Entropy and Sustainability

The conversion of the recent resource-wasting world economy to a sustainable economic system protecting global resources and habitats is crucial for the further development of humankind. A rational management of natural resources and the use of renewable energy sources address merely a part of the sustainability problem. There is a central thermodynamic quantity that has to be reconsidered for all future developments: entropy.

This book introduces the physical basics and the historical scientific background of the concept of entropy and explains the importance of entropy for living beings, machines, computers industrial facilities, ecological systems, and the earth as whole. It discusses the necessity of the production of entropy, on the one hand, and the required strategies for entropy export, on the other. The mechanisms of entropy production and export are discussed in order to make clear that entropy not only is a special physical parameter but also plays a role everywhere in daily life. The book is for everyone who is interested in the environment, sustainability, and its feasibility from a scientific point of view. Readers are encouraged to see the universal applicability of the entropy concept and the urgent need to estimate the fundamental importance of entropy for natural and technical processes. This will lead to a better understanding of the non-reversible processes in our world and help to deal responsibly with entropy in all conversions of materials and energy. The key role of these processes has to be understood and recognized in order to coming to an intelligent adaptation on the arrow of time, which allows the conversion of different non-sustainable production processes into a global sustainable economy in a dynamical world.