brandt-Williams (2002). N mass from GPPAA (2001).
9. Labor is assumed to be primarily migrant so we used a transformity for uneducated labor equal to 4.50E+06
seJ/J (Brandt-Williams, 2002). This transformity value is specific to Florida and considers US$. Given the lack of
a transformity for Portuguese conditions, this value was used. The energy consumption per hour is 3.13E+02
kcal/hr (Brandt-Williams, 2002). The number of work hours per hectare and year is 8.04E+01, from GPPAA
(2001). Labor energy is given by: (energy consumption per hour)x(the number of work hours)x(4,186 J/kcal).
10. Services include: variable costs of machinery (208.4 /ha.yr); fixed costs of machinery, which include
depreciation (388.41 /ha.yr); overhead costs are 5% of input prices (28.17 /ha.yr); land rent is 361.38 /ha.yr;
and interest on circulating capital, 1.5% (1.93 /ha.yr). All costs were obtained from GPPAA (2001). The
emdollar used was 1.55E+12 seJ/US$ (of 1990), which was converted to (of 1997) by using the exchange rate to
(2004) and the inflation rates obtained from the Bank of Portugal. Thus, the emeuro obtained was 3.68E+12
seJ/ (of 1997).
11. Total EMERGY determined by the sum of all inputs EMERGY with the exception of sun EMERGY (to avoid
double counting).
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
31
Nested Comparative Emergy Assessments Using Milk
Production as a Case Study
Sherry Brandt-Williams and Charlotte Lagerberg Fogelberg
ABSTRACT
This paper provides additional insight into how emergy fits into overall project and policy
development by building a comparison for emergy evaluations of similar processes at different scales,
in different geographical regions, and different methods for evaluating wastes, and by comparing and
contrasting emergy evaluations with other environmental assessment methods. Emergy results were
calculated using data from Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) findings for two Swedish milk farms, one
conventional production and the other organic. The emergy evaluation showed that organic farming
used less than 20% of the amount of emergy per hectare than the conventional process and required
less than half the total support area. The specific emergy for organic milk was about half that of
conventional milk. Comparing emergy ratios at different scales of evaluation resulted in a small
variance between scales for the conventional method, but high dissimilarity for the organic process.
Comparing environmental services required for treatment of emissions better differentiated between
the two dairy methods than determining the emergy as components entering a recycle pathway and
demonstrated that the conventional farm required higher services. The LCA found little difference
between the two methods in energy use or overall wastes, with the exception of pesticide use, but
determined that the organic farm required almost twice as much land, while the conventional farm
required significantly higher amounts of fertilizer.
INTRODUCTION
With impending energy resource shortages (Chow et al. 2003, Salameh 2003, Bentley 2002,
Perkins 1998), many researchers have focused on methods that quantify the amount of energy used in
important economic sectors, not only to find potential areas for energy use reduction, but also to
reduce greenhouse gases and to compare different production methods for long-term sustainability.
Agriculture has been a sector of special interest (Wolf et al. 2003, Fluck et al. 1992) because it is the
use of fuels that has increased yields, making it possible to feed a rapidly growing population. Both
the mechanization of agriculture and production of fertilizers and pesticides require oil-based fuels,
and all of these technologies are entrenched agriculture components in many parts of the world.
Agriculture has also been extensively studied by emergy researchers to assess the overall energy use,
including renewable energy sources that provide a significant subsidy for national economies (for
example see Brandt-Williams and Pillet 2003, Brandt-Williams 2001, Pillet et al. 2000, Pillet 1995,
Ulgiati et al. 1994, Odum et al. 1987).
Life cycle assessments (LCA) are another means for identifying process points at which
energy use can be reduced (Rebitzer et al. 2004, Lagerberg 2001). They assess the energy used in
creation and transport of all direct inputs and also quantify the total wastes and emissions from both
inputs to and outputs from the process evaluated. While LCAs provide a less market dependent
perspective than economic evaluations, some renewable resource requirements and nonrenewables,
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Chapter 31. Nested Comparative Emergy Assessment
such as labor and human services, are still neglected. However, LCAs are typically thorough in
accounting and provide an excellent source of data for completion of emergy evaluations.
An LCA of two dairy farms in western Sweden (Cederberg 1998) was completed in 1996
comparing energy and emissions from a conventional production system and an organic operation.
The wastes and emissions included in this study were pesticides, green house gases and excess
nutrients. Both farms produced much of their own fodder and hay as well as purchasing fodder and
food supplements from other farms. Both retained some of the birthed calves for future replacement
and sold bull calves and meat in addition to milk. While the organic farm used no pesticides on their
own lands, they purchased feed with some components originating from farms with pesticide or other
chemical use.
Figure 1 presents an energy diagram of the same milk-making processes presented in the
LCA and incorporates both conventional and organic components, although some of the flows are zero
for the organic farm (fertilizer and chemical additives for example). While the LCA study provided
the foundation for the emergy evaluation, a complete emergy analysis typically incorporates several
different scales for the same system. The larger scale in this case represented the entire farm as
presented in the LCA, either conventional or organic, while the smaller scale evaluated the functional
unit (FU) itself milk.
Figure 2 demonstrates the smaller scale system, the milk provided by a single cow. Although
this subtlety may not be as important to a comparative evaluation of processes, comparison of
transformities and other key emergy ratios done at both scales will provide new data on scale effects in
the emergy methodology. All inputs to the process of getting milk from a cow were averaged over the
lifespan of the cow and presented as an average annual flow of emergy required to produce the average
output of milk. It is therefore not necessary to evaluate the entire farm to get an accurate
representation of the energy and materials required to produce a commodity. Theoretically, a different
scale perspective should not produce a different emergy ratio for the main commodity being evaluated,
making this sufficient for determining where in the hierarchy of transformity milk belongs.
Figure 1. Energy system diagram illustrating inputs to the dairy systems evaluated using emergy. Items in italics
were included in the LCA (Cederberg 1998), but not in the emergy evaluation.
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Figure 2. An energy system diagram illustrating a typical transformity evaluation of a specific product, in this
case milk the system at a smaller scale than presented in Figure 1.
While an emergy evaluation includes only those items that cross the boundary into a process,
and does not typically consider the use of the product, an LCA includes interior and recycle pathways
in the totals for energy and material flows and the emissions and wastes both during processing and
use. Also, because emergy, by definition, includes inputs to the system and is independent of end uses
or output, emissions and wastes are not classically included in an emergy evaluation unless the system
under study is the treatment itself. There is a small amount of work that has been done to evaluate
wastes from industrial processes, but a clear method for incorporating this component into the
evaluation of the original commodity has not been finalized. Two methods are presented in this paper
to explore differences between the two dairy processes. One determined the emergy of emissions
identified in the LCA as if they had been dispersed through the system and having the emergy
associated with their entry point in the system. The other accounts for all environmental services
required to return the emissions to a concentration deemed safe or occurring naturally in the
environment.
The focus of this paper is to compare transformities and other emergy indices for milk in
order to explore the implications of two different farming methods at different scales and geographic
regions and including wastes and emissions, continuing to build the data bank for the range of
reproducible results for emergy calculations. A brief summary of comparative results between emergy
and the LCA methodology is also presented.
METHODS
Most of the data used for the emergy evaluation were obtained from the LCA study by
Cederberg (1998) for two western Swedish dairy farms in 1996, and most are calculated for the same
functional unit (FU) used in the LCA 1,000 kg of energy corrected milk. Where a flow was referred
to but specific data in a format useful for emergy evaluations were not provided, data from a similar
process were used (De Laval 2004). Very little data for services were provided in the Cederberg
study. Consequently, an economic evaluation of both farms was provided by an expert accountant
(Lidfeldt 2004) and milk prices were averaged from two sources (MDC Datum 2003, Zuivel 2003).
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Emergy values were used to compare the total energy and material flow into a conventional
and organic dairy farm in Sweden. Many of the transformities and specific emergies used to convert
energy and material flows to emergy flows were calculated specifically for use in this report using data
from the Cederberg study, and are listed, along with unit emergy values taken from previously
published studies, in Table 1. Most calculations can be found in Lagerberg Fogelberg (forthcoming).
Standard equations were used to determine key emergy ratios aerial empower density
(AED), investment ratio (IR) and an emergy exchange ratio (ER) (Odum 1996), with IR defined as the
ratio of purchased to free environmental emergy (see Tables 2 and 3 for specific category items).
Support area was determined by comparing the IR of the surrounding area, region or country with the
naturally available renewable AED within the region (AEDREG). This regional IR (IRREG) represents
the average ratio of purchased to free inputs for the regional economy. In Sweden this ratio is 7:1
(Lagerberg et al. 1999). The renewable energy support area (Rproc ) required to match (or reserve land
for creating) the purchased emergy was calculated using these equations:
Rproc = (Purchased emergyproc ) / (IRREG)
Support Area = Rproc / AEDREG
(1)
(2)
An additional analysis of the emissions was completed, and results were incorporated into the
process evaluation in two different ways: as a liability diminishing the emergy available for use in
systems higher in the hierarchy (Figure 3a); and as additional emergy requirement increasing the
Table 1. Transformities and specific emergy values used in this study.
Item Description
Rain
Soil, organic matter
Groundwater
Fuel oil
Electricity
Straw, Off farm
Protein mix
Minerals, feed
Super pressed beet pulp
Betfor
Wheat, off farm
Elit feed
MgO, feed
Kalvkrafft
Lactamat
Seed, forage
Pesticide
Feed treatments
Fertilizer
Barley, organic off farm
ExPro, feed
Peas, organic off farm
Emergy to dollar ratio
Emergy/Unit
1.82 E4 sej/J
7.38E+04 sej/J
2.95E+05 sej/J
5.61E+04 sej/J
1.28E+05 sej/J
2.89E+11 sej/kg
5.78E+17 sej/kg
4.14E+12 sej/kg
1.87E+11 sej/kg
8.44E+13 sej/kg
2.89E+11 sej/kg
2.54E+12 sej/kg
5.00E+11 sej/kg
1.43E+12 sej/kg
9.62E+12 sej/kg
1.11E+12 sej/kg
5.81E+10 sej/g
7.45E+12 sej/kg
3.80E+09 sej/g
5.42E+11 sej/kg
1.47E+12 sej/kg
4.76E+11 sej/kg
1.40E+12 sej/U.S.$
Source
a
a
b
a, f
a, f
c
c
c
c
c
c
c
c
c
c
c
d
e
c
c
c
c
g
a Odum (1996); b Buenfil (2000); c this study; d Brown & Ardin (2000); e Odum et al. (2000); f Lagerberg and Brown
(1999); g Lagerberg et al. (1999)
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Figure 3. Energy system diagrams illustrating two methods for evaluating wastes and emissions: a) as a liability
or b) as additional environmental services required to meet regulated waste criteria and background
concentrations during the production of milk.
amount of resources needed to determine system sustainability (Figure 3b). In the first method, the
totals of each emission were converted to emergy to allow addition into a single number, and when
subtracted from the total emergy flow into this system indicated how much less emergy was available
for successive systems using the product, or from another perspective how much debt was incurred
by the system. Using standard emergy calculations and transformities appropriate for emissions which
are part of a dispersal process (as opposed to a concentration process, Brandt-Williams 1999), a value
for each specified emission was determined. In the latter perspective, the amount of dilution required to bring
concentrations to background levels or typical atmospheric or water regulation standards (similar to
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methods presented in Brandt-Williams & Pillet, 2003 and Brown & Ulgiati 2002), was calculated.
Regulation values were taken from European Environment Agency mandates where available (EEA,
2003) and from the United States Environmental Protection Agency when not specified by EEA
(USEPA, 2002). Background concentrations for non-regulated items were obtained from the literature
(NOAA 1995, USEPA 2000, Chambers 2001, USEPA 2003), and were converted to emergy flows by
assuming rain chemical potential provides the majority of remediation energy through dilution for
aqueous compounds and that wind energy represents the dilution and dispersion process for gaseous
compounds.
RESULTS
Tables 2 and 3 present typical emergy evaluations for both farm methods and show that the
highest emergy inputs on the conventional farm were the three purchased high protein feeds and
services. The emergy evaluation of the organic farm indicated that all inputs were well balanced in
terms of emergy with no single input higher than the renewable inputs.
Table 4 presents overall emergy findings comparing the two farming techniques. The
empower density and purchased to free ratio were over five times higher for the conventional farm
than for the organic, while the specific emergy of milk and support area were about twice as high.
Yield ratios for both methods were close to one, with the organic farm slightly higher.
Tables 5 and 6 present emergy evaluations of milk calculated on a per cow basis on each
farm. Highest inputs for the conventional cow were still the high protein feeds, and were much higher
than services. Items purchased off-farm were the highest inputs for the organic cow. Table 7
provides a comparison of milk completed at the scale of the farm and the scale of a single cow for both
farming techniques. The analysis at these two scales exhibited higher variability between cow and
farm on the organic farm. The conventional farm emergy ratios were higher than for a single cow on
that farm, while the opposite was true for the organic farm. The lowest ratios overall were found in the
organic process from a whole farm scale.
Table 8 provides a geographic perspective on emergy evaluations completed in other regions.
Values for Sweden and France were calculated as part of this study; Florida values came from an
evaluation based on commercial central Florida agriculture with data averaged for a large number of
farms producing each commodity (see Brandt-Williams 2001); Italian emergy values were averaged
over agricultural production for the nation (Ulgiati et al. 1994). The first three entries showed high
variation between localities, the highest being seven to 18 times the lower, while the last two entries
(sugar beets and forage) exhibited emergy ratios two times higher or less.
Tables 9 and 10 present results from two different approaches using emergy to evaluate
wastes and emissions from a process. When viewed as an emergy liability, the totals between the two
methods were very similar, and were driven by CO2 and N2O. However, the organic method is also
losing important emergy in NO3. The amount of environmental services required to treat emissions
demonstrated higher differentiation between the two farming methods. Driven by the pesticide use,
this ranked the conventional process highest in use of off-farm environmental services.
Comparing currency for milk prices to emergy (Table 11) demonstrated that the purchaser
was benefiting in both dairies, receiving about three times more emergy in the milk than the farm was
receiving in emergy from the money exchanged. Market wholesale prices would need to increase by
that much for an equitable trade.
Full results for the LCA evaluation can be found in Cederberg (1998). For comparative
purposes, the key results indicate that the conventional farm required more energy per functional unit
(FU = 1,000kg) of milk produced than the organic process, but that the organic process required more
land area to support crop production for feed. Results also showed that while the conventional farm
used more fertilizer, the organic farm had higher lime and fuel requirements. The conventional farm
used much more pesticide, but the organic farm was not free from pesticide use because it bought feed
from countries permitting pesticide use.
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Table 2. Conventional milk farm in Western Sweden according to Cederberg (1998).

Note
Item, unit
Data
Emergy
E+12 sej/yr
INPUTS
Environment
1
Rain, J
2.45E+12
44,631
2
Soil, J
4.79E+09
353
3
Groundwater, J
3.38E+10
9,968
Total Free
54,952
Purchased
4
Fuel oil, J
2.39E+04
51,889
5
Electricity, J
3.96E+09
507
6
Straw, Off-farm, kg
9.86E+04
28,504
7
Protein mix, kg
1.26E+05
578,060
8
Minerals, kg
2.05E+03
31,235
9
Lime, kg
3.46E+04
56,688
10
Super pressed pulp, kg
3.24E+05
0.2
11
Betfor, kg
8.43E+03
711,060
12
Wheat, off-farm, kg
2.23E+05
64,447
13
Elit, kg
1.02E+05
258,766
14
MgO, kg
1.01E+03
503
15
Kalv krafft, kg
5.40E+03
7,703
16
Lactamat, kg
1.12E+03
10,785
17
Seed, kg
4.65E+03
1
18
Pesticide, g
5.19E+04
3,015
19
Feed treatment, kg
2.06E+03
15,334
20
Fertilizer, kg
1.14E+05
432
21
Services, SEK
1.09E+06
227,343
Total Purchased
2,046,274
Total Annual Emergy
2.10E+18 sej/yr
DISCUSSION
This paper presents a standard and straightforward analysis of the emergy inputs to two
different processes for producing milk and compares results to an LCA and financial accounting.
These three methods are used for different goals: LCA to minimize energy use and wastes; financial
accounting to maximize profit either by minimizing costs, increasing productivity or selling to the
highest bidder; and emergy typically to maximize empower. These are not necessarily mutually
exclusive, although determining maximum empower is a complex proposition requiring a larger scale
evaluation of the regions entire agricultural and economic system. In other words, the question of
whether the delegation of more emergy to one dairy process over another economic sector is
maximizing empower overall would need to be answered to more precisely determine which process
has the advantage. Since the purpose here is to evaluate the production of a single agricultural
product, we will assume for this study that having milk with the lowest specific emergy and a process
with the lowest empower density might be a desirable goal.
Comparing emergy results to the LCA determined that some final recommendations were
similar to both methods. However, the two methods would support very different policies in several
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Table 3. Organic milk farm in Western Sweden modified from Cederberg (1998).
Note
Item, unit
Data
INPUTS
Environment
1
2
3
Rain, J
Soil, J
Groundwater, J
1.95E+12
3.13E+09
1.32E+10
35,527
231
3,355
39,113
1.01E+04
2.55E+11
3.05E+04
7.20E+03
2.05E+03
3.52E+04
1.07E+04
3.88E+04
5.43E+03
5.14E+05
21,905
32,640
16,530
33,033
8,479
36,637
1
18,476
6,022
107,403
281,126
3.20E+17
Total Free
Purchased
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
Fuel oil, J
Electricity, J
Barley, Off-farm, kg
Protein mix, kg
Minerals, kg
Lime, kg
ExPro, kg
Peas, off-farm, kg
Seed, kg
Services, SEK
Total Purchased
Total annual emergy, sej/yr
Emergy
E+12 sej/yr
Table 4. Emergy ratios characterizing differences and similarities between conventional and organic
milk production in Sweden.
Emergy derived ratio
Conventional Farm
Organic Farm
Empower density, sej/ha/yr
1.49E+16
2.85E+15
Purchased to Free ratio
37.24
7.19
Yield ratio
1.03
1.14
Milk specific emergy, sej/kg
2.01E+12
8.64E+11
2
Support area per FU, m /1000kg milk
8.84E+03
3.43E+03
key areas, and, further, there was no clear differentiation between farming methods using LCA
methods. For example, the LCA demonstrated that while energy use and some material flows were
slightly higher in conventional farming, land requirements were significantly higher for organic farms.
Other than pesticides, emissions and wastes were very similar for the two farms.
On the other hand, the emergy evaluation clearly differentiated between the two processes
from several key perspectives. The organic farm had the lowest milk transformity, empower density
and environmental services for wastes. As the process that produces milk with the lowest
transformity, the organic farm was the clear winner. Further, because the organic farm used a much
higher proportion of free environmental services than the conventional farm, the total support area
required to produce milk was also much lower. These results indicate that the conventional farm, with
a high investment ratio and specific emergy ratio for milk, might have been the appropriate method for
a region or culture that was experiencing a rapid growth period with few limits (Brown and Ulgiati
2001), or sited near a large urban area already attracting large inflows of energy and materials (BrandtWilliams and Odum 1999). The organic farm was then appropriate for regions and cultures in the
plateau or decline years following a period of rapid growth (Brown and Ulgiati 2001), and was well
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Table 5. Milk from a single cow using conventional farming using data from Cederberg (1998).
Note
INPUTS
Environment
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
Item, unit
Data
Rain, J
Soil, J
Groundwater, J
1.22E+09
9.49E+05
1.56E+08
Total Free
Fuel oil, J
Electricity, J
Straw, kg
Protein mix, kg
Minerals, kg
Super pressed pulp, kg
Betfor, kg
Wheat, kg
Elit, kg
MgO, kg
Kalv krafft, kg
Lactamat, kg
Services, SEK
Total Purchased
Total annual emergy
5.40E+01
4.56E+09
2.10E+03
4.98E+02
2.05E+03
1.55E+03
3.59E+01
1.14E+03
4.90E+02
4.84E+00
1.20E+01
2.49E+00
4.04E+03
Emergy (E+10
sej/cow/yr)
2,213
7
4,613
6,833
11,712
58,383
113,829
228,525
13,007
19
303,014
33,060
124,473
242
1,712
2,397
84,514
974,886
9.82E+15
sej/yr
suited for most of Sweden with an investment ratio close to the countrys average at the time of the
study. However, neither method fared well trading at the market price at the time of the study. From
an emergy perspective, milk would need to sell closer to $1.30/kg, or a little more than one euro, for
sales to have been more equitable.
The analysis of milk should be as simple as looking at the productivity of an average cow
using transformities and specific emergy ratios from other rigorous studies, and it is typically thought
these should come from similar geographic regions and processes. Theoretically, if done well, with
the high emergy inputs well defined, a different scale perspective should not produce a different
emergy ratio for the main commodity being evaluated, making this sufficient for determining where in
the hierarchy of transformity milk belongs. The larger scale would still need to be completed to
answer questions of sustainability and to identify important areas of conservation from a whole
systems perspective.
However, a comparison of emergy ratios calculated from different scale perspectives showed
substantial variability between ratios at different scales, particularly for the organic farm. Some of this
variability is explained by the fact that these farms breed their own replacement stock, and these calves
do not contribute to the annual milk supply. The conventional farm, therefore, with the higher number
of overall livestock exhibits lower variability between farm and individual cow, while the opposite is
true of the organic farm. Perhaps a better test of emergy ratios at different scales would be to evaluate
similar size operations. The rank of these ratios indicated that attention on the conventional farm
should be paid to farm activities that might be in excess of requirements to keep milk flowing. On the
organic farm, recycling and high dependence on farm raised fodder kept the emergy ratios low while
the individual cow experienced a high quality of life.
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Table 6. Organic milk from a single cow modified from Cederberg (1998).
Note
Item, unit
Data
INPUTS
Environment
1
Rain, J
8.51E+09
2
Soil, J
1.36E+07
3
Groundwater, J
1.60E+08
Total Free
Purchased
4
Fuel oil, J
4.00E+01
5
Electricity, J
4.90E+09
6
Barley, kg
9.14E+02
7
Protein mix, kg
8.93E+01
8
Minerals, kg
2.05E+03
9
Lime, kg
1.87E+01
10
ExPro, kg
1.32E+02
11
Peas, kg
6.70E+02
12
Straw, silage, hay, kg
2.70E+03
13
Milk, kg
4.50E+01
14
Services, SEK
5.04E+03
Total Purchased
Total annual emergy, sej/yr
Emergy (sej)
1.55E+14
1.01E+12
4.09E+13
1.97E+14
8.68E+13
6.27E+14
1.71E+15
4.10E+14
8.97E+13
1.94E+13
1.47E+12
3.57E+15
2.43E+15
8.33E+13
1.05E+15
1.01E+16
1.03E+16
Table 7. Emergy ratios characterizing differences/similarities between different scales of emergy

analysis.
Conventional
Conventional
Organic Cow Organic Farm
Cow
Farm
Empower density, sej/ha/yr
1.40E+16
1.49E+16
2.09E+16
2.85E+15
Total emoney per FU, em$/kg
0.88
1.40
1.00
0.63
Milk specific emergy, sej/kg
1.26E+12
2.01E+12
1.44E+12
8.64E+11
Table 8. Comparison of similar commodities in different localities in sej/kg.
Sweden1
Italy2
France3
Milk
Sunflower seed
Wheat
Sugar beet
Forage
2.01E+12
2.89E+11
1.87E+11
5.42E+11
2.02E+13
2.20E+12
2.37E+11
2.43E+11
1.11E+12
-
Florida, USA4
3.37E+13
1.69E+12
9.41E+11
Comparing specific emergy ratios for the same products produced in different global regions
demonstrated that some evaluations produce very different results and some are very similar. In this
study, the top three commodities presented (milk, sunflowers and winter wheat) in general require
more services and labor for management than the bottom two (sugar beets and hay), and it may be this
difference that drives the high variability between the numbers. The bottom two commodities
generally have very little management or additives and if this hypothesis about services is correct, then
-394-
Table 9. Wastes and emissions calculated as an emergy liability.

Conventional Farm
Wastes, kg/FU
mass
emergy
Pesticides, g/FU
70
4.06E+12
CO2(g)
178
4.95E+14
24
5.68E+13
CH4(g)
24
7.56E+13
NO3(aq)
8.5
1.66E+13
NH3(g)
1
1.95E+14
N2O(g)
0.5
2.50E+11
SO2(g)
PO4(aq)
0.1
2.70E+11
Total emergy liability, sej/FU:
8.43E+14
sej/kg:
8.43E+11
Organic Farm
mass
emergy
8
4.64E+11
148
4.11E+14
29
5.68E+13
35
1.10E+14
7.5
1.46E+13
0.6
1.17E+14
0.3
1.50E+11
0.14
3.78E+11
7.11E+14
7.11E+11
Table 10. Dilution emergy of environmental services for wastes and emissions.
Conventional Farm
Organic Farm
Wastes, kg/FU
mass
emergy
mass
emergy
Pesticides, g/FU
70
2.10E+15
8
2.40E+14
CO2(g)
178
9.49E+05
148
7.89E+05
CH4(g)
24
7.72E+07
29
9.33E+07
24
2.16E+11
35
3.15E+11
NO3(aq)
NH3(g)
8.5
4.27E+10
7.5
3.76E+10
1
1.03E+07
0.6
6.19E+06
N2O(g)
SO2(g)
0.5
1.32E+07
0.3
7.92E+06
PO4(aq)
0.1
8.99E+12
0.14
1.26E+13
Emergy environmental services, sej/FU:
2.11E+15
2.53E+14
sej/kg:
2.11E+12
2.53E+11
Table 11. Comparing milk prices to emergy values.
Market
*Milk
US$0.43/kg
**Benefit to Purchaser
--
Conventional Farm
US em$1.36/kg
3.24
Organic Farm
US em$1.29/kg
2.91
this explains the lower level of variability between these values despite their geographic differences. If
geographic differences were the key reason affecting emergy ratios, due perhaps to differences in soil
fertility or water requirements, then all of these commodities should show similar variability.
Consequently, highest variability in emergy ratios may come more from more intensive process
differences rather than geographic differences.
Using two different emergy approaches to evaluate the emergy of emissions provided two
different sets of results for areas of concern. The first approach which added the emergy values of
waste and emission components indicated little difference between the polluting aspects of each
farming methodology. However, the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide were the
largest emergy values for each dairy process and indicated that from a larger system perspective these
should be areas of concern. The second emergy procedure looked at the emergy of environmental
services involved in bringing these emissions down to concentrations of little or no harm to the
-395-
environment or humans. This calculation leaves little question that pesticides require a large amount
of environmental services. The emergy quantity for treatment increased the support area requirements
substantially, eight times more required for the conventional farm.
An interesting difference was apparent between the LCA and the emergy evaluation regarding
determination of footprint or land required to maintain the process. While the LCA methodology
looked only at land required to grow feedstock, emergy analysis considered the entire area required for
creation and processing of all inputs using the regional investment ratio and is, therefore, a measure of
how much support is required for sustainability. While the LCA study maintained that organic
farming required more land than conventional, the emergy evaluation showed that the organic process,
by directly recycling materials, required slightly less overall support area. Conversely, the
conventional farm, dependent upon purchased, highly compressed and processed feed for high yields
and smaller site location (along with the higher energy costs from transportation), required a larger
overall area of support. A smaller support area is an advantage in regions or growth periods with less
resource availability, and therefore, the organic farm has a long-term advantage from an emergy
perspective.
The LCA method underestimated support area for long-term sustainability when compared to
the emergy analysis, primarily by omitting an evaluation of all goods and services required as support
for the process prior to the point in time and scale considered. Its efficacy is further limited by the
inability to add values to arrive at a single cumulative index.
The LCA study determined the emissions for evaluation, choosing from categories
established as part of the methodology. However, LCA lacks a direct tool for overall comparison of
emissions and depends, therefore, on an item-by-item comparison. There is also no way other than
expert opinion to rank the actual environmental impact of each category. The largest differences
between farming methods, according to the LCA, were the pesticide and CO2 emissions; the
conventional farm had the highest in both categories.
In summary, a well done emergy evaluation incorporates all of the factors assessed in an
LCA, and several categories beyond. Furthermore, it presents results that are directly comparable and
additive so that both individual components can be compared and ranked (as in an LCA), and whole
processes can be compared using the natural quantitative weighting that an emergy perspective
provides. LCA evaluations are a solid data source for emergy evaluations while emergy results add to
the LCA findings in areas where direct quantitative comparisons are required. However, the need for
further work on defining true differences between emergy ratios is indicated.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors thank Eliana Bardi and two anonymous reviewers for suggestions to improve the
manuscript and the Ekhaga Foundation for funding this study. The research described herein was
partially completed by the first author, an employee of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) on her own time. It was conducted independent of EPA employment and has not been
subjected to the agencys peer and administrative review. Therefore, the conclusions and opinions
drawn are solely those of the authors and are not necessarily the views of the agency.
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APPENDIX
Notes Tables 5 and 6
Feed calculations - general assumptions: 29 months as heifer, 1 lactation round of 11 months and 3 lactation
rounds of 15 months, 4 dry periods of 2 months, total life span of 94 months, or about 8 years; 2.4yrs on heifer
rations, 1.1 yrs on 60% cow feed and 4.5 years on full cow rations (Smith and Guthrie 1995; Derikx et al. 2002)
Notes Table 8
1, 3. Values from this study
2 Ulgiati et al. 1994
4 Brandt-Williams 2001
Notes Table 9
Specific emergy of pesticides is 5.81E10 sej/g (this study).
CO2 flux to atmosphere 3.4 gigatons/yr, 9.44E24 sej global flux/yr, 9.44E24sej/(3.4 GT*1E12kg/GT) = 2.78E12
sej/kg CO2
Approximately 900 Btu/ft3 natural methane, 0.68 kg/m3 at 150C (Chem. Eng. Handbook). Specific emergy of
natural gas is 4.8E4 sej/J (Odum 1996)
NO3(aq) has 14gN/52gNO3. Specific emergy NO3 is 1.17E10 sej/g N (Campbell 2003)
NH3 (g) has 14gN/17g NH3. Specific emergy NH3 is 2.37E9sej/g N (Campbell 2003)
N2O(g) has 28gN/44gN2O. Specific emergy N2O is 3.06E11sej/gN (Campbell 2003)
SO2 has 32gS/64gSO2. Specific emergy is 1.0E9 sej/gS (Odum 1992)
Specific emergy of unmined phosphate is 2.7E9 (Odum 1996)
Notes Table 10
Pesticides (Atrazine) in water diluted to 0.003mg/l. Density 1000kg/m3, energy 4.94E3 J/kg, rain transformity
18199 sej/J. Dilution mass = (g pest.)(density)(energy content)/(end concentration)
CO2 background 3.5E5ppb; density 1.9769kg/m3, avg. wind speed Sweden 6m/s, air density 1.29kg/m3; KE = 0.5
*mass*velocity2; wind transformity 1496sej/J. Dilution energy = (0.5)(kg CO2)(1E9m3 wind/3.5E5 m3
O2)(1 m3 CO2/1.9769 kg CO2)(1.23 kg/m3 air)(6 m/s) 2
CH4 background 1.6E3ppb; density 0.717kg/m3, see CO2
NO3 in water diluted to 10mg/l, see Pesticides
NH3 background <10ppb; density 0.771kg/m3, see CO2
N2O background 3.0E2ppb; density 1.25kg/m3, see CO2
SO2 background 50ppb; density 2.93kg/m3, see CO2
PO4 in water diluted to <1ppb, see Pesticides
Notes Table 11
* Emergy per kilogram of milk converted to U.S. emdollars for both farms
** Ratio of emergy in milk to emergy in market price
-399-
-400-
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
32
Investigating a 20-Year National Economic Dynamics
By Means of Emergy-Based Indicators
ABSTRACT
This paper analyzes Italian environmental and economic performance in 2002 using the
emergy synthesis method (Odum, 1996). The study for the year 2002 is compared with previous
emergy evaluations of Italy in 1984, 1989, 1991, 1995 and 2000, performed by other several authors.
Results of this comparison and analysis of Italys economic trends are based on emergy intensity
indicators, combined with a set of conventional social and economic indicators such as population
growth, inflation and Gross Domestic Product. In particular, we explore a few crucial events in the
Italian economy: the lira withdrawal from the European Monetary System (EMS) and the ratification
of the Maastricht Treaty (1992); the lira reentry into the EMS in 1996; the achievement of Maastricht
targets in 1999; the introduction of Euro currency in 1999 as an accounting unit; and the circulation
of the Euro as unique official currency in most countries of the Economic and Monetary Union in
2002. Each of these events required significant changes in the economic performance of Italy, in the
choices of economic actors as well as in consumers behavior.
The goal of our investigation is twofold: a) to understand the changes in the resource base of
the Italian economy; b) to highlight any possible relations between trends of emergy-based indicators
(Emergy/money ratio - sej/Euro, and Emergy/person ratio - sej/person, among others) and the
evolution of the Italian economy, as described by more conventional indicators, including quality of
life levels perceived by the population. Correlations should help ascertain the ability of emergy-based
indicators to account for crucial events and trends of a national economy.
INTRODUCTION
Over the last decade, the Italian Economy has been characterized by modest growth due to a
lack of structural reforms concerning the labor market, the pension system and the balancing of public
accounts. The problem has become even more evident recently, in the presence of global political
instability and recession.
The Maastricht Treaty of 1992 marked a turning point in Italys economy, along with the rest
of Europe, providing fixed economic goals to achieve. Since the enactment of the Treaty, Italy has
been driven by two forces: Europe and the markets. Political pressure has been compounded by the
deadlines and constraints of the Monetary Union, coupled with the economic pressure generated by the
continuous judgment by international financial markets regarding Italys ability to meet the criteria for
Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) membership.
The European Union had previously tried to implement a European Monetary System (EMS)
as a way to reduce exchange rate volatility for a Europe in transition to closer economic integration. In
1979 a group of European countries linked their exchange rates through formal participation in the
-401-
Chapter 32. Investigating a 20-Year National Economic
Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), which was an adjustable system in which each currency had a
central rate expressed in the European Currency Unit (ECU), the predecessor of the Euro.
The Italian economy has significantly changed in the last 20 years, also because it was
affected by international agreements aiming at the fulfillment of European Union constraints on
inflation, debt, and public expenditures. The most important economic and political milestones of this
change were:
1980 - 1990 - Italy adopts inflation reducing policy

1991, February 7 - Maastricht Treaty (convergence criteria for government budget deficits,
public debt, and inflation)
1992, September 13 - Italy left European Rate Mechanism
1996 - Italy rejoined ERM
1999 - Maastrichts targets meeting, adoption of uro currency
2002, January 1 - Circulation of uro in cash
These events have been turning points in the economy and have substantially affected the actual and
perceived standard of living, as well as the state of the economy. For the last 10 years Italys economic
policy has focused primarily on 3 goals: 1) reducing government budget deficits to 2.7% of GDP
(Gross Domestic Product), which is below the critical 3% threshold set by the Maastricht Treaty
criterion to qualify for the participation in the Euro; 2) decreasing the national debt (to not more than
60 percent of GDP); and 3) fighting against the domestic inflation rate (not more than two percentage
points above that of the three countries with the lowest inflation). After making significant progress
towards meeting EMU convergence criteria, in 1999 Italy participated in the introduction of the Euro
as the single currency. The Euro began circulating in coins and notes in January 2002 in 12 states of
the European Union.
In this paper we use Emergy analysis to make a macroeconomic and environmental
evaluation of the Italian economic system with the purpose of studying the possible relations between
environmental support and economic growth in the last 20 years, with particular attention to how the
above mentioned European economic events have affected the growth and the global sustainability of
Italys economy. We start by presenting the emergy analysis of Italy for 2002, and then compare these
results with previous emergy analyses for 1984, 1989, 1991, 1995 and 2000 (Himschoot, 1988; Ulgiati
et al., 1994; Ulgiati et al., 1995; Russi and Ulgiati, 1999; Ulgiati, 2002). Emergy indicators are used to
evaluate energy resources, trade and the sustainable use of Italys natural capital. The study analyzes in
detail the trend of the Italian economy in the last two decades by using selected emergy indicators,
such as emergy/GDP; emergy/per person; total emergy use; Environmental Sustainability Index
(Ulgiati and Brown, 1998), , and compares them with the traditional economic indicators of
population, Gross Domestic Product, per capita income and the inflation rate.
METHODS
An emergy evaluation of Italy for 2002 was conducted and compared with analyses
performed by other authors for previous years.
Figure 1 summarizes all imported and indigenous, renewable and nonrenewable resources
flows supporting the Italian economy. After these flows were evaluated, several indices and
performance ratios were derived in order to shed light on the global support provided by the
environment to the system as well as on the matching of imported to local flows, non-renewable to
renewable flows, and finally emergy flows to conventional economic flows. The following are selected
indicators that have been used for the present investigation:
-402-
Renewable resources (R), i.e. the flow of free renewable resources that are locally available.
Nonrenewable resources (N), i.e. the flow of nonrenewable resources that are locally
available.
Purchased goods and services (F), i.e. the flow of emergy imported in the form of goods and
services from outside the country.
Total emergy use, U= (R+N+F), a measure of the global emergy support to the system,
which translates into a global-scale ecological footprint.
Ratio of renewable emergy flow to total emergy used, R/(R+N+F), an indicator of the
actual carrying capacity of the system.
Emergy density (U/area), the ratio of total emergy use and the area of the system.
Emergy-to-money ratio (Em/), describes purchasing power, in emergy units, of one unit of
currency spent within the local economy. It is computed by dividing the total emergy use (R +
N + F) by GDP (Gross Domestic Product).
Emergy Yield Ratio (EYR = U/F), is the emergy supporting the Yield (U = R+N+F) divided
by the emergy of all feedbacks from the economy including fuels and services
Environmental Loading Ratio (ELR= (F+N)/R), is calculated as the sum of the emergy of
non-renewable goods and services supplied by the economy and local free non-renewable
sources, divided by the free renewable emergy drawn from the environment.
Emergy Sustainability Index (ESI), calculated as the ratio between EYR/ELR. It accounts
for yield, renewability, and environmental load in aggregated form and represents the
incremental emergy yield compared to the environmental load.
Figure 1. System diagram of Italy.
-403-
Definitions and meaning of aggregated flows and ratios are discussed in Odum (1996) and in Brown
and Ulgiati (2004).
Some of the selected indices were then correlated with each other with in order to study the
measure of the strength or extent of linear association. A correlation coefficient (r) greater than 0
indicated a positive relationship; r<0 indicated a negative relationship, while r = 0 indicated no linear
relationship.
The transformities used in our results refer to a total emergy flow supporting the Biosphere
equal to 9.44E+24 seJ/yr (Odum, 1996). This baseline was recalculated in the year 2000 (Odum et al.,
2000) and the total flow set to 15.83E+24 seJ/yr. We selected to use the previous value in order to
compare our results with those from previous analyses. Old transformities can be converted to the new
updated values by multiplying them by 1.68 (the ratio of 15.83/9.44). Sources for transformities used
in this paper were Odum (1996), Ulgiati et al. (1994), Odum et al. (2000), and Brown and Ulgiati
(2004).
RESULTS
Table 1 provides details of the emergy evaluation for 2002. In particular, Table 1a shows the
Renewable and Nonrenewable indigenous resources of Italy for 2002, which represent respectively 6%
and 17% of the total emergy use within the country (2.07E+24 seJ). The emergy of waves, deep heat
and rain are the largest renewable emergy inputs, while the most important indigenous nonrenewable
input is provided by non-energy minerals. Indigenous fossil fuels, while not the most important, also
contribute substantially to emergy inputs. Total imports and exports are also indicated in Table 1a.
Details about trade are given in Tables 1b and 1c. Services account for about 30% of total
imported emergy (Table 1b) and measure the amount of labor embodied in imported goods. Fossil
fuels and electricity (also from nuclear sources) are the second most important emergy import to the
country, comprising 25% of total imported emergy. Significant amounts of other goods should be
pointed out, such as raw leather and textiles supporting the Italian fashion industry, as well as several
semi-manufactured minerals and metals. Services accounted for about 47% of total emergy exported
(Table 1c) and manufactured and semi-manufactured goods, excluded fuels and minerals, are the most
exported items, accounting for 36% of the total emergy exported. Leather and textiles are the most
relevant articles for both exports and imports.
Table 2 shows the most important indicators and aggregated flows for the time series
investigated. Emergy imports increase steadily until 2000. In 2002 they show a small decline, which is
also reflected in the total emergy used (Figure 2a). The indigenous sources decrease steadily from 44%
in 1984 down to 23% in 2002. The renewable fraction also decreases from 13% in 1984 to a low 6% in
2002. The fraction of emergy use associated with electricity declines as well, due to the increased use
of non-electric sources of emergy. The emergy density (ratio of total emergy use to the area of the
system) more than doubled over the investigated time period (Figure 2b), and the Environmental
Loading Ratio (ratio of nonrenewable and purchased emergy to the renewable emergy flow, Figure 2c)
shows a similar trend. At the same time, the Emergy Yield Ratio decreases slowly, signaling the need
for higher investments from outside in order to exploit one unit of local resource (Figure 2c). An
aggregated measure of the countrys sustainability, the Emergy Sustainability Index (ESI = EYR/ELR)
is also decreasing, (Figure 2d).
Emergy and energy intensities in relation to GDP (quantified as US$, and ) are also
presented in Table 2. Their trends oscillate somewhat since they depend on several factors (emergy
use, GNP, exchange rates for dollar, lira and euro). Figures 3a,b, and c show the trend of inflation,
GDP and emergy/GDP.
The emergy use per person amounted to 3.60E+16 seJ/yr/person in 2002. After increasing
steadily from 1984 to 2000, in spite of a slight increase in population (Figure 4a), it declined in 2002
-404-
Table 1a. Emergy flows supporting the system of Italian society in the year 2002.
#
Item
Unit
Amount
Solar
Solar
Macroeconomic
(unit/yr)
Transformity*
Emergy
Value
(sej/unit)
(sej/yr)
(/yr)
1.02E+09
Renewable inputs
1
Sunlight
J/yr
1.67E+21
1.67E+21
Wind (kinetic energy)
J/yr
2.65E+18
1,500
3.97E+21
2.41E+09
Waves (kinetic energy)
J/yr
2.91E+18
30,550
8.89E+22
5.41E+10
Tides (geopotential energy)
J/yr
3.65E+16
16,842
6.15E+20
3.74E+08
1.89E+10
Earth cycle (thermal energy)
J/yr
9.04E+17
34,377
3.11E+22
6a
Rain (chemical potential energy)
J/yr
7.95E+17
18,199
1.45E+22
8.80E+09
6b
Rain (geopotential energy)
J/yr
3.76E+17
10,488
3.95E+21
2.40E+09
Additional environmental inputs from outside the area, for the dilution of airborne pollutants
7
Wind
J/yr
1.50E+03
0.00E+00
0.00E+00
7.28E+09
Nonrenewable inputs from within the country

8
Oil
J/yr
2.26E+17
5.30E+04
1.20E+22
Coal
J/yr
0.00E+00
3.98E+04
0.00E+00
0.00E+00
10
Natural Gas
J/yr
5.85E+17
5.22E+04
3.05E+22
1.86E+10
11
Feldspar
g/yr
3.16E+12
1.00E+09
3.16E+21
1.92E+09
12
Marl for cement
g/yr
1.36E+13
1.00E+09
1.36E+22
8.24E+09
13
Potash, marine salts and salt rock
g/yr
3.34E+12
1.00E+09
3.34E+21
2.03E+09
14
Pozzolan
g/yr
2.03E+10
1.00E+09
2.03E+19
1.24E+07
15
Silica sand
g/yr
1.34E+12
1.00E+09
1.34E+21
8.17E+08
16
Other sand and gravel
g/yr
1.91E+14
1.00E+09
1.91E+23
1.16E+11
17
Marble in blocks
g/yr
5.70E+12
1.45E+09
8.27E+21
5.03E+09
18
Granite
g/yr
2.13E+12
5.00E+08
1.06E+21
6.47E+08
19
Sandstone
g/yr
7.87E+12
1.00E+09
7.87E+21
4.78E+09
20
Limestone
g/yr
6.44E+13
1.00E+09
6.44E+22
3.92E+10
21
Net loss of topsoil
J/yr
1.23E+17
62,500
7.67E+21
4.66E+09
Electric energy production within the country (in addition to fossil powered production)
22
Hydroelectricity
J/yr
1.73E+17
1.50E+05
2.60E+22
1.58E+10
23
Geothermal electricity
J/yr
1.68E+16
1.50E+05
2.52E+21
1.53E+09
24
Wind powered electricity
J/yr
5.01E+15
1.50E+05
7.51E+20
4.57E+08
25
Solar photovoltaic electricity
J/yr
3.60E+13
1.50E+05
5.40E+18
3.28E+06
26
Biomass and waste electricity
J/yr
1.04E+16
1.50E+05
1.57E+21
9.52E+08
Trade
27
Total Imports including tourism
(sej/yr)
1.60E+24 (1)
28
Total Exports including tourism
(sej/yr)
9.30E+23 (2)
PRODUCTS OF ITALYS SYSTEM

Selected Nationwide products
29
Gross Domestic Product, 2002
/yr
1.26E+12
1.64E+12
2.07E+24 (3)
30 People supported for one year

#
5.73E+07
3.60E+16 (4)
2.07E+24
*Transformities after Odum (1996), Ulgiati et al. (1994), Odum et al. (2000), Brown and Ulgiati (2004)
(1) See table 2 note 4
(2) See table 2 note 7
(3) The value 2.07E+24 se j/yr is the total emergy use. See also table 2 note 6
(4) This value is given by the total emergy use divided the population of Italy for 2002
-405-
Table 1b. Emergy imports in the year 2002.

#
Item
Unit
Amount
Solar
Solar
(unit/yr)
Transformity*
Emergy
(sej/unit)
(sej/yr)
2.38E+23
31 Oil
J/yr
4.50E+18
5.30E+04
32 Coal
J/yr
4.97E+17
3.98E+04
1.98E+22
33 Natural Gas
J/yr
2.30E+18
5.22E+04
1.20E+23
34 Electricity
J/yr
1.85E+17
1.50E+05
2.78E+22
35 Agric. & Forest Products
J/yr
3.78E+17
1.04E+05
3.93E+22
36 Livestock & Livestock Pr.
J/yr
5.97E+15
3.17E+06
1.89E+22
37 Food Industry Products
J/yr
1.54E+13
1.00E+06
1.54E+19
38 Fishery/Hunting Prod.
J/yr
7.23E+14
2.00E+06
1.45E+21
39 Metallic minerals
g/yr
1.81E+13
1.00E+09
1.81E+22
40 Metallic scraps
g/yr
4.61E+12
2.64E+09
1.22E+22
41 Non metallic minerals
g/yr
1.76E+13
1.00E+09
1.76E+22
42 Steel and pig-iron
g/yr
1.92E+13
3.16E+09
6.08E+22
43 Aluminium alloys
g/yr
1.30E+12
1.94E+10
2.52E+22
44 Copper & zinc alloys
g/yr
1.29E+12
6.80E+10
8.77E+22
45a Gold
g/yr
3.68E+08
1.00E+14
3.68E+22
45b Silver & platinum
g/yr
1.89E+09
2.00E+10
3.77E+19
46 Mech. & Transp. Equipm.
g/yr
7.69E+12
6.70E+09
5.15E+22
47 Non-metal. miner. industry
g/yr
6.66E+12
1.00E+09
6.66E+21
48 Leather
J/yr
1.34E+16
8.60E+06
1.15E+23
49 Textiles
J/yr
3.23E+16
3.80E+06
1.23E+23
50 Rags
J/yr
1.39E+10
3.80E+06
5.28E+16
51 Wood
J/yr
1.78E+17
3.49E+04
6.20E+21
52 Wood Industry Products
J/yr
1.31E+16
3.49E+04
4.59E+20
53 Paper
g/yr
9.07E+12
3.90E+09
3.54E+22
54 Chemicals
g/yr
2.28E+13
3.80E+08
8.66E+21
55 Rubber
g/yr
1.52E+12
4.30E+09
6.53E+21
56 Tourism from outside
/yr
2.82E+10
1.85E+12
5.22E+22
57 Total Services associated to imports
/yr
2.57E+11
1.85E+12
4.75E+23
(Figure 4b) due to the decreased total emergy use, pointed out above, that was not sufficiently
compensated for by a parallel population decline.
Trends reported in Table 2 can be better understood if they are related to the changes of the resource
base over time. Pie charts in Figures 5 and 6 help illustrate the variation of the main resources
supporting the Italian economy. Imported emergy increased from 56% to 77% (Figure 5) between
1984 and 2002, indicating a decrease in importance of local renewable and nonrenewable sources.
Figure 6 shows that the increase in imports is mainly due to an increase of purchased fuel and
electricity (37% in 1995, 45% in 2000 and 49% in 2002).
Finally, Table 3 shows the value of the correlations among different indices previously
calculated. There was a strong positive correlation between imports and exports (r = 0.98), total
emergy and GDP(r = 0.96), Emergy Yield Ratio and total emergy (r = 0.97), and inflation and ESI (r =
1.00). A strong negative correlation was found between ELR and ESI and the total emergy and
-406-
Table 1c. Emergy exports in the year 2002

#
Item
Unit
Amount
Solar
Solar
(unit/yr)
Transformity*
Emergy
(sej/unit)
(sej/yr)
5.04E+22
58 Refined Oil and Petroleum products
J/yr
9.50E+17
5.30E+04
59 Coal
J/yr
8.29E+14
3.98E+04
3.30E+19
60 Exported electricity
J/yr
1.98E+15
1.50E+05
2.96E+20
61 Agricult. & Forest Prod.
J/yr
3.82E+17
1.04E+05
3.97E+22
62 Livestock & Livestock Pr.
J/yr
4.46E+13
3.17E+06
1.41E+20
63 Food Industry Products
g/yr
1.34E+13
1.00E+06
1.34E+19
64 Fishery/Hunting Prod.
J/yr
2.33E+14
2.00E+06
4.66E+20
65 Metallic minerals
g/yr
7.82E+12
1.00E+09
7.82E+21
66 Metallic scraps
g/yr
2.83E+11
2.64E+09
7.47E+20
67 Non metallic minerals
g/yr
3.27E+11
1.00E+09
3.27E+20
68 Steel and pig-iron
g/yr
1.14E+13
3.16E+09
3.60E+22
69 Aluminium alloys
g/yr
3.21E+11
1.94E+10
6.23E+21
70 Copper & zinc alloys
g/yr
3.21E+11
6.80E+10
2.19E+22
71a Gold
g/yr
3.80E+07
1.00E+14
3.80E+21
71b Silver & platinum
g/yr
5.35E+08
2.00E+10
1.07E+19
72 Mech. & Transp. Equipm.
g/yr
1.03E+13
6.70E+09
6.93E+22
73 Non-metal. miner. industry
g/yr
1.45E+13
1.00E+09
1.45E+22
74 Leather
J/yr
1.20E+16
8.60E+06
1.03E+23
75 Textiles
J/yr
2.23E+16
3.80E+06
8.46E+22
76 Rags
J/yr
1.62E+11
3.80E+06
6.16E+17
77 Wood Industry Products
J/yr
4.97E+16
3.49E+04
1.73E+21
78 Paper
J/yr
4.59E+12
3.90E+09
1.79E+22
79 Chemicals
g/yr
1.23E+13
3.80E+08
4.67E+21
80 Rubber
g/yr
1.74E+10
4.30E+09
7.50E+19
81 Tourism from Italy to outside
/yr
1.78E+10
1.64E+12
2.93E+22
82 Total Services associated to exports
/yr
2.65E+11
1.64E+12
4.36E+23
inflation (r=-0.96), goods and services and inflation rate (r=-0.94). As expected, there is a good
correlation between GDP and inflation (r=-0.85) and on the contrary, we found no correlation between
the Emergy Money Ratio and inflation rate (r=0.40) and between the Emergy Money Ratio and GDP
(r=-0.29).
DISCUSSION
Understanding if a given trend of emergy or energy intensities is due either to a variation of
efficiency in the use of resources, to a variation of a countrys inflation, to a different exchange rate
among currencies, or, finally, to a combined effect of more than one factor, requires a careful
evaluation of each component flow. Keeping in mind the main events that characterized the last two
decades of the Italian economy, we try to correlate emergy and conventional indicators in order to
check them for consistency. First, we summarize their evolution in time.
-407-
Table 2. Comparison of emergy flows and indices for time series analysis of Italy
Flow/Index
1984
1989
1991
1995
2000
2002
(*)
(**)
()
()
(#)
(# #)
Area of country (m2)
3.01E+11
3.01E+11
3.01E+11
3.01E+11
3.01E+11
3.01E+11
Renewable sources used (sej/yr) (R)
1.21E+23
1.21E+23
1.21E+23
1.21E+23
1.21E+23
1.21E+23
Nonrenewable indigenous sources (sej/yr) (N)
3.00E+23
3.57E+23
5.02E+23
4.78E+23
4.42E+23
3.48E+23
1.33E+21
9.95E+21
8.64E+21
8.73E+21
7.67E+21
3a Dispersed rural sources

3b Concentrated use
3.54E+23
4.54E+23
4.35E+23
4.34E+23
3.37E+23
3c Exported without use
1.83E+21
1.48E+21
2.29E+21
0.00E+00
3.80E+21
7.89E+23
8.16E+23
1.01E+24
1.69E+24
1.60E+24
Imported emergy (sej/yr) (F)
5.37E+23
Total emergy available (sej/yr)
9.58E+23
1.27E+24
1.44E+24
1.61E+24
2.26E+24
2.07E+24
Emergy actually used within (sej/yr) U
9.58E+23
1.26E+24
1.38E+24
1.54E+24
2.26E+24
2.07E+24
Exported emergy (sej/yr)
2.36E+23
3.12E+23
3.09E+23
4.56E+23
1.14E+24
9.30E+23
Economic component of emergy used (sej/yr) (N+F)
8.37E+23
1.14E+24
1.26E+24
1.42E+24
2.14E+24
1.95E+24
Fraction of use, derived from indigenous sources (N+R)/U
0.44
0.38
0.42
0.37
0.25
0.23
10
Fraction of use, that is free renewable (R/U)
0.13
0.10
0.09
0.08
0.05
0.06
11
Fraction of use, that is imported (F/U)
0.56
0.62
0.59
0.66
0.75
0.77
0.143
0.130
0.130
0.125
0.08
0.09
6.91
9.47
10.46
11.72
17.65
16.13
3.18E+12
4.20E+12
4.60E+12
5.12E+12
7.50E+12
6.86E+12
12
Fraction of use, that is electrical
13
Environmental Loading Ratio ELR= (N+F)/R
14
Emergy density (sej/m2/yr)
15
Emergy Investment Ratio EIR= (F/R+N)
1.27
1.65
1.31
1.69
3.01
3.42
16
Emergy Yield Ratio EYR=U/F
1.78
1.61
1.76
1.59
1.33
1.29
17a
Gross National Product ($ until 1999; from 2000)
3.90E+11
8.66E+11
1.15E+12
1.07E+12
1.16E+12
1.26E+12
17b
Gross National Product ( until 1999)
5.85E+14
1.19E+15
1.43E+15
1.75E+15
17c
Gross Domestic Product (eurolire until 1999; from 2000)
3.75E+11
6.18E+11
7.44E+11
9.23E+11
1.16E+12
1.26E+12
6.81E+18
6.97E+18
5.32E+18
8.11E+18
5.23E+18
Emergy to money ratio =U/GNP (sej/ until 1999)

Emergy to money ratio =U/GNP (seJ/$; after year 2000,
U/GDP and seJ/)
1.64E+09
1.06E+09
9.69E+08
8.82E+08
n.a.
1.75E+18
2.46E+12
1.46E+12
1.20E+12
1.44E+12
1.94E+12
1.64E+12
19c
Emergy to money ratio=U/GNP (seJ/$)
2.46E+12
1.46E+12
1.20E+12
1.44E+12
1.86E+12
1.75E+12
19d
Emergy to money ratio=U/GDP (seJ/)
2.55E+12
2.05E+12
1.86E+12
1.67E+12
1.94E+12
1.64E+12
7.86E+06
6.06E+06
4.96E+06
6.96E+06
4.15E+06
18
19a
19b
20
Total energy use
Energy intensity =energy/GNP ratio (J/$)
21
Imports/exports (emergy basis)
22
Imports/exports (money basis)
2.27
2.53
2.64
2.22
1.49
1.72
1.03
1.03
0.88
0.99
0.97
23
Population
5.66E+07
5.67E+07
5.68E+07
5.73E+07
5.78E+07
5.73E+07
24
Energy use per person (J/person/yr)
9.77E+10
1.10E+11
1.11E+11
9.27E+10
1.40E+11
9.12E+10
25
Emergy use per person (sej/yr/person)
1.69E+16
2.23E+16
2.44E+16
2.69E+16
3.90E+16
3.60E+16
26
Emergy to energy ratio (sej/J)
1.73E+05
2.04E+05
2.19E+05
2.90E+05
2.78E+05
3.95E+05
27
Emergy value of labor (sej/J)
5.61E+06
7.40E+06
8.09E+06
8.91E+06
1.29E+07
1.20E+07
28
Emergy Sustainability Index, ESI= EYR/ELR
0.26
0.17
0.17
0.14
0.08
0.08
-408-

A
8E+12
2.26E+24
7E+12
6E+12
2.07E+24
1.54E+24
5E+12
1.26E+24
4E+12
1.38E+24
9.58E+23
3E+12
2E+12
1E+12
0
1984
1989
1991
1995
2000
1984
2002
1989
1991
C
20
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
1984
1995
2000
2002
D
0.3
0.25
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
1989
1991
Environmental Loading Ratio, ELR ((N+F)/R)
1995
2000
2002
Emergy Yield Ratio, EYR, (Y/F=1+1/EIR)
0
1984
1989
1991
1995
2000
2002
Emergy Sustainability Index, ESI= EYR/ELR
Figure 2. Emergy indicators for Italy, 1984-2002. A. Total emergy use within the country (seJ/year), B. Emergy
density (seJ/m2/yr), C. Emergy Loading Ratio and Emergy Yield Ratio, and D. Sustainability Index.
The inflation rate has been constantly decreasing, (there are only three significant peaks, in
1989, 1991, 1995) as a result of the successful struggle against inflation. In 1999 after the introduction
of the Euro (as virtual money only) inflation starts to increase slightly, but it remains below 3%. GDP
has grown slightly over the years because Italy had to adopt a fiscal policy aimed at containing the
deficit in accordance with the EU Stability and Growth Pact.
The Emergy Yield Ratio shows a continuous and regular descent from 1984 to 2002, thus
suggesting an increasing dependence on imports to generate goods and services. The Environmental
Loading Ratio ((N+F)/R) has grown until 2000, indicating an increasing dependence on nonrenewable
emergy sources and a loss of sustainability. This is confirmed by the parallel increase of total emergy
use, except in 2002, (Figure 2a) and EIR (Figure 2c). In 2002 the ELR, as well as total emergy use
decrease. This is due to the decrease of the imports (absolute value) due to the steady state of the
Italian economy and less reliance on nonrenewable resources.
The Environmental Sustainability Index (EYR/ELR) for Italys economy seems to have
stabilized around 0.08 in the last two years of our time series because the respective EYR and ELR for
2002 decreased in a proportional way compared to those of 2000. This stabilization is the consequence
of the economic policy measures carried out to meet the Maastricht Treatys targets. The fall-off of the
components of the aggregate demand has decreased total emergy use and GDP has grown slowly and
slightly. Moreover, this result seems to show that the struggle to depress inflation rates may improve
ESI.
The Emergy to Money Ratio (U/GDP) presents a decreasing trend, which is consistent with
all developed countries. In Italy we notice only one peak in the year 2000, followed by a new decline
in 2002. This peak could be interpreted as a minor efficiency of the economic system compared to
previous years, where more emergy resources were needed to produce the same amount of money.
Unfortunately, no evaluations of the Italian economy have been published for the years between 1995
and 2000 and, therefore, we cannot verify this trend more accurately.
-409-

A
12
10
8
%
6
4
2
20
02
20
00
19
98
19
96
19
94
19
92
19
90
19
88
19
84
19
86
B
1.4E+12
1.2E+12
1E+12
8E+11
6E+11
4E+11
2E+11
20
02
20
00
19
98
19
96
19
94
19
92
19
90
19
88
19
86
19
84
C
3E+12
3E+12
2E+12
2E+12
1E+12
5E+11
0
1984
1989
1991
1995
2000
2002
Figure 3. Economic and emergy indicators for Italy, 1984-2002. A. Inflation rate, B. Gross Domestic Product,
and C. Emergy to Money Ratio (seJ/).
B
4.5E+16
4.0E+16
3.5E+16
3.0E+16
2.5E+16
2.0E+16
1.5E+16
1.0E+16
20
02
20
00
19
98
19
96
19
94
19
92
19
90
19
88
5.0E+15
19
86
19
84
5.80E+07
5.78E+07
5.76E+07
5.74E+07
5.72E+07
5.70E+07
5.68E+07
5.66E+07
5.64E+07
5.62E+07
5.60E+07
5.58E+07
0.0E+00
1984
1989
1991
1995
2000
2002
Figure 4. Additional economic and emergy indicators for Italy, 1984-2002. A. Population, and B. Emergy use per
person (seJ/yr/person).
-410-
The calculation of the Emergy to Money indicator is quite delicate because it is affected by
many factors: increases and decreases of emergy support, use of GDP or GNP (Gross National
Product) in the calculation, variation of GDP due to inflation, variation of GDP due to actual economic
performance, and finally miscalculations of GDP due to erroneous inclusion of activities based on the
depletion of natural capital. However, as a measure of the well-being of a country, it provides a good
first approximation (Cialani, 1996).
In analyses such as this one some authors use GNP instead of GDP, while others use both of
them as easily interchangeable. GDP measures the economic activity within a country (i.e. goods and
services produced within the geographic boundaries of a country, regardless of the producers
nationality), while GNP also includes the economic activity generated outside of the country by all
Italian citizens and firms. The two national accounting concepts GDP and GNP do not refer to the
same economic activity, nor do they refer to the same emergy requirement. In fact, in order to calculate
the Emergy Money Ratio, the total emergy used and the economic activity supported must occur
within the same national borders. If the total emergy used refers to emergy used within the national
geographic boundaries, the economic activity measure should also refer to the same area, which makes
the choice of GDP unavoidable.
Trade requires careful consideration. Generally, market behavior tends to adjust the exchange
in such a way that the import/export ratio is equal or close to one, as in the case of Italy. When a
country imports more than it exports, more money goes out than comes in and economic analysts
consider this to be a negative condition. Then the ratio declined, signaling an increase of exports
relative to imports, although with no obvious trend. When evaluated in emergy terms, the perspective
changes dramatically. Most of Italys imports are from countries with emergy/GDP ratios lower than
Italy (e.g., fossil fuels from OPEC countries, about 50% of imported emergy; meat from South
America). This means that one Euro buys more emergy (resources, i.e. real wealth) from these
countries than is exported from Italy for the same money. The ratio of imported to exported emergy
was always higher than 2.2 until the year 2000, when it started declined slightly. Italy benefits from an
advantage to the buyer that provides free support to its economy. Odum (1994) pointed out that
uneven trade supports the economies of richer countries and is, at the same time, the basis of
international instability. According to Odum, emergy equity of trade (or even aid projects) must be
ensured on all scales involved: the local scale of the process, the regional scale in which the process
takes place, the national scale of the developing country receiving the investment, the national scale of
the developed country where the investment comes from, and finally the scale of the world economy.
If emergy flows are not balanced on some of these scales, more emergy is exported than received, and
benefits are not equally shared by each level (primary producers, intermediate traders, financial
operators and large investors, whole countries). This finally results in the production of goods that are
too expensive for the local people and generates a global exploitation of the primary producers and the
developing country.
Italy has continued to import an increasingly high percentage of fuels and electricity, thus
worsening its foreign energy dependency. If we look at fuel imports in emergy terms, things are
different. Fossil fuels still have an average EYR of 5:1, which means that 5 seJ are extracted per seJ
invested in the process. Therefore, fossil fuels are potentially able to drive an industrial economy
thanks to the emergy stored in their chemical structure by the environmental work over the past million
years. Importing fossil fuels is, therefore, an advantage to the buyer if the emergy embodied in the
money paid is less than the emergy in the fuel, which is exactly what happens for Italy. One barrel of
oil supplies Italy with an emergy input of about (6.3E9 J/barrel)*(5.3 E4 seJ/J) = 3.34E14 seJ versus
(25/barrel)*(1.64E12 seJ/) = 4.1E13 seJ of emergy exported in the money paid. The import/export
ratio is about 8.1 for Italian oil imports, a significant emergy advantage, which drives the Italian
economic activity. Other imports show lower advantages to the buyer, but it clearly appears that
importing primary resources makes the Italian economy stronger, in spite of the common opinion that
oil imports should be reduced. Of course, this consideration has nothing to do with long-term
-411-

1984
1989
(R)
1.21E+23
13%
(R)
1.21E+23
10%
(N)
3.00E+23
31%
(F)
5.37E+23
56%
1995
(N)
3.57E+23
28%
(F)
7.89E+23
62%
2002
(R)
1.21E+23
8%
(R)
1.21E+23
6%
(N)
4.78E+23
30%
(N)
3.48E+23
17%
(F)
1.64E+24
77%
(F)
1.01E+24
62%
Figure 5. Composition of emergy use in Italy (seJ)
1989
1995
imported
goods (exc.
fules&min.)
3.60E+23
47%
fuel and
electricity
3.53E+23
47%
metallic
minerals
3.72E+22
5%
metallic
minerals
4.04E+22
4%
non metallic
minerals
6.00E+21
1%
fuel and
electricity
3.74E+23
45%
metallic
minerals
4.04E+22
5%
non metallic
minerals
3.55E+22
4%
2002
2000
imported
good (exc.
fuels&min.)
3.79E+23
46%
fuel and
electricity
3.48E+23
37%
imported
goods (exc.
fuels&min.)
5.08E+23
55%
fuels and
electricity
4.45E+23
49%
imported goods
(exc. fuels&min.)
4.13E+23
46%
metallic
minerals
3.03E+22
3%
non metallic
minerals
3.55E+22
4%
Figure 6. Composition of Italian imports (seJ).
-412-
non metalic
minerals
1.76E+22
2%

Table 3. Coefficients of correlation.
Indices
(r)
-0.85
0.40
-0.29
0.98
0.96
0.97
-0.96
0.91
-0.86
1.00
-0.15
-0.96
0.15
-0.17
0.34
-0.42
-0.94
Inflation and GDP

Emergy Money Ratio and inflation
Emergy Money Ratio and GDP
Imports and export
Total emergy use and GDP
EYR and total emergy
ELR and ESI
EYR and ESI
EIR and ESI
Inflation and ESI
Emergy Money Ratio and emergy per person
Total emergy use and inflation
Renewable and Non renewable resources
Renewable and total emergy use
Non renewable and total emergy use
Fuel and electricity and inflation
Goods and services and inflation rate
sustainability. Although fossil fuels are presently the unavoidable basis of an industrialized economy,
at the same time they generate environmental and political instability, which, in the long run, may
undermine high standards of living (Odum and Odum, 2001).
Unlike fossil fuels, imports of metallic minerals and non-minerals show a decreasing trend,
with some inter-annual variability (Figure 6). Manufactured goods increase in absolute terms, but their
percentage remains more or less constant over time. Data however suggest a change in the economic
structure of the country, with more imports of manufactured goods and fewer imports of primary
materials except fuels. The increase of the latter does not support increased industrial activity, but
instead supports increased demand in the service sector (transport, tourism, health services, etc) and
higher consumption life styles (domestic heating and cooling, etc).
Correlation among indicators

Conventional economic indicators have proved effective in detecting changes in the economy
in the short-run, while emergy-based indicators are better for understanding long-term effects of
economic change. In this paper we try to understand, based on a time series of both emergy and
conventional indicators, the potential contribution of emergy indicators to detecting the effects of
economic changes that occur after at least 20 years, a period for which conventional indicators seem to
fail to detect changes.
The study of the relationship between emergy indicators and some economic variables may
contribute further tesseras to the mosaic (Table 3). These results point to some major policy
considerations, which can be better understood by carefully considering the diagrams in Figures 2, 3
and 4 and the milestone events listed in the introduction. As a consequence of these events, two
important effects can be identified: a significant decrease in inflation and an apparent stabilization of
performance parameters after the introduction of the Euro. The latter aspect requires further
investigation over a longer time period.
-413-
In the years of devaluation of the lira, such as 1992, and during the periods of high inflation,
such as 1995, the exchange rate improved the trade balance thanks to soaring exports and decreasing
imports. The inflation rate is often considered a determinant of the exchange rate. High inflation is
always accompanied by depreciation. It is widely believed that depreciation of the domestic currency
against other currencies improves the trade balance in the long-run, but worsens it in the short-run,
while the reverse is true in the case of appreciation. Italy last decades were characterized by a mix of
restrictive monetary and fiscal policies. Particularly consumption, investments and government
spending shrank, as was the case in most EU countries. The appreciation of the exchange rate in 1996
with the readmission of the lira to the ERM led to a loss of competitiveness and GDP growth was
approximately half the European average. A more general consideration is related to the interplay
between the macroeconomic policy and the reforms introduced in recent years. Weakness of
consumption is also due to consumers lack of trust, who perceive an inflation rate higher than that of
the official statistics. The contraction of economic productivity reflects lower emergy use per person
(see year 2002), while the Emergy Money Ratio starts declining again from 2000 on. After this year,
strict policies in compliance with requirements of the European Union, together with the introduction
of the Euro and fixed exchange rates, seem to have reversed the trend in the Italian economy, although
this should be further confirmed by emergy indicators calculated for the years after 2002.
Several emergy indicators are highly sensitive to increased emergy imports: emergy density,
emergy per person, and the Environmental Loading Ratio show the same trend as GDP. This can be
explained by the fact that they are calculated by dividing the total emergy used by amounts that did not
change significantly over time (area of the country, population, renewable emergy), so that the only
real change is the increase in emergy imported. GDP depends on available resources to support the
economy and, therefore, the trend parallel to emergy availability is not surprising. Inflation affects the
Emergy/GDP ratio directly, since in times of high inflation the mass of monetary circulation is larger,
which therefore decreases the ratio itself (see Figure 3c, from 1984 to 1995). Lower inflation rates
pushed the emergy/GDP up between 1995 and 2000. Finally, the ratio declined again in
correspondence with the small increase of inflation between 2000 and 2002. Since low inflation boosts
imports and favors purchase of primary resources, the Emergy Yield Ratio may have been affected by
decreasing inflation via increased purchased inputs versus local emergy inputs.
Finally, the perfect correlation between ESI and the inflation rate is very interesting. This
result may suggest that the struggle against high inflation may, in the long-term, result in a lower index
of sustainability. This pattern requires further investigation because the inflation rate seems to respond
more quickly in the short run to economic policy than indicators such as ESI that include
environmental services. Moreover the index of sustainability of the country (ESI), which depends on
both economic (EYR) and environmental (ELR) aspects of resource use, ends up dependent on the
import of emergy directly and on inflation trends indirectly, as we have just seen.
CONCLUSIONS
We have investigated the evolution of the Italian economic system in the last two decades,
correlating emergy analysis and traditional economic indicators, and using both kinds of indicators to
interpret economic trends in light of European monetary and political events. Time series analyses
have proved to be very useful in understanding the dynamics of the Italian economy. This can be
applied to all countries and highlights the importance of updating national analyses yearly, since
indicators can present variability, even over short intervals. Results show that emergy accounting
significantly improves the understanding of the performance of the national economy over time.
However, an agreed-upon, standardized and homogeneous emergy analysis procedure is
necessary to allow a reliable evaluation of a countrys performance over time, as well as a comparison
among different countries (e.g., using GDP versus GNP to define the Emergy Money Ratio).
-414-
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Authors are indebted to Eliana Bardi and Matt Cohen (both from University of Florida)
for reading and commenting on several versions of this manuscript.
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
33
Emergy Evaluation of the Swedish Economy Since the 1950s
ABSTRACT
The aim of this work was to analyze the change in the resource base of the Swedish economy
from the 1950s until the present time and to establish indices for solar emergy per Swedish krona
(sej/SEK) to be used in further studies. During the period 1956 to 2002, the population increased from
7.3 to 8.9 million. Total emergy use increased from 146.1 x 1021 to 369.5 x1021 solar emjoules per
year, largely due to increasing imports of oil and uranium and an expanding service sector. Total
imports increased from 85.6 x 1021 to 305.7 x 1021 sej/year and exports increased from 60.8 x 1021 to
262.5 x 1021 sej/year. The fraction of indigenous resources for the total economy decreased from
41.4% to 17.3% in emergy terms. Based on income statistics and consumer price indices the standard
of living measured as gross national product per person, corrected for inflation, increased threefold
whereas emergy use increased twofold, indicating an efficiency increase of 50% in solar emergy use
per real wealth output. The renewable part of solar emergy use decreased from 31.0% to 12.2%
during the period, showing a substantial increase in dependence on non-renewable sources.
INTRODUCTION
Scope of this study
Since 1974, scientists at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences have been involved
in various programs and projects on biomass for energy. The Department of Bioenergy is trying to
provide a scientifically based estimate of the theoretical and practical potential of biomass for energy
in the Swedish energy supply system. Evaluation by methods based on standard economic theory are
insufficient because standard economic theory and monetary values underestimate the importance of
natural resources, in particular wood, peat, coal, oil, natural gas, hydro power and uranium (Hall et al.,
1986, Chapter 2; Odum, 1996, Chapter 4). Odums emergy evaluation theories were applied in an
analysis of forest production and industries for the year 1988 (Doherty et al., 2002). This study is now
extended by looking at the historical development, from fifty years ago until the present, as a
background to a study on alternatives for the future. With the available resources it was not possible to
study every year, so five years were selected. 1956 and 1972 were chosen, as there is a good study on
energy balances in forestry and agriculture for these years (Genfors and Thyr, 1976). For 1988, there is
the aforementioned study by Doherty et al. (2002); 1996 was investigated by Lagerberg et al. (1999);
and 2002 is the latest year with complete statistics for the Swedish economy.
Although the focus of these studies is on bioenergy, it is necessary to study the Swedish
economy in general as it is not possible to make a relevant analysis of any part of the economy without
considering the next larger level of the hierarchical web (Odum, 1996, Chapter 2). Another reason for
studying the economy as a whole is that the emergy evaluation method may require that a solar emergy
to monetary unit index be established, that is a general value of how many basic energy units a
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Chapter 33. Emergy Evaluation of the Swedish Economy
monetary unit can buy. The main scope of this paper was to calculate such indices for the years 1956,
1972, 1988, 1996 and 2002 to be used in further bioenergy studies. A second aim was to analyze the
change in the resource base of the Swedish economy for this period.
General Facts about Sweden

Sweden is one of the largest countries in Europe (447,760 km2), only Russia, Ukraine, France
and Spain are larger, and Sweden extends 1,600 kilometers from north to south, the same distance as
Berlin to Moscow or New York to Minneapolis. In the north, winters are long, cold and characterized
by heavy snow fall; during the brief summers, there are twenty-four hours of daylight. In the south,
winters are considerably milder and summers are longer.
Approximately half of Swedens land area is covered by forest. More than one third of the
country is mountains, lakes and marshes. At present, less than a tenth of the total area, slightly less
than three million hectares, is under cultivation. Sweden has a relatively favorable climate, considering
its northerly location. However, the scale of agriculture varies greatly between the northern and
southern parts of the country. The most extensive agricultural activity is found in central and southern
Sweden. The growing season in the far south is 240 days per year, whereas in the far north it is less
than 120 days. The climate in central and southern Sweden is temperate. Annual precipitation during
the last hundred years averaged 600 mm, but has increased to over 650 mm in the last decade.
In 1850, Sweden was a poor agrarian country with a population of about 3.4 million. Between
1870 and 1970, a rapid economic transformation occurred with an annual growth rate of 4%
(compared with an annual average of less than 2% in the period 19702002). Behind this development
was the successful exploitation of Swedens main natural resources: wood, iron ore and hydroelectric
power. An additional factor was dramatic improvements in transportation, notably the expansion of the
railroad, road networks and ports. Also contributing to Swedens industrialization were improvements
in agricultural productivity, which left laborers free to find jobs in the growing industrial sectors.
In the beginning of the 20th century, there was a gradual shift from staple industries toward
manufacturing of higher value-added products. Demand from staple industries played a crucial role for
the machinery and transportation equipment sectors. The need for efficient transportation in a country
with long distances contributed to the success of the car manufacturers Volvo and Scania, for example.
Behind the success of the electrical engineering group Asea (the Swedish company Allmnna Svenska
Elektriska Aktiebolaget, now part of ABB, Asea Brown Boveri Ltd.) was the need to transmit energy
from northern to southern Sweden. Economic growth was further stimulated by a number of epochmaking Swedish inventions and innovations. Many of todays major Swedish manufacturing groups,
including Asea/ABB, Ericsson (telecommunications), SKF (Svenska Kullagerfabriken, industrial
bearings), Sandvik (cemented carbide and steel) and Alfa Laval (processing equipment), still base their
operations on ideas from the period before or around the beginning of the 1900s.
Sweden also benefited from not being drawn into the two world wars of the 20th century. In
particular, the reconstruction of Europe after World War II enabled Swedish industry to quickly
increase its share of foreign markets. Rapid economic growth also laid the groundwork for a
household-oriented domestic goods and services sector as well as a rapidly expanding construction
industry. More information on Swedish geography, economy and social and cultural development is
published in fact sheets on the Internet by the Swedish Institute <http://www.si.se>.
Energy
Global industrialization has been driven by fossil fuels. Swedish development is an integrated
and interdependent part of the economic development of the world as a whole. Historically, forests
have always been a primary energy source for Sweden. The country has no indigenous fossil fuels;
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thus, development has been heavily dependent on increasing imports of fossil fuels along with
expanding use of the countrys hydropower potential.
In the beginning of the 1970s as much as 70% of Swedens total energy supply came as
imported oil, mainly from the Arab states. After the attack on Israel and the simultaneous initiated oil
embargo in 1973, it became obvious that Sweden had to change its energy supply situation. A
substantial nuclear power capacity was built up in the 1970s and 1980s. However, public concerns
about nuclear power (the risk of accidents such as Chernobyl in 1986 and the risk of the spread of
radioactive materials due to terrorist attacks) and the environmental effects of fossil fuels (global
warming and climatic change) created a political situation. As a result, the Swedish parliament decided
to phase out nuclear power and decrease the emission of greenhouse gases according to the Kyoto
protocol (adopted in Kyoto, Japan, 1997) and consequent decisions of the European Union. How this
complicated situation will be resolved is not clear, but much hope is placed on more efficient energy
use and renewable energy from biomass, wind power, sun collectors and solar cells.
METHODS
The emergy evaluation methods used in this paper were developed by H.T. Odum and are
described in many of his publications and compiled in the book Environmental Accounting (Odum,
1996). Chapters 5 Emergy Evaluation Procedure and 10 Emergy of States and Nations are
especially relevant for this study. Methods are also accurately described by Doherty et al. (2002).
Transformities (i.e. solar emergy units per unit actual energy, mass or money) for various processes are
given in these references.
Primary input data from national statistics of indigenous production, import and export of
goods and services (Geological Survey of Sweden, 2003; Statistics Sweden, 1959, 1975, 2003) were
compiled in a spreadsheet. The emergy value of each item was then calculated by multiplying the
quantity or monetary value by their respective transformity. These emergy values were then summed
in order to calculate the total emergy use for each year and the emergy in import and export of goods
and services for each year.
These emergy values were used to calculate the fraction of indigenous resources used from
the total national economy for each year. Furthermore, emergy use was compared with national
economic statistics to evaluate the change in resource efficiency in the national economy for each
respective year. The use of renewable resources versus non-renewable was also evaluated.
RESULTS
The indigenous resource base of Sweden includes the renewable resources of sunlight, kinetic
wind energy, rainfall, stream flow and energies from a portion of the Baltic Sea, including tides and
surface winds, driving waves and currents. Major indigenous renewable production systems are
forestry, agriculture, fishing and hydroelectricity generation. Sweden has an active and prosperous
mineral and metal ore extractive industry, including iron ores, copper, lead, zinc, and other mineral
rocks. The indigenous environmental and meteorological inputs are presented in the Appendix in
Tables A.1 and A.2. Imported and exported goods, fuels and human services are compiled in Tables
A.3 and A.4. These data are summarized and supplemented in Table 1. Based on these evaluations,
overview indices of annual emergy-use, origin, economic and demographic relations were calculated
(Table 2).
During the period 1956 to 2002, the population increased from 7.3 to 8.9 million. The total
emergy use, U, increased from 146.1 x 1021 to 369.5 x 1021 solar emjoules per year, mainly due to
increasing imports of oil and uranium, a rapidly increasing public service sector (mainly health care,
education and social services), and an increase in service input to goods production. As this production
becomes increasingly advanced and international in scope, more services (i.e. research and
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Table 1. Summary of major solar emergy flows and market economic monetary flows for Sweden in
1956, 1972, 1988, 1996 and 2002. Compiled from Tables A.1A.4 in the Table Appendix.
Variable Item
R
F
G
I
P2I
E
P1E
B
X
P2
P1
U
1)
Renewable sources1) [1020 sej/year]

Sun
Wind over land
Evapo-transpired rain
Hydro-geopotential
Net land uplift
Waves received
Tides
Non-renewable sources within Sweden
(mineral and metal ores) [1020 sej/year]
N1 Refined within the country
N2 Export of unprocessed raw materials
Imported fuels (fossil fuels, uranium) [1020 sej/year]
Imported goods, minerals, fertilizers [1020 sej/year]
Money paid for imports [109 SEK/year]
Solar emergy value of service in imports [1020 sej/year]
Money received for exports [109 SEK/year]
Solar emergy value of service in exports [1020 sej/year]
Exports transformed, upgraded within country [1020 sej/year]
Gross National Product [109 SEK/year]
European trade partners solar emergy/SEK index [109 sej/SEK]
Swedens solar emergy/SEK index (U / GNP) [109 sej/SEK]
Total solar emergy2) [1020 sej/year]
1956
1972
1988
1996
2002
452.4
10.5
47.6
96.6
270.0
43.0
42.8
1.1
452.4
10.5
47.6
96.6
270.0
43.0
42.8
1.1
452.4
10.5
47.6
96.6
270.0
43.0
42.8
1.1
452.4
10.5
47.6
96.6
270.0
43.0
42.8
1.1
452.4
10.5
47.6
96.6
270.0
43.0
42.8
1.1
301.0
152.2
148.8
328.1
101.2
13.2
427.2
13.0
343.2
116.4
55.2
3 240
2 642
1 461
508.2
266.8
241.4
834.5
199.9
46.2
673.6
49.3
587.1
349.0
203.8
1 458
1 188
2 427
284.2
132.6
151.6
916.1
245.9
341.4
1 051.4
359.7
903.2
618.0
1 114.5
308
251
2 798
305.9
175.4
130.5
1 081.3
277.1
568.7
1 237.4
688.3
1221.1
771.1
1 817.2
218
177
3 224
307.9
185.5
122.4
999.3
371.8
870.6
1 686.3
1 012.4
1 598.9
903.5
2 340.0
194
158
3 695
Renewable environmental sources (R) are corrected for double counting of byproduct solar emergy by summing
all independent, over-land contributions and subtracting the coupled flows since the annual global solar emergy
budget was used to derive solar transformities for each source (see Doherty et al. 2002, Tables 1, 2 and 4 for
details): sun + wind + stream hydro-geopotential energy + chemical potential energy in rain + net uplift (sun
+ wind) = (270.0 + 96.6 + 43.0) x 1020 sej/yr = 409.6 x 1020 sej/year.
Physical energies in surrounding seas were calculated similarly: sun + wind + waves + tide (sun + wind +
tide) = 42.8 x 1020 sej/year. R-total = land based emergy + sea based emergy = (409.6 + 42.8) x 1020 sej/yr =
452.4 x 1020 sej/year.
2)
U = N1 + R + F + G + P2I
development, marketing, transportation, etc.) are needed to ensure the smooth functioning of
production and sales systems. The tendencies for the distribution of emergy for imports and exports for
the different years can be seen in Figure 1.
From 1956 to 2002, total imports increased from 856 x 1020 to 3,057 x 1020 sej/year and
exports increased from 608 x 1020 to 2,625 x 1020 sej/year (Figure 2). Total indigenous renewable
production increased slightly from 696 x 1020 sej/year to 902 x 1020 sej/year, whereas the total
indigenous non-renewable sources was almost constant (about 300 x 1020 sej/year), except in 1972
when it was 508 x 1020 sej/year (due to a high production of iron ore). The emergy flow from
renewable sources was assumed constant for the different years (452 x 1020 sej/year). The percentage
of indigenous resources of the total economy decreased from 41.4% to 17.3% in terms of emergy use
(see Table 2).
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Table 2. Overview indices of annual solar emergy-use, origin and economic and demographic
relations for Sweden in 1956, 1972, 1988, 1996 and 2002.
Name of index
Derivation
1956
1972
Flow of imported solar emergy [1020 sej/year]

Economic component [1020 sej/year]
Total exported solar emergy [1020 sej/year]
% Locally renewable (free)
Economic/environment ratio
Ratio of imports to exports
Export to imports
Net contribution due to trade (imports minus exports)
[1020 sej/year]
% of solar emergy-use purchased
% of solar emergy-use derived from home sources
Solar emergy-use per unit area [109 sej/m2]
Population [106 inhabitants]
Solar emergy-use per person [1016 sej/person]
Renewable carrying capacity at present living standard
[106 people]
Carrying capacity using local resorces [106 people]
Fraction electric1)
Fraction fossil fuels2)
Fuel-use per person [1015 sej/person]
F+G+P2I
U-R
N2+B+P1E
R/ U
(U - R) / R
(F+G+P2I) / (N2+B+P1E)
(N2+B+P1E) / (F+G+P2I)
(F+G+P2I ) - (N2+B+P1E)
856.5
1 008.7
608.5
31.0
2.23
1.41
0.71
248.0
(F+G+P2I) / U
(N1+R) / U
U / area
U / population
(R/U)*(population)
[(R+N)/U]*(population)
(electricity-use) / U
(fuel-use) / U
fuel-use / population
1988
1996
2002
1 707.9
1 974.7
1 177.4
18.6
4.36
1.45
0.69
530.5
2 213.4
2 346.0
1 672.7
16.2
5.19
1.32
0.76
540.6
2 595.8
2 771.2
2 122.7
14.0
6.13
1.22
0.82
473.1
3 057.4
3 242.9
2 624.8
12.2
7.17
1.16
0.86
432.6
58.6
41.4
355.5
7.339
1.99
2.27
70.4
29.6
590.5
8.129
2.99
1.52
79.1
20.9
680.9
8.459
3.31
1.37
80.5
19.5
784.3
8.844
3.64
1.24
82.7
17.3
899.1
8.941
4.13
1.09
3.78
0.05
0.22
4.47
3.22
0.07
0.32
10.00
2.23
0.18
0.14
7.22
2.08
0.16
0.14
8.19
1.84
0.14
0.10
7.45
1)
Solar emergy for electricity generation estimated from solar transformity including human services, 0.2 x 106
sej/J (Odum, 1996).
2)
Emergy values for imported fuels (F) were estimated using solar transformities from Odum (1996) which
include associated human services (coal 40,000 sej/J; natural gas 48,000 sej/J; crude oil 54,000 sej/J; refined
petroleum 66,000 sej/J) so that the full cost of these primary sources was considered.
Emergy per monetary unit ratio

The results of the calculations of the buying power of a monetary unit the emergy per
monetary unit index are shown in Table 1 (indices P1 and P2). Index P1 decreased from 2,642 x 109
sej/SEK in 1956 to 158 x 109 sej/SEK in 2002. According to Odum (1996, p. 312), this decrease was
partly due to inflation and partly to economic development (which increases money circulation for the
same resource use), and to some extent due to increasing efficiency in resource use.
Based on income statistics and consumer price indices, the standard of living measured as
gross national product per person (GNP), corrected for inflation, increased threefold whereas emergy
use only increased twofold, indicating an efficiency increase of 50% in solar emergy use per real
wealth output (Table 3). This increase was partly due to more efficient resource use and partly to
industrialization (fuels of relatively low transformity replaced human and draught animal energy of
high transformities).
As economic expansion was driven by fossil fuels, the dependence on non-renewable
resources increased considerably during the period and the renewable part of solar emergy use
decreased from 31.0% to 12.2% (see Table 2, index R/U).
Energy
Swedens energy supply for the years studied is shown in Figure 3. In 2002, Swedens energy
supply consisted of 335 TWh of fuels and 141 TWh of electricity. About 70% of the fuels were
imported (208 TWh of oil and natural gas and 29 TWh of coal and coke). The remaining 30% (98
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Imports
1 800
1956
1 600
1972
Emergy (1E20 sej/year)
1 400
1988
1996
1 200
2002
1 000
800
600
400
200
0
Fossil fuels
Electricity and
uranium for nuclear
power generation
Fertilizers, food,
fodder and fish
Metals and goods
Services
Exports
1 800
1956
1 600
1972
1 400
1988
1996
1 200
2002
1 000
800
600
400
200
0
Fossil fuels
Electricity
Wood and
forest industry
products
Food and
fodder from
agriculture and
stockraising
Metals,
machines and
other goods
Services
Figure 1. Distribution of emergy flows for imports and exports in Sweden in 1956, 1972, 1988, 1996 and 2002.
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3 500
1956
3 000
1972
1988
2 500
2 000
1996
2002
1 500
1 000
500
Renewable sources
Total indigenous
nonrenewable
sources
Total indigenous
renewable
production
Total imports
Total exports
Figure 2. Emergy flows in Sweden in 1956, 1972, 1988, 1996 and 2002.
Table 3. Relative standard of living in monetary terms and relative solar emergy per person. Base
year 1956.
Note
1
2
3
4
5
6
Gross national product (GNP) per capita [SEK]

Consumer price index (year 1956 = 100)
Index weighted GNP per capita [SEK]
Relative "standard of living" in
monetary terms
Solar emergy use per capita
[1016 sej/capita]
Relative sej/capita, base year 1956
1956
1972
1988
1996
2002
7,517
25,065
131,755
205,455
261,716
100
7,517
1.00
194
12,920
1.72
725
18,173
2.42
1,051
19,549
2.60
1,120
23,368
3.11
1.99
2.99
3.31
3.65
4.13
1.00
1.50
1.66
1.83
2.08
Gross national product (X) divided by population.
2
Data taken from Statistics Sweden (2003).
3
GNP per capita divided by (Consumer price index / 100).
4
Calculated as the quotient of index weighted GNP per capita for the topical year and index weighted GNP per
capita for 1956. 1956 = 1.00.
5
Total solar emergy (U) divided by population.
6
Calculated as the quotient of solar emergy use per capita for the topical year and solar emergy use per capita for
1956. 1956 = 1.00.
1
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TWh) came from indigenous sources, mainly wood. Half of the oil products were used in the transport
sector; the other half was equally used by the residential and service sectors and industry (Swedish
Energy Agency, 2003).Electricity plays an important role in Swedens energy supply. In 2002,
hydropower and nuclear power together accounted for 91.7% of total power production. The
remaining 8.3% was generated by condensing power, gas turbines, industrial back-pressure power,
wind power and combined heat and power (CHP) plants, which produce both electricity and hot water
for district heating (Swedish Energy Agency, 2003). The nuclear power plants are powered by
imported fuel. Although Sweden does have domestic uranium deposits, they are mostly low grade and
not considered economical. Earlier mining plans also met strong opposition from environmentalists.
The capacity of hydroelectric power production in Sweden expanded in the 1960s and 1970s
from about 25 to about 65 TWh/year. However, production varies according to the weather. In the dry
year of 1996, production was down to 52 TWh, but in 2000 and 2001, it was as high as 79 TWh/year.
Most hydropower comes from nine rivers in the northern half of Sweden. Expansion of hydropower
capacity is restricted according to a decision by the Swedish parliament. The four unexploited rivers in
the northern part of the country will remain untouched for environmental reasons. As shown in Table
A.2, the indigenous production of hydroelectricity increased from 69.3 x 1020 sej in 1956 to 203.6 x
1020 sej in 1988.
Up to 1973, the imports of fossil fuels, mainly oil and oil products, increased markedly from
156 TWh in 1956 to 349 TWh in 1972. Subsequently, the nuclear power sector expanded rapidly and
imported fossil fuels were largely replaced by electricity. However, in 2002, the total of imported
fossil fuels (666.6 x 1020 sej) was more than twice the total imported uranium (274.6 x 1020 sej) in
emergy terms.
The total of imported crude petroleum was much higher than the domestic need, which can be
seen in Tables A.3 and A.4 (refined fuels were exported all the years studied). Imports of energy
increased from 328.1 x 1020 sej in 1956 to 999.3 x 1020 sej in 2002. During the same period, export of
energy (mainly refined fuels) increased from 0.4 x 1020 sej to 343.4 x 1020 sej. This was due to
investments in refinery capacity during the 1970s and 1980s, in order to increase the flexibility in
choice of oil suppliers.
The total energy use (indigenous production plus imports minus exports) increased from
397.2 x 1020 sej in 1956 to 936.2 x 1020 sej in 1996, but by 2002, the total energy use had decreased to
851.6 x 1020 sej. The total import of energy was at a maximum in 1996 (1081.3 x 1020 sej), but total
exports had increased to 343.4 x 1020 sej by 2002.
Metals and minerals

In terms of emergy, the percentage of mined iron ore in relation to the total indigenous mined
production was between 60% and 70% for the whole period. The second most important mined
fraction was sedimentary material (mainly limestone and dolomite). In terms of emergy, the
percentage of this fraction in relation to the total indigenous mined production fluctuated between 16%
and 30% during the period. The total indigenous mined production reached a maximum in 1972 (508
x1020 sej), whereas during the other years studied, the total indigenous mined production was about
300 x 1020 sej (see Table A.2).
Imported metals and alloys mainly consisted of steel. The quantity of imported metals and
alloys increased from 18.3 x 1020 sej in 1956 to 62.2 x 1020 sej in 2002, as shown in Table A.3.
From 1956 to 1988, iron ore was the most important export commodity in emergy terms. In 1956, the
percentage of exported iron ore (148.8 x 1020 sej) in relation to the total export (269.5 x 1020 sej),
excluding service, was 55.2%, after which it declined steadily to 11.9% (122.4 x 1020 sej and1031.2 x
1020 sej respectively) in 2002. During the same time, the export of steel products increased steadily,
and in 2002 the percentage of exported steel products (81.0 x 1020 sej) in relation to the total export of
steel products and iron ore (203.5 x 1020 sej) was 39.8% (see Table A.4). This was due to an increasing
indigenous refinement of the iron ore to steel products.
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Figure 3. The contribution of various fuels to the Swedish energy budget for the selected years.
Forestry and Forest Products Industry

During the period, the forest harvest increased from 143 x 1020 to 231 x 1020 sej/year. Thus, it
increased its share of the indigenous renewable production from 21% to 26% in terms of emergy.
In monetary terms, paper production now accounts for more than half of both value-added
and export value in Swedish forest products industry, and is the segment that has expanded the most
for several decades, as new pulp capacity has been integrated with paper production. Market pulp
production capacity has remained largely unchanged whereas sawmill capacity has risen.
The Swedish forest products industry is strongly export-oriented. In 2002, about 85% of
paper and market pulp output was exported; the corresponding figure for sawn timber products was
75%. Western Europe is the dominant market.
Exports of wood and forest industry products have constantly increased in monetary as well
as emergy terms (Table 4). In 1956, about one third of the export income came from wood in exchange
for almost 80% of the exported emergy. By 2002, the relative export income from these products had
decreased to about 8% of total export value in exchange for one third of the countrys exported
emergy. Exported emergy from wood and wood products in relation to total emergy use remained
constant at around 68%.
Food
In spite of its limited arable land and climatic disadvantages in comparison with many other
countries, Swedens agricultural production is only slightly less than the level of consumption. The
total indigenous production of food was approximately at the same level during the period. Maximum
production was in 1988 (513.8 x 1020 sej), and after that, there was a slight decrease to 475.5 x 1020 sej
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in 2002. However, the indigenous fishing industry showed its maximum production in 1996 (63.6
x1020 sej), see Table A.2.
The import of food commodities increased during the period, from 21.9 x 1020 sej to 78.0 x
20
10 sej (see Table A.3). However, exports increased markedly, from 9.3 x 1020 sej in 1956 to 57.0
x1020 sej in 2002 (see Table A.4). Hence, total Swedish food consumption (indigenous production plus
imports minus exports) has been relatively stable at around 500 x 1020 sej, with a modest increase
mainly reflecting population growth.
In 2002, the nutritional value per person per day was approximately 12.2 kJ. Bread and grain
products, meat and edible fats accounted for half of the calorific intake in Sweden. In weight, animal
products are the smaller part, but in emergy terms, they dominate because of high transformities. In
1956, the percentage of livestock and dairy in relation to the total indigenous food production
(agricultural crops, livestock, dairy products and fish) was 73% in emergy terms; however, since the
1980s it has been about 65% (see Table A.2).
Machines and vehicles

The import of vehicles increased from 9.9 x 1020 sej in 1956 to 25.1 x 1020 sej in 2002 (see
Table A.3). During the same time, the export of vehicles increased from 2.6 x 1020 sej to 40.8 x 1020
sej, and the export of machines increased from 8.5 x 1020 sej to 95.2 x 1020 sej (see Table A.4). Thus,
the import of vehicles was approximately as large as the export of vehicles and machines in 1956, but
in 2002, the export of vehicles and machines was more than five times greater than the import of
vehicles in emergy terms.
Other imports and exports

Wool and cotton were important import commodities during the 1950s and 25.6 x 1020 sej
were imported in 1956. This quantity declined to 6.1 x 1020 sej in 1996, but increased to 14.5 x 1020 sej
Table 4. Export of wood and forest industry products in monetary and in emergy terms.
Note
1
2
3
4
5
6
Money received for exports [109 SEK/year]

Money received from exports of wood and
forest industry products [109 SEK/year]
% of export income
Emergy in exports upgraded within the
country [1020 sej/year]
Emergy in exports of wood and forest
industry products [1020 sej/year]
% of exported emergy
1956
1972
1988
1996
2002
13.0
49.3
359.7
688.3
1,012.4
4.0
31.3%
116.4
9.3
18.9%
349.0
58.8
16.3%
618.0
62.0
9.0%
771.1
78.2
7.7%
903.5
91.0
176.2
219.1
240.2
289.2
78.2%
50.5%
35.5%
31.2%
32.0%
Data taken from Statistics Sweden (1959, 1975, 2003).

Data taken from The National Board of Private Forestry (1962) and National Board of Forestry (1976, 1991,
1998, 2003).
3
Money received from exports of wood and forest industry products divided by money received for exports (E).
4
Specified in note 9, Table 1.
5
Sawlogs, roundwood, sawn wood, board, chemical and mechanical pulp and paper products included (solar
emergy values for each item specified in Table A.4.).
6
Emergy in exports of wood and forest industry products divided by emergy in exports upgraded within country.
2
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in 2002 (see Table A.3). During the whole period, fertilizers were important commodities, as shown in
Table A.3. Imports reached a maximum in 1988 (27.8 x 1020 sej), but declined to 17.5 x 1020 sej by
2002. The import of plastics increased markedly during the period, from 0.7 x 1020 sej in 1956 to 39.0
x 1020 sej in 2002 (see Table A.3).
Commodities specified as other imported goods in Table A.3 were animal hides, clothing,
cotton fabrics, synthetic fibers, tires, chassis and other car parts. The import of these commodities
increased steadily during the whole period, from 5.8 x 1020 sej in 1956 to 53.6 x 1020 sej in 2002.
Commodities specified as other exported goods in Table A.4 were ADP machines, ADP parts,
telecommunications equipment, televisions and car parts. The export of these commodities also
increased steadily during the whole period, from 1.7 x 1020 sej in 1956 to 41.3 x 1020 sej in 2002.

Odum used the concepts of emergy and transformity to develop a tool for evaluating systems
where both the work of nature and that of humans in the generation of products and services were
taken into account. The principles are logical and easy to understand, but some difficulties arise when
applied in a study like this one.
A transformity can be looked upon as the physical cost, in emergy terms, for a unit of a
service or commodity, expressed in terms of actual energy or mass. Like monetary costs, the
transformities change with technological development. For example, the transformity for cutting a log
with a handsaw and transporting it from the forest to the roadside with draught animals, as the work
was done in 1956, was probably higher than the transformity for doing the same operations with a
highly mechanized system in 2002. This study indicated that on average the transformities for the total
Swedish economy might be 33% lower today than fifty years ago. Table 3 indicates that real wealth
per capita has increased three times for twice the resource input. The efficiency increase is partly due
to technological development, but presumably is more dependent on changes in the types of energy
used: transformities for fossil fuels and electricity are considerably lower than transformities for
draught animal and humans. Transformities, like monetary costs, are also dependent on the scale of the
economy.
A practical problem in emergy evaluation is that it is time consuming to derive all the
different transformities. Hence, the same transformities were used for all the years studied. The same
data were also used for natural renewable resources for all years, though climatic conditions, for
example rainfall, differ among the years. In the latter case, the differences did not influence the result,
as they were a small part of the total emergy-use.
Due to the need for extensive analysis, another difficulty is to find a proper estimate of the
emergy/money ratio for other countries. This index has to be known as it influences the calculation of
the emergy/money index for the country of interest, or what is termed by economists terms of trade
between countries. In this study, the value given by Odum in Doherty et al. (2002) provided a starting
point, which was 2.0 x 1012 sej/USD for the year 1988. The conversion rate of 6.5 SEK/USD in 1988,
which is used in that report, gave 3.08 x 1011 sej/SEK. This value gave a calculated index for Sweden
in 1988 of 2.51 x 1011 sej/SEK, which means that Sweden received more emergy per SEK in imports
than was sent out per SEK in exports. The same relations in terms of trade were assumed, without
further analysis, for all years.
Doherty et al. (2002) calculated the estimates of sej/SEK indices for 1988, and Lagerberg et
al. (1999) calculated the estimates for 1996. These estimates differ somewhat from the sej/SEK indices
shown in this article. For instance, the sej/SEK index for 1996, shown by Lagerberg et al., was 2.14 x
1011 compared to the 1.77 x 1011 calculated in this work. The discrepancies were mainly due to the
different data references and transformities used for some items. Lagerberg et al. working with the data
available at that time, calculated a higher value for total emergy use, 3,598 x 1020 sej compared to the
current 3,224 x 1020 sej, and a lower value for GNP, 1,678 x 109 SEK compared to 1,817 x 109 SEK.
-427-
Since then, the GNP has been adjusted upwards by the authority for Statistics Sweden. Additionally,
data from Geological Survey of Sweden (SGU) instead of Statistics Sweden was used in this work as
the reference for mined quantities of ores, metals and minerals because SGUs statistics for these items
are more accurate.
In this study, some commodities had a maximum production and import in 1988 or 1996.
This was also determined, for example, for the total energy use, which was at a maximum in 1996, and
the total food consumption, which was at a maximum in 1988. However, differences for specific
commodities may only show variations in the state of the market for the years studied and may not be
evidence of long-term trends. Some general trends have, however, been discovered. For example, the
renewable part of solar emergy use has steadily decreased since the 1950s, and was only 12.2% in
2002.
In 2002, electricity and fossil fuels accounted for about 10% of GNP but as much as 40% of
the total emergy use (see Table 2). Human services are the other dominant and rapidly growing part of
total emergy use in the national economy. This is reflected in Table A.4, where an increase from 342 x
1020 sej in 1956 to 1,599 x 1020 sej in 2002 regarding services in exports is shown. Thus, the share of
services in relation to total exports increased from about 55% to 60% during this period.
So far, a growing service sector seems to have been beneficial to the economic system as a
whole, however, lately there are signs that this effect is declining. As shown in Table 3, economic
development is built on bringing in more resources, i.e. increasing emergy supply, and using these
resources more efficiently, i.e. lowering transformities. One question for the future is, have we reached
the point where total emergy use is peaking and is the only way of maintaining present standard of
living to increase efficiency with the resources available (i.e., lower transformities)?
REFERENCES
Doherty, S., Nilsson, P.O. and Odum, H.T. 2002. Emergy Evaluation of Forest Production and
Industries in Sweden. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Bioenergy,
Report No. 1. Uppsala, Sweden.
Genfors, W. and Thyr, B. 1976. Dataunderlag Fr Energibalansberkningar Inom Skogsbruket.
(English summary: Basic Data For Energy-Balance Evaluations In Forestry). Royal College
of Forestry, Department of Operational efficiency. Research Notes No. 96. Garpenberg,
Sweden.
Geological Survey of Sweden (SGU). 2003. Statistics of the Swedish Mining Industry 2002.
[Bergverksstatistik 2002.] Per. publ. 2003:1. Sweden (in Swedish).
Hall, C.A.S., Cleveland, C.J. and Kaufmann, R. 1986. Energy and resource quality: the ecology of the
economic process. New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-08790-4.
Lagerberg, C., Doherty, S.J. and Nilsson, P.O. 1999. Evaluation of the Resource Efficiency and
Sustainability of the Swedish Economy Using Emergy-Based Indices. In Lagerberg, C. 1999.
Emergy Analysis of the Resource Use in Greenhouse Crop Production and of the Resource
Basis of the Swedish Economy. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Acta
Universitatis Agriculturae Sueciae, Agraria 191. Alnarp, Sweden.
Wiley and Sons. New York, U.S.A.
National Board of Forestry (Skogsstyrelsen). 1976. Statistical Yearbook of Forestry 1974.
[Skogsstatistisk rsbok 1974.] Jnkping, Sweden (in Swedish).
-428-

National Board of Private Forestry (Kungl. Skogsstyrelsen). 1962. Statistical Yearbook of Forestry
1960. [Skogsstatistisk rsbok 1960.] Stockholm, Sweden (in Swedish).
Statistics Sweden (SCB). 1959. Statistical Abstract of Sweden 1959. [Statistisk rsbok fr Sverige
1959.] Stockholm, Sweden. Vol. 46 (in Swedish).
Statistics Sweden (SCB). 1975. Statistical Abstract of Sweden 1975. [Statistisk rsbok fr Sverige
1975.] Stockholm, Sweden. Vol. 62 (in Swedish).
Statistics Sweden (SCB). 2003. Swedens statistical databases. URL http://www.scb.se. (accessed 17Dec-2003).
Swedish Energy Agency. 2003. Facts and figures 2003. Eskilstuna, Sweden.
Swedish Institute. 2004. Information about Sweden - Fact Sheets. URL http://www.si.se. (accessed
21-Jan-2004).
-429-
APPENDIX
Table A.1. The physical energy, transformities and the solar emergy received over land and over
Swedens share of the Baltic Sea. From Doherty et al. 2002, Table 2.
Item
E [J]
Transformity
[sej/J]
Physical energy received over land

Solar insolation
Wind, kinetic energy
Evapo-transpired rain
Hydro-geopotential energy
Net uplift
1.05E+21
3.17E+18
5.31E+17
7.20E+17
1.33E+11
1.00E+00
1.50E+03
1.82E+04
3.75E+04
3.23E+10
10.50
47.55
96.64
270.00
43.00
Physical energy over the Baltic Sea

Solar insolation
Surface wind absorbed
Rain, chemical
Runoff, chemical
Tidal energy
Waves received
5.68E+20
1.98E+18
6.32E+16
1.40E+17
6.56E+15
1.40E+17
1.00E+00
1.50E+03
1.82E+04
4.85E+04
1.69E+04
3.06E+04
5.68
29.70
11.50
67.90
1.11
42.77
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Emergy
[1020 sej]
-431-
-432-
-433-
-434-
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
34
Quantifying the Role of Exports in Pennsylvanias
Economy Using Emergy
ABSTRACT
An emergy analysis of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania revealed that, although many relatively
low-transformity commodities, such as coal and agricultural products, were exported from the state,
many relatively high-transformity commodities, such as electricity, computer equipment and
pharmaceuticals were exported as well. This situation created an interesting dichotomy between the
results of emergy and economic valuation. Emergy indices, such as the ratio of emergy benefit-topurchaser, were used to quantify the benefit that individual export categories offered to
Pennsylvanias economy and to present a comparison between the dollar exchange and emergy.
Overall, Pennsylvania exported more than twice as much emergy as it received in exchange. Precision
instruments, pharmaceuticals, and electronics delivered a benefit to Pennsylvania, while fossil fuels
and many other extracted products delivered a benefit to export markets.
INTRODUCTION
Pennsylvania (PA) is a U.S. state marked by vast forests, valuable mineral reserves and arable
land. The diverse climate of Pennsylvania is influenced by Lake Erie on the western edge of the state,
the Appalachian Mountains in the center of the state, and the coastal plain in the east. Pennsylvania
has no shoreline on the Atlantic Ocean, but does have a major port on the Delaware River at
Philadelphia that leads to the Atlantic. Pittsburgh, the nations largest inland port (Army Corps of
Engineers, 2004), provides access to the Mississippi River waterway system. Figure 1 illustrates the
diversity of industry and natural resources that currently support the economy in Pennsylvania.
Abundant natural resources and access to water transport corridors supported Pennsylvanias growth to
a leading trade position with almost $200 billion in exports in 1997 (derived from Department of
Transportation, DOT, 1999).
Pennsylvanias diverse industries have played critical roles in the development of the U.S.
economy throughout American history. Crude iron and copper mines were operating by the beginning
of the 18th century. Grain, flour, salt, meat and lumber were shipped to England from Philadelphia
before independence. Coal became an important commodity after independence. The growing iron
industry in the western part of the state used coal to turn iron ore into sheet iron and tools for export.
Natural gas, long regarded as a waste product to be vented and burned, became an important
commodity in Pennsylvania in the early 19th century. The timber industry also grew rapidly during
this time (Miller 1995).
After the Civil War, an international steel empire was founded in Pittsburgh. The energy intensive
steelmaking process required copious amounts of coal. Pennsylvanias coal industry, therefore,
expanded along with the nascent steel industry. These industries expanded rapidly during the late 19th
and early 20th centuries (Miller, 1995).
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Chapter 34. Quantifying the Role of Exports
Figure 1. Energy system diagram of Pennsylvanias environmental and economic sectors. The arrow at the
bottom of the boundary indicates that the Second Law of Thermodynamics applies to this system (and all systems),
but the individual lines within the diagram illustrating all sources of dispersed energy have been left out with the
purpose of making the diagram less confusing. The bottom arrow implies that all interactions and transfers
within the system lose energy during the process of transformation.
More money was spent in Pennsylvania during World War II to increase ship, plane, tank and
armored car production capacity than in any other state. In the decades after the war, however, the steel
industry rapidly declined as smaller mills in the American south began to produce steel more
efficiently. The loss of coking markets and the exhaustion of the most profitably accessible reserves
played prominent roles in the decline of Pennsylvania coal. While steel and coal are still produced in
Pennsylvania, they are no longer the foundation of the states economy (Miller, 1995).
Pennsylvania has moved toward manufacturing in recent decades; chemicals, processed
foods, and electronic manufacturing now comprise a larger share of the states economy. Limestone,
cement and other building materials are mined along with coal. Agriculture once again plays a vital
role in the states economy.
Trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have
provided new markets for Pennsylvanias goods. Exports to NAFTA partners from Pennsylvania
totaled more than $7.1 billion in 1997 (Trade Partnership, 1999), equal to about 3.5% of
Pennsylvanias total exports. Interstate exportation also plays a critical role in Pennsylvanias
economy. For example, the state has ranked among the top five interstate electricity exporters for each
of the last ten years (Department of Energy, DOE, 1999). In 1997, more than 65% of the goods
produced in the state were exported either internationally or to other states (Department of
Transportation, DOT, 1999).
In this study, emergy techniques were used to evaluate this new direction in Pennsylvanias
economy. Specifically, the emergy benefit-to-purchaser ratio was calculated to analyze the emergy
benefits that accrue to Pennsylvania as a result of exportation, and to evaluate each export category on
an individual basis as a means for making recommendations about future exports.
-436-
Figure 2. Equation used to calculate the emergy benefit-to-purchaser ratio.
METHODS
This study focused on material exported from Pennsylvania and money received in exchange
for those exports. The overall balance of emergy in all products leaving the state was compared to the
total money coming into the state in direct exchange for those goods, and the same comparison was
completed for individual categories of goods sold outside the state. The dollar amounts were
converted to emergy using the average U.S. emergy to dollar ratio for 1997 ($1.3E12 sej/$; Odum,
1998). The emergy benefit-to-purchaser ratio (Odum, 1996) was calculated by dividing the emergy of
the product purchased by the emergy of the money paid for the product (Figure 2). If the result was
one, then the exchange of money for goods was equitable in terms of real wealth. If the result was
greater than one, the exchange benefited the purchaser of the product in terms of real wealth. If the
result was less than one, the exchange benefited the seller in this case Pennsylvania.
The monetary value of goods exported from Pennsylvania was derived from the Commodity
Flow Survey (CFS). This database, maintained by the Department of Transportation, Bureau of
Transportation Statistics (DOT BTS), tracked the interstate and international movements of goods
using Standard Industry Classification (SIC) categories. All of the data was from 1997, the most
recent year available. Some goods exported from Pennsylvania, such as electricity, were not tracked
by the CFS. To determine the monetary value of electricity exported from the state, the amount of
electricity exported using data from the Department of Energy (DOE, 1999) was multiplied by the
1997 average wholesale day-ahead price published by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission
(PAPUC, 2003).
The quantity of products exported from Pennsylvania, with the exception of electricity, were
also derived from the CFS. To determine the emergy associated with the exported goods, a
representative transformity was chosen for each category by compiling and averaging existing
transformities. All previously calculated transformities were multiplied by a factor of 0.9809 if they
were completed using the 9.44 sej baseline and by 0.5850 if they were based on the 15.83 sej base. All
new specific emergy ratios and transformities were calculated on a 9.26 sej global baseline (Campbell,
2000). Tables 1 and 2 list the transformities and specific emergies, respectively, with sources, used in
this evaluation. Missing export data and goods remaining within the state were estimated using
methods presented in Campbell et al. (2004).
RESULTS
The calculation in Figure 3 illustrates the comparison of all export emergy to the emergy of
money received in exchange. Product emergy leaving the state was 3.59E+23 sej/year in 1997, while
the emergy of money coming back into the state in exchange was only 1.40E+23 sej for the same year.
The ratio, 2.64, indicated that overall, Pennsylvania was exporting 2.56 times more emergy in goods
than it was receiving in the money paid for those goods.
Table 3 shows exported commodities that benefited Pennsylvania (PA). Table 4 represents
the goods that benefited export markets. Table 5 depicts equitable trades, or trades that did not provide
-437-
Table 1. Transformities (sej/J) and sources used in this study.

Commodities Exported
Coal
Gasoline and aviation turbine fuel
Fuel oils
Coal and petroleum products
Cereal grains
Milled grain and bakery products
Electricity
Other agricultural products
Live animals and live fish
Alcoholic beverages
Tobacco products
Animal feed and products of animal origin
Other prepared foodstuffs, fats and oils
Meat, fish, seafood, and their preparations
Amount
exported
2.15E+13
1.98E+12
1.65E+12
5.03E+12
1.62E+11
1.99E+12
2.10E+17
2.90E+12
6.80E+10
5.10E+11
7.17E+10
8.82E+11
7.12E+12
1.17E+12
Energy (J)
g
g
g
g
g
g
J
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
Transformity
sej/J
3.92E+04
6.47E+04
6.47E+04
6.47E+04
1.82E+05
1.82E+05
1.96E+05
2.33E+05
4.39E+05
5.89E+04
6.50E+05
1.22E+06
1.12E+06
3.27E+06
6.33E+17
8.04E+16
7.44E+16
2.21E+17
2.13E+15
2.50E+16
2.10E+17
2.74E+16
3.80E+14
7.09E+14
1.05E+15
1.25E+16
1.14E+17
8.34E+15
Table 2. Specific emergy ratios (sej/g) and sources used in this study.
Amount
exported
Gravel and crushed stone
Wood products
Natural sands
Waste and scrap
Metallic ores and concentrates
Basic chemicals
Pharmaceutical products
Plastics and rubber
Furniture, mattresses, lamps, lighting fittings, etc.
Base metal in primary, semifinished or finished basic
shapes
Articles of base metal
Machinery
Electronic equipment and office equipment
Motorized and other vehicles (including parts)
Transportation equipment, n.e.c.
Precision instruments and apparatus
Chemical products and preparations
9.85E+12
3.06E+12
4.19E+11
4.76E+12
3.13E+11
3.52E+12
2.23E+11
3.89E+12
4.30E+11
1.22E+13
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
Specific
Emergy
sej/g
4.91E+08
1.49E+09
1.31E+09
2.16E+09
2.71E+09
2.75E+09
2.75E+09
2.71E+09
2.89E+09
5.91E+09
4.99E+12
1.10E+12
1.27E+12
1.77E+12
5.92E+11
6.71E+10
1.11E+12
g
g
g
g
g
g
g
5.91E+09
7.76E+09
7.76E+09
7.76E+09
7.76E+09
7.76E+09
9.90E+09
Source*
13, 33, 35
14, 33, 35
15, 33, 35
16, 33, 35
2, 32, 35
6, 32, 35
31, 34
3, 32, 35
1, 32, 35
8, 32, 35
9, 32, 35
4, 32, 35
7, 32, 35
5, 32, 35
Source*
23, 35
24, 35
25, 35
26, 35
27, 35
28, 35
19, 35
11, 35
21, 35
10, 35
30, 35
12, 35
17, 35
18, 35
20, 35
29, 35
22, 35
a clear advantage to Pennsylvania or to export markets. All three tables present the calculated emergy
of products exported from Pennsylvania in 1997, the emergy of the money paid for those products, and
the emergy benefit-to-purchaser ratio.
Milled grain and bakery products were traded to export markets equitably. The benefit-topurchaser ratio for this class of goods was only slightly greater than one. For many other types of
goods, emergy benefits accrued to Pennsylvanias industries. Electronic equipment, furniture, tobacco
products and alcoholic beverages, among others, all had benefit-to-purchaser ratios less than one.
Pharmaceutical products had the lowest benefit-to-purchaser ratio, and, therefore, had the highest
*
See appendix for sources for Tables 1 and 2
-438-
Figure 3. Calculation of the overall emergy benefit to purchasers from Pennsylvanias exports illustrating that
Pennsylvania exports 2.64 more emergy than it receives.
Table 3. Products with an emergy benefit ratio showing benefit to Pennsylvania.

Emergy of
Product
(sej)
Pharmaceutical products
Alcoholic beverages
Precision instruments and apparatus
Electronic and other electrical equipment
Furniture, mattresses, lamps, etc.
Tobacco products
Machinery
6.14E+20
4.17E+19
5.21E+20
9.86E+21
1.24E+21
6.83E+20
8.51E+21
Emergy of
Money Paid
for Product
(sej)
1.03E+22
3.48E+20
4.31E+21
3.42E+22
3.54E+21
1.40E+21
1.37E+22
Emergy
Benefit Ratio
0.06
0.12
0.12
0.29
0.35
0.49
0.62
benefit for PA. The benefit-to-seller ratio for these products indicated that PA exported only 1 sej for
every 17 sej it received as emergy for money paid.
DISCUSSION
This paper presents a subset of a larger study in which the emergy of the entire state of
Pennsylvania was evaluated. Although larger scale analyses are frequently employed to analyze states
and regions, the subset evaluation presented in this paper takes advantage of emergys ability to assess
the equity of an exchange and make recommendations to ensure the long-term sustainability of the
states economy. Although the overall emergy trade deficit is enough to warrant consideration of
different marketing strategies, looking at each commodity exported and the money exchanged for those
commodities provides a list of actionable targets for amendment.
This work uses data for domestic trade - exports leaving Pennsylvania for other states within
the U.S. - but not international destinations. While this work is perhaps a simplification of
Pennsylvanias actual emergy trades, it is important to note that about 3.5% of Pennsylvanias export
value (in dollars) went to NAFTA countries in 1997, and overall, less than 10% went abroad
(determined from the Department of Transportation, DOT, 1999 and Pennsylvania State Data Center,
1997).
Pennsylvanias exports intended for less developed states might have tipped the exchange in
Pennsylvanias favor, but without rigorous emergy evaluations of all 50 states it is difficult to
determine more accurate emergy to dollar ratios for this analysis. Because the states exports were
fairly well divided among a variety of U.S. states, using the average U.S. emergy per dollar ratio
provides valuable insight.
-439-
Table 4. Products with an emergy benefit ratio showing benefit to the export market.
Emergy of
Product
(sej)
Live animals and live fish

Basic chemicals
Other agricultural products
Metallic ores and concentrates
Chemical products and preparations
Waste and scrap
Meat, fish, seafood, and their preparations
Gasoline and aviation turbine fuel
Other prepared foodstuffs and fats and oils
Coal and petroleum products
Fuel oils
Electricity
Coal
Natural sands
Animal feed and products of animal origin
Gravel and crushed stone
1.67E+20
9.68E+21
6.40E+21
8.48E+20
1.10E+22
1.03E+22
2.73E+22
5.21E+21
1.28E+23
1.43E+22
4.82E+21
4.11E+22
2.48E+22
5.49E+20
1.52E+22
4.83E+21
Emergy of
Money Paid for
Product
(sej)
9.49E+19
4.96E+21
2.92E+21
3.74E+20
4.26E+21
1.50E+21
3.87E+21
6.36E+20
1.39E+22
1.47E+21
4.72E+20
3.03E+21
1.22E+21
3.77E+19
5.50E+20
1.59E+20
Emergy
Benefit
Ratio
1.76
1.95
2.19
2.27
2.58
6.85
7.04
8.19
9.19
9.74
10.20
13.58
20.39
14.56
27.66
30.45
Table 5. Products with an emergy benefit ratio close to equity for Pennsylvania and export market.
Plastics and rubber
Cereal grains
Milled grain and bakery products
Motorized and other vehicles (including
parts)
Transportation equipment
Emergy of
Product
(sej)
Emergy of
Money Paid for
Product
(sej)
Emergy
Benefit
Ratio
1.05E+22
3.87E+20
4.54E+21
1.31E+22
4.34E+20
4.50E+21
0.80
0.89
1.01
1.38E+22
4.59E+21
1.18E+22
3.38E+21
1.17
1.36
Overall, the state exported over twice as much emergy as it received in 1997. Pennsylvania
today exports an abundance of metal products, coal and building materials. Though these materials
were important to the states industrial development, their exportation offers no emergy benefit to the
state today. Base metal and metal products, a wide variety of fossil fuels and other extracted products
all had high benefit-to-purchaser ratios due to their low monetary value. However, many value-added
goods such as pharmaceuticals, electronic equipment, furniture and machinery offered a strong emergy
benefit to Pennsylvanias industries.
For long-term economic and ecological sustainability, Pennsylvania should consider several
alternatives to their current export profile including the following: develop those industries that deliver
an emergy benefit; retain their base metals, raw fuels and mined materials for conversion into finished
goods; or conserve these natural resources for future use when prices are higher due to scarcity.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors acknowledge the Canaan Valley Institute, West Virginia, for support during the
completion of this study. We thank Dan Campbell, Tinting Cai, Don Cobb and two anonymous
reviewers for suggestions to improve the manuscript. Although the research described in this article
has been funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it has not been subjected to Agency
level review. Therefore it does not necessarily reflect the views of the Agency. This paper is
contribution number AED-04-057 of the Atlantic Ecology Division, National Health and
Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, Office of Research and Development, United States
Environmental Protection Agency.
REFERENCES
Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE), 2004. http://www.iwr.usace.army.mil/ndc/ports/ports.htm
Brandt-Williams, S. 2001 (revised 2002). Emergy of Florida Agriculture. Folio#4. Handbook of
Emergy Evaluation: A compendium of data for emergy computation issued in a series of
folios. Center for Environmental Policy. Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences.
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL. 40 pp.
Brown, M. and J. Arding, 1991. Working paper: compilation of published transformities. Center for
Wetlands, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida.
Buranakarn, V., 1998. Evaluation of Recycling and Reuse of Building Materials Using the Emergy
Analysis Method. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida, 258 pp.
Campbell, D., S. Brandt-Williams and M. Meisch, 2004. Environmental Accounting Using Emergy:
Evaluation of the State of West Virginia. Technical Report (in press). United States
Environmental Protection Agency.
Campbell, D., 2000. A Revised Solar Transformity for Tidal Energy Received by the Earth and
Dissipated Globally: Implications for Emergy Analysis, in Brown, M., S. Brandt-Williams, D.
Tilley and S. Ulgiati (eds.) Emergy Synthesis, Theory and Applications of the Emergy
Methodology. Center for Environmental Policy, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida,
Department of Energy (DOE) 1999. Energy Information Exchange (EIA). Pennsylvania Electricity
Profile. . http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/st_profiles/pennsylvania/pa.html
Department of Transportation (DOT) 1999. Commodity Flow Survey for Pennsylvania.
http://www.census.gov/prod/ec97/97tcf-pa.pdf
Miller, E.W. 1995. A Geography of Pennsylvania. Penn St Univ Press, State College, PA.
Odum H.T. 2000. Heavy Metals in the Environment, Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton. 326 pp.
Odum, H.T., M. Brown and S. Brandt-Williams, 2000. Introduction and Global Budget. Folio #1.
Handbook of Emergy Evaluation: A compendium of data for emergy computation issued in a
series of folios. Center for Environmental Policy. Department of Environmental Engineering
Sciences. University of Florida, Gainesville, FL. 40 pp.
Odum HT, 1998. Emergy Evaluation. Proc of Advances in Energy Studies.
http://www.ees.ufl.edu/cep/emergy.asp#1.%20Introduction, Last Accessed 07/15/04
Odum H.T. 1996. Environmental Accounting, Wiley, New York.
Odum H.T., Odum E.C. and Blisett M., 1987. Ecology and Economy: Emergy Analysis and Public
Policy in Texas. Report to the Energy Systems in Texas and the United States Policy
Research Project and the Office of Natural Resources, Texas Department of Agriculture.
Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PAPUC) 2003. Bureau of Conservation, Economics and
Energy Planning. Electric Utility Operational Report.
http://puc.paonline.com/electric/reports/ELEC0103.pdf
Pennsylvania State Data Center 1997. PA Exports, 1997.
http://pasdc.hbg.psu.edu/pasdc/data/pa_state_level_data/200a.html
-441-
Scatena, F., S. Doherty, H.T. Odum and P. Kharecha, 2002. Puerto Rico report, Technical Report
IITF-GTR-9. United States Department of Forestry. 79pp.
Trade Partnership, The 1999. NAFTA Delivers for Pennsylvania. http://www.americassociety.org/coa/committees/pennsylvania.pdf
Ulgiati, S., Odum, H.T., Bastianoni, S. 1994. Emergy use, environmental loading, and sustainability:
An emergy analysis of Italy. Ecological Modelling 73:215-268.
United States Agricultural Service (USDA) 2003. National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS).
Nutrient Data Laboratory. http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search
APPENDIX
Sources for Tables 1 and 2.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
Avg. poultry and cattle, (Odum et al., 1987; Brandt-Williams, 2001)

Avg. wheat, grain corn, rice, oats, sorghum, (Odum et al., 1987; Brandt-Williams, 2001)
Avg. soybeans, cotton, pecans, cabbages, oranges, etc. (Odum et al., 1987; Brandt-Williams, 2001)
Forage (Ulgiati et al., 1994) cornstalks & wool (Odum, 1996), eggs (Brandt-Williams, 2001)
Meat such as veal, mutton, shrimp, (Odum, 1996)
Flour (wheat+energy to process), (Odum et al., 1987; Brandt-Williams, 2001)
Sugar, palm oil and cacao from (Odum et al., 1987), milk (Brandt-Williams, 2001).
Ethanol and avg. % by volume for beer and wine 10%, (Odum, 1996).
Tobacco, (Scatena et al., 2002)
Sand, (Campbell et al., 2004)
Granitic rocks (Odum, 1996).
Ore rocks, iron, alumina, copper, nickel, zinc (Odum, 1996).
Coal (Odum, 1996).
Crude oil, petroleum fuels (Odum, 1996)
Petroleum fuels (Odum, 1996).
Fuel oil (Odum, 1996)
Hydrated lime, caustic soda, diatomite, and sulfuric acid (Odum et al., 2000)
Similar to other chemical preparations, (Odum et al., 2000)
Insecticide (Brown and Arding, 1991), paint and glue from (Buranakarn, 1998).
Plastic, tires, etc. (Odum et al., 1987)
Wood chips, lumber, particle board, plywood (Buranakan, 1998).
Avg. iron ,steel, copper, aluminum (Buranakan, 1998), Al 1/2 weight.
Assumed articles of metal have similar transformties to the unformed metal.
Steel, (Odum et. al., 1987)
Transformity for machinery applies (Odum et. al., 1987)
Household furniture, lamps, mattresses, hardwood (Buranakan, 1998)
Tire waste, wood waste, slag (Buranakan, 1998)
Electricity transformity from (Odum, 1996)
Heat content of foods from (USDA, 2003)
Fuel heat content from (Odum, 1996)
Electricity exported from PA (DOE, 1999)
Capital value and weight of goods exported from PA from Commodity Flow Survey (Department of
Transportation, DOT, 1999)
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
35
Its About Getting Value for Your Money
But How Fair Are the Resource Flows?
ABSTRACT
This paper is a study of resource flows between nations using emergy1 as the evaluation
method. Prices essentially represent only work that humans have contributed and not the work that
nature has carried out to create and form the different kinds of raw materials and products necessary
to support our wealth. Emergy evaluates both those resources that are considered to be free from a
market perspective as those resource flows associated with money. The emergy-monetary quotient is
supposed to reflect the average real buying power for the concerned monetary unit. Economically
developed countries have lower emergy-monetary quotient than developing countries. As a
consequence, when, for example, one dollar circulates between Nicaragua and Sweden, on average 11
times more emergy goes to Sweden than is transferred to Nicaragua. Coffee grown in Nicaragua and
exported to coffee buying nations was also evaluated in order to find out the exchange ratio for coffee
when exported to different countries. The emergy advantage to importing countries was found to be
considerable. Some coffee buying countries have a 20-fold emergy advantage. If prosperity and
demonstrated degree of sustainability is ultimately dependent upon draining other nations or regions
of their resources and the production capacity of their ecosystems, then that kind of wealth creation
and sustainability is not much to brag about.
INTRODUCTION
It is often assumed that international trade agreements based on market prices are fair.
However, these prices essentially represent only the work that human beings have contributed and not
the work that nature has carried out to create and form different kinds of raw materials. In this way the
market price undervalues the real value of raw materials from nature and, as a result, international
trade in raw materials favors the buyer. The consequence is that inequality in trade is great between
those countries that supply raw materials (often with a less advanced monetary economy) and those
countries that buy these raw materials (often more economically advanced) (Odum, 1984; Odum and
Arding, 1991; Brown et al., 1995; Odum and Odum, 2001). In this study exchange of goods and
services is evaluated in emergy measures for some selected countries. The emergy exchange ratio for
coffee grown in Nicaragua and exported to other countries is also evaluated and the results show that
buying nations gain a lot of emergy in the form of coffee in relation to what they have to pay when
money is transformed to emergy. Another study currently in progress (Cuadra et al., unpublished data)
is investigating whether further local processing of the coffee beans into more refined forms of coffee,
such as ground or instant, results in more equitable exchange.
1
Emergy is the available energy of one kind previously used up directly and indirectly to make a service or a
product. Emjoule is the unit (Odum, 1996).
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Chapter 35. Its about getting value for your money
Studies carried out during the past several decades show that ecological and economic
systems follow certain general principles, such as how they organize and relate to energy, material and
information (Odum, 1994). Through this increased knowledge it is now possible to quantify the
demands that goods and services make on previous work processes. These include both the work that
comes as a free resource from nature as well as that which comes indirectly through the economic
system. This means that today we have can determine and quantify fair trade in terms of resource flows
and environmental support.
Real Wealth and Money

We define real wealth as any product or service that needs available energy to be offered and
maintained (see Odum, 1996). Products and services such as food, clothing, houses, furnishings, art,
music and information, fuel, metals, forests, healthy ecosystems, fish stocks and fertile soils constitute
real wealth and form the basis of our prosperity. Nature, and the work processes present in the
geobiosphere, forms the basis of our welfare.
Money, in itself, has no real value. Money circulates among people who are willing to buy
real wealth. The price is a measure of what people are willing to pay for a good or service. According
to Odum (1996) money and market mechanisms can work well within the framework for human
beings place and time scales, but they are not adequate for the smaller scales in nature and for the
larger scales that include geological processes and global information. People pay money to each other
in order to access the wealth generated by natures processes, but the circulation of money is not
directly involved in natures work. A large part of societies common genetic store and cultural
knowledge base is also wealth that operates free from money. It is also not possible to value the larger
geological processes in monetary terms. These work processes are absolutely necessary for
maintaining our prosperity. Money is, therefore, not the real wealth, but it is used to hasten and steer
processes that affect human business activities and exchange of goods.
Real Wealth Measured in Emergy

Natures production systems can be looked upon as a network of processes, where each
separate process uses flows of energy of different qualities. The sun, for example, together with
nutrients and rain, becomes different proteins and carbohydrates in a plant.
When energy is transformed in production processes something new and useful for the system
is formed. In an emergy evaluation the work of energy transformation is measured by the availability
of the energy that is used. Real wealth is expressed by the work previously done. The unit of
measurement is the emJoule (Odum, 1996). Different forms of energy, however, have different
capacities to perform work. For this reason different energies must be weighted and expressed on a
common energy basis. Often solar energy is the unit used in an emergy evaluation. Wealth can then be
measured as the amount of solar energy that is used, directly and indirectly, for the production of a
good or service.
The Nature Economy Interface

If one looks at the nature of the dependency between the earths resources and their economic
use by people, it becomes apparent that the economic use starts with people harvesting and processing
products and services from nature. This is generally so within all economic sectors irrespective of
whether it is mining, agriculture and forestry, fisheries, automobile production or mobile telephone
production. Generally, products go from nature to economic use, which is where money circulates. The
economic user harvests, transforms and transports natures products to the rest of the economic system,
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Table 1. Different economic-ecological indices for comparison among selected countries.

Nation
Total
Gross
Quotient Indigenous Quotient Reference
emergy National emergy to emergy of import to
use/year Product
the total
export
money
emergy
USD
seJ/$
(x 1020)
(%)
(x 109)
(x 1012)
Australia
9,764
360
2.71
86
0.27
Lefroy and Rydberg, 2003
Denmark
2,930
176
1.67
34
1.10
Rydberg and Haden,
submitted 2004
Ecuador
964
11
8.5
94
0.20
Odum and Arding, 1991
Italy
12,650
866
1.46
38
2.5
Ulgiati et al., 1994
Nicaragua
358
2
15.8
88
0.47
Cuadra and Rydberg, 2001
Switzerland
733
102
0.7
19
3.2
Odum, 1996
Sweden
3,598
251
1.44
23
1.21
Lagerberg et al., 1999
U.S.A.
78,510
3,305
2.4
22
1.75
Odum et al., 1987
Comments: National studies have not been done during the same financial year and comparisons among countries
can, therefore, be biased. Despite this, results illustrate the large differences between countries with different
degrees of developed monetary economies. In general, the emergy-money quotient decreases every year, due to
inflation (more money is circulating for the same amount of resources).
which consumes the products and generates other products and services. For example, milk is
delivered from a farm. Money is given in exchange. The money is paid to people in the economic
system for their necessary contribution. However, no money is paid to nature for its work. For this
reason money can never be a measure of the amount of real wealth provided by resources from nature.
Farmers get money for their marketed products and with this money they can buy the inputs required
to maintain their production. Farmers only pay for work done by human society to produce and
transport these purchased inputs. As with farm products, these purchased inputs include a part of work
performed by nature that is not paid for.

Data for this study are based on previously published national emergy analyses (Cuadra and
Rydberg, 2001; Lagerberg et al., 1999; Lefroy and Rydberg, 2003; Odum, 1996; Odum et al., 1987;
Rydberg and Haden, submitted; Ulgiati et al., 1994) and an emergy evaluation on coffee production in
Nicaragua (Lundstrm and Ohlsson, 2002).

National Wealth
How much real wealth (emergy) backs up a nations currency? The total turnover of money in
a country is often measured as gross national product (GNP) for a specific year. The total use of
resources necessary to generate wealth is measured in emergy (solar emergy Joule) per annum. When
the national emergy use is divided with the amount of money that is in circulation during the year the
result is the quotient emergy per monetary unit. This emergy-monetary quotient is the average real
buying power for the concerned monetary unit, expressed in solar emergy Joules/Dollar (sej/USD).
The higher the quotient, the higher the real buying power. These calculations have been made for
several countries. The GNP for different countries can be calculated in American Dollars (USD) using
the existing exchange rate. It makes it easier to compare countries, especially as world trade is to a
great extent carried out in American Dollars. When international trade between different countries is
-445-
Table 2. Countries importing coffee from Nicaragua. Calculation of emergy advantage to importing
countries on export amount and prices in 2001.
Coffee buyer Green coffee
Energy Emergy (sej)
Payment,
Payment in
Emergy
(Nation)
(kg. x 1000)
(J)
($ x 1000)
emergy
advantage of
(sej)
the buyer
USA
Australia
Sweden
Denmark
Switzerland
Italy
(1)
18,852
361
707
171
490
1,782
(1)
2.84E+14
5.45E+12
1.07E+13
2.57E+12
7.38E+12
2.69E+13
(2)
4.83E+20
9.26E+18
1.81E+19
4.37E+18
1.26E+19
4.57E+19
(3)
24,706
560
8,764
3,185
732
2,552
(3)
5.92E+19
1.63E+18
1.26E+18
5.32E+17
5.13E+17
3.73E+18
(4)
8.1
5.7
14.4
8.2
24.5
12.3
Footnotes
1. Data from Cuadra et al. (unpublished data).
2. Coffee recalculated to solar emergy by multiplying the amount of energy in the coffee and solar emergy for a
Joule of coffee grown in Nicaragua, which is 1.65E+6 sej/ Joule (Lundstrm and Ohlsson, 2002).
3. Amount of money paid multiplied by the respective countrys emergy/USD quotient (see Table 1).
4. Emergy for the received product divided by the payment expressed in emergy.
measured in emergy units instead of money it becomes clear that the overall picture is more
complicated than money indicates. When different currencies are calculated into USD, the comparison
illustrates that developing countries have a higher emergy-dollar quotient than more economically
developed (industrialized) countries (Table 1). This can be attributed to the dominance of domestic
emergy in developing nations. The rich countries base their wealth on a large share of imported
emergy, demonstrated in the final column in Table 1. This means that international trade cannot be
well understood if only the monetary flows among countries are taken into consideration.
Money Circulates But it Generates Unequal Emergy Flows

We can also compare what the circulation of an international Dollar means in terms of
resources between a few different countries (Figure 1.) At the end of 1990 the buying power of the
Swedish currency (SEK) was approximately 1.4 x 10E+12 sej/USD. This is approximately 11 times
stronger than what an international Dollar is for Nicaragua, which has an emergy/dollar quotient of
15.8 x 10E+12 sej/USD. This means that every Dollar that circulates between these countries transfers
11 times more real wealth to Sweden than what is transferred to Nicaragua. Every Dollar that
circulates between Sweden and Switzerland (0.7 E+12 sej/USD) transfers twice as much wealth to
Switzerland than what is transferred to Sweden. Trade between Nicaragua and Switzerland favours
Switzerland with approximately 22 times more real wealth.
When a natural resource is sold from a less economically developed country to a more economically
developed industrialized country this brings a net emergy advantage for the industrialized buyer. The
main reason for this is that money is supposed to pay for labor and services needed to process the
product and not for "free" environmental processes.
An example of this is presented in Table 2, which shows what happens when coffee is
exported from Nicaragua to another country. In this example, because of the imbalance that exists
mainly between the countries emergy/money quotient, the buying countries can get a resource for very
little effort. Sweden gets about 14 times more than what it pays for. Should a fairer measure like
emergy be used, then Nicaragua would receive 14 times more than what it gets now. Payment could
even be made with goods produced or processed in trading countries that are comparable to the amount
of emergy that the country exports via its coffee.
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Figure 1. Real wealth measured in solar emergy in exchange for one US Dollar in international trade among
Sweden, Nicaragua and Switzerland. The dotted line represents the circulation of money and the full lines
represent the flow of real wealth.
Maintain Inequality or Change Over to Fair Trade?

Trade between corporations and countries that maximizes profits in monetary terms is far
from fair. If trade (measured in emergy) is not balanced, then it maintains inequality in the world.
Maintaining a trade balance is as important as maintaining a local sustainable system. Not only
international, but also national trade could make use of the information that emergy calculations
provide. If our prosperity and our demonstrated degree of sustainability is ultimately dependent upon
draining other nations or regions of their resources and the production capacity of their ecosystems,
then our kind of wealth creation and sustainability is not much to brag about.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Prof. Vito Comar and an anonymous reviewer for suggestions on improvements to
this manuscript. Without financial support from the Ekhaga foundation, this work would not have been
possible. The authors gratefully acknowledge them.
REFERENCES
Brown, M. T., Odum, H. T., Murphy, R. A., Christianson, R. A., Doherty, S. J., McClanahan, T.R. and
Tennenbaum, S. E. 1995. Rediscovery of the world: Developing an interface of ecology and
economics. In Hall, C. A. S. (Ed.). Maximum power. The ideas and application of H. T.
Odum. University Press of Colorado, pp.216-249.
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Cuadra, M. and Rydberg, T., 2000. Emergy evaluation of the environment and economy of Nicaragua.
In Brown, M. T. (Ed.). Emergy Synthesis. Theory and Applications of the Emergy
Methodology. Proceedings of the first biennial emergy analysis research conference. The
Center of Environmental Policy, University of Florida, Gainesville, pp.289-301
Cuadra, M., Rydberg, T., Lundstrm, L. and Ohlsson, S. Unpublished data. Inequity in emergy
exchange and trade: The case of coffee exports in Nicaragua.
Lagerberg, C., Doherty, S. J. and Nilsson, P. O. 1999. Evaluation of the resource Efficiency and
Sustainability of the Swedish Economy Using Emergy-Based Indices. In Lagerberg, C.
Emergy Analysis of the Resource Use in Greenhouse Crop Production and on the Resource
Basis of the Swedish Economy. Doctoral Thesis. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
Alnarp.
Lefroy. E. and Rydberg, T. 2003. Emergy evaluation of three cropping systems in Southwestern
Australia. Ecological Modelling 161, 195-211.
Lundstrm, L. and Ohlsson, S. 2002. Emergy analysis of coffee producing systems two case studies
in Nicaragua. Minor field study No. 186. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
Uppsala, 25 pp.
Odum, H. T. 1984. Embodied energy, foreign trade and welfare of nations. In Jansson, A-M. (Ed.).
Integration of Economy and EcologyAn Outlook for the Eighties. Proceedings of the
Wallenberg Symposium. Stockholm, Ask Laboratory, University of Stockholm, pp. 185199.
Odum, H. T. 1988. Self-organization, transformity and information. Science, 242, pp. 1132-1139.
Odum, H. T. 1994. Ecological and General Systems. An Introduction to Systems Ecology. University
Press of Colorado. 644 pp.
Odum, H. T. 1996. Environmental Accounting. Emergy and environmental decision making. John
Wiley and Sons, Inc. 370 pp.
Odum, H. T. and Arding, J. E. 1991. Emergy analysis of shrimp mariculture in Ecuador.
Environmental Engineering Sciences and Center for Wetlands. University of Florida.
Gainesville, 114 pp.
Odum, H. T., Odum, E. C. 2001. A Prosperous Way Down. Principles and Policies. University Press
of Colorado. 326 pp.
Odum, H. T., Odum, E. C. and Blisset, M. Eds. 1987. Ecology and Economy: Emergy analysis and
Public Policy in Texas. L.B.J. School of Public Affairs and Texas Department of Agriculture
(Policy Research Publication 78). University of Texas, Austin. 178 pp.
Rydberg, T. and Haden, A. Submitted 2004. Emergy Evaluation of Denmark and Danish Agriculture:
Assessing the Potential for Agricultural Systems to Power Society. Submitted to Population
and Environment.
Ulgiati, S., Odum, H. T. and Bastianoni, S. 1994. Emergy use, environmental loading and
sustainability. An emergy analysis of Italy. Ecological Modelling 73, 215-268.
-448-
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
36
Emergy Analysis of Selected Local and National
Transport Systems in Italy
ABSTRACT
In this work we analyze and compare the local transport systems in two different Italian
provinces, Brescia and Siena, with the most important National freight and passenger transport
system, the Milan-Naples transportation axis, by means of the emergy synthesis method. The latter is
composed of three sub-systems: Highway, Railway and High-speed Railway. Each transport system
has been investigated in relation to the landscape characteristics and final use. The specific emergies
of passenger transportation by car were calculated in the range of 1.66-2.47*1011 seJ/p-km, by bus in
the range of 2.8-6.0*1010 seJ/p-km and by train in the range of 0.74-1.84*1011 seJ/p-km. The specific
emergies of commodity transportation were calculated in the range of 1.25-3.11*1011 seJ/t-km (for
transport by truck) and in the range of 4.17-17.5*1011 seJ/t-km (for transport by train). Specific
emergies are calculated, accounting for materials, labor, energy and fuels used in the construction,
maintenance and yearly use of roads and railways as the major sources of emergy input. After
investigating the factors that affect the calculated emergy intensities, the sustainability of each
transportation subsystem is discussed. Finally, the combined use of global-scale emergy-based
indicators and a local-scale exergy indicator (the so-called Second Order Exergy Efficiency) is
suggested, in order to help quantify the potential for emergy savings and better use of available
resources.
INTRODUCTION
The goal of this work is to obtain a comprehensive picture of the environmental support
needed as well as the environmental loading generated by each transport type: car, bus and train for
passenger transport, truck and train for goods transport. In two previous papers (Federici et al., 2003
a,b), we jointly applied Mass Balance (Hinterberger and Stiller, 1998), Embodied Energy Analysis
(Herendeen, 1998), Exergy Analysis (Szargut et al., 1988) and Emergy Synthesis (Odum, 1996) to
investigate the efficiency and the sustainability of local transport systems in Italy. The provinces of
Brescia (industrial economy, Northern Italy) and Siena (tourist and service economy, Central Italy)
were considered as case studies. Results identified the presence of a strong correlation between the
environmental performance of transport systems (considered globally as vehicles, infrastructures and
management) and the economic and territorial structure of local societal systems. Results seem also to
indicate that the thermodynamic performance of vehicles does not play a major role in determining the
environmental impact, which instead seems to be affected by use factors, linked to local specificities
(orography, intensity of use, load factor per trip, welfare, etc.). In order to get a deeper picture of the
energy and environmental problems of the transportation sector, application of a similar analysis to a
wide and highly traffic-intensive system became a necessary step. The Milan-Naples axis is the
-449-
Chapter 36. Emergy Analysis of Selected
selected national case study. In so doing, it is possible to compare road and railway energy and
environmental performance both at the same territorial scale and across different scales. In the last
section, an integration of Emergy and Exergy based indicators is presented, in order to highlight the
role of thermodynamic losses and inefficiency in amplifying emergy demand. The new integrated
indicator appears capable of quantifying the misuse of emergy or, in other words, the amount of
emergy that can be saved and used elsewhere. This may help in implementing suitable improvement
strategies.
THE SYSTEMS INVESTIGATED

Investigation was performed on two different scales: 1) a local scale, where transport systems
are used mainly for short transport trips, and 2) a national scale where trips are characterized by long
distances and high speed.
The Local Systems: Siena and Brescia

The cities of Brescia (Northern Italy) and Siena (Central Italy) are presented as case studies
on the local scale. The main characteristics of these two areas are shown in Table 1. Brescia is located
on a very important traffic, rail and freight axis of Italy, the Turin-Venice axis, and its economy is
characterized by widespread industrialization. In contrast, Siena is situated in a less accessible zone
and its economy is based mainly on agriculture and services. Although different from a geographical,
morphological and economical point of view, these two provincial districts are similar from the point
of view of some macroeconomic variables, like per capita income, and are also comparable with
respect to the size of their two main towns (Federici et al., 2003,b).
The economic structure of Brescia is mainly based on a well-developed industrial sector (iron
and steel manufacturing, machinery, textile and local clusters specialized in producing components for
big industries). This intense economic activity generates critical levels of chemical and dust emissions,
production of waste, and road traffic. In the urban area, the attention and alarm thresholds of airborne
chemical concentrations are very often exceeded (Camera di Commercio di Brescia, 2000), especially
in winter, requiring the city administration to forbid car use for several days. The transport sector
accounts for about 28% of the total Brescia energy consumption, while it is 33% of total national
consumption). Road and railway subsystems are the main means of transportation in the area.
The province of Siena has a surface of 3,820 km2, dominated by a hilly landscape (92%). The
economic structure of the district is centered on a well-developed and high added value agricultural
activity, as well as on a service sector of banking, university, tourism and health care activities. A low
population density (Table 1) and little industrial activity, make the level of pollution (traffic, noise,
production of waste, release of chemicals, etc.) low and quite acceptable (i.e., people perceive it as
acceptable). The transport sector represents about 39% of total energy consumption and related
airborne emissions for the province (ARPAT, Environmental Protection Agency of the Tuscany
Region, 2000). The railway system is based on an old fleet of diesel-powered trains, mainly used for
transporting daily commuters to their villages outside of Siena.
Due to recent incentives offered by the Italian government to favor the decommissioning of
old cars, in both areas the automobiles provide improved control of air quality. Old cars replaced by
new models in the last five years represent 35% of the total circulating fleet in Siena and 33% in
Brescia (ACI, 2003). However, the transport system is perceived by the population as the main
environmental problem in both areas, although Brescia is also heavily affected by industry-related
pollution.
-450-
Table 1. Characteristics of the local systems.

Brescia (a)
Siena (b)
4784
3820
231
28%
28%
5700
1.01E+10
89.70%
4.30%
6%
3.28E+10
98%
66
39%
23%
1630
3.75E+09
91.25%
4.16%
4.59%
2.85E+09
87.80%
Surface (km2)
2
Population density (persons/km )

Energy use that is transport
Energy use that is residential
Total road length (km)
Total passenger transport (p-km/yr)
Passenger by car
Passenger by bus
Passenger by train
Total commodity transport (t-km/yr)
Commodity fraction transported by truck
(a)
(b)
Camera di Commercio di Brescia, 2000, http://www.bs.camcom.it

Camera di Commercio di Siena, 2000, http://www.si.camcom.it
The National System: The Milan-Naples Axis

The Milan-Naples axis is the most important traffic line in Italy connecting the economic core
of Northern Italy, the Milan area, with the biggest and more populated city of Southern Italy, Naples.
Rome, Florence and Bologna are also served by this transportation infrastructure. The axis is
composed by three parallel sub-systems: the A1 Toll-Highway, the present electric railway, and the
high-speed railway, TAV, still in construction. Each sub-system covers a length of about 800 km.
In the year 2001, the A1 highway supported traffic of 1.19 E10 v-km (vehicle-km) for a total
passenger traffic of 2.10 E10 p-km; commodity transport was 4.09 E9 v-km for 3.6 E10 t-km. In the
period 1995-2001 the total traffic on this highway faced an increase of 27% (Autostrade SpA, 2002).
In the same period, passenger transport by railway decreased by 2.32% while the railway commodity
transport increased by 8.32% (Trenitalia SpA, 2003).
The TAV railway is still in construction and therefore no traffic data are available. Our
calculations were performed according to two hypotheses: a) a use rate similar to the one on the
existing line (TAV, 2000, 2003), and b) the maximum possible utilization rate (max load factor). The
latter assumption was also tested for the existing line. Passenger traffic ranges is between 1.09 E10 pkm and 1.52 E10 p-km, while the commodity transport ranges is between 3.84 E9 t-km and 5.84 E9
t-km.
Differences between the TAV and existing electric railway are: higher power of the
locomotive (6-8 MW vs 4-6 MW) and a much higher number of tunnels; the latter are required to
prevent losses of velocity. TAV trains also have a maximum load capacity equal to 70% of existing
low trains.
THE APPROACH
At either the local or national scale, the investigated transportation systems can be divided into two
main sub-systems, i.e. road and railway. For each of these several sub-steps were considered: (a)
constructions of infrastructure and machinery (roads, tracks, cars, trains, etc.), (b) maintenance, and (c)
use for transport of commodities and passengers. The systems diagram in Figure 1 shows the main
-451-
Figure 1. Systems diagram of road transport.
components as well as the flows of energy and materials among them for the road transport subsystem. A similar diagram can be drawn for the railway systems. An average passenger weight of 65
kg was assumed in order to be able to compare the total transported passenger mass and commodity
mass and allocate infrastructure and maintenance inputs accordingly. On the basis of the assumption
that 1 t corresponds to about 13.4 passengers, p-km units were converted into t-km units, resulting into
a total passenger traffic of 1.41E+09 t-km for highway transport (3.76% of total weight transported)
compared with a commodity traffic of 3.60E+10 t-km (96.24% of total weight transported). In a
similar way, TAV passengers were calculated in the range 7.08E+08 - 9.91E+08 t-km (15%-16% of
total weight transported) while commodities amounted to 3.84E+09 - 5.48E+09 t-km (84%-85% of
total weight transported).
Tables 2 to 5 list the most important flows considered in the Emergy Analysis of the A1
highway and TAV trains: similar procedures were used for local systems. The transformities used refer
to a total emergy flow supporting the Biosphere equal to 9.44E+24 seJ/yr (Odum, 1996). This baseline
was recalculated in the year 2000 (Odum et al., 2000) and the total flow set to 15.83 E+24 seJ/yr. We
used the previous baseline value to ensure that results for 2002 were easily compared with those from
already published analyses (e.g., Odum and Odum, 1994). Transformities for global flows are from
Odum (1996), while transformities for Italy are from Ulgiati et al. (1994) and Cialani et al. (2004).
Converting the old transformities to the new updated values would require that they be multiplied by
1.68 (the ratio of 15.83/9.44).
In particular, Tables 2 and 3 show the emergy analyses of the Milan-Naples highway and
TAV railway. Data refer to construction and maintenance of the infrastructure. Foundations of roads
and tracks are built up in a very similar way: there is an internal layer of stabilized gravel and rock that
support respectively the upper layer of asphalt for the highway, and the ballast and the steel line for the
railway. Differences occur in the different depth of foundation to support the higher weight of trains.
In both cases the average life-time of lower layers is taken as 50 years. The emergy supporting the
-452-
Table 2. Emergy analysis of Milan-Naples Highway: Construction and maintenance.
Item
Annual
Amount
Unit
Solar
Transformity Solar Emergy
(seJ/unit)
(seJ/Year)
Sunlight
Rain water (chemical potential)
Deep heat
J/year
J/year
J/year
9.62E+16
9.44E+13
6.60E+13
1.00E+00
1.82E+04
6.06E+03
9.62E+16
1.72E+18
4.00E+17
Construction of road infrastructure

Gravel
Top soil
Ballast
Asphalt
Concrete
Reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete traffic divider
Diesel
Steel in machinery
Steel in tunnel reinforcement
Steel in guardrail
Steel in traffic divider
Labor
Service
kg/year
J/year
kg/year
J/year
kg/year
kg/year
kg/year
J/year
kg/year
kg/year
kg/year
kg/year
J/year
/year
2.46E+08
8.04E+14
6.80E+08
1.72E+15
4.48E+07
4.45E+06
2.64E+07
1.21E+12
8.53E+02
1.54E+07
4.30E+06
2.15E+06
4.47E+09
2.20E+08
5.00E+11
7.40E+04
5.00E+11
3.47E+05
1.03E+12
1.31E+12
1.31E+12
6.60E+04
6.70E+12
6.70E+12
6.70E+12
6.70E+12
1.29E+07
1.30E+12
1.23E+20
5.95E+19
3.40E+20
5.96E+20
4.62E+19
5.85E+18
3.47E+19
7.98E+16
5.71E+15
1.03E+20
2.88E+19
1.44E+19
5.76E+16
2.86E+20
Maintenance
Diesel
Steel in machinery
Labor
Service
J/year
kg/year
J/year
/year
5.75E+13
n.d.
4.06E+10
1.86E+06
6.60E+04
6.70E+12
1.29E+07
1.30E+12
3.80E+18
0.00E+00
5.24E+17
2.42E+18
Self consumption of Highway society

Methane
Diesel
Gasoline
LGP
Crude oil
Electricity
J/year
J/year
J/year
J/year
J/year
J/year
9.69E+12
6.23E+13
4.22E+13
6.10E+11
1.60E+12
1.34E+14
5.22E+04
6.60E+04
6.60E+04
6.60E+04
6.60E+04
1.50E+05
5.06E+17
4.11E+18
2.79E+18
4.03E+16
1.06E+17
2.01E+19
seJ/yr
1.67E+21
Total Emergy for Highway Infrastructures
-453-
construction of road infrastructure is much lower than the actual emergy of transport operations (due to
the large input of fuel and services related to vehicles). Instead, in the railway system the emergy of
infrastructure is the dominating input, due both to the very large use of gravel and sand for track
support and to the large amount of emergy in topsoil used up, compared to the lower input of
electricity and services. One may claim that these inputs are not actually driving the process and that
gravel is not degraded but simply moved from the mining site to the railway line. Notwithstanding this,
we feel justified in including these items in the analysis for two main reasons. First, gravel and ballast
used to build roads and railway are not mined and moved from hills and mountains to infrastructure
sites at no cost. As a consequence of mining and removal, the useful work made by nature to develop
local ecosystems (with local climax, flora and fauna) is destroyed and lost forever and this loss
represent a cost that must be charged to the infrastructure itself. Secondly, the infrastructure materials
are not eternal; due to weathering and vehicle traffic they are degraded and no longer useful after a
relatively short period of time. Therefore, they are an unavoidable input to the process.
Table 3. Emergy analysis of TAV, Milan-Naples axis: Construction and maintenance.
Item
Sunlight
Rain water (chemical potential)
Deep heat
Annual
Amount
Unit
J/year
J/year
J/year
Construction of railway infrastructure

Sand and gravel
kg/year
Top soil
J /year
Concrete
kg /year
Reinforced concrete
kg /year
Diesel
J/year
Steel in machinery
kg/year
Steel in track
kg/year
Steel in electric poles
kg/year
Steel in tunnel reinforcement
kg/year
Copper in electric cables
kg/year
Service
/year
Labor
J/year
Maintenance
Electricity
J/year
Steel in machinery
kg/year
Service
/year
Labor
J/year
Solar
Transformity Solar Emergy
(seJ/unit)
(seJ/year)
5.30E+16
4.32E+13
2.89E+13
1.00E+00
1.82E+04
6.06E+03
5.30E+16
7.87E+17
1.75E+17
5.27E+09
4.42E+16
7.34E+08
5.53E+07
8.87E+13
2.65E+03
1.85E+07
1.25E+06
5.00E+07
3.86E+05
3.68E+08
5.16E+10
5.00E+11
7.40E+04
1.03E+12
1.31E+12
6.60E+04
6.70E+12
6.70E+12
6.70E+12
6.70E+12
6.80E+10
1.30E+12
1.29E+07
2.64E+21
3.27E+21
7.56E+20
7.26E+19
5.85E+18
1.78E+16
1.24E+20
8.40E+18
3.35E+20
2.62E+16
4.78E+20
6.65E+17
2.10E+13
3.67E+04
3.81E+06
8.30E+10
1.50E+05
6.70E+12
1.30E+12
1.29E+07
3.15E+18
2.46E+17
4.95E+18
1.07E+18
seJ/yr
7.70E+21
Total Emergy for TAV Infrastructures
-454-
The top asphalt layer has a five-year lifespan, and a similar lifespan was assumed for steel
rail. Results show that emergy required to construct and efficiently maintain the TAV system is about
5 times higher than the emergy required for the A1 highway; this is mainly due to the tremendous
amount of rock, steel1 and concrete required to build the railway. Tables 4 and 5 show the emergy
evaluation of the A1 highway and TAV operation: annual maintenance, as well as construction and
support to vehicles. The emergy required for the construction of infrastructure (Tables 2 and 3) and
vehicles was divided by their average lifespan (10 and 30 years for cars and trains respectively).
The emergy supporting the trucks used for road commodity transport (including the emergy of fuel)
was calculated on the basis of the average distance covered each year, average load factor per trip,
average lifespan for each class of trucks and the annual traffic intensity for commodity transport (tkm/year)2. This is because, in general, trucks are used over a much wider territory than cars, which
requires assumptions on average performance and tasks. In a similar way we calculated the emergy
stored in cars and railway vehicles running on the Milan-Naples axis.
The specific intensities calculated in Tables 4 and 5 also include the annual fraction of
infrastructures calculated in Tables 2 and 3. These performance parameters are crucial for the
evaluation and comparison of the different subsystems, because they are intensive variables
independent of the scale and the size of the investigated systems. The amount of emergy required for
one unit of service is capable of indicating the total environmental support supplied in order to
generate one unit of transportation service.
RESULTS
Emergy intensities are used to rank environmental support supplied to existing or planned
local and national systems for passenger and commodity transport. We believe that these parameters
are the most suitable to evaluate the efficiency and the ecological footprint of transport systems. These
systems are very often investigated on the basis of the energy that they use directly to move people and
goods. If transport policy is the goal, direct energy analysis is not a proper tool, since it does not
account for free environmental sources, ignores labor and services, and finally does not properly
account for the indirect energy embodied in machinery and infrastructure. In fact, the latter are only
evaluated on the basis of the commercial energy invested for their construction, completely
disregarding the considerable environmental work performed by nature to provide minerals and fuels.
Emergy synthesis takes into account these non-commercial flows. In so doing it is able to answer
questions about the environmental support that is globally needed for a given process to actually occur,
and about the pressure of a process on biosphere resources and equilibria (ecological footprint).
The Local Scale: Siena and Brescia

Results from the local scale evaluation are shown in Table 6, where Siena and Brescia are
compared by means of the emergy requirement intensity for passenger and commodity transportation.
A significant difference between the two systems emerges because of the larger size and power of cars
in Brescia, while other factors are not notably different between the two areas (number of persons per
trip, trip average length, etc.). Diesel trains running in Siena and Brescia are identical, and the same
can be said for the infrastructure of the railway system. The problem with railways in Brescia is that
they are largely underutilized, compared with Siena.
Results show that passenger bus transport provides the best performance among the available
alternatives, and that it is much more efficient in Brescia than Siena. This result can be attributed to the
higher load factor of buses compared with cars and trains, as well as, to a lesser extent, to the
1
2
The steel required to reinforce tunnels is about 12,400 tons per km.
(t-km per year)/ (tons per trip)* (truck weight)/(truck life time) = [(t-km/year)/(t-km)*(kg)/(year)] = kg/year
-455-
Table 4. Emergy analysis of the Milan-Naples Highway: Passengers and commodity transport.
Unit
Individual passenger transport (car)

Steel of vehicles
kg/year
Gasoline
J/ year
J/ year
diesel
J/ year
LPG
J/ year
Tires
J/ year
Lubricant
J/
year
Driving
Labor for vehicle maintenance
J/ year
Vehicle cost
/ year
Total Emergy for Passenger Transport
Annual
Amount
Solar
Transformity
(seJ/unit)
Solar
Emergy
(seJ/year)
7.04E+07
2.52E+16
3.52E+15
8.72E+14
1.50E+14
1.10E+14
3.98E+13
1.04E+11
9.80E+08
6.70E+12
6.60E+04
6.60E+04
6.60E+04
2.10E+04
6.60E+04
1.29E+07
1.29E+07
1.30E+12
seJ/yr
4.72E+20
1.66E+21
2.32E+20
5.75E+19
3.14E+18
7.23E+18
5.14E+20
1.34E+18
1.27E+21
4.22E+21
8.45E+06
3.63E+15
2.89E+16
7.75E+14
2.07E+14
1.78E+13
2.43E+13
9.56E+07
6.70E+12
6.60E+04
6.60E+04
2.10E+04
6.60E+04
1.29E+07
1.29E+07
1.30E+12
seJ/yr
5.66E+19
2.40E+20
1.91E+21
1.63E+19
1.37E+19
2.30E+20
3.13E+20
1.24E+20
2.90E+21
2.16E+10
3.60E+10
1.98E+11
1.25E+11
p-km/yr
t-km/yr
seJ/p-km
seJ/t-km
Commodity transport
kg/
Steel of vehicles
year
Gasoline
J/ year
J/
year
Diesel
J/
year
Tires
J/ year
Lubricant
J/ year
Driving
J/ year
Labor for vehicle maintenance
Vehicle cost
/ year
Total Emergy for Commodity Transport
Passenger traffic
Commodity traffic
Specific intensity for passengers (*)
Specific intensity for commodities (*)
(*) Calculated intensities include the emergy of infrastructures, from Table 2.
thermodynamic performance of vehicles, most of which were purchased recently. Passenger transport
by car and by diesel train results in higher specific emergies per p-km, with better performance in
Siena. Freight transportation by truck performs well in Brescia and a little worse in Siena, while
electric and diesel railway transportation is not competitive. The specific emergy values are composed
of two fractions: direct emergy consumption (fuels, electricity, tires and steel vehicles) and indirect
emergy consumption for infrastructures (cement, asphalt, ballast and steel of tracks). For commodity
transport, allocation of the infrastructure emergy plays a key role: in fact, the road system in Brescia
supports a commodity flow ten times higher than the Siena system, so that the emergy of the
infrastructure is allocated in proportion to a higher number of units transported. In so doing,
notwithstanding a lower average load factor (8.78 t vs. 11.2 t per trip in Siena), road transport in
Brescia shows lower emergy intensity per t-km.
-456-
Table 5. Emergy analysis of TAV Milan-Naples: Passengers and commodity transport.
Unit
Annual
Amount
Solar
Transformity
(seJ/unit)
Passenger transport
Steel of vehicle
Electricity
Service
Labor
Total Emergy
kg/ year
J/ year
/ year
J/ year
1.74E+06
4.15E+15
7.35E+07
5.77E+12
6.70E+12
1.50E+05
1.30E+12
1.29E+07
1.16E+19
6.23E+20
9.55E+19
7.45E+19
8.04E+20
Commodity transport
Steel of vehicle
Electricity
Service
Labor
Total Emergy
kg/ year
J/ year
/ year
J/ year
4.39E+05
8.44E+14
2.85E+06
4.78E+12
6.70E+12
1.50E+05
1.30E+12
1.29E+07
2.94E+18
1.27E+20
3.71E+18
6.17E+19
1.95E+20
1.52E+10
5.48E+09
1.30E+11
p-km/yr
t-km/yr
seJ/p-km
1.23E+12
seJ/t-km
1.09E+10
3.84E+10
1.84E+11
p-km/yr
t-km/yr
seJ/p-km
1.75E+12
seJ/t-km
Option 1: Maximum use rate(*)

Passenger traffic
Commodity traffic
Specific intensity for passengers
Specific intensity for
commodities
Option 2: present use rate (*)

Passenger traffic
Commodity traffic
Specific intensity for passengers
Specific intensity for
commodities
Solar Emergy
(seJ/Year)
(*) Calculated intensities include the emergy of infrastructures, from Table 3.
Railway transport suffers from the high emergy stored in the steel within tracks and trains in
both provinces: even in this case diesel trains are identical in Siena and Brescia so the different values
are due solely to the different use. Electric trains in Brescia, with a value of 39.82 E+11 seJ/t-km, are
oversized with respect to their utilization rate.
Details of emergy allocation are given in Table 7. The rows of the table show the %
composition of the emergy input to each subsystem (the sum of all fractions makes up 100% of total
emergy input, apart from negligible effects of rounding). The emergy of infrastructure clearly appears
to be a significant fraction of the total input and its fraction is always much higher in commodity
transport than in people transport, due to the allocation of the input in proportion to the mass
-457-
Table 6. Emergy accounting at local scale.

n.a.: Not applicable to Siena (only diesel railway)
Passenger transport
Road individual transport (car)
Road mass transport (bus)
Railway (diesel)
Railway (electric)
unit
(p-km)
(p-km)
(p-km)
(p-km)
Commodity transport
Road (by truck)
Railway (electric)
Railway (diesel)
(t-km)
(t-km)
(t-km)
Siena
Brescia
(1011 sej/unit)
(1011 sej/unit)
1.66
0.60
0.74
2.47
0.37
3.58
1.87
3.11
n.a.
4.17
1.91
39.82
13.34
transported. In contrast, the emergy cost of direct energy expenditures is much higher in road than in
railway, which usually makes people believe that railway is much more environmental friendly than
road.
The Milan-Naples Axis

Results of the emergy analysis applied to the national scale are presented in Table 8.
Passenger transport by car shows higher emergy intensity, while the best performance is shown by bus
transport, confirming the results obtained at the local scale. Trains perform better than cars, with lower
emergy intensities in the maximum load factor scenario. The different performances between the
existing railway line and the TAV are due to the different power of trains (with consequent higher
energy and emergy input to TAV) and the larger material requirement (mainly steel) for tunnels and
vehicles (with additional emergy input). Even in the case of long distance railway, the excess size of
infrastructure and excess power of machinery still is a significant problem.
Results for commodity transport are clearly negative for both railway options: the expected
shift of fractions of road traffic to the railway systems, in order to decrease the environmental impact
of commodity transport, does not appear to be a sustainable alternative. In fact, the specific emergy of
railway transport is ten to fifteen times higher than for the road system (Table 6 and 8).
DISCUSSION
Results of both investigations on local and global scales suggest unexpected conclusions.
First of all, the railway system does not show the environmentally friendly performance expected
when assessment is only based on direct energy use. The amount of resources indirectly required for
machinery, infrastructures and labor, measured in emergy terms, expose the hidden costs of this
transportation pattern, which can be reduced and made comparable with car transportation only if the
load factor is increased by maximizing the number of users. In any case, buses appear to be the less
resource intensive way of moving people and trucks are the best option for freight transportation. This
-458-
Table 7. Breakdown of emergy input per unit of product of each typology of transport.
(Values are given as % of the total input supporting each category)
Sub-System
Renewable
()
Road transport, Siena

Individual transport, car
0.008%
Road mass transport, bus
0.032%
Road goods transport, truck
0.097%
Road transport, Brescia
Individual transport, car
0.002%
Road mass transport, bus
0.014%
Road goods transport, truck
0.044%
Diesel railway transport, Siena
Railway mass transport
0.01%
Railway goods transport
0.02%
Diesel railway transport, Brescia
0.01%
0.02%
Electric railway transport, Brescia
0.01%
0.02%
Structure
(*)
Infrastructure
(**)
Directly
Energy Use
()
Labor and
services
(#)
12.68%
6.76%
0.37%
3.18%
13.31%
40.48%
49.43%
64.28%
34.02%
33.77%
14.80%
22.54%
13.28%
29.05%
1.72%
0.89%
5.92%
17.83%
52.15%
25.68%
69.94%
33.59%
38.73%
8.63%
6.48%
0.16%
28.31%
70.12%
26.59%
1.70%
38.61%
27.99%
20.83%
0.24%
53.32%
74.28%
7.99%
2.97%
17.82%
22.45%
0.34%
0.07%
36.62%
62.16%
13.53%
18.60%
49.15%
19.13%
() Only the direct solar radiation impinging on the interested area is accounted for as Renewable Emergy. This
corresponds to the solar emergy that supported the sustainable ecosystem previously existing in this area before
the system of roads and railway were constructed.
(*) Only vehicles (cars, trains, trucks) are included in this item. Emergy supporting labor and services is not
included.
(**) All kinds: roads, bridges, railway, etc are included. Emergy supporting labor and services is not included.
() Fuel and electricity.
(#) Includes direct labor as well as indirect labor quantified as services and measured by the economic value of the
items supplied.
is probably a consequence of the high load factor that can be reached in these two sub-sectors, coupled
with lower demand for infrastructure compared with railway.
We do not claim here that other advantages of railway are negligible (comfort, lack of noise, speed,
etc). Notably, electric trains help prevent the diffusion of pollution generated by fuel combustion in
millions of small engines and offer the possibility of uptaking at least a fraction of pollutants at power
plant chimneys and recycling them when possible (e.g. ash and sulphur).
In spite of these advantages, the double conversion fuel to electricity and electricity to motion pays an
unavoidable entropy tax, which translates into an additional emergy demand for the delivery of
electricity. The latter is added to the emergy support to labor, services and infrastructure and results in
an unexpected high emergy cost per unit of service. Increasing the load factor as well as decreasing
power and infrastructure, by rejecting the High Velocity Option (TAV) seems to be the only feasible
way to decrease these costs.
-459-
Table 8. Specific emergies of the Milan-Naples axis.

Sub-system
Passenger transport
Highway (car)
Highway (bus)
Electric train (*)
TAV (*)
Commodity transport
Highway, trucks
Electric train (*)
TAV (*)
(Unit)
Specific Emergy
(1011 seJ/unit)
p-km
p-km
p-km
p-km
1.98
0.28
1.04-1.39
1.30-1.84
t-km
t-km
t-km
1.25
11.4-15.8
12.3-17.5
(*) Results refer to two scenarios: an assumed maximum load factor and the present use rate.
A suitable integration between train and bus may result in a lower emergy cost per unit of
transport service and still keep the comfort and flexibility of traveling at an acceptable level, while
being competitive with the car option. In contrast, the transport of commodities by systems other than
trucks cannot be provided at competitive emergy costs. The problem is not a thermodynamic one, nor
is it simply a matter of optimization. The economic systems, at the local, national and international
scales, are such that they generate and require these kinds of transport options. It is only by re-thinking
the way and the scales at which commodities are produced and traded that a feasible alternative to this
problem may be found.
A PROPOSAL FOR A COMBINED EXERGY AND EMERGY APPROACH

An interesting synergy can be obtained by combining emergy results (donor-side based,
global scale) and an efficiency measure derived from the exergy approach (user-side evaluation, local
scale). The proposal stems from the consideration that the use of inappropriate tools requires an
excess investment of resources, which could be avoided if more attention were paid to the efficiency
and the effectiveness of the tool used. The exergy method provides, in addition to the traditional First
Law energy efficiency, a so-called second order exergy efficiency, which measures the adequateness
of the tool to the goal, from the point of view of the user. If vehicles and infrastructures were
weighted by means of the second order exergy efficiency, inappropriate tools could be replaced by
means of already existing appropriate solutions. A significant fraction of the emergy support could be
saved and diverted to other uses, thus increasing the overall sustainability on the larger scale of the
economic system.
The Exergy Concept

According to Szargut et al. (1988) and Szargut (1998) exergy (hereafter EXA) is defined as
the amount of work obtainable when some matter is brought to a state of thermodynamic equilibrium
with the common components of the natural surroundings by means of reversible processes, involving
interaction only with the above-mentioned components of nature". The emergy synthesis method
already uses exergy as a numeraire to measure flows of energy and matter on the basis of their user-460-
side quality. Transformities provide these flows with an additional property, their donor-side quality,
which is discussed in detail in Brown and Ulgiati (2004 a,b,c). The second order efficiency points out
that a significant fraction of the work potential of the input flows is not converted into the work
potential or the actual work of the products, due to the use of conversion tools that are not appropriate
to the goal. The second order efficiency is defined as the ratio between the net output work and the
maximum reversible work:
Woutput
Wideal
(1)
In order to evaluate the rational use of energy, it can be expressed as the ratio between the minimum
exergy required for the goal and the exergy actually used:
Ex min
Ex real
(2)
The differences between first and second order information are very significant: the first order
efficiency (based on the first law of thermodynamics) is just a measure of the engine yield, while the
second order efficiency measures how far our process is from an ideal behavior. The lower the second
order exergy efficiency, the higher the potential energy savings that could be obtained. For practical
purposes, the reference is not made to an ideal device, but instead to the best available technology able
to achieve the desired goal. We will not therefore refer to an ideal and impossible performance, but
instead to the best vehicles actually available on the Italian market, used in the best way (max load
factor). Average second order exergy efficiencies for vehicles used in our case studies are shown in
Table 9.
The Concept of Emergy Loss

By using appropriate tools, i.e. by replacing our tools by means of the best available
technologies (arbitrarily assumed as the ideal ones), the emergy investment required, Emin, would be
lower than those actually calculated in our case studies, E, by an extent at least proportional to the
adequateness of the new tool. The difference (E Emin) can be interpreted as an avoidable emergy loss,
Eloss. The total emergy, E, supporting a system, characterized by a given value, can be expressed as
the sum of two terms:
E = Emin + Eloss = E*() + E (1-)
where:
(3)
E is the actual flow of emergy supporting the process;
is the Second Order Exergy Efficiency;
Emin is the minimum emergy required for the goal;
Eloss is the emergy loss due the inefficient performance of the system.
Eloss represents the surplus of the emergy requirement that can be usefully diverted to other uses,
thanks to a systems exergetic optimization.
The results from applying Equation 3 to our case studies are shown in Table 9. Results from
Table 9 indicate that some sub-systems are already very close to the best available performance and
that there is little room for improvement. Other systems (such as the individual transport by car) show
a potential for further improvement that is very large and may suggest an urgent policy for system
reorganization. The emergy inefficiency in Brescia and Siena represents respectively the 83% and 82%
of the total emergy requirement of province transport systems. The emergy squandered in Brescia
would be sufficient to support the whole Siena transport system. This is a very important result that
indicates the potential emergy savings obtainable by system optimization.
-461-
Table 9. Minimum emergy requirement and emergy Loss.

E
(seJ/p-km)
E min
(seJ/p-km)
E loss
(seJ/p-km)
Highway
1.98E+11
21%
4.16E+10
1.56E+11
TAV (a)
TAV (b)
1.30E+11
1.84E+11
80%
57%
1.04E+11
1.05E+11
2.60E+10
7.91E+10
Railway (a)
Railway (b)
1.04E+11
1.39E+11
90%
80%
9.36E+10
1.11E+11
1.04E+10
2.78E+10
1.66E+11
6.00E+10
7.40E+10
16%
40%
60%
2.66E+10
2.40E+10
4.44E+10
1.39E+11
3.60E+10
2.96E+10
2.47E+11
3.70E+10
3.58E+11
16%
97%
22%
3.95E+10
3.59E+10
7.88E+10
2.07E+11
1.11E+09
2.79E+11
Milan Naples axis
Siena
Road (individual)
Road (bus)
Railway
Brescia
Road (individual)
Road (bus)
Railway
(a) Maximum use rate
(b) Present use rate
CONCLUSION
Emergy accounting indicators offer interesting tools for the evaluation of the systems under
study, both on the local and national scales. In particular, specific emergy (seJ/p-km and seJ/t-km)
allows comparison of the different performances of each subsystem investigated. Transportation
patterns which were expected to show the best performance on the basis of their direct energy
consumption are unexpectedly penalized by large loading from infrastructure and inefficient use, as
clearly shown by the emergy evaluation. By accounting for the environmental support to input flows
other than direct energy, as well as by assigning donor-side quality factors to all input flows, the
emergy approach is able to highlight hidden costs that are not usually accounted for. A comparison of
all feasible alternatives (best available technologies) was performed by means of the combined use of
emergy intensities and Second Order Exergy Efficiency. The emergy savings due to avoidable
inefficiencies, calculated by means of an emergy-exergy indicator, could be diverted to support other
natural or human-dominated systems, in order to increase the overall system sustainability.
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
37
Emergy Evaluation of Lacandon Maya Agroforestry
in Chiapas, Mexico
ABSTRACT
The Lacandon Maya of Chiapas, Mexico practice a system of agroforestry that mimics the
surrounding ecosystem and its successional stages. Their fields rotate through grass (milpa), shrub
(acahual), and forest fallow stages that regenerate soil, nutrients, and seed banks. Each successional
stage, including the fallow stages, produces over 25 types of crops, raw materials, and medicines.
Lacandon traditionally do not use fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides.
An emergy evaluation was conducted on the Lacandon agroforestry system to more clearly
understand necessary system components for long-term sustainability. Six systems were analyzed,
three following traditional management methods, and three that did not follow traditional
management methods. The Emergy Yield Ratio of the systems ranged between 7 and 89 and the
Environmental Loading Ratio between 0.25 and 0.02. Transformity of corn production through
Lacandon agroforestry ranged from 8 E5 to 2 E7 sej/J. The Emergy Sustainability Index (ESI) of the
systems ranged from 28 to 4,356, while the fraction of renewable resources was between 0.80 and
0.98. ESI was dependent upon the land area devoted to the system for each family; greater land area
resulted in higher ESI. Neither labor nor adherence to traditional management practices exhibited a
direct effect on sustainability.
INTRODUCTION
An important challenge facing the world today is the feeding of an increasing population with
decreasing energy supplies and finite environmental resources. To meet this challenge the
sustainability of agricultural methods must be evaluated to determine how yields can be maximized
relative to their resource use and environmental degradation. Processes using larger percentages of
renewable energy need to be identified because they are likely to be more sustainable than those using
a larger percentage of non-renewable energy (Martin 2002, Lefroy and Rydberg 2003).
Agriculture operates at the interface between nature and the human economy, combining
natural resources and economic inputs to produce food. While the value of economic contributions is
routinely quantified by economic analyses, such approaches often underestimate environmental
contributions to production systems. If environmental inputs are not properly accounted for, relative to
economic inputs, optimum use of resources may not be achieved, and management decisions will be
based on incomplete information (Ulgiati et al. 1994). Studies highlight the need for integrated
approaches that quantify economic and environmental inputs to select sustainable systems that meet
future needs (Odum 1996, Lefroy and Rydberg 2003). Indigenous Lacandon agroforestry is a potential
method for sustainable resource use and food production, and emergy evaluation is an ideal method for
evaluating the system because it integrates both an environmental and economic components.
-465-
Chapter 37. Emergy Evaluation of Lacandon Maya Agroforestry
Lacanja Chansayab
Figure 1. Location map showing the study site, the village Lacanja Chansayab, Chiapas, Mexico. Lacanja is a
Lacandon Maya community of approximately 500 people. Traditional agroforestry is still practiced in Lacanja.
The Lacandon Maya, an indigenous group who have supported themselves for centuries
through effective use of their surrounding environment, practice a unique method of agroforestry in
which they manage the fallow period for production and soil regeneration (Nations and Nigh 1980,
Levy 2000, McGee 2002). They live in the Lacandon rainforest in three villages, Naja, Lacanja
Chansayab, and Metzobok within the southern most Mexican state of Chiapas. Components of their
agroforestry system could serve as a model to farmers in Chiapas and in similar ecological regions
throughout the Tropics. Human populations are growing at the greatest rates in the humid tropics.
Therefore, the discovery of new tools for sustainable natural resource management in this region is
particularly vital (Ram 1997). Recent changes in Lacandon Maya agroforestry practices, particularly in
regard to farming methodology and land area devoted to the system, present an opportunity to evaluate
which system characteristics are most important for sustainability. This paper describes an emergy
evaluation conducted in the Lacandon community of Lacanja Chansayab, Chiapas, Mexico (Figure 1).
Lacandon Maya agroecosystems cycle through three field stages starting with the milpa
(grass), progressing to the acahual (shrub), and then to the forest, before returning to the milpa (Figure
2). The duration of each stage differs and often a field reverts to milpa from acahual before reaching
the forest stage. Ecological succession drives the conversion between field stages (McGee 2002,
Nations and Nigh 1980). From the viewpoint of ecological succession, the milpa represents early
successional grasses, the acahual represents the shrub or early woody stage, and the forest is the climax
stage. By directing natural succession through the control of seed banks, plantings, and using resources
from all stages during this process, the Lacandon are able to reap benefits from their fields without
supplements of seeds, fertilizer, herbicides, and pesticide (Levy 2000) (Figure 2). In this manner, the
Lacandon have harnessed the regenerative capacity of nature and are thus able to utilize the resources
of their environment without depleting them (McGee 2002, Nations and Nigh, 1980).
The milpa, or early successional stage, is a polyculture field, dominated by maize with 20-30
additional plant species (Nations and Nigh 1980). Some of these species are planted, while others are
allowed to regenerate from the soil seed bank (Quintana-Ascencio et al. 1996). The milpa stage is
farmed for up to five years in continual production. Farmers following traditional practices routinely
weed the milpa and do not apply pesticides, herbicides and fertilizer. After approximately five years,
-466-
8 Supplies
5&7
Labor
Erosion
Soil
3
Rain
Forest
Acahual
Wind
Corn 9
Milpa
Fire
Sun
4
1
Seeds
Figure 2. Systems diagram of the Lacandon Maya agroforestry as practiced in Lacanja Chansayab, Chiapas,
Mexico.
weeds become more prevalent, and the farmer allows the field to move into the next successional stage
of acahual (Levy 2000, McGee 2002).
The Lacandon call the acahual stage pak che kol, which literally means tree milpa. This
stage includes a range of 60 species of shrubs and bushes from which the Lacandon extract resources
(Nations and Nigh 1980). The acahual is managed for approximately seven years. After that, the
Lacandon can cut, dry and burn the acahual, returning it to milpa, or allow the acahual to develop into
the secondary forest stage.
The next successional stage is the secondary forest. The Lacandon extract many products
from the forest including woods, fruits, fungi and animals (Nations and Nigh 1980). After
approximately 20 years the forest may be cleared, dried, burned again and returned to milpa (Nations
and Nigh 1980). By preserving nearby primary forests the Lacandon ensure a rich source of
biodiversity to drive the conversion of the fields between these stages through wind and animal seed
dispersal (Levy 2000, Quintana-Ascencio et al. 1996).
Many Lacandon Maya do not practice the traditional agriculture system, but have modified
the system so that they have more time to participate in ecotourism or work outside the community. In
contrast to traditional methods, non-traditional Lacandon farmers do not regularly weed their fields
and have a lower level of species diversity in their systems. Traditional Lacandon agroforestry does
not utilize pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers. Although non-traditional practice has in the past
incorporated the use of pesticides and herbicides, none of the farmers included in this study use
pesticides or herbicides. Furthermore, similar to other swidden systems throughout the world, the
Lacandon are reducing the fallow period of their systems. Reduced fallow has been shown to have a
deleterious effect on soil maintenance and forest regeneration (Lal 1995, Alvarez and NaughtonTreves 2003, Drechsel et al. 2001, Howard and Homer-Dixon 1996).
-467-

Table 1. Emergy evaluation of Lacandon agroforestry in Chiapas, Mexico (Calculations for annual
inputs and references for transformities are contained in Appendix I).
1
2
3
4
5
7
8
1
2
3
4
5
7
8
1
2
3
4
5
7
8
Value
Transformity
Emergy
Emergy
Item
Unit
(unit/yr)
(sej/unit)
(sej/yr)
(sej/ha/yr)
Traditionally Managed - Manuel Castellanos, Chiapas, Mexico (12 hectares)
Renewable resources
Sunlight
J
7.95E+14
1.00E+00
7.95E+14
6.63E+13
Wind - kinetic
J
1.14E+10
1.50E+03
1.70E+13
1.42E+12
Rain-chemical
J
1.48E+12
1.82E+04
2.70E+16
2.25E+15
Seeds
J
2.64E+06
3.64E+05
9.60E+11
8.00E+10
Labor (renew)
hr
2.18E+03
6.99E+12
1.17E+16
9.78E+14
Total Renewable
3.87E+16
2.25E+15
Non-renewable resources
Eroded soil
J
5.27E+09
6.25E+04
3.30E+14
2.75E+13
Total Non-renewable
3.30E+14
2.75E+13
Purchased resources
Labor (non-renew)
hr
2.18E+03
6.99E+12
1.98E+15
1.65E+14
Supplies
$
6.00E+00
1.88E+12
1.13E+13
9.40E+11
Total Purchased
1.99E+15
1.66E+14
Exported
Multiple products
Corn
J
1.38E+10
1.15E+09 J/ha/yr
Traditionally Managed - Kin Bor, Chiapas, Mexico (69 hectares)
Renewable resources
Sunlight
J
4.57E+15
1.00E+00
4.57E+15
6.63E+13
Wind - kinetic
J
6.53E+10
1.50E+03
9.80E+13
1.42E+12
Rain-chemical
J
8.52E+12
1.82E+04
1.55E+17
2.25E+15
Seeds
J
1.52E+07
3.64E+05
5.52E+12
8.00E+10
Labor (renew)
hr
1.95E+03
6.99E+12
1.05E+16
1.52E+14
Total Renewable
1.66E+17
2.25E+15
Eroded soil
J
2.20E+10
6.25E+04
1.37E+15
1.99E+13
Total Non-renewable
1.37E+15
1.99E+13
Purchased resources
Labor (non-renew)
hr
1.95E+03
6.99E+12
1.77E+15
2.57E+13
Supplies
$
6.50E+00
1.88E+12
1.22E+13
1.77E+11
Total Purchased
1.78E+15
2.59E+13
Exported
Corn
J
7.75E+09
1.12E+08 J/ha/yr
Traditionally Managed - Jorge Paneagua, Chiapas, Mexico (2.5 hectares)
Renewable resources
Sunlight
J
1.66E+14
1.00E+00
1.66E+14
6.63E+13
Wind - kinetic
J
2.37E+09
1.50E+03
3.55E+12
1.42E+12
Rain-chemical
J
3.09E+11
1.82E+04
5.62E+15
2.25E+15
Seeds
J
5.49E+05
3.64E+05
2.00E+11
8.00E+10
Labor (renew)
hr
1.25E+03
6.99E+12
6.72E+15
2.69E+15
Total Renewable
1.23E+16
2.69E+15
Eroded soil
J
8.79E+09
6.25E+04
5.49E+14
2.20E+14
Total Non-renewable
5.49E+14
2.20E+14
Purchased resources
Labor (non-renew)
hr
1.25E+03
6.99E+12
1.13E+15
4.54E+14
Supplies
$
1.25E+01
1.88E+12
2.35E+13
9.40E+12
Total Purchased
1.16E+15
4.63E+14
Exported
Corn
J
1.08E+10
4.32E+09 J/ha/yr
-468-

Table 1 continued.
1
2
3
4
5
7
8
9
1
2
3
4
5
7
8
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Value
Transformity
Emergy
Emergy
Item
Unit
(unit/yr)
(sej/unit)
(sej/yr)
(sej/ha/yr)
Non-Traditionally Managed - Vicente Paneagua, Chiapas, Mexico (7 hectares)
Renewable resources
Sunlight
J
4.64E+14
1.00E+00
4.64E+14
6.63E+13
Wind - kinetic
J
6.63E+09
1.50E+03
9.94E+12
1.42E+12
Rain-chemical
J
8.65E+11
1.82E+04
1.57E+16
2.25E+15
Seeds
J
1.54E+06
3.64E+05
5.60E+11
8.00E+10
Labor (renew)
hr
6.72E+02
6.99E+12
3.62E+15
5.17E+14
Total Renewable
1.94E+16
2.25E+15
Eroded soil
J
8.79E+09
6.25E+04
5.49E+14
7.85E+13
Total Non-renewable
5.49E+14
7.85E+13
Purchased resources
Labor (non-renew)
hr
6.72E+02
6.99E+12
6.11E+14
8.72E+13
Supplies
$
3.50E+00
1.88E+12
6.58E+12
9.40E+11
Total Purchased
6.17E+14
8.82E+13
Exported
Corn
J
3.60E+09
5.15E+08 J/ha/yr
Non-traditionally Managed - Enrique Paneagua, Chiapas, Mexico (6.5 hectares)
Renewable resources
Sunlight
J
4.31E+14
1.00E+00
4.31E+14
6.63E+13
Wind - kinetic
J
6.16E+09
1.50E+03
9.24E+12
1.42E+12
Rain-chemical
J
8.03E+11
1.82E+04
1.46E+16
2.25E+15
Seeds
J
2.86E+08
3.64E+05
1.04E+14
1.60E+13
Labor (renew)
hr
7.83E+02
6.99E+12
4.21E+15
6.48E+14
Total Renewable
1.89E+16
2.25E+15
Eroded soil
J
8.79E+09
6.25E+04
5.49E+14
8.45E+13
Total Non-renewable
5.49E+14
8.45E+13
Purchased resources
Labor (non-renew)
hr
7.83E+02
6.99E+12
7.12E+14
1.09E+14
Supplies
$
8.00E+00
1.88E+12
1.50E+13
2.31E+12
Total Purchased
7.27E+14
1.12E+14
Exported
Corn
J
5.41E+09
8.32E+08 J/ha/yr
Non-traditionally Managed - Kin Paneagua, Chiapas, Mexico (2 hectares)
Renewable resources
Sunlight
J
1.33E+14
1.00E+00
1.33E+14
6.63E+13
Wind - kinetic
J
1.89E+09
1.50E+03
2.84E+12
1.42E+12
Rain-chemical
J
2.47E+11
1.82E+04
4.50E+15
2.25E+15
Seeds
J
4.40E+05
3.64E+05
1.60E+11
8.00E+10
Labor (renew)
hr
1.72E+03
6.99E+12
9.24E+15
4.62E+15
Total Renewable
1.37E+16
4.62E+15
Eroded soil
J
8.79E+09
6.25E+04
5.49E+14
2.75E+14
Total Non-renewable
5.49E+14
2.75E+14
Purchased resources
Labor (non-renew)
hr
1.72E+03
6.99E+12
1.56E+15
7.80E+14
Supplies
$
7.50E+00
1.88E+12
1.41E+13
7.05E+12
Total Purchased
1.57E+15
7.87E+14
Exported
Corn
J
1.08E+10
5.41E+09 J/ha/yr
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Although the Lacandon system has been evaluated qualitatively (Nations and Nigh 1980),
little quantitative information is available about the system, particularly in regard to how changes in
management and fallow period are affecting the system. Emergy, which considers system components
on a common unit basis, is a useful tool for evaluating resource use and the methods of agricultural
production.
METHODS
Emergy evaluation is a form of energy analysis that quantifies values of natural and economic
resources on a common basis in order to derive the value of nature to the human economy (Odum,
1988). Solar emergy is used to determine the value of environmental and human work within a system
on a common basis: the equivalent solar energy required to produce each service or product. The
fundamental assumption of emergy evaluation is that the contribution of a resource is proportional to
the available energy of one kind required to produce the resource (Brown and Herendeen 1996). To
calculate the solar emergy of products and services, one must multiply units of energy (i.e. joules of
oil) by emergy per energy ratios (transformities), units of mass (i.e. grams of corn) by emergy per mass
ratios, and dollars by emergy per dollar ratios. Using this technique, natural and economic
contributions required to produce agricultural yields can be quantified and compared on a common
basis of solar emjoules. Emergy evaluation has been used in a similar capacity to quantify economic
and environmental inputs to water projects on the Mekong and Mississippi rivers (Brown and
McClanahan 1996, Martin 2002), and to evaluate the sustainability of farming methods in Australia
(Lefroy and Rydberg 2003), Sweden (Rydberg and Jansen 2002), and China (Hong-fang et al. 2003).
Interviews for emergy evaluations were conducted during July and August 2003 with six
Lacandon Maya farmers in Lacanja Chansayab, Mexico (Figure 1). The six agroforestry systems
included three traditional systems (Manuel Castellonos, Kin Bor, and Jorge Paneagua) and three nontraditional systems (Vicente Paneagua, Enrique Paneagua, and Kin Paneagua). The ratio of cultivated
area to total land area varied greatly across the six systems.
An aggregated systems diagram (Figure 2) illustrates the main components and interactions
for the Lacandon system. Table 1 denotes the specific input flows in each system including the
renewable resources, non-renewable resources, and purchased resources identified in Figure 2. After
quantifying annual inputs to each system in raw units (Joules, hours, dollars), these values were
multiplied by transformities to calculate the quantity of solar emjoules required for each input (Table
1). To make these flows easily comparable, the last column of Table 1 was normalized for area, which
quantified these values in solar emjoules per hectare per year (sej/ha/yr). Detailed calculations and
references for transformities are included in Appendix I.
The non-renewable and renewable emergy values supporting labor were estimated to be 23%
and 77%, respectively, for the indigenous system in Lacanja. Trujillo (1998) calculated these
percentages for agricultural households in Corozal, Chiapas, which is within 50 km of Lacanja. These
values were used to apportion labor into purchased and renewable resources in the emergy evaluation
(Table 1) following Panzieri et al. (2002).
To compare the inputs an emergy signature diagram (Figure 3) was constructed from the data
in the final column of Table 1. Emergy indices (Hong-fang et al. 2003, Brown and McClanahan, 1996,
Table 2) were then calculated by aggregating data from Table 1. Figure 4 shows an example of the
flows that were used for calculating the indices for the Manuel Castellanos system. The Fraction
Renewable Index (Table 2) quantified the reliance of each system on renewable energies. The Emergy
Yield Ratio (EYR) (Table 2) compared units of exported emergy with emergy invested. This ratio
quantifies the effectiveness of non-renewable resources to capture renewable resources. The
Environmental Loading Ratio (ELR) (Table 2) is the ratio of purchased and non-renewable resources
to renewable resources. It is an indicator of the ecosystem stress (Ulgiati and Brown, 1998). The
Emergy Sustainability Index (ESI) (Table 2) was calculated as the ratio of the EYR to the ELR, and
measures the production of a system relative to the environmental pressure (Ulgiati and Brown, 1998).
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Figure 3. Emergy Signature Diagram for emergy analysis of six Lacandon agroforestry systems. Emergy results are shown as solar emjoules per hectare
per year (sej/ha/yr). Categories in the emergy diagram are the numbered renewable, non-renewable and purchased resources in Figure 2 and Table 1. The
six Lacandon farmers whose systems were studied are Manuel Castellanos, Kin Bor, Jorge Paneagua, Vicente Paneagua, Enrique Paneagua, and Kin
Paneagua.
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Due to the numerous products that may be found in all stages of Lacandon system, corn was used as a
representative product for calculation of the transformities. Appendix I presents a calculation of total
emergy from Manuel Castellanos milpa when utilizing numerous products for the calculation in
comparison to using only corn to calculate emergy. Appendix I presents all calculations appearing in
Table 1.
Statistical analysis was conducted using Systat version 10.2. Data was analyzed for equal
variance and normal distribution. Where these conditions were not met, data was transformed before
statistical analysis was performed. ANOVA was utilized to test significance of differences and
regression analysis was used to test relationships between factors. The Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric
test was used to analyze differences where transformation was not possible or data was presented in
percentages.
RESULTS
Renewable Resources
Kin Paneagua's system had the largest amount of renewable emergy inputs per hectare (4.62
E15 sej ha-1 yr-1, Table 1) due to the large amount of labor invested in the system (5.85 E2 hr ha-1 yr-1)
(Table 2). For all six study sites, the largest renewable emergy source was taken to represent the total
renewable flow. The largest renewable input was human labor in two cases and in the other cases it
was the chemical potential of precipitation. This was done to avoid double counting because all the
climatological renewable energy flows are by-products of coupled processes (Lefroy and Rydberg
2003, Odum 1996), and the renewable labor was considered a direct result of climatological energy
flows because the majority of a farmer's individual consumption comes from the agroforestry system.
Therefore, the total renewable input for Kin Paneagua's system was 4.62 E15 sej ha-1 yr-1 (Table 2).
Seeds were included as a renewable input for all systems (Table 1). This was because adjacent
forested areas contribute the seeds for fallow fields, and because the Lacandon use seeds from previous
years harvests for cultivated crops.
Non-renewable Resources
Non-renewable resources flows were in the form of soil erosion at the rate of 7 tons/ha/yr for
the milpa areas. The acahual and forest areas have dense cover and a detritus layer that effectively
eliminates soil erosion. The rate was highest in Kin Paneagua's system (2.75 E14 sej ha-1 yr-1) because
he had all of his two hectare system in milpa. In comparison, the lowest non-renewable flow was from
Kin Bor's system, which had 5 hectares of the 69-hectare system in milpa (Table 1).
Purchased Resources
Two purchased resources were present in the Lacandon system: labor and supplies. The
relatively low percentage of non-renewable resources supporting labor (23%) resulted in a lower input
of nonrenewable emergy for labor (Table 1). Total labor per farmer varied little. The highest labor
input was by Kin Paneagua, 7.8 E14 sej ha-1 yr-1 and the lowest was by Kin Bor, 1.99 E13 sej ha-1 yr-1,
once again due to relative land area of the systems. Both Kin Paneagua and Kin Bor spent
approximately 5 hrs/day working on their agroforestry systems, but Kin Paneagua's system is 35 times
smaller than Kin Bor's system. The emergy contributed by supplies, which included machetes and
axes, was more than two orders of magnitude less than the labor input (Figure 3, Table 2).
-472-
Table 2. Emergy indices for systems were calculated by aggregating data from Table 1.
-473-
Purchased
Resources
Renewable
Resources
Non-renewable
Resources
1 6 .6
N
2 .8
225
Manuel
Castellanos
12 hectares
244
Flows in E13 sej/ha/yr
Figure 4. Aggregated systems diagram of Manuel Castellanos' agroforestry system showing emergy flows. R, N,
and F are renewable resources, non-renewable resources, and purchased resource flows, respectively. These
emergy flows were used to calculate the emergy indices shown in Table 2. Values corresponding to each flow are
x 1013, so R = 225 x 1013seJ/ha/yr.
Yields and Transformities

Corn production was used as a means of comparing the agroforestry systems, even though
numerous products are harvested from each stage of the system. The multiple products yielded from
the milpa portion of Manuel Castellanos system totaled 3.12 E10 J yr-1 (Appendix I), which resulted in
a per hectare yield of 2.60 E9 J yr-1 (Appendix I). In comparison, the corn production alone of Manuel
Castellanos' system was 1.38 E10 J yr-1 (Table 1), which resulted in a per hectare yield of
1.15 E9 J yr-1 (Table 1). The acahual and forest also produce a yield, especially in a traditionally
managed system. Therefore this method of approximating exported yield using corn as a basis likely
underestimated the yield from a traditional system when compared to a non-traditional system, both by
undercounting total yield from the polyculture in the milpa and by not counting the yield from the
acahual and forest. The corn yield in Manuel Castellanos system resulted in a transformity of 2.12 E6
sej/J. If all the products from the Manuel Castellanos' milpa were used to calculate the yield, the
transformity would be 9.39 E5 sej/J. The highest transformity for corn production was from Kin Bor's
system (2.04 E7 sej/J), a 69-hectare system, and the lowest transformity was from Jorge Paneagua's
system (7.79 E5 sej/J), a 2.5-hectare system.
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Emergy Indices
All Lacandon systems operated with at least 80% renewable inputs. Kin Bor used the greatest
percentage of renewable inputs (98%), while Jorge Paneagua used the least percentage of renewable
inputs (80%) (Table 2). The Emergy Yield Ratio was greatest for Kin Bor's system (88.7) and the least
for Kin Paneagua's system (7.22). The Environmental Loading Ratio is a direct inverse function of the
fraction renewable (Ulgiati and Brown 1998). The ELR was greatest for Jorge Paneagua's system
(0.25), and the least Kin Bor's system (0.02). The Emergy Sustainability Index for all the systems was
greater than one, but was greatest for Kin Bor's system (4,356) and the least for Jorge Paneagua's
system (29). A positive relationship was apparent between land area in the system and sustainability.
On a log-log scale, land area and ESI showed an R2 of 0.9 (Figure 5). A similar relationship was not
apparent between ESI and labor (Figure 6). Evaluation of how adherence to traditional management
practices affects all the indices revealed no statistically significant differences between traditional and
non-traditional practices.
Log (ESI)
1
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
Log (Land Area - hectares)
2.0
Figure 5. Effect of land area devoted to the Lacandon agroforestry systems on the emergy sustainability index
(ESI) of the system. The log was taken of both the land area in hectares [log (land area -hectares)] and the ESI
[log (ESI)]. R2 = 0.90, y = 1.4x + 1.1, P = 0.005.
-475-
Log (ESI)
1
500
1000
1500
2000
Labor (hr/yr)
2500
Figure 6. Effect of labor in hours per year (hrs/yr) devoted to the Lacandon agroforestry systems on the emergy
sustainability index (ESI) of the system. The log was taken of the ESI [log (ESI)].
DISCUSSION
System Inputs
Investment of fossil fuel in agricultural systems can result in high production of agricultural
products but with a cost of environmental degradation. In contrast indigenous systems rely on greater
inputs of labor and natural resources. The emergy technique allowed all energy inputs to be compared
on a common basis and thus served well to evaluate Lacandon agroforestry in a way that could be
comparable to other types of agricultural systems. On a percentage basis, emergy to support labor
accounted for the largest amount of purchased resources for the system (>99%, Table 1). While the
Lacandon system used approximately 700 hours of human labor to produce 1 hectare of corn, in the
United States only 10 hours are expended per hectare of corn using mechanized production (Pimentel
and Pimentel 1996). Moving from labor-intensive to energy-intensive farming transfers much of the
energy needed to support labor on the farm to labor providing purchased inputs to the farm such as
fuel, fertilizer, and machinery. The trend mirrors the changes in labor inputs that occur when switching
from horse to tractor traction. Rydberg and Jansen (2002) showed decreased labor on the farm, but
increased labor inputs to supply services and fuel as a result of this transition. In the Lacandon systems
the effect of labor on the emergy evaluation depended on the area of land devoted to the system. As a
system utilized less area, a greater portion of the emergy flow came in the form of labor. Thus the
systems of Jorge Paneagua and Kin Paneagua, which were 2.5 ha and 2 ha respectively, showed a
higher input of labor than the input from the chemical potential of rain, which dominated the inputs
from the other systems.
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Ratios
Fraction Renewable
Greater deviations from natural systems to produce crops require greater amounts of imported
energy to sustain crop production (Pimentel and Pimentel 1996, Altieri 1995). Because the Lacandon
systems, in general, relied greatly on natural ecological processes (Levy 2000), they possessed a large
fraction of renewable energies (0.8 - 0.98, Table 2) compared to more mechanized systems such as
corn production in Italy, which had a fraction renewable of 0.33 (Ulgiati and Brown 1998). As a
system utilized more land area, the fraction renewable increased because more land was in fallow. This
is largely due to the constant quantity of labor needed for the system regardless of the land area.
Therefore, as fallow size decreases, fraction renewable also decreases.
Historically, the Lacandon have not had resources such as fertilizers, pesticides, commercial
seeds, or machinery at their disposal. They developed an agroecosystem with little dependence on
outside resources that was largely sustained by renewable energies. During fallow periods the
Lacandon rely on natural succession to regenerate soil fertility (McGee 2002, Nations and Nigh 1980).
When yields begin to decrease in the milpa, the Lacandon will allow this field to undergo succession
and move into the shrub stage. This regenerates soil nutrients and organic matter. In contrast, a
farmer who does not rely upon the successional process will invest more purchased resources into the
system. In the case of the Lacandon, these purchased resources will come in the form of labor. In the
case of mechanized systems these purchased resources will be in the form of fossil fuels (Rydberg and
Jansen 2002). Because the fallow stage is a necessary system component for soil regeneration and
milpa production, the emergy evaluation used the entire land area of the Lacandon system to calculate
resource requirements for corn production. Accounting for only the natural resources reaching the
milpa for milpa corn production would underestimate the true emergy requirements needed for corn
production. Because corn is the only product accounted for in this evaluation, this study
underestimates the true value that the Lacandon may derive from their agroforestry systems. A detailed
evaluation of all acahual and forest products in conjunction with all milpa products would give a truer
representation of Lacandon yield and the transformity from the system.
Emergy Yield Ratio
The Emergy Yield Ratio (EYR) is especially applicable when analyzing agricultural systems
where purchased resources are utilized to concentrate natural energies in order to produce yields.
Renewable inputs of sunlight, rain, and wind are lower quality energies that are dispersed across
agricultural fields. Higher quality energies from outside the system are often necessary to manage the
system and concentrate these energies to produce the desired outputs. The emergy approach converts
the higher quality, purchased inputs and lower quality, renewable inputs to a common basis, solar
emjoules, for comparison. The EYR quantifies the effectiveness of purchased resources to direct
renewable resources towards the production of agricultural yields. It calculates the amount of
renewable emergy utilized per investment of non-renewable emergy. Systems with a higher fraction
of renewable emergy, such as the Lacandon system, produce a greater return per investment of nonrenewable emergy. The EYR of 15 (Table 2) for the Manuel Castellanos' system, for example,
indicated that more than 15 solar emjoules of renewable emergy were utilized per each solar emjoule
of purchased resources invested in the system. In contrast fruit production in Italy was calculated to
have an EYR of only 1.1 (Ulgiati and Brown 1998). Netting (1993) found a similar trend in energy
ratios, which were 11:1 for systems dependent on hand-labor, 4:1 for those dependent on animal
traction, and less than 2:1 when using fertilizers and agrochemicals.
The lower transformity and greater yield per area (Table 2) of Jorge Paneagua's system,
which was only 2.5 hectares, relative to Kin Bor's system (69 hectares) demonstrates the effects of
investing in greater labor relative to land area. The transformity results indicate that per unit of
emergy input to each system, Jorge Paneagua's had the greatest amount of output. The slightly higher
transformities in Kin Bor's system were due to large inputs of low-quality renewable energies such as
-477-

rain over a larger area that are concentrated to produce higher-quality energy. The use of higher quality
inputs in Jorge Paneaguas systems resulted in the greatest yields per area (Table 2). In Kin Bor's
system more area is required to concentrate lower quality energies for a smaller harvest. While Jorge
Paneagua uses nearly the entire area for production, Kin Bor relies on natural inputs and ecological
succession to regenerate 69 hectares of land, while using only 5 hectares for production. In this
manner Kin Bor concentrates more renewable energies across time and space than the other systems to
produce yields.
Reduced yields from Kin Bor's system also reflect the need of indigenous farmers to
minimize risk and ensure a minimal yield regardless of pest outbreaks or climatic inputs (Lyman et al.
1986). Subsistence farmers will trade greater potential yields for the annual yield stability of
polycultural systems (Liebman 1995). Investing in one high yield monoculture with limited fallow can
produce greater yields. However, historical examples, such as the corn and leaf blight that devastated
the United States corn crop in 1970, and the potato late-blight epidemic in Ireland during the mid-19th
century, illustrate the potential of such strategies to yield negligible harvests during extreme events.
The Lacandon avoid this situation by using polyculture in the milpa and by utilizing crops from the
other successional stages.
The greater environmental loading ratios for Jorge Paneagua's system compared to Kin Bor's
system reflect the environmental costs of using more relative purchased resources and the
environmental benefit of devoting a greater percentage of a farmer's land to fallow. Most purchased
resources create environmental degradation during their production, use, and environmental
assimilation. In this case the primary purchased resource is the farmer himself, whose non-renewable
fraction of his lifestyle creates an environmental load. For perspective, a wilderness area relying solely
on natural energies will have an environmental loading ratio near zero, while a modern city in the
United States that relies heavily on imported resources may have an environmental loading ratio
greater than 100 (Tilley and Swank 2003). Corn production in Italy has a ELR of 3.0 (Ulgiati and
Brown 1998). The dominance of renewable energy in the Lacandon system resulted in environmental
loading ratios of 0.02 to 0.23. This finding agrees with past research that has described of the ability of
the Lacandons practicing traditional management to utilize the resources of their environment without
depleting them (McGee 2002, Nations and Nigh 1980, Quintana-Ascencio et al. 1996). The
environmental loading ratio for Jorge Paneagua's system was fourteen times that of Kin Bor's system,
and reflects a greater degree of environmental stress. Environmental resources for agriculture (land,
water, energy, forests) must be protected for sustained food production (Pimentel and Pimentel 1996);
indices that quantify environmental stress due to production are essential for selecting future
agricultural methods. The findings from this study corroborate findings from other studies of swidden
systems similar to the Lacandon system. A reduction in agricultural land and fallow will cause soil
erosion and deforestation and, therefore, place a great load on the environment (Lal 1995, Alvarez and
Naughton-Treves 2003, Drechsel et al. 2001, Howard and Homer-Dixon 1996). The collapse of the
ancient Maya is thought to be due in part to population pressures that reduced fallow periods, and thus
caused soil erosion and deforestation, and eventually lead to precipitous depopulation of the area
where the Lacandon Maya currently live (Rice 1996, Johnston 2003).
Sustainability Index
The calculated values of the sustainability index (Table 2) indicate that Kin Bor's system had
the greatest level of sustainability. This measure assumes that the objective function for sustainability
is to obtain the highest yield ratio at the lowest environmental loading (Ulgiati and Brown 1998). The
high yield ratio and low environmental loading of Kin Bors systems produced a sustainability index
of 4,356, while the lower yield ratio and greater environmental loading of the Jorge Paneagua's system
produced a sustainability index of 29 (Table 2). The ESI of corn and fruit production in Italy were
0.45 and 0.12, respectively (Ulgiati and Brown 1998). In the Lacandon system once again land area
-478-

was the most important consideration for high ESI. The system with the largest land area had the
highest ESI and the system with the lowest land area had the lowest ESI. Therefore, this study, other
studies of swidden systems, and evidence from ancient Mayan civilizations, suggest that maintaining
adequate land in fallow is vital to the sustainability of the swidden system (Lal 1995, Rice 1996,
Howard and Homer-Dixon 1996, Drechsel et al. 2001, Alvarez and Naughton-Treves 2003, Johnston
2003).
Traditional and Non-traditional

For all parameters and indices no statistically significant difference was noted between
traditionally and non-traditionally managed systems. The analysis did not account for all products from
the system; a traditional system that has a richer cultivated diversity in the milpa and utilized more
products from the acahual and forest would likely be underrepresented by this analysis in terms of
production. As a traditional system generally has greater input of labor for weeding activities, this
underestimate may off-set any gains in production. Even though traditionally and non-traditionally
managed systems covered different median land areas, significant effect of land area on the indices did
not bear out any differences in indices between traditional and non-traditional systems.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We wish to thank Manuel Castellanos, Kin Bor, Adolfo Chan K'in, Jorge Paneagua, Vicente
Paneagua, Enrique Paneagua, and Kin Paneagua for their patient responses to our numerous questions.
Financial support from the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, Ohio State
University International Affairs Office, OSU Latin American Studies, and the Tinker Foundation is
gratefully acknowledged.
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Rice, D.S. 1996. Paleolimnological analysis in the central Peten, Guatemala. In The Managed Mosaic:
Ancient Maya Agricultural and Resource Use, S.L. Fedick, ed. University of Utah Press, Salt
Lake City, pp.193-206.
Rydberg, T, and Jansen, J. 2002. Comparison of horse and tractor traction using emergy ananlysis.
Ecological Engineering. 19:13-28.
Tilley, D.R., and Swank, W.T. 2003. EMERGY-based environmental systems assessments of a multipurpose temperate mixed-forest watershed of the southern Appalachian Mountains, USA.
Journal of Environmental Management. 69: 213-227.
Trujillo, H.A.G. 1998. Sustainability of Ecotourism and Traditional Agricultural Practices in Chiapas,
Mexico. Ph.D. dissertation. Environmental Engineering Sciences. University of Florida,
Gainesville.
Ulgiati, S., and Brown, M.T. 1998. Monitoring patterns of sustainability in natural and man-made
ecosystems. Ecological Modelling. 108:23-36.
Ulgiati, S., Odum, H.T., and Bastianoni, S., 1994. Emergy use, environmental loading and
sustainability. An emergy analysis of Italy. Ecological Modelling 73, 215-268.
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APPENDIX I: CALCULATIONS AND REFERENCES FOR TABLE 1

Traditionally Managed - Manuel Castellanos
Renewable Resources: Traditionally Managed - Manuel Castellanos
1. Sunlight
Land area: 12 ha = 1.20 E5 m2
Insolation: 1.8 E2 kcal cm-2 yr-1 (Trujillo 1998)
Albedo: 0.13 (Trujillo 1998)
1.20 E5 m2 * 1.8 E2 kcal cm-2 yr-1 * 1 E4 cm2 m-2 * (1-0.13) *4186 J kcal-1 = 7.95 E14 J yr-1
Transformity: 1.0 sej J-1 (by definition)
2. Wind
Density of Air: 1.3 kg m-3
Average annual wind velocity: 1.39 m s-1 at surface (Trujillo 1998)
Geostrophic wind: 2.32 m s-1 (assume that observed winds are 0.6 of geostrophic wind)
Drag coefficient: 0.001
1.2 E5 m2 * 1.3 kg m-3 * 0.001 * (2.32 m s-1)3 * 3.14 E7 sec yr-1 = 1.14 E10 J yr-1
Transformity: 1.50 E3 sej J-1 (Odum 1996)
3. Rain
Rainfall: 2.5 m yr-1 (Trujillo 1998)
Water density: 1000 kg m-3
Gibbs free energy water: 4940 J kg-1
1.2 E5 m2 * 2.5 m yr-1 * 1000 kg m-3 *4940 J kg-1= 1.48 E12 J yr-1
4. Seeds
Distribution rate: 1.5 E1 kg ha-1(Trujillo 1998)
Energy content: 3.5 kcal g-1
12 ha * 1.5 E1 kg ha-1 * 3.5 kcal g-1 * 4186 J kcal-1 = 2.64 E6 J yr-1
Transformity: 3.64 E5 sej J-1 (Trujillo 1998)
5. Labor (renewable)
Time: 2180 hr yr-1
Transformity: 6.99 E12 sej hr-1 (Trujillo 1998)
2180 hr yr-1 * 6.99 E12 sej hr-1 * 0.77 (renewable%) = 1.17 E16 sej yr-1
Non-renewable Resources: Traditionally Managed - Manuel Castellanos
6. Soil
Erosion rate: 7 tons ha-1 yr-1 r (Trujillo 1998)
Percent organic in soil: 0.03 (Ulgiati et al. 1994)
Energy content per gram organic soil: 5.00 kcal g-1 (Ulgiati et al. 1994)
1.2 E4 m2 * 700 g m2 yr-1 * 0.03 * 5 kcal g-1 * 4186 j g-1 = 5.27 E9 J yr-1
Transformity: 6.25 E4 sej J-1 (Ulgiati et al. 1994)
Time: 2180 hr yr-1
8. Supplies
Transformity: 1.88 E12 sej $(Chiapas, Mexico)-1 (Trujillo 1998)
Exported Items: Traditionally Managed - Manuel Castellanos
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9. Multiple products
Mass (g)
Corn
3.84E+06
Squash
2.20E+06
Chigua fruit
1.16E+06
Chigua seed
4.20E+04
Cherry tomatoes 4.86E+05
Papaya
9.85E+05
Sugar Cane
3.07E+05
Arrowroot
1.60E+04
Cassava
3.22E+05
Onion
4.42E+05
Mango
1.32E+06
Squash
1.34E+05
Cilantro
1.90E+04
Total
1.13E+07
kcal g-1
8.60E-01
3.40E-01
1.03E+00
1.91E+00
1.80E-01
3.00E-01
3.87E+00
6.50E-01
1.60E+00
4.20E-01
6.50E-01
3.40E-01
2.30E-01
J kcal-1
4.19 E3
4.19 E3
4.19 E3
4.19 E3
4.19 E3
4.19 E3
4.19 E3
4.19 E3
4.19 E3
4.19 E3
4.19 E3
4.19 E3
4.19 E3
J yr-1
1.38E+10
3.13E+09
5.00E+09
3.36E+08
3.66E+08
1.24E+09
5.47E+08
4.35E+07
2.16E+09
7.77E+08
3.59E+09
1.91E+08
1.83E+07
3.12E+10
Traditionally Managed - Kin Bor

Renewable Resources: Traditionally Managed - Kin Bor
1. Sunlight
2. Wind
3. Rain
4. Seeds
Distribution rate: 1.5 E1 kg ha-1 (Trujillo 1998)
Time: 1950 hr yr-1
Non-renewable Resources: Traditionally Managed - Kin Bor
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6. Soil
Land area: 5 ha = 5 E4 m2
5 E4 m2 * 700 g m2 yr-1 * 0.03 * 5 kcal g-1 * 4186 j g-1 = 2.2 E10 J yr-1
Purchased Resources: Traditionally Managed - Kin Bor
7. Labor (non-renewable)
Time: 2180 hr yr-1
8. Supplies
Yearly cost: $6.5
Exported Items: Traditionally Managed - Kin Bor
9. Product
Mass (g)
kcal g-1
J kcal-1
J yr-1
Corn
2.15E+06
8.60E-01
4.19E+03
7.75E+09
Traditionally Managed - Jorge Paneagua
Renewable Resources: Traditionally Managed - Jorge Paneagua
1. Sunlight
Land area: 2.5 ha = 2.5 E4 m2
2. Wind
3. Rain
4. Seeds
Distribution rate: 1.5 E1 kg ha-1 (Trujillo 1998)
2.5 ha * 1.5 E1 kg ha-1 * 3.5 kcal g-1 * 4186 J kcal-1 = 5.49 E5 J yr-1
Time: 1248 hr yr-1
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Non-renewable Resources: Traditionally Managed - Jorge Paneagua
6. Soil
Purchased Resources: Traditionally Managed - Jorge Paneagua
Time: 1248 hr yr-1
8. Supplies
Yearly cost: $12.5
Transformity: 1.88 E12 sej/ $(Chiapas, Mexico)-1 (Trujillo 1998)
Exported Items: Traditionally Managed - Jorge Paneagua
9. Product
Mass (g)
kcal g-1
kcal-1
J yr-1
Corn
3.00E+06
8.60E-01
4.19E+03
1.08E+10
Non-Traditionally Managed - Vicente Paneagua
Renewable Resources: Non-Traditionally Managed - Vicente Paneagua
1. Sunlight
7 E4 m2 * 1.8 E2 kcal cm-2 yr-1 * 1 E4 cm2 m-2 * (1-0.13) *4186 J kcal-1 = 4.64 E14 J yr-1
2. Wind
7 E4 m2 * 1.3 kg m-3 * 0.001 * (2.32 m s-1)3 * 3.14 E7 sec yr-1 = 6.63 E9 J yr-1
3. Rain
7 E4 m2 * 2.5 m yr-1 * 1000 kg m-3 *4940 J kg-1= 8.65 E11 J yr-1
4. Seeds
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Time: 672 hr yr-1
Non-renewable Resources: Non-Traditionally Managed - Vicente Paneagua
6. Soil
Purchased Resources: Non-Traditionally Managed - Vicente Paneagua
Time: 672 hr yr-1
8. Supplies
Yearly cost: $3.5
Exported Items: Non-Traditionally Managed - Vicente Paneagua
9. Product
Mass (g)
kcal g-1
J kcal-1
J yr-1
Corn
1.00E+06
8.60E-01
4.19E+03
3.60E+09
Non-Traditionally Managed - Enrique Paneagua
Renewable Resources: Non-Traditionally Managed - Enrique Paneagua
1. Sunlight
2. Wind
3. Rain
4. Seeds
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6.5 ha * 1.5 E1 kg ha-1 * 3.5 kcal g-1 * 4186 J kcal-1 = 1.43 E6 J yr-1
Time: 783 hr yr-1
Non-renewable Resources: Non-Traditionally Managed - Enrique Paneagua
6. Soil
Purchased Resources: Non-Traditionally Managed - Enrique Paneagua
Time: 783 hr yr-1
8. Supplies
Yearly cost: $8
Transformity: 1.88 E12 sej /$(Chiapas, Mexico)-1 (Trujillo 1998)
Exported Items: Non-Traditionally Managed - Enrique Paneagua
9. Product
Mass (g)
kcal g-1
J kcal-1
J yr-1
Corn
1.50E+06
8.60E-01
4.19E+03
5.41E+09
Non-Traditionally Managed - Kin Paneagua
Renewable Resources: Non-Traditionally Managed - Kin Paneagua
1. Sunlight
2 E4 m2 * 1.8 E2 kcal cm-2 yr-1 * 1 E4 cm2 m-2 * (1-0.13) *4186 J kcal-1 = 1.33 E14 J yr-1
2. Wind
2 E4 m2 * 1.3 kg m-3 * 0.001 * (2.32 m s-1)3 * 3.14 E7 sec yr-1 = 1.89 E19 J yr-1
3. Rain
2 E4 m2 * 2.5 m yr-1 * 1000 kg m-3 *4940 J kg-1= 2.47 E11 J yr-1
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4. Seeds
Time: 1716 hr yr-1
Non-renewable Resources: Non-Traditionally Managed - Kin Paneagua
6. Soil
Purchased Resources: Non-Traditionally Managed - Kin Paneagua
Time: 1716 hr yr-1
8. Supplies
Yearly cost: $7.5
Exported Items: Non-Traditionally Managed - Kin Paneagua
9. Product
Mass (g)
kcal g-1
J kcal-1
J yr-1
Corn
3.00E+06
8.60E-01
4.19E+03
1.08E+10
-487-
-488-
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
38
Emergy Analysis of Three Forest Activities in Taiwan
ABSTRACT
Three forest management activities: silviculture, tree nurseries, and forest recreation (forest
cafe), were analyzed from an emergy perspective. Results showed that silviculture and tree nurseries
utilized more renewable resources, and forest recreation utilized more non-renewable resources. The
empower densities of silviculture, tree nurseries, and forest recreation were 1.12, 1.17, and 8.15 (1012
sej/m2/yr), respectively. Compared with the empower densities of Taiwan in 1960, 1970, 1980, 1987,
and 1990, when the economy was gradually shifting from agriculture to industry, the empower
densities of silviculture and tree nurseries were lower than that of the national economy in 1960, but
the empower density of forest recreation was higher than the empower density of Taiwan in 1990.
This indicated that forest activities have shifted in a manner similar to the main economy in Taiwan.
The case study of forest recreation was located in the Taipei suburban area, near the national
park. The emergy density of the case study site was between that of the park and the newly developed
suburban zone. It displayed that, in the spatial distribution of emergy, the forest recreation zone was a
transitional area from the natural lands to the lower newly developed lands.
INTRODUCTION
As the economy shifted in Taiwan, the utilization of forests also changed. When the
Taiwanese economy was still dominated by agricultural activities, the forest economy consisted
mainly of lumbering virgin forests. Lumber trees were later planted on the previously logged lands.
As industry and urban areas developed in Taiwan, lumbering became less profitable and the natural
landscape became more degraded (Jen, 1992a). Fast-growing trees were intentionally planted to
restore the green landscape in developed areas for purely aesthetic reasons. The wood of the fastgrowing trees was low-rated and could not be utilized for construction or ornamental wood (Jen,
1992b). Recently, a new forest management pattern has emerged in Taiwan, the establishment of cafes
in reforested areas. A small part of the reforested fields are remodeled as a caf. People come to enjoy
meals in nice gardens, relax under the trees, or buy trees. This system is considered a type of forest
restoration. Therefore, it is becoming more popular in Taiwan. The authors have called this forest
activity forest caf in this study. If a landowner in Taiwan decides to use his land for forest
economic activities, he may use it for silviculture, fast-growing tree nurseries, or construction of a
forest caf. The purpose of this research was to use emergy to evaluate these three forest activities to
understand the economic benefits and environment impacts of these activities.
METHODS
An emergy evaluation on the three forest activities was conducted. The emergy evaluation
for silviculture and the fast-growing tree nursery were developed from the published forest economics
reports in Taiwan (Jen, 1984 and Jen, 1992a). The silviculture field was China fir (Cunninghamia
lanceolata). The fast-growing tree nursery was Paliamara alstonia (Alstonia scholaris). The emergy
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Chapter 38. Emergy Analysis of Three Forest
evaluation for the forest caf was a case study on a forest caf in the Taipei suburbs based on field
visits.
Description of Case Studies

Case Study I: Emergy Evaluation of the Silviculture Farm
China fir is one of main lumber tree species in Taiwan. Planted China fir occupies 73% of the
total forested land in Taiwan (Jen, 1984). It usually takes 15 years for a seedling to be ready for
lumbering. It requires human inputs of land preparation, planting, and fertilizing at the initial stages
(in the first four years), after which it can be left for natural growth. Figure 1 illustrates this system.
In this case, the complete planting and growing process was considered, but lumbering and shipping
was not considered in this evaluation.
Case Study II: Emergy Evaluation of Tree Nursery
Paliamara alstonia was introduced to Taiwan from other Southeast Asia countries in 1983.
After seedlings are planted, they usually take only four years to grow to a height of about three meters
in the nursery and can be transplanted for the purpose of landscaping in urbanized areas. After
Paliamara alstonia is transplanted it grows to a height of about ten meters or higher and it has aesthetic
appeal and provides good shade. Since it is only grown in the nursery for four years, the tree density
can be greater to allow for higher profits. However, it requires more care than silviculture in order to
maintain ideal growing conditions for trees. The human inputs are fertilizer, pest-control, plasticcovering, and labor. Figure 2 illustrates the systems diagram for this option. Only the planting and
growing processes were considered in the study. The harvesting and replanting processes were not
included in this case study.
Case III: Forest Caf
A forest caf system of one hectare located at the foothills of the Yang-Ming Mountains in
the Taipei suburbs was selected for this case study. In this case study, the caf occupies 0.1 hectares
and the tree nursery occupies about 0.4 hectares. The remainder of the forest caf is maintained in a
Figure 1. Systems diagram for the China fir tree farm in Taiwan.
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Figure 2. Systems diagram for the Paliamara alstonia tree nursery in Taiwan.
natural state. The trees in the caf area were transplanted from the tree nursery. The owner built
gazebos, pavilions, and a small pond, planted flowers, and decorated the caf area. The whole caf
area looks like a beautiful garden with nice shade trees. The caf is similar to other cafs providing
coffee, tea, and light meals. People also come to buy trees. Occasionally, since some caf customers
like the garden design of the caf area, they ask the owner to build gardens for them. Therefore, three
different kinds of businesses are run in this forest caf: the caf, the tree nursery, and the garden design
and construction business. The systems diagram of the forest caf is displayed in Figure 3.
Comparison of Emergy Indices

Emergy indices were computed to explore and compare the three forest activities. The
emergy indices were taken from Odum (1996) and Brown et al. (2000) and are defined as follows:
1. Emergy Yield Ratio (EYR): the ratio of the emergy yield to the sum of the input purchased
emergy and services.
2. Environmental Loading Ratio (ELR): the ratio of the input emergy, other than the
renewable resources, to the emergy of renewable resources.
3. Emergy Sustainability Index (ESI): the ratio between the emergy yield ratio and the
environmental loading ratio.
4. Investment Ratios: several ratios relate the economic contributions to environmental
contributions:
i) Nonrenewable/Renewable: the ratio of nonrenewable resources to renewable resources.
ii) Service/Free resources: the ratio between service and renewable (free) resources.
iii) Service/Resources: the ratio between service and resources (renewable and nonrenewable resources, without including service).

The emergy evaluation of the three case studies is shown in Table A.1, A.2, and A.3 in the
appendix. The calculated results of the emergy indices are shown in Table 1. The total emergy used
for the China fir system is 1.68 1017 sej per hectare for a 15-year growing period and the average
-491-
Seedling
Fertilizer
&
Pesticide
Goods &
Materials
Labor &
Service
Wind
Money
Garden Design
& Building
Tree
Nursery
Rain
Market
Cafe
Service
Sun
Garden
Figure 3. Systems diagram for the forest caf in Taiwan.
empower density per year is 1.12 1012 sej/m2/yr. The total emergy used for the Paliamara alstonia
tree nursery is 4.66 1016 sej per hectare for a 4-year growing period and the average empower density
per year is 1.17 1012 sej/m2/yr. The total emergy used per hectare for the forest caf is 8.15 1016 sej
in 2002, and the average empower density is 8.15 1012 sej/m2/yr. The empower density of the
lumber tree farm and tree nursery are very close, but that of the forest caf is around seven times
higher.
The emergy indices of the three case studies are listed in Table 1. The ELR of the forest caf
is the highest while the one of the silviculture system is lowest. On the other hand, the EYR of the
silviculture system is the highest and the EYR of the forest caf is the lowest. The ESI of the
silviculture is the highest and that of the forest caf is the lowest. The ratios between nonrenewable
and renewable resources showed that the forest caf used more nonrenewable resources than
renewable resources and the silviculture field and nursery used far fewer nonrenewable resources than
the forest caf. The ratios between service and renewable and non-renewable resources suggested that
the forest caf had more human service inputs than the other systems.
Huang et al. (2001) classified the Taipei area into six different energy zones: mixed-use urban
core, high urban residential, service and manufacturing urban district, agricultural district, newly
developed suburban district, and natural area. The empower densities of the three case studies were
between that of the newly developed suburban district (51.1 1012 sej/m2/yr) and the natural area (1.9
1012 sej/ m2/yr). Huang et al. (2001) also listed the empower density of forest area as 0.6 1012 sej/
m2/yr. The empower densities of the silviculture field and tree nursery differed little from the
empower density of the natural forest in the Taipei area. These two forest activities can be considered
a rural type of agriculture that mostly uses natural resources. The empower density of the forest caf
(8.15 1012 sej/ m2/yr) was between the empower density of the natural land zone (1.9 1012 sej/
m2/yr) and the newly developed suburban district zone (51.1 1012 sej/ m2/yr). This could be
explained by the fact that the forest caf is located near a natural park with very little development.
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Table 1. Emergy indices of the three case studies of forest economical activities in Taiwan.
Silviculture
Tree
Nursery
Forest cafe
1.12
0.010
25.881
258.81
0.006
0.035
0.034
1.17
0.079
13.667
173.00
0.026
0.053
0.052
8.15
6.547
1.152
0.176
6.547
2.881
0.617
Empower Density (1012 sej/m2/yr)

Emergy Yield Ratio
Sustainability Index
Nonrenewable / Renewable
Service / Free Resources
Service / Resources
The emergy utilization should, therefore, resemble more the natural land zone than the newly
developed suburban zone.
Jen (1992b) stated that Taiwanese forest policies have shifted from lumbering in the 1950s;
to balancing lumbering and conservation in 1960s; to multiple goals of long-term management of
conservation, lumbering efficiency, and forest recreation in 1970s; and finally to forest conservation
and forest restoration since the 1980s. The empower density of Taiwan also shifted as its main
economy grew. The empower density of Taiwan in 1960, 1970, 1980, 1987, and 1990 was 1.22
1012, 1.56 1012, 3.72 1012, 5.17 1012, and 5.94 1012 (sej/ m2/yr), respectively (Huang & Odum,
1991; Shih, 1991). The empower densities of silviculture and the tree nursery were lower than the
average empower density of Tawain in the 1960s, but the empower density of the forest caf was
higher than the empower density of Taiwan in 1990. Forest activities have gradually shifted in a
manner that matches the trend of the entire economy. Emergy utilization in forest activities has
increased along with the historical increase in emergy utilization of the economy.
CONCLUSIONS
The three forest activities in Taiwan, the silviculture field, the tree nursery, and the forest
caf, require different levels of human inputs and nonrenewable resources from outside the systems. It
is obvious that the forest caf requires far more human service and nonrenewable resources than the
others. Therefore, the forest caf has the lowest sustainability index, the lowest emergy yield ratio,
and the highest environmental loading ratio. Comparing the empower densities of different energy
zones in the Taipei area and those of Taiwan in different years showed that the forest activities have
shifted in a manner similar to shifts in the Taiwanese economy. Comparing the emergy density and
the locations of the forest cafe with those of the different zones in the great Taipei area, forest cafe
ranked between the natural lands and newly developed suburban area both in terms of spatial location
and empower density values.
REFERENCES
Brown, M. T., S. Brandi-Williams, D. Tilley, and S. Ulgiati, 2000. Emergy Synthesis: An
Introduction in Brown, M. T. ed. Emergy Synthesis: Theory and Applications of the Emergy
Methodology. University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, p. 1- 14.
Huang, S. L. and H. T. Odum. 1991. Ecology and Economy: Emergy Synthesis and Public Policy in
Taiwan. J. of Environmental Management 32: 313-333.
Huang, S. L., H. Y. Lai, and C. L. Lee. 2001. Energy Hierarchy and Urban Landscape System.
Landscape and Urban Planning 53:145-161.
-493-
Jen, I. A. 1984. An Economic Analysis on Planting China Fir (Cunninghamia Lanceolata (Lamb.)
Hook) in Taiwan. Forest Bulletin No.433, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, Taipei,
Taiwan. (In Chinese).
Jen, I. A. 1992a. Economic Analysis of Planting Paliamara Alstonia (Alstonia scholaris) in
Agricultural Land of Taiwan A Case Study. Bulletin Taiwan Forestry Research Institute
New Series 7(3):217-219. (In Chinese)
Jen, I. A. 1992b. The Changes of Taiwan Forestry Policies. Taiwan Forestry 18(8):2-4. (In Chinese)
Odum, H.T. 1996. Environmental Accounting Emergy and Environmental Decision Making. John
Willey & Sons, Inc., New York, US.
Shih, T. H. 1991. The Ecological Economics System Status and Changing in Taiwan. Master Thesis.
National Chung-Hsing University, Taiwan.
APPENDIX: TABLES OF THE EMERGY ANALYSIS

Table A.1. Emergy evaluation on a per hectare basis of the China fir tree farm in Taiwan for fifteen
years of operation (1984-1998).
Note
Item
Renewable
1
Sun (1984~1998)
2
Wind (1984~1998)
3
Rain, chemical (1984~1998)
Sub-total
Nonrenewable from outside
4
Fertilizer
N
P
K
5
Seeds (1984)
Sub-total
Service
6
Service
Labor (1984)
Labor (1985)
Labor (1986)
Labor (1987)
Labor (1988)
Sub-total
Total
Data
Units
Emergy/
Unit
(sej/unit)
Solar Emergy
(1013sej)
7.011014
2.131014
1.851012
J
J
J
1
623
15,444
70.05
13,269.90
2,861.00
16,200.95
8.00104
6.00104
4.00104
1.44104
g
g
g
NT$
1.86106
3.00106
1.01107
6.21010
0.01
0.02
0.04
89.28
89.35
3.19104
2.26104
1.93104
1.38104
9.90103
NT$
NT$
NT$
NT$
NT$
6.21010
5.91010
5.61010
5.31010
5.01010
197.78
133.34
108.08
73.14
49.50
561.84
16,852.14
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Table A.2. Emergy evaluation on a per hectare basis of the Paliamara alstonia (Alstonia scholaris)
tree nursery in Taiwan for four years of operation (1992-1995).
Note
Item
Renewable
1
Sun (1992~1995)
2
Wind (1992~1995)
3
Rain (chemical) (1992~1995)
Sub-total
4
Fertilizer
N
P
K
5
Seeds (1992)
6
Herbicide (1992~1994)
7
Plastic cloth (1992)
Sub-total
Service
8
Service
Labor (1992)
Labor (1993)
Labor (1994)
Labor (1995)
Sub-total
Total
Data
Units
Emergy/
Unit
(sej/unit)
Solar Emergy
(1013sej)
1.871014
5.681013
4.941011
J
J
J
1
623
15,444
18.68
3,538.46
762.93
4,320.25
3.20105
2.40105
1.60105
1.44104
7.00103
1.00104
g
g
g
NT$
NT$
NT$
1.86106
3.00106
1.01107
4.21010
4.21010
4.21010
0.06
0.07
0.16
40.48
29.40
42.00
112.07
4.14104
1.20104
7.68103
5.00103
NT$
NT$
NT$
NT$
4.21010
4.11010
4.01010
3.91011
173.88
4.92
30.72
19.50
229.02
4,661.34
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Table A.3. Emergy evaluation of one-hectare forest caf in Taiwan for one year of operation (2002).
Note
Item
Data
Units
Renewable
1
Sun
2
Wind
3
Rain (chemical)
4.671013
1.421013
1.241011
J
J
J
Sub-total
4
Soil
5
Seedlings
6
Fertilizer
N
P
K
7
Pesticide
8
Food
Vegetable
Rice
Coffee beans
Sugar
Utilities
Natural gas
Electricity
Other Goods
10
Sub-total
Service
11
Service
Labor (Self-hired)
Labor
Sub-total
Total
Emergy/Unit Solar Emergy

(1013sej)
(sej/unit)
1
623
15444
4.67
884.66
190.73
1,080.06
3.60106
2.51104
g
NT$
7.40104
3.301010
0.03
82.83
1.12105
8.40104
5.60104
1.06X105
g
g
g
1.86106
3.00106
1.01107
3.301010
0.02
0.03
0.06
392.20
2.93109
2.70104
7.92
1.15109
4.36109
3.521010
J
J
J
3.59104
2.00105
8.50104
4.13
87.2
299.20
5.591010
1.051011
3.11105
J
J
4.80104
1.59105
3.301010
268.24
1,667.91
1,148.85
3,958.62
7.91105
5.00104
NT$
NT$
3.301010
3.301010
2,926.70
185.00
3,111.72
8,150.40
-496-
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
39
Jaus National Park, Central Brazilian Amazon
Emergy and Socio-Environmental Assessment of Resident Riverine Population
Vito Comar
ABSTRACT
Jaus National Park, in the Central Brazilian Amazon, is the largest Brazilian National Park,
with an area of 22,720 km2. Established in 1986, it was designed to protect all the Jau River Basin,
draining on the Rio Negro River, an emissary of the Amazon. The main objective was to understand
the dynamics of the relationship between the resident human population and its natural resource use,
to produce a management plan and clear guidelines for the parks policies.
At the time of the assessment, in 1992, the park housed around 300 families, settled along the
main rivers. The emergy evaluation consisted of a flow diagram based on the main human activities
within the park, followed by emergy tables to calculate main emergy indices to better define settlers
relations to environmental resources. Field observations, local interviews and state government
records complemented survey statistics.
Results showed that settlers eat mainly fish and game for protein and complement their diet
with manioc flour, locally grown grains and fruits. Tending crops and making manioc flour are the
greatest emergy investments for the community, 21.7E17 sej/yr; compared to 1.4 E17 sej/yr of
produced flour, most of which they consumed. They combine this activity with: 1) extracting forest
products, 10.0 E17 sej/yr invested for a total collected of 7.0 E17 sej/yr, which are mostly sold; 2)
collecting fruits from forests or planted orchards, with almost no effort to 0.24 E17 sej/yr produced; 3)
fishing, 2.0 E17 sej/yr in effort for 14.7 E17 sej/yr; 4) hunting, also 2.0 E17 sej/yr invested, for 27.2
E17 sej/yr.
As there was evidence showing impact of illegal hunting and fishing, the greatest challenge
was maintaining these communities within the park area, which legally should not support any human
production or extraction activity.
Ways had to be found to change hunters and collectors into effective park rangers, to protect
the park from poachers and to be engaged as park guides. It was clear by the assessment that, even for
this small population, there was a progressive drain on natural resources and a loss of the parks
natural characteristics.
INTRODUCTION
Jaus National Park, in the Central Brazilian Amazon, is the largest Brazilian National Park,
with an area of 22,720 km2 (a rectangle of approximately 300 by 100 km, Figure 1 a and b).
Established in 1986, it was designed to protect all the Jau River Basin, draining on the Rio Negro
River, and for that reason it spread between the Paunini and the Unini Rivers limiting the park to the
North. Both are also emissaries of the Rio Negro. The Carabinani River limits the park on its Southern
side. At the time of the assessment, in 1992, the park housed around 300 families, settled along the
Jau, Paunini, Unini and Carabinani rivers. The assessment initiative came from the Vitoria Amazonica
Foundation, which had already carried out a demographic in survey the previous year, 1991.
-497-
Chapter 39. Jaus National Park
Figure 1. Location of Jas National Park in relation to the State of Amazonas, Brazil and the Rio Negro,
Central Amazon.
The Foundations main objective was to understand the dynamics of the relationship between
the resident human population and its natural resource use, to be able to produce a management plan
and clear guidelines for public policies for the park. A main question was how to maintain residents
within park boundaries when there was evidence showing impact of illegal hunting and fishing. This
clearly violates principles of the use of a national park and represented the greatest challenge in
balancing human development with sound management practices.
METHODS
The emergy evaluation started with the drawing of a flow diagram (Figure 2) based on the
main human activities within the park. These flows were then quantified by using emergy tables
(Tables 1 and 2), which incorporated field data based on site observations, survey statistics, local
interviews, and state government records. Flow quantities were then written into the flow diagram.
Emergy indices, derived from the emergy tables, assisted in evaluating the relationship between
settlers and their natural resource base, accounting for the exchanges in natural, or free energy inflows
and human-related efforts and inputs.
Figure 2 shows the three main producing sub-systems: a) forests, from whence locals obtained vines
and non-wood extractive products; b) settlers grown manioc fields; c) orchards dispersed within the
forest. Hunting and fishing were also very important activities for the local population, although, being
a National Park, it was difficult to obtain information on them and much of it had to be inferred. Goods
(mainly sugar, coffee, some foodstuff, batteries, remedies, gunpowder and ammunition, etc.) had to be
bought from riverboats monthly visits. These boats also left with locally extracted or produced goods
(a variety of natural vines, latex-rubber, manioc flour, etc.).
-498-
0.70
4260
2.00
10
FISHING
$ 12,378
22.7
Forest
Biomass
NATURAL
ENERGY
SOURCES
GOODS
GOODS
Regional
Forest
&PARK
Local
SETTLERS
Emerging
2.00
Institutions
42,600
27.20
21.70
HUNTING
CROPS
1.38
$ 113,510
Mandioc Crops
7.00
MARKETS
FRUITS
0.24
Fruits and Orchards
Flows in E17 sej/yr
JAU NATIONAL PARK
Figure 2. Jas National Park emergy flow diagram, showing the three production systems: 1) forest, 2) manioc
crops and 3) fruits and orchards, on which park dwellers depend for their livelihood; fishing and hunting
activities, that can be viewed as consumer functions in relation to the supporting production systems; and the park
settlers themselves, with their stock of goods, replenished by buying outside goods and services, exchanged for
their products.
RESULTS
Vines and non-wood extractive products accounted for 7E17 sej/yr and the received yearly
income was US$ 113,414, representing an income of US$ 378 per family per year. With this money,
the settlers bought US$ 12,378 worth of goods per year. Settlers ate mainly fish and game for protein
and complemented their diet with manioc flour, locally grown grains and fruits. We could not find
evidence on how the extra money, corresponding to a monthly family income of around $ 28, was
spent.
Tending crops and making manioc flour were the greatest emergy investments for the
community, 21.70 E17 sej/yr; compared to 1.38 E17 sej/yr of produced flour, most of which they
consumed, whilst some was sold. They combined this activity with extracting forest products, 10.00
E17 sej/yr invested for a production of 7.00 E17 sej/yr, which were mostly sold, collecting fruits in the
forests or planted orchards, almost no effort to 0.24 E17 sej/yr produced, and fishing, 2.00 E17 sej/yr
in effort for 14.70 E17 sej/yr and hunting, also 2.00 E17 sej/yr invested, for 27.20 E17 sej/yr, as
summarized in the table 3.
Fishing and hunting were very lucrative on an energy and emergy balance, as just 2.00 E17
sej/yr of fishing or hunting efforts resulted in large gains. Normally, fishing should be more
-499-

Table 1. Emergy evaluation of Jau's National Park, 1992.
Note
Item
Renewable Resources ( I )
1 Sunlight
2 Rain, chemical
Total Renewable
Indigenous Production ( NO )
3 Fishing
4 Hunting
5 Fruit orchards
6 Manioc plantations
Total Indigenous (in J)
Imports Bought ( G )
7 Sugar
8 Biscuits
9 Coffee
10 Lead shot
11 Diesel oil
12 Gun shots
13 Milk
14 Cooking oil
15 Batteries
16 Gunpowder
17 Soap
18 Salt
19 Clothing
20 Drugs for ailments
Total Imports Bought (in US$)
Applied Manpower ( N1 )
21 Forest extraction activities
22 Manioc production
23 Fishing and hunting
Total Applied Manpower (in J)
Direct Exports ( Y )
24 Rubber (tapped)
25 Sorva (plant)
26 Titica vine
27 Brazil nut
28 Copaiba oil
Total Exports Sold (in US$)
Values
Units
Transformity
(sej/unit)
Solar
Emergy
sej/yr
1.07E+20
2.84E+17
J
J
1
1.5E+04
1.07E+20
4.26E+21
4.26E+21
1.14E+12
1.36E+12
6.12E+11
1.45E+10
3.12E+12
J
J
J
J
2.0E+06
2.0E+06
4.0E+04
9.5E+04
2.27E+18
2.72E+18
2.45E+16
1.37E+15
5.02E+18
2.14E+03
6.46E+02
1.27E+03
8.35E+02
1.73E+02
5.18E+02
1.04E+03
5.87E+02
1.91E+03
2.83E+02
3.66E+02
5.10E+02
1.60E+03
5.00E+02
12,378.00
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
6.1E+12
6.1E+12
6.1E+12
6.1E+12
6.1E+12
6.1E+12
6.1E+12
6.1E+12
6.1E+12
6.1E+12
6.1E+12
6.1E+12
6.1E+12
6.1E+12
1.30E+16
3.93E+15
7.72E+15
5.08E+15
1.05E+15
3.15E+15
6.32E+15
3.57E+15
1.16E+16
1.72E+15
2.23E+15
3.10E+15
9.73E+15
3.04E+15
7.53E+16
2.51E+11
5.02E+11
9.55E+10
8.4897E+11
J
J
J
4.32E+06
4.32E+06
4.32E+06
1.09E+18
2.17E+18
4.13E+17
3.67E+18
6.14E+04
2.76E+04
1.49E+04
5.75E+03
3.86E+03
113,510.00
$
$
$
$
$
6.1E+12
6.1E+12
6.1E+12
6.1E+12
6.1E+12
3.73E+17
1.68E+17
9.06E+16
3.50E+16
2.35E+16
6.90E+17
Notes to Table 1:
1
Sunlight: (22720 km2)(E6 m/km2)(0.80)(140 kcal/cm2/yr)
(1E4 cm2/m2)(4186 J/kcal) =
2
Rain. chemical potential: (22720 km2)(1E6 m/km2)(2.5 m/yr)
-500-
1.07E+20 J/yr

(5 J/G)(1E6 g/m3)=
2.84E+17 J/yr
Fishing: (2.34 E8 g)(0.2 DW)(5.8 kcal/g)(4186 J/kcal)=
1.14E+12 J/yr
Hunting: (2.32 E8 g)(0.2 DW)(7 kcal/g)(4186 J/kcal)=
1.36E+12 J/yr
Fruits (1.17 E8 g)(0.25 DW)(5 kcal/g)(4186 J/kcal)=
6.12E+11 J/yr
Manioc crops: (2.88E8 g)(0.3 DW)(4 kcal/g)(4186 J/kcal)=
1.45E+10 J/yr
Price of acquired goods in US$.
Manpower - Extractive activities: (4 months/yr)(30 days/month)(200 people)
(2500 kcal/day)(4186 J/kcal)=
2.51E+11 J/yr
22
Manpower - Manioc: (4 months/yr)(30 days/month)(400 people)
5.02E+11 J/yr
23
Manpower - Fishing and hunting: (3/24 day)(365 days)(200 people)
9.55E+10 J/yr
24
Rubber (tapped). in US$
6.14E+04 J/yr
25
Sorva. in US$
2.76E+04 $/yr
26
Titica vine. in US$
1.49E+04 $/yr
27
Brazil nut. in US$
5.75E+03 $/yr
28
Copaiba oil. in US$
3.86E+03 $/yr
Obs.: Transformities for renewable resources are taken from Environmental Accounting - Emergy and
Environmental Decision Making (Odum, 1996); transformity for fishing and hunting taken from Odum, H.T., F.C.
Wang, I.F. Alexander, M. Gilliland. M.A. Miller, and J. Sendzimir. 1987. Energy Analysis of Environmental
Value. Center for Wetlands, University of Florida, Gainesville. 97 pp. (CFW-78-17); the emergy/money ratio of
6.1E12 sej/$ was calculated by the author in a Brazils national evaluation on 1985 census data; transformities for
Applied Manpower were calculated on the basis of human expended effort.
3
4
5
6
7-20
21
advantageous than hunting, but data was probably underestimated, because of settlers fear of being
punished by government authorities if the correct information had been given to researchers.
One of the most important findings that the assessment pointed to was the net advantage the
world outside the park was receiving from the settlers products, exactly 10 times more, from an
exported 7.00 E17 sej/yr, to a meager 0.70 E17 sej/yr in products bought.
The other insight was the impact of even a relatively small human population and its very low
density on local fauna (54% of all production) - even without considering illegal selling of animals,
figures for which could not be obtained - and the urgent need for a program of environmental
education that would enable authorities to convert traditional hunters into park husbandmen and
caretakers.
The emergy indices were consistent with a very small human population within a large
natural area of dense and diversified tropical forest. A low Net Emergy Yield Ratio (Table 2) of 0.18
suggests that for a certain yield, the invested human input was relatively high, resulting in a poor
performance. An extremely low Emergy Investment Ratio (Table 2) of 0.00088, reflects the high
natural resource contribution versus a relatively small human input. This argument is reinforced by the
Fraction of local renewable emergy used (Table 2) of 99.79% to overall emergy inputs. The same can
be said of the Fraction of purchased emergy used to all emergy inputs (Table 2) of 0.0018%.
The Emergy Use per Person, of 3.71E18 sej/person/yr, is high, due to the large territory
occupied by a very small population.
CONCLUSION
Settlers activities tended to concentrate where there was less effort for greater monetary
returns, such as in hunting and fishing and illegal selling of fish and game outside the park area. Thus,
even a small human population represented a great threat to biodiversity and natural conservation
practices. This drain of natural products couldnt be shown by the survey and consequently by the
-501-

Table 2. Summary of emergy indexes in Jau's National Park, 1992.
Letter
Y/F
F/I
R
NO
G
I+NO+G
U
F
(N0+N1+R)/U
G-Y
Y/G
R/ U
G/U
(R + NO) / U
U/ (area)
U/ (Population)
Fuels/Population
Item
Net Emergy Yield Ratio
Emergy Investment Ratio
Renewable emergy inflow
Non-renewable emergy storage
Flow of imported emergy
Total emergy inflow
Total Emergy use (NO+NI+I+G)
Total exported emergy
Fraction of emergy used from home sources
Imports minus exports
Ratio exports/imports
Fraction of local renewable emergy used
Fraction of purchased emergy used
Fraction of free emergy used
Fraction of emergy use per area
Emergy use per person
Dollars paid for imports
Quantity
0.184
0.00088
4.26E+21
5.02E+18
7.53E+16
4.27E+21
4.27E+21
6.90E+17
99.91
-7.65E+17
9.17
99.79
0.0018
99.91
1.88E+11
3.71E+18
9.15E+11
Units
sej/yr
sej/yr
sej/yr
sej/yr
sej/yr
sej/yr
sej/yr
%
sej/yr
%
%
sej/m2
sej/person/yr
sej/person/yr
Table 3. Emergy investment in productive or extractive activities.
Activity
Manioc production
Forest products extraction
Orchards fruit picking
Fishing
Hunting
Investment
in Activity
E17 Sej/yr
21.70
10.00
negligible
2.00
2.00
Total
Activity
%
61
28
6
6
Production in
E17 Sej/yr
Total
Production %
1.38
7.00
0.24
14.70
27.20
3
14
0.5
29
54
emergy evaluation, although it pointed out the vast differences in labor efforts between demanding
manioc production and extractive activities on one side, and hunting and fishing on the other.
Jas National Parks management plan should consider measures to turn local dwellers into
park defenders and guides through a program of environmental education that would enable authorities
to convert traditional hunters into park husbandmen and caretakers.
The other aspect which the emergy evaluation was able to point out was the net advantage the
world outside the park was receiving from the settlers products, a 10 to 1 ratio. This is analogous to
what happens to donor countries of the poor world, which sell primary products and receive almost
no value in return, whilst degrading their natural resource base and worsening their social condition.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Odum, H.T. 1996. Environmental Accounting - Emergy and Environmental Decision Making. John
Wiley & Sons. New York. 263 pp.
Odum, H.T. And E. Odum. 2001. The Prosperous Way Down.
Odum, H.T., F.C. Wang, I.F. Alexander, M. Gilliland. M.A. Miller, and J. Sendzimir. 1987. Energy
Analysis Of Environmental Value. Center for Wetlands, UF, Gainesville, FL. 97pp.
-502-
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
40
Emergy and Material Synthesis of an Agro-Forest Restoration
System in Lower Subtropical China
Shao-lin Peng, Hong-fang Lu, Zhi-an Li, and Ming-mao Ding
ABSTRACT
This article presents the results of a material and emergy flow synthesis for an agro-forest
restoration system, Acacia mangium forest - Citrus reticulata orchard - Pennisetum purpureum
grassland- fishpond, in lower subtropical China. Emergy analysis was done on system and subsystem
levels to clarify the structural and functional attributes of the restoration system for further
optimization. The results showed that the Emergy Sustainability Index (ESI) was very high (8.341) as a
result of a low environment load ratio (1.376) and highly efficient material and energy use on a system
level. At the subsystem level, the orchard and fish -pond were superior in terms of sustainable
development due to the fact that they benefited from natural run-off, silt deposition and support from
other subsystems. The ESI of the grassland subsystem was the least favorable for sustainable
development, in spite of the large inputs from natural run-off and silt deposits, because of high labor
input for grass harvest. The measurements on recycling of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium
and magnesium in the A. mangium forest subsystem demonstrated a good balance on all of the five
nutrient elements, even without any feedback reinforcement from other subsystems. There was even
some accumulation of the five nutrient elements in the soil pool of the A. mangium forest subsystem as
a result of the superior adaptability for sterility and the nitrogen-fixing capacity of A. mangium. The
results of emergy and material synthesis showed that the A. mangium forest-orchard-grassland-fish
pond system had great potential for sustainable development ecologically and economically, and also
yielded benefits to the social sector.
INTRODUCTION
The low subtropical zone of China refers to the areas on both sides of the Northern Tropic of
Cancer. It spans from Fujian, Guangdong, and Guangxi Provinces to Yunnan Province with an area of
250,000 km2, and is one of the most populated regions in China. In recent decades over-intensive
human activities, industrialization and urbanization, together with unreasonable development and
ignorance of protection and renovation have largely destroyed former natural ecosystems. It was
estimated in 1990 that China had approximately 1.5 million square kilometers of degraded lands The
low subtropical zone is a region with more serious degradation than average. More than 50% of the
soil in the low subtropical area is laterite, formed from the weathered crust of granite. Serious soil
erosion occurring after forest destruction is the major factor exacerbating the degradation of the
ecosystems. These ecosystems are characterized with impoverished soil, exhausted water sources and
deteriorating ecological environments. This condition limits development of agricultural production
and has grave impacts on the area of habitable land and quality of life for humans. Obviously,
-503-
Chapter 40. Emergy and Material Synthesis of an Agro-forest

restoration of vegetation is the key to enhancing regional productivity, improving the ecological
environment, ensuring sustainable use of resources and sustainable development of the economy.
Developed by the South China Institute of Botany, Academy of Science, the Acacia mangium
forest-orchard-grassland-fishpond mode was developed at the Heshan Hillside Open Station, in lower
subtropical China. Scientists introduced the ecological engineering theory of famous mulberry dikefishpond modes of China into restoration practices. The A. mangium forest-orchard-grassland-fishpond
agro-forest restoration mode has important benefits for both ecological restoration and the social
economy due to its high efficiency in energy and material use. Approved by local government and
farmers, this mode has been applied at the regional scale in the Pearl River Delta, in the lower
subtropical region of China.
Emergy analysis was done on system and subsystem levels to make clear the structural and
functional attributes of the restoration system for further optimization. Material balance of nitrogen,
phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium in the A. mangium forest subsystem was measured to
examine the natural feedbacks within the agro-forest restoration system.
LOCATION
Heshan Hillside Restoration Open Station of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) was
established in 1986 for the purpose of researching methods of sustainable restoration of degraded
areas. It is located in the city of Center Heshan in Guangdong province of South China (east longitude
1125315-1125400, north latitude 224007- 224107). Heshan station is located on a low hill
with an altitude less than 100 meters above sea level. The soil is laterite formed from the weathered
crust of granite (Yu & Peng 1996).
The A. mangium (big-leaf acacia) forest- Citrus reticulata (mandarin orange) orchardPennisetum purpureum (elephant grass) grassland-fishpond system is one of the restoration systems
used in the catchment area of Heshan station, which was originally covered with grassland vegetation.
In 1983 the leguminous plant A. mangium was planted on the top of the hill in an effort to restore
vegetative structure, decrease erosion and increase soil fertility. The C. reticulata was planted on the
hillside two years later to make full use of the fertile soil and runoff and silt deposits from the
mountaintop forest. Then a fishpond was built at the foot of the hill, and P. purpureum was planted in
the area between the fishpond and the orchard in 1986 to be used as feed for the pond fish. All of the
mud in the pond was harvested and applied to the orchard as fertilizer in December of each year. Fruit
and fish were sold at the market for economic benefits. The areas of forest, orchard, grassland and
fishpond are 1.3ha, 0.87ha, 0.29ha and 0.3ha respectively, with mean altitudes of 70m, 47.5m, 35m
and 25m, respectively. Figure 1 is a photograph of this system taken in the spring of 2002.
METHODS
Biomass
All of the A. mangium trees are marked and classified into 7 diameter classes according to
their Height (H) and Diameter at Breast Height (DBH). One tree in each diameter class and 3 trees in
average DBH (12-16cm) class were harvested for the measurement of their biomass and nutrient
content.
Litter and soil

Five litter traps and 5 palings, measuring 1m2, are installed in the A. mangium subsystem for
the collection and measurement of litter and its decomposition rate. The soil is classified into 7 levels
(0-10cm, 10-20cm, 20-30cm, 30-40cm, 40-50cm, 50-75cm, 75-100cm) according to their depth, for
the measurement of its nutrient composition.
-504-
Figure 1. Photograph of the agro-forest restoration mode in spring 2002.
Run-off
The rainfall data come from 5 rain gauges. Additionally, 15 rain gauges were installed to
measure the through fall under the A. mangium forest. Seven SL3 ombrometers and seven tubes were
installed to measure the stem flow and percolation. The surface run-off and silt deposition data were
obtained from run-off field and auto-calculating instruments. All of the above water was stored
separately for chemical analysis of nutrient concentrations.
Nutrient balance
Nitrogen content was measured by Automatic quikchem. Molybdenum blue method and
atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) were used to measure the content of exchangeable phosphorus,
potassium, calcium and magnesium.
Management
The background data of the system, such as the starting time of the four subsystems, the
output of the fruit and fish, and the service costs of the management of the whole system and its four
subsystems are taken from the history database of Heshan station.
Emergy evaluation
To evaluate both the environmental and economic states simultaneously, the feedback input
of the agro-forest restoration system was separated into general management input (F) and service for
harvest and moving (F1), and the output was separated into storage (S) and output (O). The Emergy
Output Ratio (EOR) was established as the quotient of emergy that was sold out to market (O) to the
sum of feedback input from market, F+F1, or other subsystems, F2, for the production process to
-505-

evaluate the economic efficiency of the system regarding output production. Simultaneously, the
Emergy Storage Ratio (ESR) was established as the quotient of emergy that was kept in the area, S, to
F+F1+F2, to evaluate the ecological efficiency of the system on environmental improving.
Main emergy evaluation indices, such as Emergy Yield Ratio (EYR), Environmental Loading
Ratio (ELR), Emergy Sustainability Index (ESI) and Emergy Exchange Ratio (EER), were also used to
evaluate the ecological economic efficiency, the environmental impact, the sustainable development
capacity, and the state of the system in the market.

Emergy Analysis of the Agro-Forest Restoration Ecosystem
Energy and matter flows of the agro-forest restoration system and its four subsystems were
converted into emergy units in an emergy evaluation table (Table 1), and then combined and calculated
in Table 2 and Figure 2. Based on that, emergy indices were expressed for the system and subsystem
levels at the same time in Table 3. Emergy Sustainable Index (ESI) of the forest-orchard-grasslandfishpond agro-forest restoration system is very high (8.341) as a result of its low Environmental
Loading Ratio (ELR=1.376) and high efficiency on material and energy use, on system level. The
main input of the orchard and fishpond subsystems are coming from natural run-off instead of
feedback input from human society, so that the output of fruit and fish to the market made the Emergy
Output Ratio (EOR) higher than 10. The Emergy Exchange Ratio (EER) is, however, only 0.655 for
oranges, 0.273 for the pond-fish, and 0.916 for the whole system. The main reason is that these
products were sold at the same price as other agricultural products that were produced with abundant
use of chemical fertilizer and pesticide. The economic benefit of this system will be increased with
improvements in ecological education and awareness of the value of high quality agriculture products.
With the maintenance of A. mangium forest and fruit trees on the hillside, the natural structure of the
vegetation was restored. Erosion decreased while biodiversity and soil fertility improved (Fu et al.
1995).
At the subsystem level, the ESI of the orchard reached 364.38, largely due to the large
reinforcement coming from the pond-mud feedback. With the fruit being sold in the market and the
fruit trees being maintained on the hillside, both the EOR and ESR of the orchard subsystem have
reached 14.29 and 18.09 respectively, while the ELR remains low (0.08).
The fishpond subsystem that was supported with natural run-off, silt deposition and grass
input has the lowest ELR on the subsystem level. As a result of its low ELR, its ESI was 10 times
higher than that of the A. mangium forest subsystem. The feedback of pond mud increased the fertility
of the soil in the orchard and improved the sustainability of the orchard subsystem significantly (Li et
al 1995b). The low EER (0.665) shows that there is great potential for the orchard to result in
economic benefits, considering the high demand for agricultural products produced without chemicals
inputs. Because of the large labor cost of cutting grass for fish breeding, the grassland subsystem
ranked lowest in terms of sustainable development, even though it had large material inputs from the
natural run-off and silt deposition. Despite this low ranking, the ESI was still greater than 1, placing it
on par with the systems of developing economies (Brown & Ulgiati 1997). To make full use of this
area and decrease labor input, some farmers introduced duck breeding. The ducks eat the grass without
human service and the manure is great feed for fish. Furthermore, the swimming action can improve
oxygen content in the pond water, which is good for fish breeding.
Because there was only a small human service input for management, the ESI of the A.
mangium forest subsystem is 19 times higher than that of the grassland subsystem. However, without
any feedback reinforcement from other subsystems, the sustainability of the A. mangium forest
subsystem is very low, when compared to the orchard and fishpond subsystems. This indicates that it
might be necessary to divert some of the pond mud to the forest subsystem to improve the
sustainability of the A. mangium forest subsystem.
-506-
Nutrient balance of A. mangium forest subsystem

The emergy graph of the agro-forest restoration system shows that there is no feedback to the
A. mangium forest subsystem from other subsystems or processes. Is it possible to have sustainable
growth of A. mangium on the barren hilltop without any feedback reinforcement? We studied the
nutrient cycle of the A. mangium forest and quantified in the graphic models the nutrient cycle of
nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium (Figure 3) (Li et al. 1995a,b; Ding et al.
1995).
Nitrogen Balance
The quantitative graph (Figure 3b) shows that nitrogen was accumulating both in the organic
matter layer and in the soil storage of the A. mangium forest subsystem. The main reason is that the
resorption quantity of nitrogen (80.3kg/ha.year) and the symbiotic association of N-fixing bacteria of
A. mangium (20.6kg/ha.year, calculated from the general biomass of nodule and its general
azotification activity) are large (Sanhuza 1982). The nitrogen supplied from resorption and fixation
meet 67.7% of the needs of A. mangium growth. At the same time, the nitrogen input from rainfall is
large and the output of nitrogen with run-off is small, such that the retention of external inputs of
nitrogen held by soil can account for 24.7% of the needs of A. mangium. The other 7.6% can be
supplied by decomposition of litter.
Phosphorus Balance
Phosphorus was also accumulating both in the organic matter layer and soil storage of the A.
mangium forest subsystem (Figure 3c). The resorption of phosphorus can supply 87.4% of the growth
needs of the tree. Combined with the quantity supplied by the decomposition of litter (about 44.7% of
the growth needs of the tree), the A. mangium forest subsystem does not appear to be limited by
phosphorus. There are even some phosphorus being accumulated in the soil pool and some supplied to
the orchard following run-off, solid deposition and other ecological processes.
Potassium Balance
The measurement (Figure 3d) shows that 49% of the potassium needs of A. mangium growth
can be supplied by rainfall. The effect of eluviations in the canopy is great for the cycle and balance of
potassium in the A. mangium forest subsystem. Internal recycling met 22.3% of the potassium needs of
A. mangium. The other 28.7% was obtained from the soil, because the potassium supplied by the
decomposition of litter was about 37.6% of the growth needs of the tree. Thus, both the organic matter
layer and soil storage of the A. mangium forest subsystem accumulate potassium.
Calcium balance
The rainfall and the decomposition of litter can meet 36.2% and 39.5% of the calcium needs
of A. mangium respectively (Figure 3e). The other 24.3% (21.5 kg/ha.year) is met by the exchangeable
calcium pool in the soil under the forest.
Magnesium balance
The quantitative graph (Figure 3f) shows that rainfall, resorption process of plant material and
decomposition of litter can meet 45.1%, 9.2% and 31.3% respectively of the magnesium needs of A.
mangium growth,. The effect of eluviation in the canopy is large for the cycle and balance of
magnesium in the A. mangium forest subsystem. Only 8% of the exchangeable magnesium from the
soil pool needs to be absorbed to meet the other 14.4% of the magnesium needs of A. mangium
growth.
The nutrient measurements show that the A. mangium forest subsystem can keep itself in
relative balance, which safeguards sustainable development of the whole restoration agro-forest
ecosystem, without any feedback enforcement from other subsystems or processes.
-507-
Rainfall
Symbiotic
Above ground
Canopy Resorption
Growth Immobilization
In biomass
Through fall Stem flow
Plant uptake
Below ground
Surface runoff Soil water
Litter
Percolation
47.6 20.6
86.2
80.3
27.6
33.8 4.0
1.0
Decomposition Organic Layer
5.6
Soil exchange
209.1
149.1
48.2
116.2
11.4 98.8
317.3
40.2
5.3
87.4
Exchangeable
Soil weathering
Soil pool
5223
1.0
11.3
4.8
9.0
4.1
0.6
65.3
10.3
0.5 0.1
0.02
26.9
1.3
4.6
0.8
0.6
5.0
1.1
17.9
64.2
d
2.4
42.1
-5.4
18.4
305.7
88.4
41.0
34.9
1.8
10.3
5.2
38.1
0.7
17.7
8.9
114
72.4
19.5
7.6 1.5
0.3
88.4
56.4
37.6
2.3
296
28.5 3.7
2.9
44.2
19.0
0.2
50.4
17.4
595
36.5
140.0
64.9
18.6
3.9
8.8
18.4
28.4 4.0
5.4
0.7
14.5
7.2
6.1
2.0
13.8
26.2
2.8
21.5
120
35
Figure 3. Nutrient element balance in the forest ecosystem of Acacia mangium (kg/hm2.a). a. Showing graph of
the nutrient element balance, b. Nitrogen balance, c. Phosphorus balance, d. Kalium balance, e. Calcium balance,
f. Magnesium balance.
-508-
-50987.24$
43.6$
174.4$
174.4$
174.4$
Orchard
9.93E+12
1.73E+15
3.65E+16
1.45E+16
8.66E+14 1.73E+15 1.73E+15
9.93E+12 4.33E+14 4.33E+14
9.66E+13 6.47E+13 4.87E+16
4.30E+11 2.44E+14 1.00E+13
3.76E+13 1.02E+17 5.32E+14
1.45E+16
3.65E+16
2.60E+15
2.60E+15
1.21E+14
3.78E+15
2.35E+14
Grassland Fish pond Whole system
Solar energy =areaannual solar radiation =Xm2(438800kcal/m2/yr)(4186J/kcal)

Chemical energy of rain =areaannual rainfalldensityGibbs number =Xm2(1.8011m/yr)(1000kg/m3)(4.94103J/kg)
c
Potential energy of rain = area annual rainfallaltitudedensityacceleration of gravity =Xm2YmZm (1000kg/m3)(9.8m/sec2)
d
Chemical energy of run-off =area annual run-off quantitydensityGibbs number =Xm2(1.8011m/yr)(1000kg/m3)(4.94103J/kg)
e
Potential energy of run-off = arear annual un-offaltitudedensityacceleration of gravity = Xm2YmZm
(1000kg/m3)(9.8m/sec2)
f
Energy of solid settlement = Solid settlement quantity per yearorganic percentGibbs number = X1g2.9% (2.26107J/kg)
1460.79$
Fish
3674.09$
Orange
BENEFIT FROM OUTPUT ON MARKET
Service for harvest and moving
43.6$
6.25E+04
Service for management
8.89E+03
1.55E+09f 1.03E+09f 7.78E+11f
Solid settlement
Forest
Solar emergy (sej/yr)
1.00E+00 5.70E+13 3.82E+13 1.32E+13 1.27E+13

1.54E+04 1.78E+15 1.19E+15 4.11E+14 3.97E+14
8.89E+03 1.43E+14 6.48E+13 1.65E+13 1.14E+13
4.84E+07e 2.75E+10e 1.13E+09e
1.21E+14a
2.46E+11b
2.65E+10c
Emergy/unit
(sej/unit)
1.54E+04
Grassland Fish pond
3.82E+13a 1.32E+13a 1.27E+13a

7.74E+10b 2.67E+10b 2.58E+10b
7.29E+09c 1.85E+09c 1.28E+09c
Orchard
Whole
system
2.44E+09d 6.62E+12d 3.45E+10d
Forest
Data (J, $)
INPUT
Sun light
5.70E+13a
Chemical energy of rain
1.16E+11b
Potential energy of rain
1.61E+10c
Chemical energy of run-off from other
system
Potential energy of run-off from other
subsystems
Item
Table 1. Emergy evaluation table of the agro-forest restoration system and its four subsystems.

Table 2. Emergy input and output of the agro-forest restoration mode and its four subsystems (sej/yr)
Item
Renewable input from sun, rain and wind (R)
Forest
Orchard
1.78E+15
1.19E+15 4.11E+14
Run-off input (R1) b
Fishpond Whole system g
Grassland
3.97E+14
3.78E+15
1.34E+14 6.79E+14
4.92E+16
4.33E+14
1.73E+15
2.60E+15
Service for harvest and moving (F1)
8.66E+14 1.73E+15
1.73E+15
2.60E+15
Artificial feedback from other subsystems (F2)
5.31E+16
5.31E+16
5.57E+16
1.45E+16
5.10E+16
Service for management (F) c
Output (O)
4.33E+14
5.57E+16 2.82E+15
Benefit from output on market (B)
3.65E+16
Storage (S) e
2.21E+15
5.49E+16
3.97E+15
2.21E+15 5.57E+16 2.82E+15 5.31E+16

5.79E+16
Yield (Y)
R=maxim of solar radiation emergy, wind emergy, rain chemical emergy, rain potential emergy and earth cycle emergy
=rain chemical emergy
b
R1=run-off input + silt deposition input
c
F = Total service cost
d
O=R+R1+F+F1+F2
e
S=R+R1+F+F2
f
Y=S+O Some part of output and storage came from the same input, thus the Y was not equal to the sum of S and
O in quantity (Figure 2)
g
The output and storage are larger than the input because of the feedback reinforcement in the mode.
a
4.33
17.8
22.1
1.34
Forest
8.66
531
17.3
549
11.9
17.3
Fruit
4.11
Sun
Rain
Services
4.33
3.97
557
6.79
Grass
520
Fish
531
1014sej/a
Figure 2. Energy systems diagram and annual emergy flows of the agro-forest restoration ecosystem.
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Table 3. Indices for the emergy evaluation of the agro-forest restoration system.
Index
Emergy Output Ratio
(EOR)
Emergy Storage Ratio
(ESR)
Emergy Yield Ratio
(EYR)
Ratio (ELR)
Emergy Sustainable Index
(ESI)
Emergy Exchange Ratio
(EER)
a
Brown and Ulgiati, 1997
Function
Forest
O/(F+F1+F2)
Orchard
Grassland
14.292
1.630
Fishpond
15.334
Whole
system
10.712
S/(F+F1)
5.104
18.087
Y/(F+F1+F2)
5.104
18.387
1.630
15.334
11.133
(F+F1+F2)/(R+R1)
0.243
0.075
1.587
0.070
1.376
20.981
376.965
1.027
219.804
8.341
0.273
0.916
EYR/ELR a
B/O
0.655
1.527
In summary, the ESI of the agro-forest restoration system is very high (8.341) as a result of its
low ELR (1.376) and high efficiency on material and energy use, on a system level. At the subsystem
level, the orchard and fishpond subsystems are superior for sustainable development, benefit from
natural run-off, silt deposition and supports from other subsystems. The ESI of the grassland
subsystem is the least favorable for sustainable development because of the large labor input for grass
harvesting, in spite of the large inputs from natural runoff and silt deposition. The material
measurement of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium in the A. mangium forest
subsystem shows that the A. mangium forest subsystem is in good balance on all of the five nutrient
elements, even without any feedback reinforcement from other subsystems. There is even some
accumulation of the five nutrient elements in the soil pool of the A. mangium forest subsystem, as a
result of the nitrogen-fixing capacity of the symbiotic nitrogen fixing bacterium of A. mangium.
Improved by local government and farmers, this agro-forest restoration mode and its
variations have been extended to all of the hillsides in the Pearl River Delta at a regional scale. The
application of these restoration modes has dramatically increased local employment options and
improved both socio-economic conditions and vegetation restoration. The introduction of some new
subsystems into the grassland and fishpond area, such as duck and pig-breeding, make full use of local
abundant and cheap labor sources and provide more economic benefits. These breeding subsystems
improved the efficiency of material and energy use of the restoration system. The animal excrement
served both as good fertilizer for the soil under the grass and good feed for fish. Finally, the
sustainability of the modes, especially of the grassland and fishpond subsystems, was improved
dramatically. Some superior fish species were introduced into the ponds by local farmers, such as
Siniperca chuatsi B., which significantly improved the economic benefit of the fishpond subsystem
(Lu et al. 2002a,b). In Heshan city, the economic benefit percent of these agro-forest modes in
agriculture has raised from 30% to 84%. The total economic benefits for these modes increased to
RMB3.346 billion between 1989 and 1996. The economic output/input ratio was higher than 5. The
beneficial trends of this mode and its modified extensions continue in the region at the present time.
CONCLUSION
Introducing corresponding principles of ecological engineering, energy hierarchy and
reinforce control, to improve the efficiency in the use of material and energy can produce both
ecological and economic benefits. In some poor places, people find it difficult to make a living as a
result of the degraded environment, and are not able to allocate economic resources for vegetation
restoration. Therefore, the agro-forest restoration mode and some of its variations may be the only way
-511-

they can improve the environmental conditions. The success of the A. mangium forest-orchardgrassland-fishpond restoration agro-forest mode and its variations in the Heshan hillside restoration
station provides a model for vegetation restoration in other places, specifically for subtropical hillside
areas.
Some of the processes that have co-products provide ecological benefits, while others provide
economic benefits. These processes should be introduced into restoration projects to improve the
feasibility of restoration, especially in under developed areas. In this case both the orchard and
fishpond subsystems have co-products, and provide great ecological and economic benefit at the same
time. The other two subsystems do not provide the same level of benefits. After environmental
improvement, some element should be introduced to provide economic benefits for local poor people
in order to increase motivation to restore other degraded hillsides. For the grass subsystem, some other
elements, such as duck breeding, should be introduced to decrease the human service input and
improve the ecological benefit.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The study is supported by the Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(30270282, 30170147, 30070146), The Knowledge Innovation Program of CAS (No. KZCX2-407),
Guangdong Group Project (003031) and Director Foundation of South China Institution of Botany,
CAS.
REFERENCES
Brown, M.T. and S. Ulgiati. 1997. Emergy-based indices and rations to evaluate sustainability:
monitoring economies and technology toward environmentally sound innovation. Ecological
Engineering 9:51-69.
Ding, M. M., S. L. Peng, Z. Y. Yu, Z. A. Li, and W. Fang. 1995. Nutrient cycling in a complex
ecosystem of forest, orchard, grass land and fish pond in Heshan, Guangdong. Acta Ecologica
Sinica 15(A): 82-92.
Fu, S. L., W. M. Yi, M. M. Ding, and Z. Y. Yu. 1995. Nutrient dynamics of soil microbes for the
ecosystems of forest, orchard, grassland and fish ponds. Acta Ecologica Sinica 15(A):148-155.
Li, Z.A., M. M. Ding, W. Fang, W., H. Wong, and X. A. Cai. 1995a. The nutrient storage and
distribution in artificial A. mangium forest. Acta Ecologica Sinica 15(A): 103-114.
Li, Z. A., W. Fang, and D. M. Lu. 1995b. Physical and chemical properties of soils in Heshan hilly
land. Acta Ecologica Sinica 15(A):93-102.
Lu, H.F., S.F. Lan, F. P. Chen, and S. L. Peng. 2002a. Emergy Study on Dike-Pond Eco-agricultural
Engineering Modes. Transactions of the CSAE 18(5): 145-150.
Lu H.F., S. F. Lan, L. Li, and S. L. Peng. 2002b. Emergy Indices for the evaluation of systems
sustainable development ability. China Environmental Science 22(4): 380-384.
Odum, H.T.. 1996. Environmental Accounting: Emergy and Decision Making. John wiley & sons,
New York.
Sanhuza, E.. 1982. The role of atmosphere in nitrogen cycling. Plant and Soil, 67:61-71.
Sui, C.H., and S. F. Lan. 2001. Emergy analysis of Guangzhou urban ecosystem. Chongqing
Environmental Sciences 23(5): 4-6, 23.
Yu, Z.Y. and S. L. Peng. 1996. Ecological Studies on Vegetation Rehabilitation of Tropical and Subtropical
Degraded Ecosystems. Guangzhou: Guangdong Science & Technology Press.
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EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
41
The Use of Emergy Indices in the Environmental
Certification of a Territory
Roberto Ridolfi, Valentina Niccolucci, Riccardo M. Pulselli, and Simone Bastianoni
ABSTRACT
The SPIn-Eco project aims to evaluate the environmental sustainability of the territory within
the province of Siena, Italy. The most important goal of this study is to achieve in-depth knowledge of
the state of this territory in order to provide important information to policy makers for management
and planning activities.
Environmental sustainability is investigated through extensive research based on a set of
environmental tools including: ecological footprint analysis, exergy analysis, emergy evaluation,
greenhouse gas inventory, remote sensing data analysis and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Emergy
evaluation is used as the principal conceptual tool in order to acquire a deeper understanding of the
state of the environment.
Environmental certification ISO 14001 (International Standard Organization) has been
carried out while EMAS (Environmental Management and Audit Scheme) is in progress. In order to
obtain environmental certification it was necessary to identify relevant aspects and impact factors and
to outline an environmental program. Environmental certification requires calculating the
environmental performance of the system. While it is always possible to re-calculate the emergy
indices, it is not easy to assign an appropriate interpretation to their variation. In order to improve the
comprehension of emergy index variations, we have formulated a graphical representation using
Cartesian axes.
We have graphically decomposed each emergy index along Cartesian axes by labelling the
variables of the indices considered as x and y (for example, for the Environmental Loading Ratio
[ELR] we plotted [N+F] on the y axis, and [R] on the x axis). This graphic method allows us to
enhance the information from the variation of the whole indicators considering, at the same time, the
modification of its single variables. In fact, if the amount of renewable and non-renewable resources
used increases by the same percentage, the value of the index is the same as the initial one. Thus the
evaluation of the index does not provide for differentiation between two different states of the system.
Our graphic method conserves such information and is, therefore, more suited to following the
variations in the environmental performance of the system.
INTRODUCTION
Organizations that intend to obtain environmental certification of conformity to the
international standard ISO 14001 (UNI EN ISO 14001, 1997) and the European EMAS regulations
(Regulation (EC) no 761/2001) are required to evaluate their environmental performance and
demonstrate its ongoing improvement in accordance with sustainable development principles.
Therefore, obtaining and maintaining environmental certification requires the application of
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Chapter 41. The Use of Emergy Indices
methodologies to monitor a systems environmental performance over time. EMAS suggests adopting
indicators to measure the evolution of the organizations environmental status.
When dealing with complex territorial systems, common indicators (i.e. analytical pollution
measures) are not sufficient to address all the environmental aspects involved. Macro indicators
capable of evaluating the global environmental performance of a system are needed. A growing need
has been felt to create instruments capable of monitoring more sensitive phenomena and elaborating
more complex and meaningful information with greater portent than the usual stress, state and response
data.
There is a considerable risk of creating confusion or at least of improperly applying indicators
for describing and measuring environmental quality with those for describing and measuring
sustainability. This is clear from the fact that a sustainable city is not simply a city with a relatively
high GNP or a clean city, i.e., a place where there is a low level of pro-capita carbon monoxide
emission or a low level of per-capita waste production.
Among the various definitions of sustainable development, when seeking a quantification of
this concept, two principles attributed to Daly (1990) are fundamental: 1) resources should be used at a
rate that allows their re-formation (sustainable yield), 2) wastes should be produced at a rate which
allows the environment to absorb them.
The SPIn-Eco project is an ambitious three-year research program whose purpose is to assess
the sustainability of human activities in the province of Siena, Italy and in all its 36 municipalities by
means of a variety of approaches. The methodologies used in the project include: ecological footprint
analysis (Wackernagel and Rees, 1996), exergy analysis (Wall, 1990; Sciubba, 1995), emergy
evaluation (Odum, 1996, 1988), natural capital and ecosystem services accounting (Costanza et al.,
1997), greenhouse gas inventory (IPPC, 1996), remote sensing data analysis (Schowengerdt, 1997) and
Life Cycle Assessment LCA (UNI EN ISO 14040, 1997). Among all the environmental methodologies
we present emergy evaluation (and the associated indices) as the principal conceptual tool in follow the
systems variations regarding sustainability.
CASE STUDY
The province of Siena (252,972 inhabitants in 1999) covers an area of 31,821 km2 in the heart
of Tuscany, Italy. The region has a mild climate and prosperous agricultural sector, especially for wine
and olive oil production. Some of the most renowned Italian wines (e.g., Chianti, Brunello, Nobile di
Montepulciano) are produced here.
Its economy is based on services, high-value-added agriculture and manufacturing. Tourism is
also one of the most important economic activities of the province, both for the artistic city of Siena
and for its countryside, where eco-tourism is common. Heavy industry is not present, but there are
some small to medium sized industries, for example, in the field of crystal and furniture
manufacturing. Its low population density and the attention dedicated to natural and historical
resources make this province an example of diverse development, as stated in the OECD report
(OECD, 2002). The province of Siena is thus a complex system with a wide variety of activities and
the administration undertakes a number of tasks and services to inform citizens of the potential
environmental effects of these activities.
The aim of the project is to understand to what extent this province is not only clean,
relatively rich and (as many say) beautiful, but also sustainable according to the definition given
above. Another important aspect is the diversification of the analysis for the 36 municipalities that
make up the province, as this may present different characteristics with respect to provincial averages.
This fact will lead to the construction of sustainability maps able to help policy makers identify
causes of environmental stress and critical areas requiring intervention. These maps will be compared
with the results of satellites data (remote sensing) analysis.
One of the main characteristics of this project is that these analyses have been included as the
basis of the procedure for ISO 14001 and EMAS certification. In order to attain environmental
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certification (ISO 14001 and EMAS) it is essential to identify a set of indicators to monitor over time
as a test of the environmental performance of the system under consideration. Of the various possible
indicators, emergetic indicators seem to serve our purposes most effectively.
METHODS
Emergy evaluation offers the undeniable advantage of considering all the resources involved
in sustaining a system, including those of natural origin normally not accounted for in traditional
analytical approaches because they are perceived to be offered free of charge by the surrounding
environment. The resources used by the system are conventionally grouped into two types, depending
on their origin and replacement rate: group F comprises resources imported from outside the system,
while group L refers to those of local origin. This group may be further subdivided into subgroup R for
renewable local resources and N for non-renewable local resources. Emergy indices relate these
various resources to sustainability evaluation of the territory by emphasizing the consequences of the
use of the resources.
The resulting sustainability indicators are reliable measures for defining the current condition
of a particular system and for identifying potential critical areas. The main emergy indicators include:
The Environmental Loading Ratio [ELR=(N+F)/R]: this is the ratio between non-renewable
resources (irrespective of their origin) and renewable resources. When this ratio is high,
there is clearly a great strain on the surrounding environment, since the local cycles are
overburdened in the sense that a great quantity of non-renewable resources are being
consumed.
Emergy Density [ED=(N+F+R)/area]: this is a measure of the spatial concentration of
emergy within a given territory. When this value is high, it means that territorial limitations
hamper the future economic growth of the system. However, this does not preclude ulterior
development of the system that would be possible if there were a more efficient use of
resources and available space.
Emergy per capita [(N+F+R)/population]: this is the ratio between the total emergy fuelling
the system divided by the population. It is an indicator of individual contribution to the
sustainability or unsustainability of a system.
Evaluating environmental performance, that is, analyzing the performance of emergetic

indicators over time, is all but direct. Moreover, emergetic indicators (emergy per capita and the
Environmental Loading Ratio) often express a relationship between two independent variables. Thus
the same indicators may be obtained using different values for the two variables in consideration. We
might consider for example the Environmental Loading Ratio, which expresses the relationship
between the use of non-renewable and renewable resources within the system. It is possible for the two
variables to vary in equal measure. If the two parameters (renewable and non-renewable resources) are
doubled or halved, the Environmental Loading Ratio remains unchanged. Therefore, an evaluation of
environmental performance based solely on the value of this indicator may prove inconclusive and fail
to reveal the basic problem. It is, therefore, necessary to adopt an approach capable of simultaneously
measuring both the value of the indicator and the variations brought about by the independent variables
that give rise to it.

When comparing different systems it is possible to obtain the same outcome for an indicator
whenever the numerator and denominator considered are multiplied by the same quantity. This leads to
a loss of information whenever a synthetic indicator (i.e., synthesizing two independent variables,
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the numerator and denominator) is used. In order to overcome this problem, we may simply use a
Cartesian diagram to represent the variables, with the y axis illustrating the numerator quantity and the
x axis illustrating the denominator quantity. In this way equal values for the synthetic index line up on
the same line passing through the origin (see Figure 1). The angular coefficient of the line increases
along with the value of the synthetic indicator.
When analyzing the same system over time, a graphic representation of the fluctuations of the
numerator and denominator variables comprising the indicator becomes even more meaningful. The
relative Cartesian graphic representation does not present the absolute values of the two values
considered, but simply their variations with respect to their initial values.
This method is applicable to every emergy index that is formed by a ratio of two variables.
We have chosen one in particular, the Environmental Loading Ratio to show this. This indicator is
graphically broken down into its two variables (N+F) and R, which embody, respectively, the ordinate
(or y coordinate) and the abscissa (or x coordinate), whose percentage variations are represented by:
var%(R) =
R1 R0
R0
Equation (1)
where R1 and R0 are the values of the emergy in renewable resources at reading 0 and reading 1. In this
way the value obtained from the first emergetic analysis (reading 0) represents the center of the axes.
By drawing bisectors at a 45 angle we are able to divide the Cartesian diagram into eight sectors. The
variations of the Environmental Loading Ratio over time will fall within or at the margin of each of
these eight areas. Therefore, a given position on the Cartesian diagram may be considered to act as an
indicator of the environmental performance of the system in question. In Figure 2 along the bisector t1
are represented the states where the system has the same value of indicator. Moreover, certain
observations can be made regarding the ELR:
Case 1 (Quadrant 1): In this quadrant we observe an increase in the use of renewable resources,
but also in the use of non-renewable resources. This means that the system is geared toward the use of
products originating from renewable manufacture. However, it has also witnessed an increase in the
consumption of non-renewable resources. Such a trend is typical in all industrialized nations with a
responsible outlook toward renewable resource consumption and an economic policy geared toward
ever-increasing consumption. In such cases a concerted effort must be made to stabilize resource
consumption. If the variation is over t1 (point a), the variable (N+F) is increased more than R and vice
versa if the variation is under t1.
numerator
(N + F)
index3 > index2 > index1

3 > 2 > 1
3
1
denominator
(R)
Figure 1. Graphic representation of emergy indices for different systems.
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var%
(N+F)
t1
1
t2
var%
(R)
Figure 2. Graphic representation of the ELR variation over the time.
Case 2 (Quadrant 2): In this quadrant the quantity of renewable resources consumed is in decline
while the quantities represented by (N+F) are stable or increasing. This means that the system has
reduced the quantity of emergy consumed by renewable sources and has instead increased the emergy
consumed by non-renewable resources. The systems sustainability is diminished because its ELR has
increased. If the ELR variation is over t2 (point b), the quantity (N+F) increased much more than the
decrease of R, if it is under t2, (N+F) increased less than the decrease of R.
Case 3 (Quadrant 3): Here we observe a simultaneous reduction of renewable and non-renewable
resources. This unlikely situation would imply a decreasing availability of renewable resources (an
easy example is a period with a total lack of rain) and a reduction of non-renewable resources
consumed. A decrease in the consumption of non-renewable resources might be due to their more
efficient use and to a dematerialization of the economy or to a drop in consumption by the population
as a result of its weakened economic condition. If the ELR is over t1 (point c), the decrease of (N+F) is
greater than that of R and vice versa if it is under t1.
Case 4 (Quadrant 4): This quadrant represents the best possible situation, with an increase or
stabilization of renewable resources accompanied by a reduction of non-renewable resources. The
system is gradually moving toward sustainability. If the ELR is over t2 (point d), the decrease in (N+F)
is smaller than the increase of R, if it is under t2, (N+F) is decreased more than the increase of R.
CONCLUSIONS
ISO 14001 and EMAS certification require ongoing monitoring of environmental
performance through the identification of a series of macro-parameters capable of illustrating aspects
that are pertinent to the sustainability of the system. The indicators chosen for the certification are
principally based on the thermodynamic function known as emergy. The advantage of this
methodology is that all flows of energy and matter sustaining the territorial system are accounted for
and included in a single common denominator.
The graphic method we propose makes it possible to take complete advantage of the
information contained in the various components of the emergetic indicators by making use of the
information contained both in the emergetic indicators themselves, as well as in their component
variables. This method may be used to compare systems (see Figure 1) as well as to check the state of
the system in terms of its sustainability (see Figure 2). With this approach we may simultaneously
enjoy an overview of the territory considered and investigate the causes of recent changes. We may
-517-
also perceive different conditions in the system that produce the same values for an index (e.g. ELR)
through different combinations of independent variables. The method proposed is a useful tool for
policy-makers who may verify the effectiveness of past decisions and subsequently plan future policy.
REFERENCES
Campbell, D.E. 1998. Emergy analysis of human carrying capacity and regional sustainability: An
example using the State of Maine. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 51: 531-569.
Costanza R., dArge, R., de Groot, R., Farber, S., Grasso, M., Hannon, B., Limburg, K., Naeem, S.,
ONeill, R., Paruelo, J., Raskin, R.G., Sutton, P., Van del Belt, M., 1997. The value of the
world ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature, 387: 253-260.
Daly, H.E., 1990. Toward some operational principles of sustainable development. Ecological
Economics, 2: 1-6.
IPCC, 1996. Greenhouse Gas Inventory. Reporting Instructions, 1996 (revised). IPCC,
Intergovernamental Panel on Climate Change, 1,2,3.
Odum, H.T., 1988. Self organisation, transformity and information. Science, 242: 1132-1139.
OECD, Territorial Reviews. Siena, Italy, 2002.
Panzieri, M., Porcelli, M., and Marchettini, N., 2002. Thermodynamic indicators for environmental
certification. Annali di Chimica, 92: 875-885.
Regulation (EC) no 761/2001 of the european parliament and of the council, EMAS (Environmental
Management and Audit Scheme) n.761, 2001.
Schowengerdt R. A., 1997. Remote sensing second edition: Models and methods for image processing.
Academic Press.
Sciubba, E., 1995. Modelling the energetic and exergetic self-sustainablility of soceties with different
structures. J.Eng. Res. Techn. 117, n.6: 75-86.
UNI EN ISO 14001, 1997. Environmental management systems, specification with guidance for use.
Geneva Switzerland: ISO/TC 207.
UNI EN ISO 14040, 1997. Environmental management, Life Cycle Assessment, principles and
framework, Geneva Switzerland: ISO/TC 207.
Wackernagel, M., Rees, W, 1996. The ecological footprint: Reducing human impact on the earth. New
Society, Gabriola Island, BC, Canada.
Wall G., 1990. Exergy conversion in the Japanese society. Energy, 15: 435-444.
-518-
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
42
Emergy Analysis of the Salt Production Process at the Seovlje
Saltpans, Slovenia
Jana Babi
ABSTRACT
We evaluated a salt production process driven by solar energy by means of the emergy
analysis method.
The salt production process in the Seovlje saltpans represents one of the last examples of a
vanishing traditional method in Europe. Seovlje saltpans were operating until approximately 1960 on
an area of about 700 ha. The investigated area belongs to the Seovlje Museum of Salt Making, which
is part of a natural preserve.
Seawater flows through a series of shallow basins and becomes more and more concentrated
due to solar driven evaporation. Salt is manually collected and carried away approximately every
other day during favorable weather conditions. It is white and clear due to the special algal mat on the
bottom of the crystallization basins. As a consequence, no further purification is needed. These process
characteristics enable the salt to have a more pleasing, less bitter taste compared to industrially
produced salt or to salt that is harvested only once a year. Energy for the evaporation comes from sun
radiation and wind, whereas labor, gravity and wind serve for brine decantation and pumping.
A two-week period of salt-producing process was monitored, accounting for all inputs and
outputs of energy, matter and labor. Influences of environmental conditions on the evaporation rate
were also investigated. Calculations of emergy transformation ratios (solar transformities and specific
emergies) were done and sustainability indicators were calculated. A brief comparison to industrial
processes, which use fossil fuels for water evaporation, was also performed.
INTRODUCTION
Exponential rise of knowledge causes deep changes in technology as well as extensive
changes in landscape. Values and worths are changing, old methodologies and knowledge are
gradually dismissed and forgotten. Resource use changes as well, affecting the overall sustainability of
a process, a sector, or a landscape. We investigate here the resource use for salt production by means
of both a fully natural technology driven by solar energy and industrial technologies based on fossil
fuels.
Salt or halite (NaCl) is an abundant resource on the planet and it is currently produced by
means of thermal desalination or by rocksalt mining. Past ways of producing salt were quite different.
We analyze the solar-driven evaporation process for salt production as it was done in our country for
centuries, before modern alternative techniques based on fossil fuels were introduced. Emergy analysis
is used for this investigation. Since the process relies significantly on labor and primary environmental
sources like sun, wind and seawater, which are generally neglected in conventional energy and matter
assessments, the emergy analysis method seems to be most suitable for the investigated case study, in
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Chapter 42. Emergy Analysis of the Salt Production Process...
order to highlight the most relevant aspects of solar-driven compared to fossil-fuel-powered

production.
CASE STUDY: SEOVLJE SALTPANS

Description of the Area
Slovenia is a country characterized by very high biodiversity, among the highest in Europe.
One of its most important and interesting regions from an ecological point of view is the Seovlje
saltpans area, located in the southwestern part of the state, near the Croatian border. It is protected as a
cultural, ethnological and regional park according to the Ramsar Convention.
The Seovlje saltpans were first mentioned in the middle of 13th century. They were
established on a flat salty marsh. The marly and clayey grounding assures impermeability even for
highly concentrated brine (Pahor and Poberaj, 1963).
Due to the importance of salt, the saltpans had a significant role in the social, economic and
cultural life of the coast. At the beginning of the 19th century there were over 4000 independent salt
producing units and 440 houses. The saltpans operation ended in the 60s, when transport of the salt
from Africa proved to be cheaper (agar, 1991).
The northern part, named Lera, is still operating in a traditional, only slightly modified way.
Modifications include much larger basins, and use of motor pumps instead of wind-pumps. Other areas
are mostly abandoned and they are an important waterfowl reservoir. The only exception is a small,
approximately 15-year-old museum in the southern part of the region (agar, 1991). Its personnel try
to maintain the memory of the old, wholly traditional process of salt production. They allowed our
research to take place during the peak season 2003.
In the northern part of the Adriatic Sea rainfall is more abundant than would be ideal for the
solar salt production (on average 1050 mm per year, 97 mm per month during summer). During the
past centuries a method was developed, in order to allow sufficient production despite this climate.
Daily collection of salt, reservoirs for storage of highly concentrated brine during rain, shallow brine
and regular adjustment of its depth and salinity were the most important adaptations. The average
production of salt was 4,5-6 kg/m2 per year (agar, 1991).
Salt Production Process

According to Pahor and Poberaj (1963), agar (1991), personal interaction with salt-workers
and personal experience in the field we obtained an overview of the saltpans operation. A complex
system of inflowing and outflowing channels, dams, and manually regulated wooden gates brings
seawater to all parts of saltpans. Most saltpans are slightly under the seawater level and saltwater can
flow into the basins due to gravity when needed. The first four subsequent basins constitute the
evaporation stage of the process. To enable optimal evaporation the basins are shallow and even. Each
basin receives more concentrated brine from the previous one and its volume is suitably smaller.
During favorable weather water is retained for approximately one day in each of them.
When the brine reaches the desired salinity it is allowed to flow to the next stage, for the
crystallization steps. In pre-crystallization basins the salinity of brine increases almost to the saturation
point, then it is allowed to flow to the last series of basins, for the actual crystallization process. The
crystallization basins are carefully prepared and managed. A special algal mat on the bottom assures a
firm barrier to the soil. It enables the salt to be clean, so that no further cleaning is necessary. This
layer is up to 10 mm thick and it is made out of cyanobacteria and gypsum. It is bred during winter,
together with other maintenance operations.
Some steps require brine to be lifted to higher levels. A typical, wind-powered wooden pump
with linen sails is sufficient for this work. When the weather is appropriate for rapid evaporation, there
-520-
is a constant and strong wind blowing from the sea throughout the day. This allows the pump to work
sufficiently and reliably. In fact, the wind-pump met all the needs during the time we monitored the
process. However, when workers need to speed the process up, a motor pump is also used.
To summarize, our unit of saltpan is composed of two parallel sequences of basins (Figure 1).
In each of them there are 33 basins: four subsequent basins form the evaporation stage, followed by
one deeper basin for storage. Then, the wind-pump raises the brine from the storage basin to a level
about 0.4 m higher. This allows brine to flow into the crystallization stage, composed of a series of 14
pre-crystallization basins, and finally to the series of 14 crystallization basins. Dimensions are given in
Appendix B.
In the past highly concentrated brine was stored in special small basins during the rain. Now
the brine is poured into the outflowing channel after heavier showers because the mixture of rainwater
and concentrated brine could harm the algal mat.
As the concentration of the halite exceeds saturation, the halite begins to crystallize. As soon
as the layer of the salt is thick enough it is collected with special scrapers and stored in heaps. Then it
is put into heel barrels and carried to the storehouse. After that some fresh brine is added from the
pre-crystallization basins and the procedure starts again. In this way the basins are never dry. At
desired salinity we can get quite pure crystals of NaCl. This gives the salt its peculiarly pleasant taste.
If we left the brine to achieve higher concentrations, bitter salts would crystallize as well and they
would affect the taste of the salt. These bitter salts (MgCl2, MgSO4, etc.) have higher solubility and
lower proneness to crystallize than NaCl. After repetition of some cycles of salt collection, a large
amount of halite (NaCl) is removed from the brine and bitter salts become more concentrated. The
latter also slow the evaporation. As soon as they begin to crystallize the salt becomes bitter and cannot
be used for food any more. Such heavy brine is appreciated in health resorts due to its medicinal
properties; or it can be used as a source of chemicals for the industry. During our research we let it
flow into the outflow channel and regarded it as waste brine.
A couple of times per season basins are emptied and cleaned. The remaining salt is removed
and refused as waste salt in our case.
Dry salt is stored in a storehouse. Then it is packed into sacks, by means of suitable
machinery.
Figure 1. Schematic representation of the production unit on the Seovlje saltpans. Arrows indicate directions of
brine decantation. Numbers 1-4 are indicating four subsequent evaporation basins, P indicates pre-crystallization
basin and C indicates crystallization basin. Semicircle represents the wind-pump.
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METHODS
Conceptual Approach
After studying the process and making a flow chart, 12 days were spent making
measurements and annotations regarding the salt production process. Annotations were performed
between 15th and 26th July 2003 on the described producing unit. Energy flows were evaluated,
represented in a systems diagram (Figures 2 and 3), arranged in a table (Table 1) and converted into
solar emergy units. Transformities were found in the literature or calculated, when needed. Several
sustainability indices were calculated (Table 2). Indices used are precisely described in Ulgiati and
Brown (1998). Procedures are given in Notes at the end of the paper. Transformity factors themselves
can serve as an index of output quality and production efficiency (Odum, 1996).
In our analysis we decided to exclude cultural, aesthetical, ethnological and ecological values
and activities as well as knowledge, experiences and learning, since these data would be hard to
determine reliably. Problems regarding the emergy in culture and information are discussed in an
article by Higgins (2003).
We analyzed the current process and compared it to the process totally without mechanization
(resembling the original process except for the need for labor and services) and to a further modernized
process using a motor pump and eliminating the wind pump (resembling the process on the nearby
Lera saltpans). In the current process we considered the use of a wind pump. For special cases there is
a motor pump, which requires low fuel use. At the same time mechanization is needed for packaging
as well as for labor in transportation.
Data Sources and Emergy Evaluation

Salinity, depth and temperature in all evaporation basins, in four selected pre-crystallization
and four selected crystallization basins were measured every two hours during the day. Following the
same schedule air humidity and air temperatures at four heights above the soil were measured.
We obtained half-hour meteorological data necessary for calculating evaporation with the
Penmann-Monteith equation (FAO, 1998) as well as data on precipitation from local meteorological
station, located three kilometers from the site. To account for the effect of salinity, this value was
corrected with the equation noted in Kolundrovi (1954).
Total emergy was obtained by summing all individual contributions of emergy flows. The
total flow of emergy was divided into four separate streams: renewable sources (R), nonrenewable
local sources (N), imported goods and tools (M) and emergy for labor and services (S).
To avoid double counting (Odum, 1996), only the highest of the renewable flows driven by
solar radiation was considered. In our case the chemical emergy of rain over land had the highest
value.
The amount of evaporated water was calculated using data about salt production and waste
salt and known seawater salinity. The rest of the calculation was the same as is usually performed in
emergy calculations with the exception that the effect of concentrated brine was considered (see notes
to calculations in Appendix A). In the calculation of energy for evaporation (contribution to rain) we
calculated chemical potential of rainwater compared to the brine of average salinity.
The contribution of wind was calculated from data about its contribution to evaporation and
the mechanical work of the wind pump. The first was estimated by lowering wind speed in the Penman
equation to zero. Consequently, evaporation decreased by 8%. In the same way 71.5% was found to be
caused by sun radiation. With these data and known (measured) energy of sun radiation we estimated
the contribution of wind to evaporation. Then, using the solar transformity of wind (Odum, 1996) we
converted it to emergy flow. The remaining 20% probably belongs to the other data needed for
-522-
Penman equation calculation (relative humidity and air temperature), which are connected to solar and
wind emergy flows. They have not yet been evaluated using emergy transformation factors.
A question arose regarding the emergy content of seawater as our main material source.
Seawater is the reference level for the calculation of the chemical available energy of rainwater;
therefore its emergy should be zero. According to the same rationale, we assign a transformity equal to
zero to the salt dissolved in seawater: in fact, the transformity of sedimentary minerals in the Earth
crust reflects the work performed by the environmental driving forces in order to concentrate them
from their dissolved matter state. The latter state should therefore be considered the reference state. It
would be worth investigating the unavoidable loss of biota in the seawater (phytoplankton,
zooplankton): the amount of environmental work diverted from its natural pathway towards the
process of salt production, similarly to the loss of organic matter in topsoil used up due to erosion in
intensive agricultural practices. Due to the low phytoplankton density of the Adriatic Sea, we estimate
that this amount would be negligible compared to other environmental inputs and therefore it is not
included in the present evaluation.
Rock salt can be undoubtedly considered a nonrenewable source, like other minerals. On the
other hand, there is a question whether seawater (and seasalt) is renewable. It is available in huge
amounts and is exploited in much lower rates than it renews itself, receiving salts from the ocean
bottom and from rivers. In our opinion it meets the criteria for sustainability noted in Ulgiati and
Brown (1998).
The amount of produced salt was measured as a number of carried wheelbarrows and the
average weight of salt per wheelbarrow. Similarly we measured the number and average weight of
waste salt in the wheelbarrows taken away during cleaning. Waste brine concentrate was poured out
two times: once because of bitter salts and once because of the rain. Its amount corresponded to double
the average volume of brine in crystallization basins. Waste salts and brines were not used in our case.
We considered that salt and waste salt have the same transformity (i.e., emergy splits) due to their
similar chemical composition and similar possibilities for their use. On the other hand waste brine was
considered a by-product.
In our case there were no local nonrenewable indigenous sources. It was estimated that there
is no considerable erosion as the soil particles from the dams are mostly trapped in the water again.
Like other superfluous material, they are fed back to the dams during winter maintenance. As a rule
there is no need to add any material for dams and basins to the saltpan unit. Loss of soil during salt
collecting is negligible thanks to the protection offered by the algal mat.
During the research a group of six volunteer students helped two part-time salt-workers, who
usually maintain the saltpan. We calculated that there were eight people total working for 10 days, as
two days were free for excursions. They were living in a house on the saltpan, without electricity or
water supply. They prepared their own food. Water, food and other goods were brought from a village,
which is about five km away. This way we were able to control water and food use, as well as labor
transportation.
Students helped at salt collecting and packaging. Furthermore, they were renovating basins
and dams. Such renovation is usually carried out during winter. The amount of work for renovation
corresponded to the percentage of maintenance during the whole year.
According to results from neighboring Italy, labor is assumed to be approximately 90%
nonrenewable and 10% renewable in the last decade (Ulgiati et al., 1994 in Bastianoni et al., 2001).
More recent studies (Cialani et al., 2004) found a decrease in this percentage down to 5-6% renewable
in the last two decades.
Emergy for services was estimated with regard to their price. This emergy supports
production process.
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Energy for Evaporation in Different Salt Production Practices

The salt production process is similar to the initial part of water desalination process. Thermal
distillation processes are preferred for the desalination of seawater due to their cost-efficiency. Up to
10 kg of distillate can be produced per kilogram of steam (Heitman, 1990). In our range of
temperatures water vapor above the seawater is approximately 1.84% less than that above freshwater
(Bemporad, 1995).
The minimal theoretical energy required to produce 1 kg of freshwater (desalination) is about
7.5 kJ (Bemporad, 1995). According to data noted in Mannar (1982), 97% of the water has to be
removed to achieve crystallization. In the case of thermal distillation the energy consumption for
evaporation is almost unaffected with increasing salinity below the concentration of 25 Be1 and rapidly
increases by about 50% above this level. Above the salinity of 25 Be 6-7% of water has to evaporate to
achieve crystallization.
On the other hand Reverse Osmosis (RO) and electrodialysis processes show a pronounced
increase in energy consumption with increasing salinity. Consequently they are less suitable for salt
production. At a salinity of 20 ppm the energy required to desalinate water is 8 kWh/m3 of water for
RO process (about 29 kJ/L) and 25 kWh/m3 (about 90 kJ/L) for electrodialysis. At the salinity of 35
ppm the energy for desalination increases to 13 kWh/m3 (47 kJ/L) for RO and about 45 kWh/m3 (162
kJ/L) for electrodialysis (Delyannis, 1979). Other authors report that minimal energetic requirements
for RO and mechanical vapor compression methods are about 25 kJ/kg of produced freshwater
(Bemporad, 1995).

The systems diagram for the investigated process is given in Figure 2, whereas a further
aggregated flow scheme is given in Figure 3.
The main raw inputs of energy and matter and their emergy equivalent are listed in Table 1,
while emergy based indicators and performance ratios are reported in Table 2.
Chemical emergy of rain above land is the highest among the renewable emergy flows (R)
(90% of R and 42% of total emergy flows, Tot) (Table 1). As we are at the sea level (or, precisely,
about 0.6 m below it), the geopotential emergy of rain is assumed to be zero.
Emergy of wind has proved to be much lower than the emergy of rain (11.5% of R and 5.4%
of Tot) and consequently it was not included in the calculation of R and Tot.
Rain has just the opposite effect on our system than usual. It does not only comprise an
unprofitable source of emergy flow to the system, but it increases the transformity factor of the salt, as
additional water has to evaporate. The amount of rainfall must be considered in the calculation of the
salts transformation factor. However, in our case it was very low.
Labor contributes the largest part of nonrenewable emergy flows (63%) and 45.5% of Tot
(Table 2). The percentage of labor contribution is quite variable in different systems and can exceed
80% (Rydberg and Jansen, 2002), or it can be lower than 15% (Leofroy and Rydberg, 2003). The
percentage of nonrenewable emergy needed to support labor would need revision in our case as people
were living without electricity and electrical devices, with minimal water consumption and
transportation, and food was partly from a nearby organic farm. This percentage was found to be as
low as 54% for labor serving horse traction in 1927 (Rydberg and Jansen, 2002). However, if there
were more people living on the saltpans it would be impossible to avoid some modernization and we
would again approach 10% of R for labor or even lower. This was the reason to keep the given
percentage. The comparison with the possibility that 20% of emergy supporting labor would be
renewable, showed that R would increase up to nearly 52% of the total emergy used. EYR (Emergy
1*
x = 144.3*(1-1/d); x = degrees Baum (Be), d = density (kg/L)
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Yield Ratio) would be higher by nearly 9.5%, ELR (Environmental Loading Ratio) would decrease by
16.6% and SI (Sustainability Index) would increase by more than 31%.
The second largest imported flow of emergy is the house, followed by the fuel for labor
transportation and for salt packaging (about 1% of total emergy used). The use of fuel for motor pumps
Figure 2. Summary systems diagram showing emergy flows on the Seovlje saltpans.
Figure 3. A three flow diagram showing aggregated emergy flows on the Seovlje saltpans.
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Table 1.
Aggregated system input/output analysis of the Seovlje saltpans.

Raw units
Transformity
(seJ/unit)2
Emergy
(seJ)
Ref. for
transf.
Type
INPUTS (12 days)

1
Sunlight (J)
1.074E+13
1
1.074E+13
a
R
2
Wind (J)
5.19E+11
1500
7.78E+14
a
R
3
Rain - chemical energy of rain over 3.37E+11
18199
6.13E+15
a
R
land (J)
4
Rain - physical energy (J)
0
18199
0
a
R
5
Geothermal heat (J)
1.99E+09
6.06E+03
1.21E+13
c
R
6a Seawater (L)
9.82E+06
0
0
a
6b Salts dissolved in seawater (g)
3.55E+07
0
0
a
7
Water (washing) (J)
2.47E+07
1.82E+04
4.50E+11
a
M
8
Other goods (J)
3.00E+07
3.49E+04
1.05E+12
b
M
9a Fuel (transportation, packaging) (J) 2.26E+09
6.60E+04
1.49E+14
a
M
9b Fuel (motor pump) (J)
1.23E+09
6.60E+04
8.12E+13
a
M
10a Tools (g)
*
*
3.00E+12
*
10b
Of this wind-pump (g)
2630
4.04E+08
1.06E+12
c
M
11 Machinery (g)
8.19E+03
6.70E+09
5.48E+13
b
M
12 Stony house (g)
2.29E+08
6.62E+06
1.53E+15 this study * M
13 Human labor (J)
8.37E+08
7.70E+06
6.45E+15
a
S
14 Services ()
48.45
1.64E+123
7.95E+13
d
S
of this - motor-pump ()
1.45
1.64E+12
2.38E+12
d
S
- other machinery ()
39.12
1.64E+12
6.42E+12
d
S
- woody tools, gates ()
3.38
1.64E+12
5.54E+12
d
S
- wind-pump ()
1.35
1.64E+12
2.21E+12
d
S
YIELDS, OUTPUTS
15 Salt (g)
2.00E+07
6.55E+08
1.31E+16 this study *
16 Waste salt (g)
2.00E+06
6.55E+08
17 Salts in waste brine (g)
1.35E+07
1.07E+09
R: renewable resource, N: local nonrenewable resource, M: imported nonrenewable resources, S:
labor and services
a
b
c
d
*
Odum, 1996.
Brown and McClanhan, 1996.
Bastianoni et al., 2001. from Brown M.T., Arding J., 1991. Transformities, Working paper, Center for Wetlands,
University of Florida, Gainesville, USA, 1991.
Cialani C, Russi D., and Ulgiati S., 2004. Investigating a 20-year national economic dynamics by means of emergybased indicators. This Workshop. Result is for neighboring Italy for the year 2002.
Calculations are given at the end of the paper.
Total emergy contributions to the geobiosphere are about 15.83E+24 seJ/yr, based on a re-evaluation and
subsequent recalculation of energy contributions done in the year 2000 (Odum et al., 2000). Prior to that date, the
total emergy contribution to the geobiosphere that was used in calculating unit emergy values was 9.44E+24
seJ/yr. The increase in global emergy reference base to 15.83E+24 seJ/yr changes all the unit emergy values,
which directly and indirectly were derived from the value of global annual, empower. Thus, unit emergy values
calculated prior to that year should be multiplied by 1.68 (the ratio of 15.83/9.44). However, we did not use the
new reference base in this paper, for easier comparison with previous investigations on similar topics (Buenfil,
2002), performed on the basis of the 9.44E+24 seJ/yr baseline.
3
Result is for neighboring Italy for the year 2002.
-526-
Table 2.
Summary of emergy flows and sustainability indices in Seovlje saltpans.
(R) SUM OF RENEWABLE INPUTS (seJ)

(N) SUM OF NONRENEWABLE LOCAL
SOURCES (seJ)
(M) FUELS AND GOODS (seJ)
(S) LABOR (90% of 13 and 90% of 14 in
Table 1) (seJ)
(Tot) TOTAL EMERGY USED (seJ)
TRANSFORMITY
Salt and waste salt (seJ/g)
Waste brine (seJ/g)
SUSTAINABILITY INDICES
Renewable proportion to total emergy used
(R/Y)
Ratio of nonrenewable to renewable emergy
((N+M)/R)
EYR (Emergy Yield Ratio (Tot/(M+S))
ELR (Environmental Loading Ratio
((N+M+S)/R))
Empower Density (Tot/area) (seJ/m2)
SI (Sustainability Index (EYR/ELR))
Emergy of imported goods and fuels to total
emergy (M/Tot)
Emergy of imported nonrenewable to
renewable emergy (M/R)
A
B
C
TRADITIONAL NOWADAYS MODERNIZED
6.78E+154
6.79E+155
6.79E+156
0
1.74E+15
1.80E+159
5.82E+15
5.88E+15
5.87E+15
1.41E+16
1.44E+16
1.45E+16
6.426E+08
1.05E+09
6.55E+08
1.07E+09
6.58E+08
1.07E+09
0.48
0.47
0.47
0.22
0.26
0.27
1.92
1.89
1.88
1.08
1.12
1.13
7.35E+11
1.78
7.50E+11
1.69
7.53E+11
1.67
0.108
0.121
0.125
0.224
0.256
0.265
1.52E+15
A Traditional operation using wind-pump and without steel machinery and fuels.
B Traditional using wind-pump but with other steel machinery and fuels (nowadays).
C Operation using motor pump and other steel machinery and fuels (Lera).
would cause the emergy for fuels and goods (M) to increase by 5% at a consumption rate of 30 L in 12
days (10 L per day, 2 days free or with low evaporation or even precipitation).
The amount of salt produced was estimated to be about 73% of all salt (NaCl) entering the
saltpan unit. Its transformity factors (Table 2) were 6.42E+08 seJ/g in the case of wholly traditional
production, 6.55E+08 seJ/g in the case of production as it is nowadays in the investigated saltpan and
6.58E+08 seJ/g in the case of production as it is in Lera. The differences among our three varieties of
process are small, indicating small differences in production energy efficiency. No considerable
difference can be observed between the process in our saltpan and the process in the nearby Lera
saltpans.
The ratio of R to Tot (Table 2) is about 0.47 in all three cases, which exceeds a typical value
calculated for agricultural systems. In a way, a relatively high ratio should have been expected, since
4
Sum of 3, 5, 6, 10% of 13 and 10% of 14 without motor-pump and other machinery in Table 1
Sum of 3, 5, 6, 10% of 13 and 10% of 14 in Table 1
6
Sum of 3, 5, 6, 10% of 13 and 10% of 14 without work for wind-pump in Table 1
7
Sum of 7, 8, 10a and 12 in Table 1
8
Sum of 7, 8, 9a, 20% of 9b, 10a, 11 and 12 in Table 1
9
Sum of 7, 8, 9a, 9b, 10a without 10b, 11 and 12 in Table 1
5
-527-
the saltpan is almost completely driven by solar energy (rain) and labor, such as non-intensive
agricultural production.
The ratio of nonrenewable emergy to renewable flows ((N+M)/R) (Table 2) is 0.26, indicating
that a low percentage of nonrenewable sources other than labor and services is used. The greatest part
of this ratio results from emergy for labor and services. It slowly rises with modernization due to the
higher need for nonrenewable imported sources.
The EYR is 1.89. This is higher than it was calculated for planned dams on the Mekong River
(1.3-1.4) (Brown and McClanahan, 1996) as well as for agricultural systems (Ulgiati et al., 1994).
Higgins (2003) has found EYR of 1.57 for the Oak Openings region, which is quite low compared to
other environment-dominated systems. This indicates that our system exploits the local resource with
good efficiency. EYR slowly decreases with modernization.
An ELR of 1.08 (lower than 3) indicates that this system causes a relatively low load on the
environment (Brown and Ulgiati, 1997). Comparison of the three processes suggests that
modernization of the process progressively increases environmental stress. The result is lower than
was calculated for a farm in the Chianti area (Italy, Bastianoni et al., 2001) and the Italian agricultural
average (Ulgiati et al., 1994). At the same time, the value was lower than calculated for the dam in
Korea (2.96 with sediments included) (Kang and Park, 2002) and Thailand (3.1-3.2) (Brown and
McClanahan, 1996).
As an additional outcome of the investigation, we can also calculate the average solar emergy
needed for each mass unit of water evaporated in the process of evaporation from seawater to
concentrated brine. To evaporate one gram of seawater, 1.324E+07 seJ of total emergy are needed. Of
this, about 6.24E+06 seJ come from of renewable sources driving the evaporation process.
Comparisons of emergy use for evaporating the whole amount of water that entered the
investigated unit using three different methods provide interesting results. To evaporate 982,150 L of
water using sun and wind, approximately 6.13E+15 seJ were used. To perform this work using fossil
fuels 1.9E+16 seJ would be needed. RO would require 1.84E+17 seJ for the same work since it
commonly deals with much lower concentrations. However these results are only comparative and
include only the emergy of fuels used.
Finally, an Index of Sustainability SI (Ulgiati and Brown, 1998) of 1.69 indicates that the
process has a net contribution to a society and that the yield per unit of environmental stress is quite
high. Increased modernization causes SI to decrease, indicating decreased sustainability. The major
limitation for achieving higher sustainability is the labor, since it is characteristic of industrial
societies. This result should not be disregarded: ancient techniques are sustainable if they are
embedded in subsistence societies. Instead, if they are driven by emergy intensive inputs, they may not
be sustainable and simply become high-cost memories of the past culture. More appropriate processes
should be found, instead. Talking about a more sustainable society achieved by adapting assets and life
style to declining resources, Odum and Odum (2001) say: Coming down doesnt mean going back to
ways of the past. In general, descent means new ways.
CONCLUSIONS
The process of salt production on the Seovlje saltpans has proved to have a high degree of
sustainability. However the degree of sustainability strongly depends on the percentage of renewable
emergy serving labor and services, whereas yield is highly dependent on weather conditions. This
process can be classified as causing low stress on the environment. Aside from labor as the highest
emergy input, the process is based mostly on the emergy of the environmental forces driving
evaporation. Consequently it can be regarded as a moderately to highly renewable process producing a
nonrenewable product. The differences between the three systems studied were found to be quite low.
Increased modernization caused somewhat decreased sustainability and increased
environmental load due to a higher use of nonrenewable resources. At the same time we could expect
reduced contribution of labor, which is considered to be emergetically costly, and increased reliance
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predominantly on nonrenewable sources. Moreover, modernization enables additional functions such

as packaging and labeling to be done on site. A careful and accurate emergy analysis can be very
useful in selecting the best possibility.
Inclusion of ecological, cultural and aesthetical values, as well as the value of experience,
would considerably increase the donor-side value of this process and its contribution to society. This
may illustrate how important these values are and how their changes affected the landscape on the
researched area through history.
Our case study was based on previously calculated transformities and ratios, available in
emergy literature. A more detailed investigation of emergy flows driving Slovenian economy is needed
and is actually in progress in our research group. The emergy value of labor in our research can show
how important it is to accurately estimate the amount of labor needed as well as the proportion of
renewable versus nonrenewable emergy driving each individual process. Transformity values are
highly dependent on the inclusion or exclusion of individual flows. Consequently databases with
specific values for each transformity will be needed in the future. They should include data on how
each transformity was calculated, what was included and what was omitted. Dynamic simulation
programs would enable calculations and adjustments in transformity factors to suit each individual
case. Furthermore, this would enable a rapid comparison of variations in processes, as well as
consideration of possible impacts and their consequences to the environment. At the same time this
would be a useful tool for cradle-to-grave emergy evaluations of materials or flows, which are not
commonly done (Brown and Buranakarn, 2003, Ulgiati et al., 1995).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Author gratefully acknowledges the help received from The Maritime Museum Sergeja
Maera in Piran and its personnel in the saltpan Museum, for enabling the present research, as well as
the precious assistance of the Environmental Agency of Slovenia and its unit in Portoro for providing
the meteorological data.
REFERENCES
Allen R.G., Pereira L.S., Raes D., Smith M., 1998. Crop evapotranspiration guidelines for computing
crop water requirements: FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper 56. FAO Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/X0490E/X049E00.html
Bastianoni S., Marchettini N., Panieri M., Tiezzi E., 2001. Sustainability assessment of a farm in the
Chianti area (Italy). Journal of Cleaner Production 9: 365-373.
Bemporad G.A., 1995. Basic hydrodynamic aspects of solar energy based desalination process. Solar
Energy 54(2): 125-134.
Brown M.T., McClanahan, T.R., 1996. Emergy analysis perspectives of Thailand and Mekong River
dam proposals. Ecological Modelling 91: 105-130.
Brown M.T., Buranakarn V., 2003. Emergy indices and ratios for sustainable material cycle and
recycle options. Resources, Conservation and Recycling 38: 1-22.
Brutsaert W., 1982. Evaporation into the atmosphere. D. Riedel Publishing Company.
Buenfil A.A., 2002. Will Desalination Solve Global Freshwater Scarcity? In: Advances in Energy
Studies. Exploring Supplies, Constraints, and Strategies. S. Ulgiati, M.T. Brown, M.
Giampietro, R.A. Herendeen, and K. Mayumi, Editors. SGE Publisher Padova, Italy, 2001.
Pp. 159-168.
Cialani C, Russi D., and Ulgiati S., 2004. Investigating a 20-year national economic dynamics by
means of emergy-based indicators. This Workshop.
Delyannis A., 1979. Water Desalting, suppl. vol. 1. Springer Verlag, Berlin.
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Heitman H.G., 1990. Saline Water Processing. VCH Verlagsgesellschaft, Weinheim.

Higgins J.B., 2003. Emergy analysis of the Oak Openings region. Ecological Engineering 21: 75-109.
Kolundrovi A., Frani M., 1954. Sol i morske solane. Udruenje rudnika i industrie nemetala,
Zagreb.
Leofroy E., Rydberg T., 2003. Emergy evaluation of three cropping systems in southwestern Australia.
Ecological Modelling 3197: 1-17.
Mannar M.G.V., 1982. Guidelines for the Establishment of Solar Salt Facilities from Seawater,
Underground Brines and Salted Lakes. United Nations Industrial Development Organization
(UNIDO/IS.330)
(http://www.micronutrient.org/Salt_CD/4.0_useful/4.1_fulltext/pdfs/4.1.7.pdf#C2)
Odum H.T., 1996. Environmental Accounting: Emergy and Environmental Decision Making. John
Willey and Sons. New York.
Odum H.T. and Odum E.C., 2001. A Prosperous Way Down: Principles and Policies. University Press
of Colorado.
Pahor M., Poberaj T., 1963. Stare Piranske soline. ZP Ljudska pravica, Ljubljana.
Rydberg T., Jansen J., 2002. Comparison of horse and tractor traction using emergy analysis.
Ecological Engineering 19: 13-28.
Ulgiati S., Brown M.T., 1998. Monitoring patterns of sustainability in natural and man-made
ecosystems. Ecological Modelling 108: 23-36.
Ulgiati S., Odum H.T., and Bastianoni S., 1994. Emergy analysis, environmental loading and
sustainability. An emergy analysis of Italy. Ecological. Modelling., 73:21568.
Ulgiati S., Brown M.T., Bastianoni S., Marchettini N., 1995. Emergy-based indices and ratios to
evaluate sustainable use of resources. Ecological Engineering 5: 519-531.
agar Z., 1991. The Museum of Salt Making. The Maritime Museum Sergeja Maera, Piran.
APPENDIX A: CALCULATIONS AND REFERENCES FOR TABLE 1

1. Sunlight:
(area of the saltpan)*(calculated extraterrestrial radiation/m2; in 12 days):
19222 m2 *5.58E+08 J/m2 = 1.074E+13 J
2. Wind:
A) For wind-pump operation: (volume of brine at 14 Be of salinity)*(density of brine 14 Be)*(rise of
water by means of a pump)*gravity/(efficiency of wind-pump):
2200 m3*1000 L/m3*1.1074 kg/L*0.4 m*10 m/s2/0.3 = 3.25E+07 J
B) Emergy for evaporation: According to our calculations with Penmann formula, wind contributed
8% of energy to the evaporation process, whereas the Sun contributed 71.5%. The average measured
solar insulation in was 290.85 W/m2 per day. Solar energy received: 290.85 W/m2*12 d*86400
sec/d*19222 m2 (area of the saltpan)*0.2 (albedo) = 4.637E+12 J. If Sun contributed 71.5%, then the
total energy for evaporation was 6.4855E+12 J and wind contributed 5.188E+11 J.
3.25E+07 J+5.188E+11 J = 5.188E+11 J
3. Rain over land - chemical energy:
(amount of seawater entering the production unit (L))*(density of evaporated water)*(Gibbs free
energy of evaporated water10)+(amount of rainfall in 12 days(m))*(area (m2))*(Gibbs free energy of
rainwater relative to seawater):
(9.822E+05 L*1000 g/L*341.42 J/g)+(0.129 dm*1922200 dm2*1000 g/dm3*4.94 J/g) = 3.37E+11 J
10
Gibbs free energy of brine at 14 Be (144963 ppm) relative to rainwater (10 ppm)
-530-
4. Rain - geopotential energy:

0 J (we are at the sea level or, more precisely, 0.6 m below it).
5. Geothermal heat:
(Area*flow per year) (Bastianoni et al., 2001; from Loddo, M. and Mongelli, F. Heat flow in Italy.
Pageoph 1978-9; 117:135-49.) *(exploitation in 12 days):
19222 m2*3.15E+06 J/m2/year*12 d/(365 d/y) = 1.99E+09 J
6a, 6b Seawater and salt dissolved in seawater:
Calculated according to the measured amount of total salt produced and known concentration of NaCl
in seawater. Their transformities are theoretically 0, as rainwater is calculated relatively to Gibbs free
energy of seawater.
7. Water for washing:
(measured volume of water used)*(density)*(Gibbs free energy of water):
5000 L*1000 g/L*4.94 J/g = 2.47E+07 J
8. Other goods:
(estimated quantity)*(estimated average caloric value):
2 kg*1000 g/kg*15 kJ/g = 3.0E+07 J
9a, 9b. Fuel:
(amount of fuel used)*(energy content of fuel per liter):
30 L for the motor-pump: 30 L*41 MJ/L = 1.23E+09 J
40 L used for transportation and 15 L for aggregate and other minor needs (lighting etc.):
55 L*41 MJ/L = 2.255E+09 J
10a, 10b. Woody and other tools for manual work:
Woody tools: (mass)*(exploitation in 12 days):
Wind-pump: 400 kg, estimated life-time 10 years, used half of a year.
400 kg*1000 g/kg*(12 d*2/(10*365 d/y)) = 2630 g
Other woody tools: 64 kg, estimated lifetime 5 years, used half of a year.
Gates: together 300 kg, estimated lifetime 10 years.
(64 kg*(12 d*2/(5 y*365 d/y))+300 kg*(12 d/(10 y*365 d/y)))*1000 g/kg = 1828 g
4 Heelbarrows: (mass of steel)*(exploitation in 12 days)*(transformity of steel) (Odum, 1996) + (mass
of plastics)*(exploitation in 12 days)*(caloric content)*(transformity of plastic) (Brown and
McClanahan, 1996); 4 pieces, 5 kg of steel and 1/2 of plastic each, 2 years of lifetime, used half a year.
(4*5 kg*1000 g/kg*(12 d*2/(2 y*365 d/y))*1.78E+09 seJ/g)+(4*0.5 kg*(12 d*2/(2 y*365
d/y))*1.5E+07 J/kg*34900 seJ/J) = 1.205E+12 seJ
Altogether: (2630 g+1828 g)*4.04E+08 seJ/g+1.205E+12 seJ = 3.00E+12 seJ
Wind-pump: 2630 g
11. Machinery:
(mass)*(exploitation in 12 days).
Motor pump: 20 kg, estimated lifetime 10 years: 20000 g*(12 d*2/(10 y*365 d/y))) = 1.315E+02 g.
Machines for filling sacks: 325 kg, estimated lifetime: 15 years.
Machine for sewing sacks: 5 kg, estimated lifetime: 15 years.
Wage: 25 kg, estimated lifetime: 30 years.
Aggregate: 20 kg, estimated lifetime: 15 years.
Car: 1000 kg, estimated lifetime: 10 years.
-531-
Together: (20000 g/10 y+325000 g/15 y+25000 g/30 y+1000000 g/10 y)*12 d*2/(365 d/y) =
8.186E+03 g
12. House:
The emergy value for the whole house in 300 years after building is:
Walls - stones: (estimated volume)*(percentage of stones in the wall)*(density of stones)*(changes
needed in 300 years):
88 m3*0.75*1950 kg/m3*1000 g/kg*1 = 1.29E+08 g
Walls concrete: (Estimated volume)*(percentage of concrete in the walls)*(density of concrete)
(Odum, 1996)*(changes needed in 300 years):
88 m3*0.25*2500 kg/m3*1000 g/kg*1= 5.5E+07 g
Floor: (estimated volume of floor material)*(density of material)*(exploitation in 12 days):
15 m3*2500 kg/m3*1000 g/kg *1 = 3.75E+07 g
Wood in the roof and interior (stairs, dividing walls, furniture, boarded walls in the storehouse):
(estimated mass)*(changes needed in 300 years):
2000 kg*1000 g/kg *3 = 6.0E+06 g
Tiles: (estimated volume)*(density)* (changes needed in 300 years):
2.4 m3*2500 kg/m3*1000 g/kg*6 = 3.6E+07 g
Together: 1.29E+08 g*1.0E+09 seJ/g+5.5E+07 g*2.59E+09 seJ/g+3.75E+07 g*2.59E+09 seJ/g+
6.0E+06 g*4.04E+08 seJ/g+3.6E+07 g*2.32E+09 seJ/g = 4.55E+17 seJ (1.52E+15 seJ/g per year)
Total weight of a house (walls, floor, wood, roof):
(88 m3*(0.75*1950 kg/m3+0.25*2500 kg/m3)+(15 m3*2500 kg/m3+2000 kg)+(2.4 m3*2500
kg/m3))*1000 g/kg = 2.29E+08 g
Estimated the transformity of a house per year is: 6.62E+06 seJ/g
13. Labor:
It is estimated to be 10% renewable and 90% nonrenewable.
Number of people*number of days (2 days were free)*2500 kcal/day (metabolic needs):
8 people*10 d*2500 kcal/d/person*4186 J/kcal = 8.37E+08 J11.
14. Services: They are estimated to be 10% renewable and 90% nonrenewable.
Estimated work to prepare homemade woody tools: 10 days for wind-pump, 15 days for gates and 10
days for other tools.
Work performed*exploitation in 12 days (tools are used half a year)*(average costs per person in
lower level of professional skills):
(25 d*(12 d*2/(10 y*365 d/y))+10 d*(12 d/(5 y*365 d/y)))*(139781 SIT/month/30 d/month)*(1
/226.2237 SIT12) = 4.73 (1.35 for wind-pump and the rest for the other tool).
Heelbarrows: 4*10000 SIT*(1 /226.2237 SIT) *(12 d/(10 y*365 d/y) = 0.58
Services to construct machinery: (cost)*(exploitation in 12 days):
Motor pump: 100000 SIT*(1 /226.2237 SIT)*(12d/(10 y*365 d/y)) = 1.45
Machines for filling sacks: 150000 SIT*(1 /226.2237 SIT)*(12 d/(15 y*365 d/y)) = 1.45
Machine for sewing sacks: 30000 SIT*(1 /226.2237 SIT)*(12d/(15 y*365d/y)) = 0.29
Wage: 15000 SIT*(1 /226.2237 SIT)*(12 d/(30 y*365 d/y)) = 0.07
Aggregate: 100000 SIT*(1 /226.2237 SIT)*(12 d/(15 y*365 d/y)) = 0.97
Car: 2500000 SIT*(1 /226.2237 SIT)*(12 d/(10 y*365 d/y)) = 36.33
Together in 12 days: 40.57
11
Emergy needed to perform all work, including some maintenance operation (in 12 days): 123312 kcal*4186
J/kcal = 5.162E+08 J (61.7% of all metabolic emergy needed)
12
Average exchange rate between Slovenian Tolar (SIT) and Euro () for the year 2002 (Statistical Office of the
Republic of Slovenia).
-532-
Services for house building and renovation:

Work for building: 1 month 4 people; renovation: estimated to be 3 days per year in average; (number
of days for building and preparation*metabolic energy needed*exploitation:
30 d*8 people*(12 d/(300 y*365 d/y))*(139781 SIT/month/30 d/month)*(1 /226.2237 SIT) = 0.54
Work for renovation: number of hours for renovation per year*metabolic cost* exploitation in 12 days:
3 d/y*(12 d/365d/y)*(139781 SIT/month/30 d/month)*(1 /226.2237 SIT) = 2.03
Together: 48.45
15, 16, 17. Salt, waste salt and waste brine:
The amount of salt (NaCl) produced was around 20,000 kg, whereas the amount of waste salt was
around 2,000 kg. The sum of emergy used for production was 1.44E+16 seJ. 1.31E+16 seJ were used
for salt production whereas 1.31E+15 seJ were used for waste salt production.
Transformity of salt and waste salt: (emergy invested)/(weight of a product).
1.44E+16 seJ/(2.0E+07 g+2.0E+06 g) = 6.55E+08 seJ/g
Waste brine was regarded as a by-product. According to our calculation about 5500 kg NaCl and 8,000
kg of other salts were discarded. Its transformity (per gram of total salts): 1.44E+16 seJ/1.35E+07 g =
1.07E+09 seJ/g.
APPENDIX B: DIMENSIONS OF THE SALTPANS

Evaporation sage:
1st stage of evaporation: 1993.3 m2
2nd stage of evaporation: 2540.2 m2
3rd stage of evaporation: 2948.4 m2
4th stage of evaporation: 3087.1 m2
Reservoirs: 164.2 m2
Basins receiving pumped water: 428.75 m2
Channels: 13.6 m2
Together for evaporation stage: 14001.4 m2
Crystallization stage:
Pre-crystallization basins: 3121.4 m2
Crystallization basins: 2825.8 m2
Together for the crystallization stage: 5947.2 m2
Together (without dams): 17122.8 m2
Together (with dams): 19222 m2
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-534-
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
43
Emergy Evaluation of Air Biofilters for Carbon Monoxide Removal
ABSTRACT
Carbon monoxide (CO), a product of incomplete burning of hydrocarbon-based fuels is a
colorless, odorless, poisonous gas. CO inhibits the blood's oxygen carrying capacity, affecting healthy
individuals. Its presence in the atmosphere lowers OH - which decreases the atmospheres capacity
for oxidizing other greenhouse gases. Soil microorganisms are recognized as the second largest sink
for eliminating CO from the lower atmosphere. Microbially-mediated biofiltration of CO was
investigated for its potential to oxidize CO. Three bench scale biofilters were constructed and filled
with compost media. The solar emergy required to construct and operate the biofilters for CO
oxidation was estimated and compared to the solar emergy required by platinum-based catalytic
converters, the most common CO oxidation technology.
Our emergy comparison showed that the platinum-based catalytic converter required 12E9
solar emjoules per gram (sej/g) of CO removed, while our lab-scale biofilter required 4,920E9 sej/g. A
pilot-scale, modeled biofilter that assumed the volume specific removal rate of our lab biofilters and
the fastest contaminant contact times achievable with state-of-the-art biofiltration technology, was
determined to operate for 12E9 sej/g of CO removed, which was comparable to catalytic converters.
The development trajectory for CO-biofiltration demonstrates that air biofilters can be a viable ecotechnology for reducing environmental impacts of CO.
INTRODUCTION
Carbon monoxide (CO) is a colorless, odorless, tasteless and poisonous gas that affects human
health and the environment. It results from incomplete burning of carbon materials (OSHA, 2002). CO
enters the bloodstream and reduces oxygen delivery to the body (USEPA, 1995a). At low
concentrations, CO can cause fatigue in healthy people. At higher concentrations, it results in impaired
vision and coordination, headaches, dizziness, confusion and nausea. It can be fatal at high
concentrations (USEPA, 1995a). CO also poses a significant health problem in the indoor environment
(USEPA, 1995b). CO released to the atmosphere is the main atmospheric sink of the OH radical
( OH + CO H + + CO2 ; Granier et al., 2000; Moxley and Smith, 1998; Seiler, 1978; Zimmerman
et al., 1978). OH is the main oxidant in the atmosphere and its distribution determines the chemical
sink of many trace constituents, including greenhouse gases like methane (Granier et al., 2000; Moxley
and Cape, 1996). CO is thus a critical component in atmospheric chemistry and increased tropospheric
CO affects global ozone levels (Conny, 1998). Its presence in the atmosphere is mainly due to
incomplete combustion of fossil fuels in automobiles.
The platinum-based automotive catalytic converter, one of the most important means of
controlling CO, uses rare platinum-group metals (PGMs, i.e., platinum, rhodium, palladium) as
catalysts to oxidize CO to CO2 and water (Keith et al., 1969). The rare PGMs require large-scale
surface mining that consumes energy, degrades and displaces ecosystems and causes other
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Chapter 43. Emergy Evaluation of Air Biofilters
environmental impacts. Although catalytic converters perform well in removing a large portion of the
CO from automotive exhausts, their large-scale consumption of natural resources and ecosystem lifesupport services during their life cycle brings their sustainability into question. The average life of a
catalytic converter is about 129,000 km (80,000 miles), which is lower than the mean vehicle life
expectancy. The thermal and mechanical conditions under which such devices work can cause
significant release of the PGMs to the environment and eventually affect human health (Caroli et al.,
2001).
Bio-filtration for air quality management has been under investigation for several decades
(DeVinney, 1999), but has only been commercialized to a significant level in recent years (Boswell et
al., 2002). Air biofilters work by creating a nutritional environment amenable to microbial
transformations of waste elements and compounds. Soil bed reactors (a type of biofilter) and microbial
air reactors have been demonstrated effective at reducing many organic and inorganic compounds in
laboratory and commercial applications. Biofilters have been shown to remove contaminants like
diethyl ether (Yang et al., 2002), BTEX (i.e., benzene, toulene, ethylene, xylene) (Martinez and
Tamara, 2002) and hydrogen sulfide (Jones et al., 2002). Soil bed reactors were found capable of
removing odors of waste water treatment plants (Carlson and Leiser, 1966).
Globally, soil microbes are the second largest sink for CO (Moxley and Smith, 1998;
Bartholomew and Alexander, 1981). There are microorganisms capable of utilizing CO for metabolism
(Nozhevnikova and Yurganov, 1977). The broad success of biofilters, coupled with the important role
of soil microbes in controlling the global uptake off CO, led us to design a biofilter that could remove
CO from contaminated air. Once we realized that the biofilters could lower CO concentrations in
automotive waste air-streams (Ganeshan, in progress), we wondered whether the biofilters were more
environmentally friendly than catalytic converters from a life-cycle and systems ecology viewpoint.
The earths resources are continuously diminishing with increased economic development. Natural
goods and services are considered free and thus are not considered in economic assessment. To
compare the CO oxidation technologies, we decided to conduct emergy evaluations of each. Emergy is
the available energy of one kind previously used up directly or indirectly to make a service or a
product. Any product or service has energy associated with its formation or manufacture. The memory
of this energy is called emergy. The most common unit of emergy is the solar emergy-joule (sej),
which is the amount of solar energy required directly and indirectly to generate a product or service
(Odum, 1996).
It is important that environmental technologies be evaluated not only on their environmental
benefits of reducing pollution at the source, but also on the amount of resources used during their
manufacture and operation. An emergy evaluation considers the ecological, social and economic inputs
necessarily used and/or dissipated during the life-cycle of a product, like an environmental technology.
From a systems perspective, environmental pollution control strategies should not only ensure that the
targeted pollutant is reduced, but also that the energy and material resources consumed over its lifecycle are minimized. In the process of manufacturing and operating environmental technologies,
indirect environmental impacts should not be created. An emergy based systems evaluation involves
identifying all sources of energy used to create the service. By adopting this method, comparison of
two or more products can be based on total solar energy used. An emergy evaluation is able to equate
environment and economic values, which is imperative, as no economic gain is made without an
environmental cost associated with it. Emergy measures both the work of nature and that of humans in
generating products and services (Tilley, 2003). Emergy evaluation provides a tool that quantifies the
work that nature and man do together to make a product.
Our objective in this paper was to compare the life-cycle resource requirements and potential
environmental impacts of three technologies that can remove CO from air streams (a platinum-based
catalytic converter, a lab-based biofilter and a pilot-scale biofilter). We performed a standard emergy
evaluation to determine the solar emergy required to construct and operate each technology.
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Biofilter Operation and Performance
Three cylindrical biofilters (BFs), 15 cm in diameter and 1 m in height were constructed of clear
PVC (Figure 1). The BFs were filled with poultry litter compost, supplied by the composting facility at
the University of Marylands Lower Eastern Shore Research and Education Center. The BFs were
irrigated with de-chlorinated water to maintain a moist environment and were inoculated with slurry
made from local soils. A 1,125 W (1.5 HP) vacuum pump (High Vacuum Pump, Model: E2M 2,
Franklin Electric, Bluffton, IN), attached to one of the top ports of each BF, pulled exhaust gas
containing CO, which was generated by a 2,620 W (3.5 HP) four-stroke gasoline engine (Briggs and
Stratton, Corp., USA), through the BF media from the bottom (Figure 1). The BFs operated on two 4hour cycles per day, which were approximately from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm and 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm. The
BF inlet and BF outlet CO concentrations were measured with a single Non-Destructive Infra-Red
(NDIR) CO analyzer (California Analytical Instruments, CAI Model 200, Orange, CA). Flow rates
were measured with stainless-steel flow meters (Gilmont Inc., Barrington, IL) at the filter inlet. Since
the CO analyzer could only measure a single air stream at a given time, the BF inlet (engine exhaust)
was read every 30 minutes for 3 minutes, while the BF outlet was read at all other times. Non-reactive
and non-absorbing Tygon tubing was used for all gas transport.
Moisture addition
Vacuum Pump
1.5 HP
CO Analyzer (NDIR)
(Flow 1.22 l/min)
Flow
Media
Compost
1m
3.5 HP Motor
Exhaust
Plastic grid
Drain
Flow-meter
15 cm
Figure 1. Biofilter flow diagram.
Biofilter CO Budget
Figure 2 describes the CO budget for the biofilter. The difference between inlet mass and outlet
mass is equal to the CO uptake of the BF.
Average inlet CO concentration to the biofilter (I) = 831 ppm (averaged from Figure 3)
Average outlet CO concentration from the biofilter (O) = 455 ppm (averaged from Figure 3)
The exhaust flow through the biofilter was measured to be 1.2 liters per minute (L/min.). Density of air
was taken as 1.23 mg/cm3. Mass balance equations for the lab-biofilter are given in Appendix I
-537-
Biofilter
CO ppm
inlet
CO ppm
outlet
CO uptake
by Biofilter
Figure 2. Mass balance of CO for biofilter.
1200
1000
CO Inlet
CO ppm
800
600
CO Outlet
400
200
0
0
60
120
180
240
300
360
420
Minutes
Figure 3. Inlet and outlet CO concentrations for a typical 7-hour period from the compost lab-scale biofilter.
Pilot-Scale Operation and Performance

To evaluate the emergy needs of a commercial, CO-treating biofilter, we scaled up our lab
biofilter to a pilot model and assumed the operational characteristics of a BF sold by Biofiltration Inc.,
of Northridge, CA (DeVinney, 1999). The emergy analysis assumed a 10-year operational life for the
BF. The pilot model had a $550,000 installation cost and a $0.83 per 1000m3 (flow) maintenance cost
associated with operation. The pilot scale model treated 17,000 m3/hr and operated 2,080 hours a year
(5 day/week, 8 hour/day). It contained 314 m3 of compost media with a 3-year life and empty-bed
contact time (EBCT) of 70 seconds. The pilot-scale BF included a 40HP centrifugal blower and treated
CO at the same removal efficiency per unit of media volume as the lab-scale system.. The CO mass
removal of the lab-scale biofilter per unit volume of media was used to calculate CO uptake for the
pilot model, which had 314 m3 media volume.
-538-
Catalytic Converter Operation and Performance

The catalytic converter assessed for the emergy analysis consisted of five essential components
as described by Corning Inc. (2001):
Substrate: A ceramic honeycomb-like structure that provides a large surface area for the
application of washcoat and precious-metal catalyst to convert the engine exhaust to less
harmful components.
Insulation Mat: A wrapping around the catalyzed substrate that provides thermal
insulation and protects against mechanical shock.
Can: A steel package that encases the catalyzed substrate and mat, and integrates it into
the exhaust system.
Washcoat: A coating that increases the surface area of the substrate for catalysis.
Catalysts: Catalytically active precious metals like platinum, palladium and rhodium are
incorporated into the washcoat.
The treated washcoat is then applied to the ceramic substrate. Catalytic converters are loaded with CO
at about 4,800 ppm (Poulopoulos and Philippopoulos, 2000). Detailed calculations for the CO budget
of the catalytic converter are given in the Appendix II.
Emergy Evaluation Methods

The emergy evaluation of the lab-scale BF, pilot-scale BF and catalytic converter were
performed using standard emergy methods as described by Odum (1996). Compost (media),
electricity, construction materials and labor were the main emergy inputs into the biofilter setup
(Figure 4). Total emergy inputs of the catalytic converter were from the mining of rare metals, fuel
consumption, electricity use and other materials and labor (Figure 5).
Modeled Performance of Catalytic Converter at Lowered CO Concentration

In order to explore the potential of the BF to perform with the same emergy efficiency as the
catalytic converter, we developed a simple model that predicted CO removal of the catalytic converter
at lower concentrations. Then we also assumed that the catalytic converter, operating at lowered inlet
CO concentrations, would require the same emergy inputs regardless of input CO-ppm levels. We
developed a simple model (Figure 6) to predict the CO removal rate of a catalytic converter that
operated at 5, 50, 500, and 5,000 ppm-CO. The concentration based removal efficiency of the catalytic
converters was decreased slightly to account for the lowered concentration, but otherwise it was
assumed to operate similarly.
RESULTS
Table 1 shows the main emergy inputs of the compost lab-scale biofilter. The solar emergy of
compost media, construction materials, labor and electricity to run the vacuum pump were calculated
for an expected life of 10 years, in which there were 2,080 hours of operation per year. The media was
assumed to last one year while other material components were assumed to last 10 years. Electricity
used in running the vacuum pump contributed 2,374E+12 sej (Table 1). The total emergy used by the
system was 3,252E+12 sej (Table 1) over a 10-year life. The CO mass uptake rate of 0.53mg/min
equated to 661 g during its lifetime. Therefore, the emergy per mass of CO treated by the lab-scale
biofilter was 4,920E+9 sej/g.
-539-
Electricity
Const.
Materials
Labor
CO
Compost
Biofilter
CO
Compost
Figure 4. Emergy systems diagram for a compost biofilter.
Fuel
Natures
Service
Platinum
Palladium
Material
Labor
Fuel
CO
Catalytic Converter
CO
Electricity
Figure 5. Energy systems diagram for the catalytic converter.
Table 2 shows the emergy evaluation of the pilot-scale biofilter. Compost and electricity used
contributed 4.16E+17 sej and 3.80E+17 sej, respectively. The capital investment and operating costs
amounted to 6.58E+17 sej. The total emergy required was 14.53E+17 sej. The volume specific CO
removal rate of the pilot biofilter (i.e., mass of CO removed per volume of media) was assumed to be
the same as the lab-scale model. Using this treatment rate, an EBCT of 70 seconds and gas flow of
17,000 m3/hr, CO uptake through 10 years of operation was 1.72E+7 g (Table 2). Therefore, CO was
treated for 85E+9 sej/g. Table 3 shows the emergy analysis of a catalytic converter based on a life
span of 10 years. The main inputs to its emergy were grouped into: 1) platinum group metals, 2)
construction materials and 3) mining and ecosystem losses.
The rare metals (platinum and rhodium) accounted for 917E+12 sej. Fuel consumption for
mining and ecosystem losses together contributed 5,861E+12 sej. The total emergy used to build the
converter amounted to 8,865 E12 sej (Table 3). The catalytic converter was estimated to remove
7.74E+5 g of CO over its lifetime (see Appendix II).
Therefore, the catalytic converter treated CO for 11.5E+9 sej/g. The emergy requirement of
the three CO-control technologies is summarized in Table 4. Figure 6 compares CO removal
-540-
technologies with respect to solar emergy per gram removed. An increase in the scale of the labbiofilter to a pilot-scale model reduced the sej/g by nearly two-orders of magnitude (Figure 6). But the
emergy needed by the catalytic converter is still lower than the pilot biofilter.
Table 1. Emergy evaluation of biofiltration of carbon monoxide using compost lab-scale biofilter
(10 year inputs).
Note
NonRenewables
1
2
3
4
5
Capital costs
6
7
8
9
10
Item
Unit
Lifetime
Usage
Transformity
Emergy / unit
Emergy
sej (E12)
Compost / Soil
PVC
Electricity
(Vacumn Pump)
Wood
Steel
g
g
J
6.50E+08
4.80E+03
1.40E+10
7.40E+04
5.90E+09
1.70E+05
48
28
2374
g
g
6.33E+03
3.33E+03
1.21E+09
4.20E+09
8
14
$
$
3.90E+02
6.10E+02
7.80E+11
7.80E+11
304
476
6.61E+02
Labor cost
Construction
Material
Total Emergy
CO Removed
Emergy per g of
CO removed
3252
sej/ g
4.92E+12
Table 2. Emergy analysis of pilot scale biofilter (10year inputs).

Note
Item
Unit
Usage
Non Renewables
11
12
Capital costs
13
14
15
16
17
Transformity
Emergy /
unit
Emergy (sej)
(E17)
Compost / Soil
Electricity
Centrifugal blower
J
J
5.62E+12
2.23E+12
7.40E+04
1.70E+05
4.16
3.80
Investment
Maintenance +
Treatment costs
Total Emergy
CO removed
Emergy /g of
CO removed
$
$
550000
293488
7.80E+11
7.80E+11
4.29
2.29
sej
g
sej/g
-541-
14.53
1.72E+07
8.47E+10
DISCUSSION
Figure 6 shows the modeled catalytic converters performance over the range of 5 to 5,000 ppmCO loading. The total emergy of the catalytic converters remained the same, which causes the sej/g to
be higher for lower treatment concentrations. At 800 ppm, which was the concentration of our BF, the
catalytic converters required 40E+9 sej/g. This was half of the pilot-scale BF. The pilot model was
assumed to operate at the same CO-removal efficiency as the lab-scale model and have the same
empty bed contact time (EBCT). CO removal may be higher at the industrial setup level because of a
larger media bed and more controlled conditions. Recent advances in biofiltration technology have
lowered the EBCT to 10 seconds (BioReaction Inc., 2004). This is a factor of seven lower than
theEBCT in our pilot model. The lower EBCT would allow a higher volume of CO to be treated for
the same emergy requirements. This would result in a BF treating CO for 12E+9 sej/g (i.e., 1/7th of
85E+9 sej/g, Table 4), which is lower than the catalytic converter operating at the same concentration.
Table 3. Emergy evaluation of catalytic converter (10 year inputs).
Note
Item
Unit
Usage /
Transformity
Catalytic
Emergy / unit
Converter
18
Platinum
g
4.04
1.94E+14
19
Rhodium
g
0.69
1.94E+14
20
Cost
$
857
7.80E+11
21
Monolith Ceramic
g
8129.58
3.06E+09
Support
22
Stainless Steel Can
g
9096.75
4.20E+09
23
Mining
a)
Fuel
J
1.47E+11
4.00E+04
b)
Ecosystem losses
g
4.73
5.89E+07
per gram of metal used
in catalytic converter
c)
Ore
g
1.42E+06
1.00E+09
24
Total Inputs
25
CO removed
g
7.74E+05
25
Emergy used/
g of CO removed
sej/g
1.15E+10
Table 4. Summary of emergy analysis for the different CO removal technologies.
CO Removal
CO Removed
Inlet CO
Total Emergy
Technology
Over 10 yr life Concentration
Used (sej)
(g)
Lab BF
661
~800 ppm
3.25E+15
Pilot BF, old
1.7E+7
Pilot BF, new (low EBCT)

Catalytic Converter
Catalytic Converter
~800 ppm
1.5E+18
800 ppm
7.74E+5
4,800 ppm
800 ppm
* From Figure 6
-542-
Emergy (sej)
(E12)
784.31
133.03
668.57
24.88
38.21
5860.73
0.00
1418.57
8865.22
Emergy / g of
CO Removed
1E9 sej/g
4,920
85
12
8.86E1+5
12
40*
Modeled catalytic converter performance
1.0E+14
Lab BF
removed
Solar Emergy per gram CO
1.0E+13
1.0E+12
1.0E+11
Pilot scale BF
1.0E+10
Catalytic
Converter
1.0E+09
10
100
1000
10000
CO Concentration (ppm)
Figure 6. Development trajectory of CO treatment methods with respect to CO removed and emergy used. By
scaling up the biofilters in terms of CO loading, the emergy per gram of CO removed may tend towards the more
effective catalytic technology.
This indicates that the BF can remove CO for less total resources than the catalytic converters in the
range of 500-1,000 ppm-CO. The question for future research is to determine the removal efficiency of
the BF at inlet concentrations comparable to the engine exhaust.
CONCLUSION
Our studies showed that a biofilter, designed and operated at production scale, performed as
well, or better than a typical catalytic converter in terms of the solar emergy required per mass of CO
removed. Two research topics for the future are: (1) to determine whether the BF can operate at higher
CO concentrations (5,000 ppm) like the catalytic converters and (2) to estimate the solar emergy
requirements of a BF operating at higher concentrations. The trajectory plotted in Figure 6 indicates
that it is likely that the BF will out perform (i.e., less sej/g of CO treated) the catalytic converter at
5,000 ppm.
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APPENDIX I: CARBON MONOXIDE BUDGET FOR LAB-SCALE

BIOFILTER
The mass inflow and outflow were calculated according to Equations 1 and 2.
3
3
Mass inflow = I cm 1.2 L 0.001 m 1.23 mg
3
3
min
cm
(1)
= 1.2 mg/min
3
3
Mass outflow = O cm 1.2 L 0.001 m 1.23 mg
3
3
min
cm
(2)
= 0.67 mg/min
Therefore uptake = Mass inflow- mass outflow
= 0.53 mg/min
(3)
APPENDIX II: CARBON MONOXIDE BUDGET FOR CATALYTIC

CONVERTER
Energy equation for gasoline combustion can be described as:
C8H18 + 12.5 O2
8CO2 +9H2O, (Ebbing, 1993)
(4)
The average fuel economy is 20 miles /gallon (USEPA, 1995c).

Average speed of car is assumed as 40 miles/hr. Therefore 2 gallons of gasoline is used up per hour by
the average car.
1 gallon of gasoline (with MTBE) releases 117,960,000 J of energy (Chevron fact sheet, 2004)
Since 2 gallons are used up in 1 hour, energy /sec used up by the car = 65,520 J/sec
-545-
1 gallon of gasoline weighs 3,300 g

Molecular weight of gasoline -C8H18 = 8x12 +18x1 = 114 g
Therefore 3,300 g (1 gallon) of gasoline releases 117,960,000 J of energy.
Therefore 1 mole of gasoline (114g) releases 4,074,981 J of energy.
To release 65,520 J /sec of energy, number of moles of gasoline required is?
1 mole of gasoline gives 4,074,981 J
Therefore X moles of gasoline release 65,520 J of energy.
Calculating for X, we get 0.016 moles of gasoline releases 65,520 J
1 mole of gasoline requires 12.5 x 32(molecular weight of O2)---- from Equation 4
= 400 g of O2
Therefore 0.016 moles of gasoline requires 6.4 g of O2.
Density of O2 is 0.00131 g/cm3
Therefore, volume of O2 needed is 6.4/ 0.00131 = 4,885 cm3 of O2.
O2 makes up 21 % of air. Therefore volume of air required to provide 4,885 cm3 of oxygen will be
(4885/ 0.21) = 23,260 cm3/sec.
CO emissions per unit volume of air from Tailpipe are 0.19 % (Poulopoulos and Philippopoulos,
2000).
Therefore volume of CO emissions will be (0.19 x 23,260) / 100 = 44 cm3.
Density of air is 0.00129 g/ cm3 (Density of CO is almost equal to density of air)
CO emissions per sec is = 0.00129 x 44 = 0.057 g / sec, i.e. 57 mg/sec
The average life of a car is 100,000 miles.
Assuming the car runs at 40 miles /hr, average speed during its lifetime, number of hours a car runs is
2,500 hrs.
Therefore lifetime CO tailpipe emissions =57 x 60 x 60 x 2500 = 5.13E+8 mg of CO
i.e., 5.13E+5 g of CO.
CO emissions from engine (raw exhaust) per unit volume of air is 0.48% (Poulopoulos and
Philippopoulos, 2000)
Therefore volume of CO emissions will be (0.48 x 23,260) / 100 = 111 cm3.
Density of air is 0.00129 g/ cm3. Therefore CO emissions is calculated to be = 0.00129 x 111
=143 mg/s
Raw engine emissions through lifetime of car = 143 x 60 x 60 x 2500 = 12.87E+8 mg, i.e. 10.41E+5 g.
Therefore CO treated by the Catalytic converter is = Raw engine emissions- Tailpipe emissions=
12.87E+5 5.13E+5 = 7.74 E+5 g of CO over lifetime.
APPENDIX III: CALCULATIONS FOR TABLES 1, 2, AND 3.

1 Compost/ soil - media in the biofilters.
Volume of Compost used per biofilter (calculated in lab)
0.0121
Life of Compost (assumed)=
1
Therefore compost used for 10 years =
0.1210
Density of compost (calculated in lab)=
480,000
Potential energy stored compost (organic matter)= (Odum, 1996)
=Organic fraction (g/g) x Gibbs number ( J/g) x Density( g/m^3) x Volume(m^3)
Organic fraction of compost (calculated in lab)=
0.50
Gibbs number for organic matter (Odum, 1996) =
22,604.40
Therefore Potential Energy stored in compost =
6.50E+08
Transformity for Compost (top soil, organic matter) (Odum,1996)=
7.40E+04
-546-
m3
yr
m3
g/m3
g/g
J/g
J
sej/J
2 PVC requirement
Plastic pipes used for Biofilter construction (calculated in lab)=
A 3 ft biofilter requirement =
Life of plastic pipes (assumed)=
Therefore PVC requirement for 10 years=
Transformity for PVC (Buranakarn, 1998)=
3 Electricity used: vacuum pump to maintain flow through conditions
Vacuum pump rating (specification)=
=
Assuming 8 hr a day operation, 5 days a week for 10 years
Hours operated in 10 years=
Energy consumed by 6 biofilters
Therefore energy consumed by 1 biofilter=
Transformity for electricity (Odum, 1996)=
4 Wood needed for biofilter bench
Total amount of wood needed to setup 6 biofilters (calculated) =
Assuming life as 10 years.
Wood for 1 biofilter =
Transformity for wood (soft plywood) (Buranakarn, 1998) =
5 Steel needed for biofilter support
Total amount of steel needed to setup 6 biofilters =
Assuming life as 10 years.
Steel for 1 biofilter =
Transformity for Steel (Buranakarn, 1998) =
6 Labor to build biofilters
Number of hours needed to build the setup =
Project charge =
Total cost =
Assuming life of 10 years
Cost of setup for 1 biofilter =
Transformity of the US dollar (Tilley, contribution to this issue)=
7 Material costs for 6 biofilters
Item
Valves
TYGON tubing
Reducer connectors
Hose nylon Elbow
stopcocks
5 gallon buckets
Flowmeters
PVC pipes
TOTAL
Assuming material life as 10 years.
Cost for 1 Biofilter will be =
Transformity of the US dollar (Tilley, contribution to this issue)=
-547-
3.54
10.61
10.00
4.80
5.90E+09
lbs/ ft
lbs
years
kgs
sej/g
1.50
1,119.00
HP
J/sec
20,800.00
8.38E+10
1.40E+10
1.70E+05
hours
38.00
6.33
1.21E+09
20.00
3.33
4.20E+09
52.00
45.00
2,340.00
390.00
7.80E+11
sej/J
kgs
kgs
sej/g
kgs
kgs
sej/g
hrs
$
$
$
sej/$
Cost ($)
305.92
188.46
1.14
7.50
701.96
32.70
1,482.00
941.20
3,660.88
610.15
7.80E+11
$
sej/$
8 Total Emergy spent over the lifetime of the biofilter

Total Emergy =
3,252E+12
(sum of items from 1 through 7)
9 CO removed
CO removed is (see results section) =
0.53
CO removed over 10 year life of Biofilter assuming
661.44
8hr day 5 day/week operation
10 Emergy of biofilter per g of CO removed
Total emergy of biofilter setup=
3,252.26
CO removed over 10 year life =
661.44
Therefore Emergy of biofilter/g of CO removed =
Total emergy / CO removed
4.92
11 Compost/ soil is used as the media in the biofilters.
Volume of Compost per biofilter( from case study), (DeVinney,1999)
314
Life of Compost (DeVinney, 1999)=
3
Therefore compost used for 10 years =
1,045.62
Density of compost (calculated in lab)=
480,000
Potential energy stored compost (Odum, 1996)=
=Organic fraction (g/g) x Gibbs number ( J/g) x Density( g/m^3) x Volume(m^3)
Organic fraction of compost (calculated in lab)=
0.495
Gibbs number (Odum, 1996) =
22,604.4
Therefore Potential energy stored in compost =
5.62E+12
Transformity of compost (organic matter), (Odum 1996)=
74,000
12 Electricity used:Centrifugal pump to maintain flowthrough
conditions
Centrifugal pump rating, case study (DeVinney, 1999))=
40
29,840
Assuming 8 hr a day operation, 5 days a week for 10 years
Hours operated in 10 years=
20,800
Energy consumed by pilot scale biofilter
2.23E+12
Transformity for electricity (Odum, 1996)=
170,000
13 Initial investement
Including setup, material costs and auxillary equipment
550,000
Transformity for US dollar (Tilley, contribution to this issue)=
1.5E+12
14 Maintenance costs
Maintenance + other operating costs per 1,000 m^3 gas treated
0.83
(DeVinney, 1999)
Treatment, from case study, (DeVinney, 1999)
17,000
Hours of operation for 10 years= (8 x5 x 52 x10)
20,800
Total cost=
293,488
Transformity for US dollar (Tilley, contribution to this issue)=
1.5E+12
15 Total emergy = Sum 1 to 4
16 CO treated
Lab scale biofilter volume =
0.0121
Lab scale CO removal (Results Section)=
0.53
Pilot scale biofilter volume =
314
-548-
sej
mg/min
g
E12 sej
g
E 12 sej
m3
yr
m3
g/m3
g/g
J/g
J
sej/J
HP
J/sec
hours
J
sej/J
$
sej/$
$
m3/hr
hrs
$
sej/$
m3
mg/min
m3
Pilot scale CO removal= [(pilot scale volume) x (Lab scale removal )]

(lab scale volume)
(assuming pilot scale model has same removal efficiency as lab scale model)
Therefore CO removal by pilot model =
13,753.72
Hours of operation=
20800
CO removed =
17,164,641
17 Emergy /g of CO removed
Total emergy =
1.45E+13
CO removed =
17,164,641
Emergy/ g removed =
846,707.3
18 Platinum
Amount of Platinum used in a catalytic converter (life 7yr) (Taylor, 1987)
2.83
Therefore usage in 10 years
4.042857
Transformity of Platinum (metal formation) (Odum and Brown, 1993)=
1.94E+14
19 Rhodium
Amount of Rhodium used in a catalytic converter (life 7yr), (Taylor,1987)
0.48
Therefore usage in 10 years
0.685714
Transformity of Rhodium (metal formation), (Odum and Brown, 1993)=
1.94E+14
Transformity is also assumed 1.94e14 sej/g, -the same as platinum, as a number
for rhodium is unavailable. This estimate is on the lower side as Rhodium
availability is low and it is more expensive than platinum orpalladium.(Taylor, 1987)
20 Cost of a catalytic converter
Cost =
600
Life of a catalytic converter (assumed)=
7
Usage in 10 years (cost)
857.1429
Transformity for the US dollar (Tilley, contribution to this issue)=
7.8E+11
21 Monolith ceramic support
This is the substrate over which a coating of the platinum metals is
applied.
The substrate is in the form of 2 bricks.
No. substrate bricks in a Catalytic converter (Burch et al., 1996)=
2
Diameter of brick (Burch et al., 1996)=
144
Length (Burch et al., 1996)=
76
The total volume of the 2 cylindrical bricks=
2,474.22
The ceramic substrate is made of Cordierite (2Mg, 2Al203, 5SiO2), (Burch et al., 1996)
The material density of cordierite is (Environmental Technology Co.,
China)
2.3
Mass of cordierite used in 7 year life=
5,690.705
Mass of cordierite used in 10 year life=
8,129.578
Transformity of Cordierite, similar to ceramic (Buranakarn, 1998) =
3.06E+09
22 Stainless steel can
Stainless steel is used as a housing for the catalytic converter
Dimensions of the cylindrical stainless steel body
216
Diameter of Steel housing (Burch et al., 1996)=
490
Length of steel housing (Burch et al., 1996)=
0.405588
Surface area of the cylinder =
2
-549-
mg/min
hr
g
sej
g
sej/ g
g
g
sej/g
g
g
sej/g
$
years
$
Sej/$
nos
mm
mm
cm3
g/cm3
g
g
sej/g
mm
mm
m2
mm
Thickness of metal sheeting (assumed)=

0.000811
Volume =
7850
Density of steel=
6.367724
Therefore, mass of steel used for 7 year life=
9.096749
Therefore, mass of steel used for 10 year life=
4.2E+09
Transformity of stainless steel (Buranakarn, 1998) =
1,000
23a Fuel used for mining
Nonrenewable resources used to mine 1g of rare metal =
(Friedrich Schmidt-Bleek, Unpublished data, 2001)
This includes cost of mining, smetling etc.
Coal is assumed to be most of the raw material used.
30,976.4
Energy obtained form 1g of coal =
3.1E+10
Energy obtained form 1000 kgs of coal =
Therefore 1 g of rare metal mined needs 3.10E+10 J of energy
A catalytic converter uses 2.83 g of platinum + 0.48g of Rhodium
4.73
Total rare metal used for one catalytic converter (10 year use)=
1.47E+11
Therefore energy used in mining to build one catalytic converter =
40,000
Transformity of fuel =
61,303
23b Ecosystem loss in productivity
Forest loss in Norlisk, large rare metal mine in Russia (Kiseleva, 1996) =
7E+14
Emergy of forest formation lost (Odum, 1996)=
20
No. of years for forests to degrade completely (assume)
300
No. of years for forests to regain productivity (assume)
Total Emergy lost = Gradual emergy loss till complete (linear) degradation (20yr)
+productivity lost during grow back period(200yr).
1.12E+17
1,900,000
Total production of platinum + palladium 1970 to 1990
(Norilsk produces 700,000 oz of platinum and 2.8 Moz of palladium
each year)
58,947,368
Therefore emergy lost per g of platinum mined
3.31
Rare metals used / catalytic converter (7 year life)
4.728571
23c Ore
Ore used to mine 1g of rare metal =
300
(Rienier de Man, Unpublished data)
4.728571
ore use to mine 4.73 g of rare metal used for one catalytic converter =
1,418.571
Transformity of ore =
1E+09
24 Total inputs = Sum of inputs points 1 to 6
774,000
25 CO removed
CO removed by the catalytic converter over 10 year life (Appendix A)
26 Emergy per g of CO removed
Total emergy of catalytic converter=
8.87E+15
CO removed
774,000
Emergy per g of CO removed
1.15E+10
-550-
m3
kg/m3
kg
kg
sej/g
kg
J
J
g
J
ha
sej/ha/yr
years
years
sej
kg
sej /g
g
g
kg
g
kg
sej/g
g
sej
g
sej/g
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
44
Emergy Analysis of Bolivias Natural Gas
ABSTRACT
In 2002, Bolivia had 52 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of proven and probable natural gas reserves
(approximately US$260 billion at todays prices) and 892 million barrels of proven crude oil reserves
(approximately US$30 billion, for US$38/barrel). This is a dramatic increase in Bolivias previously
known wealth. In 1996, natural gas reserves were less than 4 tcf and the oil reserves were
economically insignificant. The increase in known reserves was caused by increased exploration due
to: (1) an inflow of foreign investment that funded the state oil company as a result of the
capitalisation of Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB) and (2) the signing of a
natural gas export contract with Brazil promising the delivery of 7.1 tcf of natural gas over 20 years.
We evaluated the resource fairness of the export of Bolivian natural gas to Brazil using emergy
synthesis. Our analysis estimated that for each dollar Bolivia received from Brazil it exported 12.5
emdollars (an estimate of public benefit based on emergy flows of natural gas and the a mean ratio of
GDP to national total emergy use) of natural gas, indicating that the gas could have a more beneficial
effect on Bolivias economy if it were consumed within the country rather than exported.
INTRODUCTION
Bolivia has traditionally been a mining country that produced antimony, bismuth, copper,
gold, lead, silver, tin, tungsten, and zinc. It has large reserves of gold, lithium and iron ore. In 2000,
Bolivia exported US$429 million worth of minerals, one third of total exports (Vice Ministerio de
Minera y Metalrgia, 2000). Mining of non-fuel minerals remains important to date and provides
considerable income to the country. Agriculture, forestry, fishing, oil and gas account for one-fourth of
the countrys legitimate gross domestic product (GDP) (Fox, 2000).
Bolivias proven reserves of natural gas jumped 730% from 3.75 trillion cubic feet (tcf) to
27.4 tcf from 1997 to 2002 (Table 1). If valued at todays well-head price of approximately $5 per
thousand cubic feet (mcf), the 2002 reserves would be worth US$137 billion. In a country with an
annual GDP of US$21 billion and the second lowest per capita GDP in the Western Hemisphere, this
offers a tremendous opportunity for spurring economic development that could be sustainable if
integrated with investment in social, educational and technological institutions. The opportunity is so
great that it has the power to change the structure of the Bolivian economy for decades to come,
offering the country the opportunity to support its own development.
However, not all of the structural economic changes would be positive. Evidence from around
the world generally indicates that countries like Bolivia, rich in natural resources but undeveloped
economically, tend not to do as well economically as countries poor in natural resources (Sachs &
Warner 1997). Auty (1997, 1998) shows that between 1960 and 1990 per capita incomes of resource
deficient countries grew two to three times faster than those of resource rich countries, regardless of
-551-
Chapter 44. Emergy Analysis of Bolivias Natural Gas
Table 1. Historic view of Bolivian reserves of natural gas (trillion cubic feet) (OLADE, 2003).
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
Proved (P1)
3.75
4.16
5.28
18.31
23.84
27.36
Probable (P2)
1.94
2.46
3.30
13.90
22.90
24.93
P1+P2
5.69
6.62
8.58
32.21
47.74
52.29
Possible (P3)
4.13
3.17
5.47
17.61
23.18
24.87
P1+P2+P3
9.82
9.79
14.05
49.82
69.92
77.16
the countries' development condition. Natural resource rich countries also tend to have stunted
manufacturing sectors (Auty & Mikesell 1999); have less product diversification (Duncan 1993); are
more prone to political problems; experience slower accumulation of technical skills (Wood & Berge
1997), mainly due to deficient training programs; develop less social and institutional capital; suffer
higher levels of corruption and unproductive rent (Karl 1997); and have a higher degree of economic
inequality (Leamer et al. 1999).
Emergy evaluations of nations and their trading policies have often shown that countries rich
in natural resources lose when they trade with developed economies (Scatena et al. 2002, Odum and
Arding 1991). Emergy (with an m) represents an energy-based measure of the contribution and
potential influence a given input has on a productive process and is defined as the energy of one type
(in this case solar) required to produce a flow or storage of another type (Odum 1996). Calculations of
emergy production and storage provide a basis for making choices about the environment and
economy following the general public policy of maximizing real wealth, production and use of nonrenewable resources.
In our on-going emergy study of Bolivia (Izursa and Tilley 2003), we found that the country
as a whole was losing in international trade at a rate of 12.2 to 1. That is, Bolivia exported 12.2
emdollars of resources and goods for every US$1 it received in foreign exchange. Stated another way,
Bolivia could improve its long-term economic condition if it developed a greater capacity for
transforming its natural resources via domestic production rather than exporting them for cash.
Obviously, some foreign capital investment is required because Bolivia is deficient in technical
expertise. For example, large inflows (US$1.4 billion) of foreign investment were necessary to
provide capital to the Yacimientos Petrolferos Fiscales Bolivianos (state petroleum company) through
the "capitalization" scheme1, which increased oil and gas exploration (Andersen and Faris 2002).
Trade contracts like the one the Bolivian government signed with neighboring Brazil in 1999 to deliver
7.1 tcf of natural gas over the next 20 years may not be in Bolivias best interest if the hopes of some
trade unions are accepted (IPS, 2004). There have also been efforts by the Bolivian government to
export liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Mexico and the United States (EIA, 2003).
The objectives of this paper were to evaluate whether Bolivia as a country benefits from its
export of natural gas and to compare Bolivias stocks and flows of natural gas to its forest resources to
estimate the potential for sustainable economic development.
Capitalization" is the name of a unique privatization scheme devised by Bolivia. Under this scheme, the state
ceded 50% of its shares and management control of state companies to foreign investors, in return for explicit
investment commitments.
-552-
METHODS
Bolivia is the fifth largest South American country in terms of surface area and one of only
two land-locked nations in the continent (Figure 1). Just over eight million people live in an area of
approximately 1.1 million square kilometers. Population density is the lowest in South America, at 7.1
people per square kilometer. Urbanization is also lower than the regional average; 67% of the
population lives in urban centers, compared to 79% for South America as a whole. Bolivia is the
poorest country in South America. The per capita GDP was estimated at US$2,534 for the year 2002,
representing about one-third of the regional average of US$7,154 (CIA, 2003).
Emergy modeling
We used the standard emergy methodology given by Odum (1996) to evaluate Bolivias
natural gas system. That is, flows of money and energy were translated to solar emergy by multiplying
money flows by Bolivias mean national emergy-to-dollar ratio and multiplying energy flows by their
respective solar transformities, solar emjoules per joule (sej/j). Export and import values were taken
from the CIA Factbook (2003). The emergy-to-dollar ratio of Bolivia (5.95E+12 sej/$) was estimated
by us and reported elsewhere (Izursa and Tilley 2003). Solar transformities were taken from Odum
(1996), Brown and Bardi (2001) and Romitelli (2001).

Figure 2 emphasizes the important economic role of two of Bolivias largest natural resources: gas
reserves and forest ecosystems. Gas reserves and forest resources offer the potential to support a
thriving Bolivian economy, building economic assets that feedback to amplify development.
Figure 1. Map of Bolivia (Taken from CIA, 2003)
-553-

Geological
uplift
Goods
&
services
Rain
ent Loan
Investm
st
Intere
Infrastructure
Gas
reserves
$
Export
Exchange
Foreign
markets
Bolivian Economy
Sun
Forest
Ecosystems
BOLIVIA
Figure 2. Energy systems diagram for the Bolivian.
The current situation relies heavily on foreign loans and investments to build economic assets and
requires that Bolivia develop international trade. This has led the country to increase exports of natural
resources. The countrys domestic energy infrastructure and market are presently small, but the
potential of the gas and forest resources to spur economic development is large. In a world
approaching limited supplies of petroleum and with a fear of exceeding the atmospheres assimilative
capacity of carbon, natural gas is an increasingly attractive fuel.
Figure 3 summarizes the stocks and flows of the countrys main natural resources. Bolivia exports a
large amount of its natural capital, not only its natural gas, but also precious metals, forest logs,
agricultural produce, and crude oil. In Figure 3, we can see that many of the abundant natural resources
are exported at a rate exceeding domestic consumption. For example, 99% of total forest use is
exported, leaving only 1% for domestic consumption, while only 32% of natural gas is consumed
within the country, with the remaining 68% exported to outside economies. Although data on mineral
(i.e., gold and silver) production is incomplete, the amount that we could account for was exported.
Bolivia does import some refined petroleum products. Tables 2 and 3 provide details on the emergy
values of the flows and storages, respectively, of Bolivia in 2001.
Figure 4 summarizes Bolivias overall trade and natural gas trade in units of dollars and solar
emjoules. In Figure 4a, we see that Bolivias GDP was US$21.2 billion, while it paid US$1.72 billion
for imports and received US$1.29 billion for exports. Along with each flow of money is a counter flow
of emergy. Bolivia imported 25.9E+20 sej and exported 337E+20 sej. Figure 4b shows that Bolivia
exported 76% of its produced natural gas. Bolivia exported US$78.3 million of gas, which was the
equivalent of 43.8E+20 sej.
The overall net emergy exchange ratio between Bolivia and its trading partners was 12.2 to 1, which
was found by dividing the total exported emergy [337E+20 sej + ($1.72E+9 x 5.95E+12 sej/$) =
439E+20 sej] by the total imported emergy [25.9E+20 sej + ($1.29E+9 x 0.8E+12 sej/$) = 36.2E+20
sej] (see Figure 4a). The net emergy exchange ratio for the natural gas trade was worse than the
countrys overall net emergy exchange ratio. Using an emergy-to-dollar ratio of 4.82E+12 sej/$ for
Brazil (Comar 1998), we estimated that Bolivia exported 12.53 emdollars of natural gas for each $1 it
received.
-554-
From Tables 2 and 3, we can deduce that the natural gas being internally used and exported at
current rates could last about 340 years; but if natural gas exports stop and it is used domestically at
Bolivias current capacity, it could last three times longer (about 1,040 years).
CONCLUSION
Clearly there is a substantial potential for increased gas production, consumption and
exportation in Bolivia. In South America, natural gas demand is increasing at rates above the world
average and this trend is expected to continue in the next decade (Andersen and Faris 2002). However,
rather than consider export the prime use of its natural gas, Bolivia should examine the potential that
gas may offer for achieving prosperity, and perhaps sustainable independence, which would minimize
the amount of loans, and consequently the amount of debt. Bolivians could improve their economic
condition if they invest in the infrastructure needed to explore, produce, refine, distribute and use the
gas. When gas is exported, the nation loses more value than it receives in return as payment. To
Solar Emergy
(1X1020 sej)
GOLD &
SILVER
FORESTS
25
10,500
225
0
3
NAT. GAS
BOLIVIAN
USE
23
23,946
290
Imports
65
AGRICULTURE
5,237
47
35
CRUDE
OIL
2,811
Figure 3. Energy systems diagram of main emergy flow and stocks in Bolivia.
25.85E+20 sej
$ 2.12E+10
Imports
$ 1.72E+09
a
GDP
0 sej
Total
Imports
$ 1.29E+09
BOLIVIA
337E+20 sej
$0
b
Production
Total
Exports
61.78E+20 sej
$ 2.3E+07
BOLIVIAN
NATURAL GAS
TRADE
$ 7.83E+07
Natural gas
Exported
47.22E+20 sej
Figure 4. Emergy and economic balance of (a) Bolivian trade (Izursa and Tilley, 2003) and (b) Trade in natural
gas.
-555-
Table 2. Annual emergy value of important resource flows in Bolivia, 2001.

Note
Item
Raw units
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Natural gas consumed

Natural gas exported
Petroleum products
Crude oil exported
Cash crops exported
Livestock exported
Forest products consumed
Forest products exported
Gold exported
Silver exported
4.84E+16
8.03E+16
9.86E+16
1.93E+15
1.62E+16
1.54E+14
2.97E+16
6.42E+17
1.32E+17
2.39E+09
Transformity
(sej/unit)
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
J
4.80E+04
5.88E+04
6.60E+04
5.30E+04
7.40E+04
2.00E+06
9.86E+03
3.50E+04
1.32E+14
3.29E+11
Solar
Emergy
(E+20 sej)
23.23
47.22
65.05
1.02
11.98
3.08
2.93
224.78
17.40
7.85
Footnotes to Table 2 in Appendix
Table 3. Emergy value of the main storages of Bolivian Natural Capital, 2001.
Note
Item
Raw units
1
2
3
4
5
Soil organic matter

Forests
Natural gas
Crude oil
Gold and silver (Unreliable
sources for stocks)
7.08E+16
1.07E+16
4.99E+16
5.21E+15
Transformity
(sej/unit)
J
J
J
J
7.40E+04
9.86E+03
4.80E+04
5.40E+04
Solar
Emergy
(E+20 sej)
5237.47
10517.51
23946.82
2811.30
Footnotes to Table 3 in Appendix
combine the use of its newly discovered gas with its vast reserves of primary forests, Bolivia must
invest in its human and technological capital. It needs to train and retain engineers and scientists that
can lead the effort to make Bolivias economy sustainable and independent. Important questions for
Bolivia and Bolivians to address are how do we develop a self-sufficient, sustainable
economy, and what is the proper mix of exports and imports in international trade that will provide a
level of capital investment that allows the economy to develop and people to prosper, but does not
deplete the countrys principle attribute.
REFERENCES
Andersen, L. E. and R. Faris. 2002. Natural Gas and Income Distribution in Bolivia. Andean
Competitiveness Project, Working Papers. 25 pp.
Auty, R. M. and R. F. Mikesell. 1999. Sustainable Development of Mineral Economies, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Auty, Richard M. 1997. Natural Resources, the state and development strategy. Journal of
International Development, Vol. 9, pp. 651-63.
Auty, Richard M. 1998. Resource Abundance and Economic Development: Improving the
Performance of Resource-Rich Countries. UNU/WIDER Research for Action No. 44.
Brown, M.T. and E. Bardi. 2001. Handbook of Emergy Evaluation, Folio # 3 Emergy of Ecosystems.
-556-
Brown, M.T. and S. Ulgiati. 1999. Emergy evaluation of natural capital and biosphere services.
AMBIO. Vol.28 No.6, Sept. 1999.
CIA. 2003. The World Fact Book. Last accessed August 6, 2004. Website:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/.
Comar, M.V. 1998. Avaliacao emergetica de projetos agricolas e agro-industriais no Alto Rio Pardo: a
busca do Desenvolvimento Sustentavel. Doctoral Dissertation. Universidade Estadual de
Campinas, Brazil. 197 pp.
Duncan, R. C. 1993. Agricultural Export Prospects for sub-Saharan Africa, Development Policy
Review, Vol. 11, pp. 31-45.
EIA. 2003. Country Analysis Briefs Bolivia. Last accessed August 6, 2004. Website:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/bolivia.html
FAO. 2001. FAOSTAT, Forestry data. Available at:
http://faostat.fao.org/faostat/collections?version=ext&hasbulk=0&subset=forestry Last
accessed April 2004.
Fox, D.J. 2000, Bolivia, in Mining annual review 2000: Mining Journal Ltd., CD-ROM.
IPS - Inter Press Service News Agency. 2004. Bolivia: Deep Division Over Referendum on Natural
Gas by Franz Chvez. Last accessed August 6, 2004.Website:
http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=23969
ITTO. 2002. Annual Review and Assessment of the World Timber Situation. Last accessed August 6,
2004. Website: http://www.itto.or.jp/live/PageDisplayHandler?pageId=199
Izursa, J.L. and D.R. Tilley, 2003. Emergy analysis of the Bolivian forest system. Third annual
meeting of the American Ecological Engineering Society, May 28-30, College Park, MD.
Karl, T. L. 1997. The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms, Venezuela, and Other Petro-States. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Kent, R. 1996. An Emergy Analysis of Bolivia. Report to Center for Environmental Policy, University
of Florida, Gainesville.
Leamer, E. E., H. Maul, S. Rodriguez and P. Schott. 1999. Does Natural Resource Abundance Increase
Latin American Income Inequality? Journal of Development Economics, Vol. 59, pp. 3-42.
Mattos, R. and A. Crespo. 2000. Informe nacional sobre la gestin del agua en Bolivia. 109 pp.
Ministerio de Comercio Exterior e Inversion Bolivia, 2001. Estadisticas de exportacion nacional.
Odum, H.T. 1988. Self Organization, Transformity and Information. Science 242: pp. 1132-1139.
Odum, H.T. 1996. Environmental Accounting, Emergy and Environmental Decision Making. J. Wiley,
NY. 370 pp.
Odum, H.T. and J. E. Arding. 1991. Emergy Analysis of Shrimp Mariculture in Ecuador. U.S.A.I.D.
working paper for Coastal Resources Center, University of Rhode Island, Narragansett,
Rhode Island. EnvironmentalEngineering Sciences and Center for Wetlands. University of
Florida. Gainesville, Fl. 114 pp.
OLADE. 2003. Los Mercados del Gas Natural en la Comunidad Andina. Proyecto E&D. OLADE,
CEPAL, GTZ. Quito Ecuador. 307 pp.
Romitelli, M. S. 2001. Emergy Analysis of the New Bolivia-Brazil gas Pipeline (Gasbol). In M.T.
Brown et al. (eds) Emergy Synthesis: Proceedings to the Second Biennial Emergy Analysis
Research Conference, Gainsville, FL, Center for Environmental Policy, University of Florida,
Gainsville.
Sachs, J.D. and A. M. Warner. 1997. Natural Resource Abundance and Economic Growth. Center for
International Development and Harvard Institute for International Development, Harvard
University, Cambridge MA
Scatena, F.N.; S.J. Doherty; H.T. Odum and P. Kharecha. 2002. An Emergy Evaluation of Puerto Rico
and the Luquillo Experimental Forest. General Technical Report IITF-GTR-9. U.S.
Department of Agriciulture, Forest Service; International Institute of tropical Forestry, Rio
Piedras, PR.
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Vice Ministerio de Minera y Metalrgia, 2000, Bolivia: Boletin EstadsticoMinero Metalrgico, No.
194, December, 8 pp.
Wood, A. and K. Berge. 1997. Exporting manufactures: Human resources, natural resources and trade
policy. Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 34, pp. 35-59.
APPENDIX
Footnotes to Table 2
Transformities were taken from Odum (1996), Brown and Bardi (2001) and Romitelli (2001).
1
Natural Gas Consumed Domestically

Consumption =
4.40E+10 (cuf/yr)
Energy =
( ____cu. ft./yr)*(1.10E6 J/cu. ft.)
Energy =
4.84E+16 J
2
Natural Gas Exported
Exports =
7.30E+10 (cuf/yr)
Energy =
( ____cu. ft./yr)*(1.10E6 J/cu. ft.)
Energy =
8.03E+16 J
3
Petroleum Products Consumed Domestically
1.57E+07 (bbl/yr)
Consumption =
( ____bbl/yr)*(6.28E9 J/bbl)
Energy =
Energy =
9.86E+16 J
4
Crude Oil Exported
Exports =
3.07E+05 (bbl/yr)
Energy =
( ____bbl/yr)*(6.28E9 J/bbl)
Energy =
1.93E+15 J
5
Cash Crops Exported
Exports:
Soja products
8.89E+05 MT
Other cereal products
1.18E+05 MT
8.70E+04 MT
Oilcrops
1.34E+04 MT
Other Agricultural Prod
Total
1.E+06 MT
Energy =
(MT/y)*(1E+06 g/MT)*(3.5 Cal/g)*(4186 J/Cal)
Energy =
1.62E+16 J
6
Livestock Exported
Exports =
9.19E+03 MT
Energy =
(___ MT/yr)(1E6 g/MT)(4 Kcal/g)(4186 J/Cal)
Energy =
1.54E+14 J
7
7a
7b
Forest Products Consumed

2.97E+16
Wood Consumed Domestically
Harvest =
9.35E+05 m3
Energy =
(___ m3)(1E+06 g/m3)(0.5 g dry wt/g green
wt)(19,200 J/g dry wt)
Energy =
8.98E+15 J
Fuelwood Use
Use =
2.16.E+06 m3
Energy =
(__ m3)(1E+06 g/m3)(0.5 g dry wt/g green wt)(19,200
J/g dry wt)
Energy =
2.08E+16 J
-558-
EIA, 2003.
EIA, 2003.
EIA, 2003.
EIA, 2003.
Min. Com.
Exterior e
Inversion
Bolivia, 2001.
Min. Com.
Exterior e
Inversion
Bolivia, 2001.
ITTO, 2002.
FAO, 2001
10
Forest Products Exported

Wood =
6.69E+07 m3
Pulp =
4.95E+03
Energy wood =
(___ m3)(1E+06 g/m3)(0.5 g dry wt/g green
wt)(19,200 J/g dry wt)
Energy pulp =
(___ MT/yr)(1E6 g/MT)(4.5 Kcal/g)(4186 J/Cal)
Total energy =
6.42E+17 J
Gold Exported
Exported =
1.32E+01 MT/yr
Energy(g) =
(__ MT/yr)*(1E6 g/MT)
Energy(g) =
1.32E+07 g/yr
Silver Exported
Exported =
Energy(g) =
Energy(g) =
2,386,733 (kg/yr)
(__ kg/yr)*(1E3 g/kg)
2.39E+09 g/yr
Min. Com.
Exterior e
Inversion
Bolivia, 2001.
Min. Com.
Exterior e
Inversion
Bolivia, 2001.
Min. Com.
Exterior e
Inversion
Bolivia, 2001.
Footnotes to Table 3
Transformities were taken from Odum (1996) and Brown and Bardi (2001).
1
Soil organic matter
Soil organic matter =
2.13E+04 Km2
Assume:
1 m deep, 1% organic content, 5.4 kcal/g
Energy =
(2.13 E4 km2)(1 E6m2)(1m)(1 E6cm3/m3)
(1.47g/cm3)(0.01org)(5.4kcal/g)(4186J/kcal)
=
7.08E+18 J
2
Forests
Area =
4.83E+07 ha
Aboveground biomass= 230.00 t/ha
Energy =
(4.83 E7ha)(230t/ha)(1 E6g/t)
(0.5 g dry wt/g green wt)(19,200 J/g dry wt)
=
1.07E+20 J
3
Natural Gas
Recoverable reserves = 4.67E+13 cuf
Energy =
(4.67 E13 cuf)(35.29 cuf/m3)(37.7 E6J/m3)
=
4.99E+19 J
4
Crude Oil
Recoverable reserves = 8.92E+08 barrels
Energy =
( 8.29E8 bbl)(6.28E9 J/bbl)
=
5.21E+18 J
CIA, 2002.
ITTO, 2002
EIA, 2003.
EIA, 2003.
Fresh water occupies an important place among the storages of Bolivian natural capital. However, the data
available is not enough to quantify the fresh water stock at a national level (Mattos and Crespo, 2000).
-559-
-560-
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
45
Emergy of Algal Systems Revisited
ABSTRACT
In the 1960s H. T. Odum performed an early form of emergy analysis on algal systems that
were being proposed by some researchers as a solution to world food shortages because of their high
productivity. Odums analysis revealed the fallacy in these proposals, primarily due to hidden energy
subsidies. Algae grown for food have several limitations and Odum showed that algal production
systems generate no more net energy yield than other forms of agriculture. In this paper Odums early
analyses are re-evaluated and compared with a preliminary assessment of a recent algal system used
for wastewater treatment. Algal turf scrubbers use primary productivity as a mechanism for treating
wastewater through metabolic uptake of nutrients, followed by mechanical harvest of biomass in order
to remove the nutrients from the water source. These systems achieve high levels of productivity from
the subsidy of nutrient-rich wastewaters and from ecological engineering design. The transformities
of algae are contrasted to provide perspective on Odums original energy analysis and on a modern
form of algal technology.
INTRODUCTION
After World War II, there was a high level of interest in using algal systems in
bioengineering designs by the U. S. research community (Bush, 1953). Algae were easy to grow and
to study under laboratory conditions and many possible uses for the products and byproducts of their
photosynthesis were envisioned (Burlew, 1953). However, with the passage of time, most of these
algal systems proved not to be economically viable since misguided extrapolations did not account for
the high costs associated with large-scale production processing. H. T. Odum anticipated these
limitations with an early version of the present-day emergy analysis (Odum, 1967; 1971). The purpose
of this paper is to re-evaluate Odums early study and to provide a preliminary emergy analysis of a
new algal-based technology that is being tested for wastewater treatment.
ALGAL CULTURE AND FALLACIOUS DREAMS

Odum was developing field techniques and making measurements of primary productivity
(photosynthesis at the scale of the ecosystem) at the same time that the early laboratory algal studies
were taking place. Led by Odums work and the work of others, ecological energetics was emerging
as a dominant paradigm of the discipline of ecology. Measurements were being made in a variety of
ecosystems and the efficiency of primary productivity was always found to be low, about 1 % of solar
radiation. Thus, the claims for high photosynthetic efficiency made by some scientists working on
laboratory algal cultures were viewed critically. An example of this laboratory-scale science is given
by Burk, et al. (1962), who illustrate photosynthetic efficiency in relation to sunlight with a side-by-561-
Chapter 45. Emergy of Algal Systems Revisited.
side comparison showing a cornfield at 1% and an algal culture at 90%. Odum realized that it was
possible to achieve these high levels of efficiency in the lab but only by subsidizing photosynthesis
with auxiliary energy sources so that more biomass yield is produced per unit of solar radiation than
could occur in nature. Moreover, it was misleading to suggest a high efficiency by only dividing the
output of algal biomass energy by the input of solar energy, when the output energy could only be
achieved with additional, auxiliary energy inputs as subsidies. Odum became especially alarmed when
the high efficiencies of algal lab cultures were extrapolated to suggest that large-scale algal production
could solve the world hunger problem. He called these projections thermodynamic science-fiction
(Odum, 1963) and wrote a critique of them in a section entitled Algal Culture and Fallacious Dreams
in his classic text (Odum, 1971).
H. T. ODUMS EARLY ENERGY CALCULATION

Odum developed one of the first examples of energy analysis (before energy quality
correction) by evaluating energy subsidies in order to demonstrate some of the fallacy with the lab
projections of algal culture for human food production (Odum, 1967; 1971). In this early energy
analysis he used a reference that included some economic cost values of a potential algal pilot plant
experiment (Fischer, 1961). Only dollar values were available to be used in Odums analysis because
the algal culture system was never built and only projections of costs were reported in the literature.
He converted these dollar costs into energy by multiplying by an energy-to-dollar ratio (10,000 Cal of
fossil fuel/$ spent) in order to quantify the energy value of the subsidies. He then made comparisons
with other agricultural systems to demonstrate that the potential large-scale algal culture would be no
more efficient (yield per total energy input) than other forms of agriculture.
Figure 1 illustrates the emergy budget of Odums original analysis using recent information
(see Appendix). The dominant emergy inputs would have been from labor along with materials and
infrastructure, while direct solar insolation would have been an insignificant contribution. The
transformity of the algae produced from the projected pilot plant would have been 4.5E+5 sej/J.
Materials
& Infrastructure
Utilities
&
Supplies
Sun
5.1E+12
sej/m2/yr
Labor
1.9E+13
sej/m2/yr
2.0E+13
sej/m2/yr
1.0E+8
J/m2/yr
6.1E+9
sej/m2/yr
Figure 1. Emergy budget developed to reanalyze H.T. Odums original analysis of a pilot-scale algae plant for
food production.
-562-
COMPARISON WITH A RECENT ALGAL TECHNOLOGY

Algal systems continue to be studied and incorporated into bioengineering designs. One use
is for wastewater treatment. Pollutants are taken up by algal communities and they can be removed
from the water source when algal biomass is harvested from the system. An example of this kind of
system is the algal turf scrubber (Adey and Loveland, 1998). In this system polluted water is passed
through a trough containing a film of benthic algae (Figure 2). Periodic harvest of the algae removes
the absorbed pollutants and helps to maintain a high rate of algal productivity. A generalized energy
circuit diagram of an algal turf scrubber is shown in Figure 3. Although the system is designed to treat
wastewater, there are two outputs: clean water and algal biomass.
Figure 2. Schematic representation of a recirculating algal turf scrubber.
Materials
Electricity
Support
Structure
Pump
Wastewater
Labor
Algae
Sun
Biomass
Clean
Water
Figure 3. Energy circuit diagram of an algal turf scrubber.
-563-
We evaluated an experimental study of an algal turf scrubber with emergy analysis for
perspective on H. T. Odums original analysis (described earlier). An overview diagram of the emergy
balance for a system at the USDA Agricultural Research Service Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, is
shown in Figure 4. This system is operated in the laboratory, utilizing artificial lighting, and it is being
studied for treating wastewater from a dairy operation. Unlike the early studies of algal systems
undertaken after World War II, our intention is to analyze all of the different energy inputs to the
system. A large number of energy subsidies are required to operate the system, with electricity and
labor contributing the largest emergy inputs (Figure 4 and Appendix). The transformity of the algae
produced from the algal turf scrubber is 5.4E+7 sej/J.
CONCLUSIONS
H. T. Odums original energy analysis of an algal pilot plant is historically important. It
represents one of the first examples of energy analysis, which was later revised with corrections for
energy quality. Odums analysis quantified the magnitudes of energy subsidies to a biomass yield
system that had previously been ignored in assessments of the system. It was a breakthrough in the
development of emergy theory in showing a technique for accounting for energies reported in different
units (at least in terms of dollars). The analysis also exposed some incorrect thinking about the
performance of the system that could have lead to inappropriate policy advocating algal aquaculture.
Because Odum had not yet fully developed the concept that different energies have different
abilities to do work (i.e., the energy quality concept) when he evaluated algal cultures, his early energy
calculation is probably inaccurate. He was only able to convert dollar values into energy equivalents,
but it is now understood that a more accurate assessment is possible by evaluating all flows with basic
physical units and then by multiplying the flows by transformities to account for energy quality. This
problem may explain why the transformity for algal biomass from the algal turf scrubber (5.4E+7
sej/J) is so much higher than the transformity from Odums early energy calculation (4.5E+5 sej/J).
An analysis of one of the existing specialized operations that produce microalgae, such as Spirulina,
for the health food industry would provide further perspective on the value of algal biomass.
Wastewater
Nutrient
Electricity
CO2
Addition
Lamp
Deionized
Water
Materials
1.4E+10
sej/m2/d
1.5E+13
sej/m2/d
BT
Larvicide
3.0E+9
sej/m2/d
2.6E+10
sej/m2/d
6.7E+11
sej/m2/d
3.8E+12
sej/m2/d
Labor
5.9E+10
sej/m2/d
2.0E+11
sej/m2/d
370,300
J/m2/d
Biomass
Yield
328,800
J/m2/d
Clean
Water
Figure 4. Emergy budget diagram of the USDA algal turf scrubber, used to calculate the transformity of the
outputs.
-564-
Algal systems for general food production have never developed, perhaps for the reasons
Odum studied. However, wastewater treatment applications are being studied that have potential for
economic development. One benefit of systems such as the algal turf scrubber is that they generate
both clean water and algal biomass. In the calculation given here the transformity of clean water from
the algal turf scrubber (6.1E+7 sej/J) was on the same order of magnitude as the transformity of the
algal biomass (5.4E+7 sej/J). The output of valuable byproducts from a technology should improve its
commercial potential. In this regard further studies are in progress to evaluate the USDA algal turf
scrubber system in terms of the energetics and economics of uses of the algae, for example as a
fertilizer amendment.
REFERENCES
Adey, W. H. and K. Loveland. 1998. Dynamic Aquaria. Academic Press, San Diego, CA.
Burk, D., G. Hobby and T. A. Gaucher. 1962. Closed-cycle air purification with algae. Pp. 400-416.
in: K. E. Schaefer (ed.). Mans Dependence on the Earthly Atmosphere. The Macmillan Co.,
New York, NY.
Burlew, J. S. (ed.). 1953. Algal Culture, From Laboratory to Pilot Plant. Publ. No. 600. Carnegie
Institution of Washington, Washington, DC.
Bush, V. 1953. Forward. Pp. iii-vi. In: J. S. Burlew (ed.). Algal Culture, From Laboratory to Pilot
Plant. Publ. No. 600. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC.
Fischer, A. W., Jr. 1961. Economic aspects of algae as a potential fuel. Pp. 185-189. in: F. Daniels and
J. A. Duffie (eds.). Solar Energy Research. The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI.
Kebede-Westhead, E., C. Pizarro, and W. W. Mulbry. 2003. Production and nutrient removal by
periphyton grown under different loading rates of anaerobically digested flushed dairy
manure. J. Phycol. 39:1275-1282.
Mulbry, W.W. 2004. Personal communication.
Odum, H. T. 1963. Limits of remote ecosystems containing man. American Biology Teacher 25:429443.
Odum, H. T. 1967. Energetics of world food production. Pp. 55-94. In: The World Food Problems,
Vol. 3. Report of the Presidents Science Advisory Committee Panel on World Food Supply.
The White House, Washington, DC.
Odum, H. T. 1971. Environment, Power, and Society. Wiley-Interscience. New York, NY.
Odum, H. T. 1996. Environmental Accounting. John Wiley & Sons. New York, NY.
-565-
APPENDIX: CALCULATIONS
Table A.1. Transformity calculation for H.T. Odums analysis of a pilot-scale algae plant for food
production.
INPUTS
Note Item
1
Solar Insolation
2
3
Materials &
Infrastructure
Labor
Utilities & Supplies
Data
Transformity
1.5E+06
kcal/m2/yr
1.2 $/m2/yr
1 sej/J
15.8E+12
sej/$
15.8E+12
sej/$
15.8E+12
sej/$
1.3 $/m2/yr
0.3 $/m2/yr
TOTAL (sej/m2/yr)
OUTPUTS
Note
Item
5
Algal Biomass
Emergy
(sej/m2/yr)
6.1E+09
% of
Total
0.0%
1.9E+13
43.3%
2.0E+13
45.3%
5.1E+12
11.4%
4.5E+13
Data
Units
Emergy
(J/m2/yr)
4932
g/m2/yr
1.0E+08
Transformity of Algae Biomass:
T = (Inputs) / (Outputs)
T = 4.5E+05 sej/J
Notes:
1. Given by Odum (1971) as 1.46E+06 kcal/m2/yr, where 1 kcal = 4184 J.
2. Calculated from materials costs reported for 100-acre facility in Fischer (1961), assuming
two-thirds of initial investment cost is for materials and amortization over life span of 10
years, added with materials costs for daily operation. Transformed using 15.8E+12 sej/$ for
1955 from Table D.1, p. 313 in Odum (1996).
3. Calculated from labor costs for 100-acre facility as reported in Fischer (1961), assuming onethird of initial investment costs is for installation labor, added to total for engineering labor,
all amortized over life span of 10 years. This is then added with daily operating labor cost.
Transformed using 15.8E+12 sej/$ for 1955 from Table D.1, p. 313 in Odum (1996).
4. Calculated from utilities and supplies costs for daily operation of 100-acre facility as reported
in Fischer (1961). Transformed using 15.8E+12 sej/$ for 1955 from Table D.1, p. 313 in
Odum (1996).
5. Calculated from projected net algae productivity of 20 t/acre/yr as reported in Fischer (1961),
and adjusted assuming gross productivity is 10% greater (Odum (1971)). Used heat value of
biomass of 5 kcal/g given in Figure 4-10, p. 127 in Odum (1971).
-566-
Table A.2. Transformity calculation for USDA ARS Laboratorys bench-scale algal turf scrubber.
INPUTS
Note
Item
Data
Transformity
Emergy
(sej/m2/d)
% of
Total
Materials
0.9 $/m2/d
0.8 E+12 sej/$
6.7E+11
3.4%
Labor
0.04 man-day/d
9.4E+13 sej/d/pe
3.8E+12
19.1%
Lamp
0.3 $/m2/d
0.8E+12 sej/$
2.0E+11
1.0%
Electricity
9.5E+07 J/m2/d
160,000 sej/J
1.5E+13
76.4%
Nutrients
3.1 g NH4-N/m2/d
4.6E+09 sej/g N
1.4E+10
0.1%
Deionized
Water
33.3 L/m2/d
18,199 sej/J
3.0E+09
0.0%
BT Larvicide
0.034 $/m2/d
0.8E+12 sej/$
2.6E+10
0.1%
CO2 Addition
0.1 $/m2/d
0.8E+12 sej/$
5.9E+10
0.3%
TOTAL (sej/m2/d)
OUTPUTS
Note
Item
2.0E+13
Data
Units
Emergy
(J/m2/d)
Algal Biomass
17.7
g /m2/d
370,280
10
Clean Water
66.7
L/m2/d
328,830
Transformities:
T = (Inputs) / (Outputs)
T = 5.4E+7 sej/J Algae Biomass
T = 6.1E+7 sej/J Clean Water
Notes:
1. Calculated from cost data for materials to build 0.6 m2 ATS trough out of PVC sheet (Blersch
and Kangas, unpublished data), amortized over 5 year life; dump bucket amortized over 2
year life; and pump amortized over 1 year life; and transformed using 0.78E+12 sej/$
extrapolated for year 2001 from data in Table D.1, p. 313 in Odum (1996).
2. Calculated from labor required to construct ATS trough and dump bucket, amortized over
respective life spans, and labor required per week to maintain an operating ATS (Blersch and
Kangas, unpublished data). Transformed using 9.35E+13 sej/day/person from Table 14.2, p.
265 in Odum (1996).
3. Calculated from cost data for two 400W metal halide lamps and bulbs (Kebede-Westhead, et
al. 2003). Ballasts and housing amortized over 3 year life span, bulbs amortized over 20,000
hr life span. Transformed using 0.78E+12 sej/$ extrapolated for 2001 from Table D.1, p. 313
in Odum (1996).
4. Calculated from electrical consumption of two lamps at 400W each (Kebede-Westhead, et al.
2003) and one pump at 330W (Mulbry 2004) for one ATS at 1 m2. Transformed using
-567-
transformity for electricity from coal power plant of 160,000 sej/J (Table C.1, p. 305, Odum
[1996]).
5. Calculated from weekly nutrient additions for 1 m2 ATS operating in lab, as reported for
maximum productivity in Kebede-Westhead et al. (2003). Assumed that nitrogen is limiting
nutrient at maximum loading rate of 15.5 mg/L/m2/d and transformed using transformity of
4.6E+09 sej/g N for ammonia fertilizer from Table C.4, p. 310 in Odum (1996).
6. Calculated from data reported in Kebede-Westhead et al. (2003) for a 1 m2 ATS: deionized
water replaced at rate of 100 liters every 3 days. Chemical potential of water given by Odum
(1996) as Gibbs free energy: G = (RT/w) ln (C2/C1), where R is the ideal gas constant (8.33
J/mol/K), T is the absolute temperature (assumed at 300K), w is the molecular weight of
water (18 g/mol), C1 is the relative chemical potential of dissolved solids in seawater
(965,000 ppm), and C2 is the relative chemical potential of dissolved solids of pure water (1 x
106 ppm). Transformed using transformity of 18,199 sej/J for chemical energy of rain on land
from Table C.3, p. 309 in Odum (1996).
7. Calculated from data reported in Kebede-Westhead et al. (2003) for a 1 m2 ATS: 20 mL of
Aquabac-XT added every 3 days at highest productivity and assuming retail price of $96.25/5
gal. Transformed using 0.78E+12 sej/$ extrapolated for 2001 from data in Table D.1, p. 313
in Odum (1996).
8. Calculated for CO2 addition rate of 1 mL/sec (Mulbry 2004), assuming ideal gas volume of
22.4 L/mol, MW of CO2 of 44 g/mol, and retail price of $10 per 50 lb. Transformed using
0.78E+12 sej/$ extrapolated for 2001 from data in Table D.1, p. 313 in Odum (1996).
9. Maximum productivity data reported in Kebede-Westhead et al. (2003) for a 1 m2 ATS
operating in lab. Used heat value of biomass given in Figure 4-10, p. 127 in Odum (1971).
10. Calculated from data reported in Kebede-Westhead et al. (2003) for a 1 m2 ATS: effluent
water at total dissolved solids concentration of 117 ppm (estimated from available TN and TP
data) produced at rate of 200 liters every 3 days. Chemical potential of water given by Odum
(1996) (see note 6).
-568-
EMERGY SYNTHESIS 3:
Edited by
Mark T. Brown
Managing Editor
Eliana Bardi
Associate Editors
Daniel E. Campbell
US EPA
Vito Comar
Dourados, Brazil
Shu-Li Haung
Taipei, Taiwan
Torbjorn Rydberg
Uppsala, Sweden
David Tilley
Sergio Ulgiati
University of Siena
Siena, Italy
November 2005

Gainesville, FL
ii
46
Spirulina Economy: A Microcosm Valuation
Karla L. Cozza, Antonio L. Philomena, and Jorge A.V. Costa
ABSTRACT
One of the most important discussions on species cultivation is the ecological-economic costs
involved. A study of media diversity is presented that tests the real values embodied in artificial and
natural sources. Spirulina platensis development on several nutritional sources was modeled and the
emergy synthesis of the microcosm experiment was calculated. Successful mesocosm design was
proposed to create an ecological economic balance of inputs-outputs. Scale differences were
compared and judged in relation to production and sustainability. Both experiments were built in
Southern Brazil.
INTRODUCTION
One of the most important decisions about species cultivation is the ecological-economic
costs involved in the process. To check the system costs, experiments could be run at the microcosm
level simulating natural conditions (Bayers & Odum, 1993). Showing high productivity (24
ton/ha/year) and being a source of -linolenic oil (11.970 mg/kg), Spirulina platensis is a promising
organism to be cultivated and a source of protein in countries where this is scarce so that a new food
alternative could be available. Today, this blue-green algae can be used biotechnologically in the
clean method, where the biomass is added in human food or in the wasted method, when the
spirulina biomass is developed to filter industrial, urban, and rural effluents. Large-scale production is
done by private enterprises in, for example, California (USA) and Hawaii (USA).
The aim of this study was to compare different energy inputs to spirulina production and
verify their costs at the mesoscale.
MATERIAL & METHODS

Spirulina platensis was supplied by the University of So Paulo. Three different cultivation
designs were carried out (Cozza, 1999). Treatment I involved a Zarrouk medium with a variable
nitrogen source and 672 hours of cultivation time/growing time. Treatment II was a semi-continuous
cultivation design with the best nutrient sources found in Treatment I. These experiments ran for a
total of 2,782 hours. Treatment III was a cultivation design receiving natural water from Mangueira
Lagoon (located at the southernmost state of Brazil - Rio Grande do Sul, with natural high alkalinity
and ideal conditions (a mean minimum depth of 7.4 m) for cyanobacteria growth). Treatment III had
an experimental time of 720 hours.
The whole experiment occurred inside a greenhouse with 12-hour light periods under 1,900
Lux intensity, a temperature of 30C, and 0.1 g/L initial cellular conditions. The experimental progress
was measured through biomass concentration, carbonate, bicarbonate, and pH parameters.
During Treatment I the following nitrogen sources were monitored: urea, sodium nitrate,
ammonium nitrate, ammonium chloride, ammonium sulfate, and ammonium phosphate. Treatment II
-569-
Chapter 46. Spirulina Economy: A Microcosm Evaluation
received sodium nitrate, ammonium nitrate, or urea, which were replaced after each parcel was
collected and analysed. In Treatment III, water from Mangueira Lagoon was utilized to find out if the
addition of bicarbonate was necessary, as well as the effects of different nitrogen sources and micro
nutrients.
The Newman-Keuls Statistical Test was applied to the values biomass concentration of
Spirulina platensis found during Treatments I, II, and III. Based on the result, three models (see
Figures 1, 2, and 3) were chosen from thirty three experiment combinations and all data was calculated
in emergy units (Beyers & Odum, 1993, and Odum, 1996). Cost comparisons and productivity
variation were scaled up to 100,000 liter tanks (mesocosms).

An environment created to reproduce the complexity of the natural world needs several inputs
of matter, energy and biomass. Especially at a microcosm scale, the requirements and management of
the organisms under study require huge efforts to obtain high productivity.
In Table 1, matter, energy, labor, and biomass can be compared among the three treatments.
Table 2 shows the emergy of each experiment input in Treatments I, II and III. Experiments showed
very clearly the high productivity (Emergy and biomass ratio) obtained with the natural water from
Mangueira Lagoon (even the addition of nitrate, bicarbonate and micronutrients did not change the
high productivity of natural water). Economically, the medium used in Treatment III had a cost of US$
0.87/kg at a 100,000 L mesoscale plant including medium composition and maintenance. This low
cost, compared to US$ 101.94/kg for Treatment I and US$ 126.03/kg for Treatment II at the same
scale of the former, was expected due to the high ecological-economic efficiency embodied in the
Lagoon water, and costs magnification when system needs nutrients complementation and external
energy. In the international market spirulina (dried powder) is sold at US$ 100.00/kg.
Treatment I and II carried the highest total emergy involved with the cultivation technologies.
Zarrouk
Medium
Without
N source
Nitrogen
Source
Electri
city
Inocu
lum
2.37 E 10
$
6.90 E 16
$
Labor
3.02 E 9
4.95 E 14
3.49 E 14
Environ
mental
Laboratory
Spirulina
Resources
Market
2.43 E 14
Figure 1. General Emergy Model of Spirulina cultivation until 672 h Treatment I. Units = seJ
-570-
Zarrouk
Medium
without
Nitrogen
Electri
city
Inocu
lum
Nitrogen
Sources
Labor
Environ
mental
Resources
Laboratory
Spirulina
Frozen
Algae
Market
Figure 2. General Model of Spirulina cultivation until 2,782 h Treatment II.
Micronutrients
Nitrogen
Source
NaHCO3
Mangueira
Lagoon
Electri
city
Inocu
lum
$
Labor
Water
Environ
mental
Resources
Laboratory
Spirulina
Market
Figure 3. General Model of Spirulina cultivation until 720 h Treatment III.
-571-
Table 1. Comparison of matter, energy, labor, and biomass among Treatments I, II and III.
Topics
Treatment I
Treatment II
Treatment III
255
1,369
Water (L)
100,000
279,687
100,000
Energy (KW)
120,437
247,589
50,468
672
2,782
720
199.2
105.4
92.9
Added nutrients (kg)
Labor (h)
Biomass (kg)*
*at 672 hours
Modified from Cozza (1999).
Table 2. Emergy proportion of matter, energy, labor, and biomass among Treatments I, II and III
expressed in seJ.
Topics
Treatment I
Treatment II
Treatment III
Added Nutrients
2.67 E10
3.72 E11
Water
2.43 E14
6.80 E13
2.04 E12
Energy
6.90 E16
1.42 E17
2.89 E16
Labor
4.95 E14
2.05 E15
2.40 E14
Total Emergy
6.95 E16
1.44 E17
2.91 E16
Total Emergy/Biomass (seJ/kg)
3.50E14
1.37E15
3.13E14
Modified from Cozza, 1999.

Obs.: The amount of water used is the same for Treatments I and III, but the emergy value is different because the
former is treated water from the city system, and the latter is natural water from Mangueira Lagoon. All
transformities are from Odum, 1996.
CONCLUSION
Due to the great input of the natural services (sun, wind and nutrients) the Treatment III
cultivation had the lowest cost. At the microcosm level the cultivation medium is used in an effort to
emulate nature, as shown by the higher costs incurred in Treatment I and II.
REFERENCES
Beyers, R.J. and Odum, H.T. 1993. Ecological Microcosms. Springer-Verlag, New York, 557 p.
Cozza, K.L. 1999. Spirulina platensis em meios naturais e sintticos: fatores nutricionais e custos
experimentais. Master thesis, FURG, Rio Grande. 204 p.
Odum, H.T. 1996. Environmental Accounting. John Wiley & Sons, New York. 369 p.
-572-

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