Talk:Emergy/Archive 1

Archive 1

A word on "original research"

For 7 years I have tried to pin down the conept of energy memory. What does it refer to? Does it refer to computer memory, human memory, molecular-material memory, the memory, or 'error', of Gaia, or a kind of 'coherent energy'? I have not found a definition of the term in the work of Odum or Scienceman that is both clear and concrete. Nor have I found an explanation for including the term 'energy memory' in the definition of the word 'emergy'. What more does the term 'energy memory' bring to the emergy concept that was not already there with the concept of 'embodied energy'? The reasoning behind all this needs to be clarified, and I have made some stabs. My apologies if it offends the No Original Research clause. But I do not apologise if in the future it leads to a greater clarification by those more knowledgeable Sholto Maud 23:10, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps check out Alf Hornborg's criticism of the emergy concept in relation to the concept of exergy. He dismisses emergy because it paradoxically increases with the total amount of entropy in a system, as it demands focus on only one element in the system vs the state of the entire system itself (on which that single element depends!). The acceptance of this paradox can also be found in ideas such as the "labor theory of value," which, like emergy, paradoxically increase as entropy increases. This forms the basis for cultural acceptance of a global economy of unequal exchange: trading low-entropy matter-energy for high-entropy "value added products." Concepts like emergy help make it seem like there is some sort of objective value inherent in the high-entropy products, where it is really just a cultural illusion. Perhaps we could pull some quotes from his book, "The Power of the Machine" and add them to a criticisms section here. I'm surprised that there isn't one yet72.244.201.27 01:54, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. Perhaps there needs to be a separate Wikipedia entry that documents rejections, objections and concerns about the emergy methodology and associated algebra? Sholto Maud

Emergy efficiency

This entry is for explorative and demonstrative purposes only. It is not meant to be a statement of fact. (By writing this entry I'm hoping that this forum will enable experts to clarify & verify the math. I do not aim at original research, but, rather, clarification). Note that I have had one expert communicate to me that the following is wrong - however we haven't yet managed to clarify where or how Sholto Maud 12:54, 13 December 2005 (UTC). And I have had another say that the last (under the headding "however") formulation looks approximately correct Sholto Maud 03:07, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Iff energy efficiency is given by,

$real\ power(W)^{2}+reactive\ power(VAR)^{2}=apparent\ power(VA)^{2}.\,$

$Energy\;Efficiency={\frac {useful\;energy\;output}{total\;energy\;input}}=\eta \$ which is equal to, ${\frac {exergy}{total\;energy\;input}}$

Then is emergy efficiency given by,

$Emergy\;Efficiency\;={\frac {useful\;emergy\;output}{total\;emergy\;input}}=(\eta \ _{Em})?$

Sholto Maud 02:01, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Iff power efficiency is given by,

$Power\;Efficiency={\frac {rate\;of\;useful\;energy\;output}{rate\;of\;total\;energy\;input}}={\frac {load\;power}{total\;power}}$

Then is empower efficiency given by,

$Empower\;Efficiency={\frac {rate\;of\;useful\;emergy\;output}{rate\;of\;total\;emergy\;input}}={\frac {load\;empower}{total\;empower}}=(\eta \ _{Emp})?$

Sholto Maud 03:34, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

HOWEVER

T.Ohta maintains that, "the exact estimation of energy conversion efficiency should be done using an exergy evaluation by ... [see ratio below]" (1994, p. 97).

$Energy;Efficiency={\frac {available;exergy}{exergy;input}}=(\eta _{E})$

And iff $E_{x}=(Gibbs\ free\ energy)+(garavitational\ potential\ energy)+(kinetic\ energy)$

then $\eta \ _{E_{x}}={\frac {(Gibbs\ free\ energy)+(garavitational\ potential\ energy)+(kinetic\ energy)output}{(Gibbs\ free\ energy)+(garavitational\ potential\ energy)+(kinetic\ energy)input}}$

This is because, according to Ohta, the other definion above sometimes has an unreasonable result with reference to refrigerators, where $\eta \$ becomes negative and the efficiency of heat pump exceeds 100% (Ibid.). If we add another consideration to this, that Chen defines emergy as embodied exergy the ratios for emergy efficiency and empower efficiency would appear to be:

$Emergy\;Efficiency\;={\frac {available\;embodied\;exergy\;output}{total\;embodied\;exergy\;input}}=(\eta \ _{Em})?$

IFF $E_{m}=\int _{t=-\infty }^{t_{0}}P_{x}dt$

then $\eta \ _{E_{m}}={\frac {\int _{t=-\infty }^{t_{0}}P_{x}dt\;output}{\int _{t=-\infty }^{t_{0}}P_{x}dt\;input}}$

$Empower\;Efficiency\;={\frac {rate\;of\;available\;embodied\;exergy\;output}{rate\;of\;total\;embodied\;exergy\;input}}=(\eta \ _{Emp})?$

Ref: T.Ohta (1994) Energy Technology:Sources Systems and Frontier Conversion, Pergamon, Elsevier Science.

Sholto Maud 01:22, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

From the above it therefore seems and only seems that "load empower" might be defined as the "rate of available embodied exergy flow". Sholto Maud 05:51, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

HELLO, I HOPE I AM POSTING MY COMMENTS IN THE RIGHT AREA, SINCE THIS SAYS "DISCUSSION", THOUGH THE EXACT FORMAT ONE IS SUPPOSED TO USE IS NOT CLEAR TO ME (IT SURE ISN'T A DISCUSSION FORUM IN ITS STYLE) ANYWAY, MY QUESTIONS CONCERNS THE INTEGRAL FROM MINUS INFINITY TO T_0. THE FIRST QUESTION IS, WHY MINUS INFINITY WHEN THE UNIVERSE'S AGE IS FINITE?

How do we know that the universe's age is finite? Sholto Maud 09:08, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

IF T=ZERO CORRESPONDS TO THE PRESENT (DOES IT?) THEN IF THE UNIVERSE IS A YEARS OLD IT SHOULD BE THE INTEGRAL FROM -A TO THE PRESENT (OR TO T_0 AS THE CASE MIGHT BE). COULD THIS BE CLARIFIED.

SECONDLY, THERE IS THE FUNDAMENTAL THEOREM OF CALCULUS (WHICH IS ON WIKIPEDIA) SO IF WE INTEGRATE F'(T) FROM A TO B WE GET F(A)-F(B) WHICH IS A MUCH SIMPLER FORMULA, SO WHY NOT USE THAT IN THE PRESENT CASE INSTEAD OF THAT INTEGRAL? EVEN IF WE *WERE* GOING FROM MINUS INFINITY TO T_0 IT WOULD BE THE LIMIT AS A APPROACHED INFINITY OF THE INTEGRAL FROM -A TO T_0 OF THE DERIVATIVE, WHICH WOULD STILL BE THE LIMIT AS A APPROACHED INFINITY OF JUST [THE FUNCTION AT T_0 MINUS THE FUNCTION AT -A] WHICH AGAIN WOULD NOT NEED AN INTEGRAL...PLEASE CLARIFY...I'LL REVISIT THIS PAGE IN A WEEK OR IN A MONTH AND HOPEFULLY THERE ARE RESPONSES ON THIS 'TALK' PAGE. TODAY IS SAT. SEPT 9, 2006.

NPOV notice

This article needs to be evaluated in terms of physics. Emergy is used in ecological sciences, but the evaluation of this term in terms of physics it assumes should be done. What is particularly disturbing to me is that some of the references refer to such things as the "fourth and fifth laws" of thermodynamics and include some pretty strange definitions for things such as "heat". Is this the cutting edge of ecology, or is this deep-endism? --ScienceApologist 19:17, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

• Agreed. THe emergy concept has been used in ecology, and also apparently has use in physical chemistry. Although some authors seem to refer to the physics of emergy I have not been able to find any use of the concept by physicists. I'm also not sure where there is a definition of heat in this article. Could you please clarify which section you are referring to and what is not neutral in the article? Sholto Maud 04:04, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I a not an ecologist, nor do I play one on TV, and I don't have any colleagues who have ever heard of "Emergy". All I can say is that this concept seems like a major reinvention of the wheel. What does "emergy" explain that cannot be summarized by thermodynamics? In particular, why is this considered "novel" when, for example, the transformity is just the reciporical of the efficiency. It appears to me that this whole endeavor may be the result of some "physics ignorance" and I would have stated that outright, but I don't have any proof of this from the perspective of peer review. I suspect that physicists just don't know about this thing and so they don't have an evaluation of it. --ScienceApologist 15:09, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

• Interesting. "if we have not heard of it, it does not exist!!!" It would be great to have some peer-reviewed references to physics articles that use similar ratios by different names. Which thermodynamic ratio do you have in mind which is the same as transformity? If you can find references in the physics literature which give the same ratios but use different names, then it would be really good, indeed necessary to update the article with links to Wiki definitions of those ratios. Then we could say that the emergy nomenclature is simply reinventing the wheel - (but then maybe that would be considered OR?). Either way I don't see the basis for NPOV. Lastly, could you please give a clearer indication of where the article gives a heterodox definition of heat? PS: What do you play on TV if not an ecologist?  :) Sholto Maud 23:20, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Revisiting NPOV issue. The article still seems to be under dispute with respects to NPOV. On review the NPOV argument given by User:ScienceApologist has some problems.

• The main category for the NPOV classification seems to be pseudoscience, and not a claim about bias.
• However if as ScienceApologist states, that emergy is a major reinvention of the wheel, and that all the work done in emergy method has previously done by physicists under different terminology, then the article does not qualify as pseudoscience, because previous physics is not pseudoscience.
• On this occasion the article should not be given a NPOV label.
• Others have claimed that emergy method is protoscience. If this were the case, and ScienceApologist were also right, then much of established physics would be classed as protoscience, and must therefore attract a NPOV label.
• If ScienceApologist could explain what physics emergy method is ignorant of then the article and readership would benefit. Sholto Maud 09:57, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

• In sum one cannot have one's cake and eat it: Either all the work done in emergy method has previously done by physicists or emergy method is protoscience and has not previously done by physicists. No rational argument can be given to both these claims at the same time. Which one is it to be? Sholto Maud 11:26, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Re: emergy novelty & cumulative exergy

• I have received communication from an emergy expert about the novelty of emergy. If I may be allowed to quote the source anonymously they write: "the only novelty of emergy is to adress those issues with an appropriate emergy algebra which introduce the concept of coproduction that classical input/output energy/exergy matrix methodologies were unable to address. The work about cumulative exergy done by Bakshi (see http://www.che.eng.ohio-state.edu/~bakshi/EcolModel3.pdf) sounds equivalent to me. . I often wondered if it wouldn't be better to work with cumulated exergy rather than emergy since cumulated exergy doesn't seem to have a whole mistaken community. On the other hand a few people from emergy is serious and there community seems wider than cumulative exergy. For sure a merge between the concept is required." [my emphasis]. So it seems that other methods in physics do not address the issue of "coproduction". Therefore the concept of "coproduction" probably needs greater attention and rigorous mathematical definition in the article. Sholto Maud 22:10, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Keep WP:NOR in mind. That goes for ghostwritten original research, too. — Omegatron 22:51, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes. I'm aware I'm treading a very fine line here. :) My intention is to clarify where emergy is mathematically novel in comparison to other methods and concepts in physics. The literature on 'coproduction' is established and would not qualify as OR. However emphasis of such may qualify as OR. I'm not sure. Perhaps you might advise on this. Sholto Maud 23:15, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Good. We appreciate your cooperative attitude.  :-)

I don't know anything about this or ecology or coproduction. It sounds interesting, though not mainstream. I'd like to learn more about it. — Omegatron 01:45, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Protoscience

I eyeballed this http://emsim.sourceforge.net/latexdocs/emergy.pdf for a few minutes, and I liked chapter 3. It's a refreshingly honest analysis of a protoscience, and that was just a good thing to read even if I didn't understand all the details. Honesty always gets me more interested.

So I thought "a good chemical engineer should look at this stuff to add some rigor," and then I thought "I wonder if a good chemE has looked at this stuff?" and then I googled 'emergy "chemical engineering"' and came up with this article http://www.che.eng.ohio-state.edu/~bakshi/EcolModel3.pdf which looks more rigorous to me.

Sure....physics is at the heart of everything, but stuff like this is more at the fingertips of science...and that's where chemE sits. The problem with this article right now is that it assigns pseudoscience words like "memory" to something just because it's an integral over past time and words like "value" are best left alone by everyone except pseudoscientists unless they are qualified with something like "called an ecocentric value" like Bakshi has done.

The word "memory" with no qualifiers is for neuroscience and the word "value" is for economists. I'm changing this article to add rigor and then I'll remove the NPOV tag. Flying Jazz 04:47, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I very much agree here, the words used do give an instant pseudoscience feel for the concept. Unfortunatly Emergy is probably the worse culprit, but we can't change that one. --Pfafrich 09:20, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. All the neologisms just scream "pseudoscientific crackpottery!" But maybe it's not as far out as it looks at first glance. — Omegatron 01:47, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

What I'm going to do with this stuff

I'm making my way through exergy now and giving it some (maybe over-intense) rigor which it deserves since it's an old concept and I haven't really used my ChemE degree in years. I removed the redirect of transformity from this page and directed it to energy quality instead which is where it belongs for now, but in a little while I want to rename that article transformity because that's a more specific term, and I'll give that article and this emergy stuff as much rigor as I can. Energy quality will redirect to transformity because that's what certain people (without my scruples for language) call the thing. As I learn more about this field from a real-science perspective as opposed to a proto/pseudoscience perspective, I like it more and more and want to spread the virus until it becomes an all-encompasing movement of scientists, economists, politicians, ordinary folk, and other various entities all marching in lock-step to save the world or at least make it more emergetically transformininaciously exergerific. Flying Jazz 17:07, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

This sounds like a good plan. Go for it! But I'm not convinced by the renaming of energy quality article to transformity. Sholto Maud 09:55, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

You were right about that. I changed it back. Flying Jazz 21:28, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Recent anon edits

• 136.186.1.199 (talk · contribs) the cc.swin.edu.au anon (registered to Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia); see also Gene Ray

Hi Hillman. I removed the references I added out of concern for copyright. What I don't understand is why the journals that publish articles on emergy and sustainability simulation are expensive and only available to very few universities (at least that is the case Australia). Any thoughts? Also, could you clarify what Gene Ray has to do with sustainability and emergy... (perhaps you are suggesting the "time cube" could be given an emergy evaluation? That could be interesting :) ) Sholto Maud 02:51, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be under a grave misunderstanding. References to expensive journals are never copyright violations. References to web pages which violate copyright are not appropriate - but if such references were in the article, you should have just replaced them with references to the original source, not removed them.—greenrd 13:43, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I can't remember whether the references were replaced or not. A search of the article history should show this up. I don't think I have misunderstood, as I left all references in the Bibliography. Best, Sholto Maud 00:25, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Huh? So was that you at Swinburne University of Technology? As for Gene Ray, grab the IPs of anon editors of that article. ---CH 05:18, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes. I study analog-to-digital instrumentation - industrial computer science - at Swinburne. I left the link to Tennenbaum's thesis because he said it was ok to distribute. Other links may be innapropriate due to copyright, but I'll see what I can do (according to some, Tennenbaum's thesis apparently has "correct" emergy algorithms). I haven't yet studied how to grab IPs of anon editors. Do you have references on how to do that? Regards, Sholto Maud 06:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Pseudoscience?

If not only the definition, but the purpose of this concept is unclear after reading a few paragraphs past the initial intro, then it's either pseudoscience or a poorly written article. Please make a clearer intro that at least refers to why it would be useful. Try to avoid jargon in the intro, even if that means losing some precision. --Homunq 20:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

...Hello Homunq. I worked on the article at the beginning and have tried to clarify the concept of emergy. If you would like to help improve the article then you are more than welcome. There are many references given that you can read. Best of luck! Sholto Maud 02:49, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

The very first sentence serves to obfuscate rather than define what emergy is. Later on, the article says that the concept cannot be understood except in context. So... where is the context? Could there not be an example that would help a reader understand the concept?

It seems odd to respond to criticism of this article by directing the reader to an external reference. If this article cannot explain what emergy is, perhaps it could be replaced by a link to an article that can. SheffieldSteel 19:34, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Emergy Definition

User:SheffieldSteel, would you like to try to help clarify the definition of emergy? Sholto Maud 00:50, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Original research

I had tagged a few paragraphs that merely reported statements by Odum or Scienceman as original research. That edit was quickly reverted. Is anyone else watching this page and willing to share his or her thoughts on this? --DrTorstenHenning 15:11, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

What the heck?

Is anyone who doesn't already know what Emergy is going to get anything out of this article? It's unintelligible. In fact on first reading I suspect it's some pseudoscience or even an elaborate hoax. Eleland 23:00, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

G'day Eleland, i seem to be one of the main/only contributers to the article. How could we improve it? Sholto Maud 00:03, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I have to say the name "Scienceman" makes it look even more like an elaborate hoax.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.52.218.40 (talk) 19:04, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

What to do about this article

Regarding the "anonymous communication" cited above

Coproduction in engineering may be completely addressed by methods in physics without using "cumulated exergy" or "emergy" concepts. We know this because engineers designed coproduction plants without using or being trained about those concepts. All that is needed is regard for multiple systems and multiple system boundaries to determine an overall second-law efficiency for the entire process. What probably happened at some time in the past is that someone in the emergy crowd understood something about coproduction plants designed by engineers using classic physics, and because their physics background was so weak and they have all that energetics gobbledygoop in their "scientific" subculture, they pointed to coproduction and made pretend that it supported something that they do or think. Nonsense. -- Flying Jazz (talk) 17:14, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Avoiding the reality that this is, at best, a very confused protoscience

I posted a link above to chapter 3 in here containing very serious criticisms of the emergy concept from someone who is familiar with the concept and uses it. Also see the criticisms section in section 3.2 the Bakshi article. These are not criticisms about nomenclature, units, and value theory. These are published reports of major problems with the entire discipline and even whether the entire concept should or needs to exist or has any consistent meaning at all. For someone "on the inside" to criticize or to repeat the criticism of others for an entire field is a good thing and a sign of potential future development. At the very least, it's an indication that all of its practitioners are not crackpots in a scientific lala-land. Sholto has ignored these most-pivotal criticisms and instead written an article that misrepresents the reality of criticism and self-awareness within the field. In the process, it really does appear from this article that emergy practitioners are crackpots in a scientific lala-land. Obviously, some are. -- Flying Jazz (talk) 17:14, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Imagining that the definition of exergy is in confusion

Sholto edited the introduction of the exergy article to express the idea that there is a lack of clarity in a thermodynamic concept that has been established for a century. -- Flying Jazz (talk) 17:14, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

What to do about it

This article smells like the worst type of nonsense, and I suspect that it may be a good thing because it may reflect the reality that emergy (based on what I've understood) also smells like the worst type of nonsense at this moment in time. The huge list of references should go. It looks like you're just plopping any old reference out there that anyone in the discipline has ever written. Cut it out. Cite what you use. Fix this thing so a typical reader understands the strong objections raised about the entire concept by many people. Fix it so it reflects the reality that the field lacks rigor. I am rapidly losing all faith in this editor. I think he is here to add confusion to established ideas and to pretend that confused ideas are more established than they really are. My optimism expressed last year when I wrote "What I'm going to do with this stuff" is gone. If this isn't repaired then maybe the best thing would be to dismiss it, delete it, and start over. I do think there should be an emergy article on Wikipedia. It just can't be as POV as this one is. -- Flying Jazz (talk) 17:14, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I considered AfD'ing this fiasco some time ago, but I never got around to it. Anyway, the concept is probably notable, although it's a very borderline case. The problem is that virtually no scientific investigation into this... well, even to call it a "theory" is dubious. Virtually no investigation into this body of hypothesis and conjecture has been taken, outside of a very small tightly-nit group of eccentrics. Actually, I checked those of the references available online some time ago, and some of them weren't about "emergy" at all! In fact, I recall that some of them didn't even use the word! The use of such references is, in my experience, a prime indication that an article is pushing a pseudoscience agenda.

As a first step (if it hasn't been taken already) I'd recommend alerting the fine folks at the fringe theories noticeboard to this problem. <eleland/talkedits> 17:29, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

For the record, I support any edits of the article which are verifiable, clarify the concept and reduce any inaccuracy or error in the content & referencing. If an editor would like to query of me, I will do my best here to provide comment & reasonings on any of the content that I have contributed. I have previously invited academics who use the concept to collaborate on the article, however because of the Wikipedia anonymity norm I cannot tell whether they have contributed or not. One main figure in the field said that the article looked ok. His main criticism was that the article made it look like Scienceman invented the concept. -- Sholto Maud (talk) 22:08, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality

If I have read correct, FlyingJazz's main criticism seems to be that the article does not give sufficient voice to significant criticisms of the emergy concept. I wrote the following section (quotation below) which was an attempt to summarize criticisms of the concept from authors and other Wikipedia editors when I started the article a while ago.

I was aware that my attempt at an encyclopedic summary of criticisms was not published or verifiable and possibly a breach of NPOV. For example, no one has talked about measuring empower with a scientific measurement instrument in the literature. On the other hand in personal communication Valyi supported the content of the general statement below, so I felt I was somewhere on the mark. (I hope that is not a breach of confidentiality ... my sincere apologies Raph if it is.).

It would be my preference to have Valyi, Brown, Ulgiati, Bastianoni, Campbell, Giannantoni (all people who have had something to do with the emergy concept) to all comment on criticisms, the concerns of FlyingJazz, Eleland and others like DrTorstenHenning (who we might like to bring into the discussion), and the article here in the discussion page. In fact, before making any major changes or deletions, I would encourage all editors who have any further concerns to approach these academics urging them to contribute to this discussion here. The more editors that do this the more likely they will contribute. Perhaps a petition of editors might be sufficient to get their interest? However given that Wikipedia is not a peer-review medium I don't like your chances.

Another problem is that Wikipedia editors are often anonymous like FlyingJazz for instance - so as I said above, how would we know whether any of these academics had contributed? If we want to make any of this emergy, Wikipedia talk real, with real consequences, perhaps we should all declare who we are in real life, and what our vested interests are before making any further edits...?

My name is Mr Sholto Maud, I work at RMIT University as a Research Assistant in Melbourne, VIC, Australia. I have an interested in the emergy concept and would like to know if it is valid and verifiable. I do not use it in any of my professional work.

If the below is not a sufficient criticism then please discuss how we might added to without crossing NPOV.

"For some scientists, there are two fundamental requirements for something to be considered a thermodynamic or energetic principle. Firstly is an experimental technique, or instrument, used to quantitatively measure the phenomenon of interest. In the case of maximum empower this would mean the specification of an instrument that measures 'empower'. A second requirement is a set of mathematical equations that demonstrate, in the current case, an experimentally testable relationship of the phenomenon of "empower" to other thermodynamic variables.

A consequence of the first criteria is that serious scientific scholarship using the emergy nomenclature will need something like an "empower meter". Giannantoni has attempted to give the mathematics, however does not appear to have specified an empower meter by which to quantitatively measure empower. Although the concept of maximum empower has been used in peer-reviewed journals to model and quantify the ecological-economic sustainability of a region and nation, the question remains as to whether it qualifies as the 4th thermodynamic law, and apparently will not be resolved until an empower meter or equivalent is constructed. Given it is proposed as the 4th thermodynamic law acceptance of results would also probably only come more widely with general consensus in well respected physics journals like the The International Journal of Thermodynamics, or perhaps Physical Review. As long as physicists do not recognise it as the 4th thermodynamic law, it is unlikely scientists more generally will accept it and use the concept to unify disciplines like physics, biology and chemistry (not to mention society, economics and religion)." (the preceeding comment was made by Sholto Maud)

I'm sorry if I triggered a defensive reaction. I was a little miffed that you described exergy as unclear in the introduction to that article, and I think maybe I should have been more judicious about making powerful statements when I am anonymous and you are not. The addition above would not make the article NPOV in my opinion. This is because it sets up a straw man argument along the lines that those pesky disbelievers need an "empower meter" in order to join the righteous cause of the believers. For the third time, well-written and verifiable reviews of criticisms of the entire emergy concept are given in section 3.2 of http://www.che.eng.ohio-state.edu/~bakshi/EcolModel3.pdf and in chapter 3 of http://emsim.sourceforge.net/latexdocs/emergy.pdf. Dozens of criticisms are in those sections, and they are all well cited. A few examples:

"Emergy theory has been characterized as simplistic, contradictory, misleading and inaccurate (Ayres, 1998; Cleveland et al., 2000; Mansson and McGlade, 1993; Spreng, 1988). Rebuttals to many critiques have also been published (Patten, 1993; Odum, 1995a). 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."

"formal quantitative links are missing. This leads to impressions that emergy analysis is a “ very different approach” from exergy analysis (Emblemsvag and Bras, 2001)."

"Ayres (1998) questions the need for emergy as opposed to 'standard variables of thermodynamics, namely enthalpy and exergy.'"

"You won’t find any emergy study rejected as wrong by the emergy community. Then isn’t naive to claim that it could be a universal tool?"

An NPOV emergy article must summarize and explain these criticisms for the reader. These are not criticisms that say, "We need an emergy meter." These are criticisms that say, in effect, "we don't need this concept at all" or "the people who use the concept aren't doing anything rigorously." Your preference to contact emergy experts for comments and criticisms about this article is extremely misguided. They've already published their criticisms and rebuttals, and those published sources are the only things that editors should use in the article. The livelihoods and reputations of those good people as researchers and as academics may be involved, and it's our job as editors to represent what they've written in a balanced NPOV way without giving undue weight to critics, supporters, or the people in between. I think that a while back I needed to attempt to be NPOV about whether emergy is "fringe" or not. My impression is that labeling a protoscience as "fringe" or "not fringe" may be a mistake. My impression about emergy, and my view about whether it is valid and verifiable is expressed at the current version of Exergy#Assigning_one_thermodynamically_obtained_value_to_an_economic_good. And my attempt isn't referenced yet, but it will get there using the references cited above. For the emergy article, my little summary of a few sentences won't do. We need to be bold and flesh out the story for the reader about these criticisms, but this will take time and effort and I can't do it now. Sholto, have you read the criticism links in the two papers I cited? Have you read Ayres's paper? I think you are not being bold enough. If you have no professional ties to this subject then there is no reason for you to be so deferential to experts in this field. I think if you are on Wikipedia to throw emergy and empower concepts into the encyclopedia and see how they are criticized by other editors then you are here for the wrong reason and the articles you write will be deleted because they are too inexplicable for other editors to edit. It would be wonderful if you could focus on the reader first by simplifying and reducing what you've written so far and by reflecting the core reality of the criticisms instead of pretending that the criticisms are about the lack of an emergy-meter. Flying Jazz (talk) 10:03, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Flying Jazz for your considered comment and encouragement. Why am I on Wikipedia? User:Sholto_Maud “I noticed that the entry on embodied energy was small & incomplete, talked about the concept of "emergy", and had my CSIRO article as a reference. On that basis I thought I would contribute what I know about embodied energy and the emergy synthesis paradigm & nomenclature. “ I put up what is verifiable with references. I try to do justice to the content of the references without too much interpretation else I influence the meaning too much. This seems to make the writing hotch-potch. But if even peer-review articles are sometimes confused then, well, so will be the wiki article. If there are errors in my work it is because of exhaustion. I am not pretending that criticisms are about the lack of an emergy-meter.

Re: the works critical of emergy. To my dismay I have not read the Ayres publication and cannot find a pdf copy from google scholar (that’s about where my interest ends). I have read Jorge L. Hau and Bhavik R. Bakshi’s article. The first part of their criticism that “much of the persistent skepticism seems to stem from the difficulty in obtaining details about the underlying computations,” is valid. To resolve some of this situation I contacted Scienceman and he said the correct algorithms for computations were in the Tennenbaum thesis. Valyi apparently could not find the Tennenbaum thesis and so got most details from Giannantoni. (Good luck understanding Giannantoni’s "incipient” derivatives 2002, p.167). I presume Bakshi had similar difficulty and so made his comment.

I subsequently followed this up and made an electronic copy of the Tennenbaum thesis available (see the emergy article references) – about 450 people have downloaded the thesis get one for yourself now, its free whilst the esnips service lasts and as long as I can be bothered with any of this stuff.

The second part of their criticism about “a lack of formal links with related concepts in other disciplines.” is in my opinion valid – if you want to quote this in the emergy article that seems to me fine, but in my book it is not sufficient to spell the death of the concept.

With respects to http://emsim.sourceforge.net/latexdocs/emergy.pdf. I read this before starting the emergy article. Although I respect Valyi and tend to agree with his observations his report is not a peer-review publication hence I thought it proper not to include explicit reference to it or to Valyi’s views. However I believe I (or someone I can’t remember) put a link in the references which is why Wikipedia is great! I believe that the basic thrust of Valyi’s comments is that, if maximum empower is a physical law (Much of the emergy literature claims that the "empower" concept is grounded in thermodynamic science), then this thing “empower” must be a measurable quantity, much like Voltage is a measurable quantity. As mentioned above, Valyi has read my summary criticism and, the last time we had contact, agreed with it. The intent of my summary is reverse to the straw man interpretation. It aims to put onus on the emergy community suggesting they address their lack of instrumental rigor if they want to be taken seriously. If empower is thermodynamically measurable what instrument does one use to measure it?

I’m not so concerned to find a label because I don’t think we all know what each other is talking about here when we use the word “emergy”. One person’s understanding & use of the emergy concept appears to be different to another. From what I have read, some people believe it is simply a contrivance of ecological energy accounting, and launch criticism of it from this basis alone saying things like “it duplicates other methods”. However others like Scienceman in particular, and Odum sort-of, appear to be saying that it is physical and is therefore pertains to a physical law (Hence Maximum power principle. But then the accounting people also seem to be saying this on occasion but then they have no idea about how to prove the physics of the situation. But you see those critics who say it duplicates other methods do not put up any organizational law in the universe such as “maximum empower”, whatever that is. So maybe the critics don’t fully understand the scope or intent of what “empower” is referring to… quien sabe

A lot of this stuff seems to have started in earnest with Lotka’s energetics of evolution. I get the feeling that this is what the empower stuff is grasping for.

“It has been pointed out by Boltzmann' that the fundamental object of contention in the life-struggle, in the evolution of the organic world, is available energy.2 In accord with this observation is the principle3 that, in the struggle for existence, the advantage must go to those organisms whose energy-capturing devices are most efficient4 in directing available energy into channels favorable to the preservation of the species.

… The re- sult [of natural selection] will be to increase the total mass of the system, and, with this total mass, also the total energy flux through the system, since, other things equal, this energy flux is proportional to the mass of the system.”

If any editor wants to take this any further I suggest you write a peer-review article in the most reputable physics journal that will accept your contribution and winge your heart out about how bad the situation is, and how all physicists should agree to petition every scientific body on earth to have the emergy concept banished from all scientific peer review publications. Then we can re-write the emergy article as an historical article about a concept that was tried out by a small group of scholars who had some strange fringe view about the world which was later proved wrong or misguided. Non-peer-review Wikipedia committees are not the appropriate forum to rule on the validity of an apparently scientific concept. You should know better.

I’ve had enough for now. Do whatever you want. I'm over being a bleeding heart doogooder - show me the money... Sholto Maud (talk) 12:07, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Of course Wikipedia doesn't exist to rule on the validity of any concept, and of course a peer-reviewed article would be needed to validate or invalidate anything in the scientific community. That's not Wikipedia's job. Anyone who expects an encyclopedia to help answer questions about whether these concepts are valid is expecting way too much. Our job is to produce an NPOV article that serves the reader by citing criticisms if a concept like emergy is strongly criticized (and also--sorry to keep beating a dead horse--to serve the reader by not saying a concept like exergy is unclear when it's been used by engineers to make trillions of dollars for the chemical industry in the last century and to alter the planet).

(Last post to Wikipedia) -- Granted. I never contested this. The intent of my exergy edit was not to say that the chemical engineering usage of exergy is unclear. Rather to say that other uses of the term appear in the literature, and it is unclear how these uses relate to the chem eng use (perhaps they are all one in the same and science is truly unified?). Which is true and verifiable, and some Wikipedia readers might like to know about. That was all. If I wrote this sloppily then I apologise to all of Wikipedia's readers. But I've had enough. Goodbye FlyingJazz my dogooding friend. Mate, it was a pleasure sharing your rigorous collaborative spirit there for a while, before it dissipated. Sholto Maud 19/11/2007 EST.

Criticism of emergy is not incorporated sufficiently into the current article. Strong criticism of a fairly new concept is good, interesting, and should be reported to the reader in a way that the reader can understand. The fact that people inside the small emergy community sometimes criticize the entire concept may be a sign of a healthy future for the field. Even if the people on Wikipedia who have axes to grind by "finding and labeling fringe science" do come here, they won't invalidate the concept. They'll just report what others have said about it. Nearly everyone on Wikipedia is a bleeding heart dogooder. Why do you think I spent all those hours on the exergy article without being shown any money? The way to do the most good here in the long term is to focus on an completely uninformed reader over and over again. I hope you keep being a bleeding heart dogooder and I hope you stay here and change this article so people understand the concept and the criticism of it. If you don't do this then other people eventually will. I am also tagging other emergy-related articles as NPOV if they don't contain criticisms of the field as a whole. Flying Jazz (talk) 16:45, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Why this article looks like a hoax

Any reasonable and knowledegable person who sees this article is bound to think it's some sort of pseudoscientific hoax. First of all, the definition of emergy doesn't seem to be given until a good way into the article. The mathematical definition has some serious "issues". When you're using letters and symbols to represent quantities, you need to be a lot more specific. It looks like you're just throwing around symbols without attaching definite meanings to them. For example, when people discussing Energy, they generally talk about the "energy of an object" or the "energy of a system". Is this also true for emergy and exergy? If so, we need to specify what objects E_x and E_m are attached to. Are emergy and exergy additive? What is the meaning of exergy in a system within which temperature and pressure vary? And a bigger issue is that the "exergy power" seems a little ambiguous, since exergy isn't a conserved quantity. Is that the rate at which the object's exergy increases, or the system's exergy decreases? Or maybe the rate at which exergy is created or destroyed? Now the main obvious problem with the mathematics is that the writer seems ignorant of basic calculus. As somebody pointed out on this talk page, it makes way more sense to just write the emergy as the change in exergy since time zero. I assume that the -infinity should be a zero, since most cosmological models I've ever heard of do not extend time backwards to infinity. Even if this isn't the case, you shouldn't just assume that time does go back to negative infinity.

And about that integral... how do you calculate this when the object under consideration, like say, a Hamburger, was not a single object at a prior point in time? If I want to assign meaning to the emergy of my hamburger, am I supposed to consider the different components separately and add their cumulative emergies together when the sandwich is created? This seems like it could be really messed up. For example, suppose the mustard contained water, which was drawn from the ocean. When the water is withdrawn from the ocean, how do we decide how much of the emergy in the ocean will go to the water, and how much will remain in the ocean?

Aside from these technical ambiguosities, there are some other issues with the page. Why is "GLOBAL" capitalized in the Emergy Accounting section? In the section "Energy Memory, Energy in a body", the examples don't make sense / are false. Saying that the number of electrons in the circuit is conserved has absolutely nothing to do with saying that the electrical energy, or any other type of energy is conserved. By writing this, you sound like a fool. Also, 'p' is not an SI base unit, since the SI base units are a standard list of units specified by the International Committee for Weights and Measures.

The definition of empower looks like it's just the rate of change of the emergy. Well wait a minute: using the mathematical definition of emergy, isn't that just the exact same thing as the 'energy power'? (Some of us actually know calculus). And of course, there's the whole issue of whether it makes sense to discuss the flow of a non-conserved quantity. The maximum empower principle doesn't even make sense, and looks false. If I have a waterwheel, it seems like it's empower will decrease over time, as it gets rusty. An example would do wonders in that section.

Some more superficial reasons why people will likely think this article is a hoax: The main advocate of the theory has a strange name, that makes him sound like a cult leader (read his article, or the quote at the end). Looking at the talk page and the history, one or two people seem to be behind the entire article. This concept isn't used by most fields that people are familiar with (like Physics, Chemistry). There are too many connections to Australia. There are way to many references at the end. --128.208.87.214 (talk) 21:15, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Dear User:128.208.87.214, I previously said I would not contribute again. However your allegation that the emergy nomenclature, emergy concept and this article looks like a hoax is a serious matter which warrants comment due to the fact that I have always contributed using my actual name. I used my actual name so that I could be held to account should such an allegation arise... it is clear that I am the main contributor, and so I assume that criticism is aimed at me.

Please let there be no misinterpretation: it is not, and has never been my intent, nor desire to perpetuate a hoax.

In contributing to the emergy article, there were sections I did not feel qualified to pass comment on in terms of their validity - specifically C.Giannantoni's (2000, 2002, 2006) treatment. However, I believe they deserve mention for their novelty and importance to the field. Other Wikipedia editors have contributed some of the math to the article.

I contributed various content out of good faith. I assumed that the literature (cited in the article's references) was published in peer reviewed journals/etc. in good faith. I do not claim infallibility.

In terms of the way forward, if at some time there is concrete evidence that the concept, math and nomenclature is a hoax, and previously published to peer-review scientific literature in bad faith, then I believe that this article should remain, however that the content should be adjusted as an example of a current day hoax perhaps along the lines of the Sokal_Affair.

Nevertheless this is a very serious matter, which if it is a hoax will have an impact on professionals/acacemics, as well as highly regarded scientific publishers like Wiley and Elsevier, which have supported and promoted the concept. I do not have any professional investment in the concept and feel ambivalent on whether it is a hoax or helps promote global sustainability - however either way I have an interest in an objective and verifiable treatment of the matter.

If you are serious in your allegations, then they should be made formal, as I wrote above previously, you should do so in the proper way: that is, 1) declare who you are, anonymity is not appropriate and weakens the hoax claim; and 2) make your allegation in a high impact factor peer review scientific journal (e.g. 'Science' or 'Nature'). If this is not your course of action I suggest the appropriate way forward as an anonymous editor is to focus on improving the article content, and reducing error, in areas which you have specialist knowledge.

If this is your, or anyones course of action, I would be willing to collaborate on a peer review article detailing the allegation. Please contact me at RMIT University if you wish to proceed with the hoax allegation. However, again anonymity is not appropriate in such a context. Thank you in advance. Sholto Maud (talk) 11:07, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Did I say it was a hoax? I actually meant what I literally said, that it "looks like a hoax". By "hoax", I really meant "pseudoscience", not "fraud". The point of my comment was to list things that needed fixing in the article. Specifically:

• The mathematical exposition needs to be made more clear, since currently variables are being thrown around without any clear meanings. Also the formula for Emergy that's currently an integral of a derivative should be rewritten to be in simplified form using the fundamental theorem of calculus. The description in terms of the integral could remain, as long as it was followed by an equals sign and the simplified form. The lower limit of the integration needs to be fixed so that it does not assume that the universe is of infinite age.

• We need to explain how the integral should be handled during situations where objects are being split apart or combined into a single object.

• We need to say whether Emergy is a additive, in the sense that the emergy of the whole is the sum of the emergy of the parts (like for energy, charge, or entropy).

• The word "GLOBAL" should be emphasized using formatting, not All-Caps. When I first saw it, I thought it was an acronym for something.

• The difference (or lack of difference) between empower and exergy power needs to be clarified. Right now the article implies that they're the same thing, in the sense that their equality is a logical consequence of the definitions given in the article.

• There needs to be an example of the maximum empower principle. The definition should be made a little more rigorous. This would involve defining 'develop', 'useful', and 'self-organizational process' (is that a restriction on the applicability of the principle, or a reference to some specific process that happens in every system?).

These issues correspond to the obvious questions that most readers ask after reading the article. The point of my comments is to help make the article more understandable to the reader. --128.208.87.6 (talk) 20:37, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Although the above contribution is from a different IP address, I assume that the response is from the same person who made the original "looks like a hoax" allegation. From your response I conclude that you do not wish to make a formal allegation that the article and emergy concept/nomenclature/etc. is a hoax, and that without reservation you deny any intentional or non-intentional implication that the article and emergy concept/etc is a hoax.

As for your suggested edits, I encourage your initiative to clarify the article. For the record, I support any mathematical or terminological corrections on the condition that they are fully cited and referenced to the literature. I especially support the use of practical examples and demonstrations to clarify theory. For the future I will stay away from the editorial process. I hope that any of my errors are corrected, and that any opaque content provides stimulus for further clarification. Best Regards, and good luck! Sholto Maud (talk) 04:09, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Odum

It would be nice to have an exact quotation of the context in which Odum used the term. He at least was a conventionally responsible scientist. As the article says, if he did use it, he meant something different from the way it is used in most of the article. DGG (talk) 00:00, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

From the article: . As H.T.Odum [12] later noted,

“ In 1983 our concept of embodied energy (the available energy of one kind previously used up directly and indirectly in transformations to make a product or service) was given the name “EMERGY” and its unit names the “emjoule” or “emcalorie.” What is called an “energy transformation ratio” in this chapter was renamed the “transformity” with the unit “emjoule per joule” (not a dimensionless ratio)" . Cheers. Sholto Maud (talk) 03:10, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

If emergy is only a renaming of the established concept of Embodied energy, we should have one article or the other, not both. <eleland/talkedits> 03:39, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

From the article: As a word, emergy is a simple contraction of the term "embodied energy". The need for the new word of "emergy" arose apparently because of an important difference in the way the two related disciplines of systems ecology and energy analysis were using the term "embodied energy". As H.T.Odum [1] observed "There is more than one type of embodied energy". Various authors have struggled to clarify their usage, and ambiguity seems to continue in the literature to this day.

Prior to 1986, both systems ecologists and energy analysts used "embodied energy" to refer to the sum over time of all energy of one type required to generate a flow of energy [2]. Energy embodied in water was also defined in this way as the energy required directly and indirectly to generate the flow in processes of the biosphere or a typical desalination plant for example[3].

... Scienceman [6] observed [a difference between the two disciplines] noting that the systems ecologist H.T. Odum had introduced an additional factor into the definition of embodied energy:

“ Odum ... introduces the maximum power principle into his definition: "The concept here retains the meaning that the embodied energy is what is required to do the work (at maximum power). Byproducts of a work transformation have the same embodied energy because they couldn't be generated with less". Hence the need for two separate entries. Please improve on the article if you can. Cheers Sholto Maud (talk) 12:52, 27 January 2008 (UTC).

Re-Do!

This article needs to be deleted and redone. Any article on Emergy that does not spend the first 10,000 words paraphrasing Odum's book Environmental Accounting is not an informative article on the topic. All this piddling over the jargon is a distraction, which might belong in shorter form somewhere, perhaps at the end under a heading like 'Criticisms'. The point of this article should be to serve the education of the large Wikipedia public on this topic and it's not being done. Any article on Emergy that begins with the name David Scienceman instead of Howard Odum is a givaway that something is very wrong. TAbel (talk) 22:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Can this article withstand Wikipedian scrutiny?

All of the other remarks on this talk page make me think not. I just encountered this article. It's gibberish and should be listed for AfD. Robert K S (talk) 19:12, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

The article has already survived the AfD process (sigh!) ... --DrTorstenHenning (talk) 20:29, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

A major revision of this page should be undertaken perhaps along the lines of the Sustainability page. Also see the discussion and to do list for the sustainability page. Sholto Maud (talk) 04:04, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Archive 1