Related papers: The Physics of Sustainability: Material and Power …

Materials are central to our way of life and future. Energy and materials as resources are connected and the obvious connections between them are the energy cost of materials and the materials cost of energy. For both of these resilience of…

Fusion energy is at an important inflection point in its development: multiple government agencies and private companies are now planning fusion pilot plants to deliver electricity to the grid in the next decade. However, realizing fusion…

The spotlight is on the intertwined nature of sustainability and energy transition. As the world grapples with environmental challenges, the push for a green approach to energy is more crucial than ever. This transition promises not just a…

This paper presents a conceptual model describing the medium and long-term co-evolution of natural and socio-economic subsystems of Earth. An economy is viewed as an out-of-equilibrium dissipative structure that can only be maintained with…

While material innovation can enable sustainable development, environmental and social impacts of emerging materials are often assessed only after design choices are "locked in." Here, we argue for a shift in perspective: life cycle…

Our planet is roughly closed to matter, but open to energy input from the sun. However, to harness this energy, organisms must transform matter from one chemical (redox) state to another. For example, photosynthetic organisms can capture…

With the use of the appropriate technology, such as photovoltaics and seawater desalination, humans have the ability to sustainably increase their production of food and energy while minimising detrimental impacts on the Earth system.

While fields like Artificial Life have made huge strides in quantifying the mechanisms that distinguish living systems from non-living ones, particular mechanisms remain difficult to reproduce in silico. Known as open-endedness, we've been…

A long-term strategy based on existing technological, ecological, economical, and geopolitical realities is urgently needed to develop a sustainable energy economy, which should be designed with adaptability to unpredicted changes in any of…

A reliable understanding of the Earth system is essential for the life quality of modern society. Natural hazards are the cause of most life and resource losses. The ability to define the conditions for a sustainable development of…

Human activity continues to have an enormous negative impact on the ability of the planet to sustain human and other forms of life. Six out of the nine planetary boundaries have been crossed, a seventh is close to threshold. Prominent…

Energy efficiency is at the core of sustainability solutions for 5/6G networks. We argue this is a too narrow perspective on sustainability, as it ignores the effects of the increased traffic demand these networks stimulate and the need for…

The transition from a fossil-based energy economy to one based on renewable energy is driven by the double challenge of climate change and resource depletion. Building a renewable energy infrastructure requires an upfront energy investment…

This work is based on the talk given by Csernai at the Blue Sky International Conference in the Buda Castle on October 30, 2015, Budapest, Hungary. The human development on the Earth is analysed based on basic physical principles and the…

Environmental science almost invariably proposes problems of extreme complexity, typically characterized by strongly nonlinear evolution dynamics. The systems under investigation have many degrees of freedom - which makes them complicated -…

Halfway between the experiment and the focus group, between the quiz and a game, we have experienced a new format to "focus" on sustainability and the fundamental laws of thermodynamics and its principles. Concepts as reversibility,…

The wide public sees solar energy as the future of mankind, and media channels quite oftenly states that our challenge is to improve efficiencies and reduce cost. However, one may point some unconvenient truth's about the physical limits we…

The climate system is a forced, dissipative, nonlinear, complex and heterogeneous system that is out of thermodynamic equilibrium. The system exhibits natural variability on many scales of motion, in time as well as space, and it is subject…

Many perceive electric vehicles (EVs) to be eco-environmentally sustainable because they are free of emissions of toxic and greenhouse gases to the environment. However, few have questioned the sustainability of the electric power required…

Civilization cannot sustain an exponential growth for long time even when neglecting numerous laws of physics! In this paper, we examine what are fundamental obstacles to long term survival of a civilization and its possibility to colonize…