Overview
- Includes several new chapters and comprehensive updates addressing the implications of hydraulic fracturing (fracking), access to energy and social inequality, and climate science and planetary boundaries
- Integrates energy and economics by combining natural and social sciences
- Uses predictive tools and measures, such as EROI, to show how the economy is embedded in a biophysical world subject to scientific rules and constraints
- Provides a fresh approach to economics for those wondering “What’s next?“ after the Great Recession and continued volatility in energy prices
- Offers economic analysis from the real-world perspective of peak oil, high energy prices, the role of alternative energy sources, and potential environmental impacts of energy use such as climate change
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Table of contents (24 chapters)
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Front Matter
Keywords
- Alternative Energy Assessment
- Ecological Economics Book
- Economic Sustainability
- Economics of Fracking
- Embodied Energy
- End of Cheap Oil
- Energy Return on Energy Invested
- Energy Return on Investment
- Eroi or Eroei of Unconventional Oil
- Eroi or Erori of Alternative Energy
- Limits to Growth
- Oil Prices and the Economy
- Wealth Production Energy
- lack of economic growth
- secular stagnation
- data-driven science, modeling and theory building
About this book
For the past 150 years, economics has been treated as a social science in which economies are modeled as a circular flow of income between producers and consumers. In this “perpetual motion” of interactions between firms that produce and households that consume, little or no accounting is given of the flow of energy and materials from the environment and back again. In the standard economic model, energy and matter are completely recycled in these transactions, and economic activity is seemingly exempt from the Second Law of Thermodynamics. As we enter the second half of the age of oil, when energy supplies and the environmental impacts of energy production and consumption are likely to constrain economic growth, this exemption should be considered illusory at best. This book is an essential read for all scientists and economists who have recognized the urgent need for a more scientific, empirical, and unified approach to economics in an energy-constrained world, and serves as an ideal teaching text for the growing number of courses, such as the authors’ own, onthe role of energy in society.
Reviews
“This second edition of Energy and the Wealth of Nation succeeds in covering both an enormously heterogenous selection of material while remaining utterly accessible. … this textbook would be very useful for first- and second-year undergraduates, and also an excellent reference for upper years and indeed any person wishing to get an accessible introduction to the main concepts and analysis of biophysical economics.” (Martin Sers, Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Vol. 10, 2020)
“This textbook has constructed an excellent approach on how to better understand economies and natural systems, and their interactions. … this book functions as a valuable academic discussion, as well as a starting point for the economic uninitiated. It has the potential to be an effective textbook for institutions looking to advance their economic teaching past the mainstream model and to seriously incorporate sustainable thinking into their teaching of economics.” (Aaron Grinter, Economic Record, Vol. 95 (308), March, 2019)
Authors and Affiliations
About the authors
Kent A. Klitgaard is Professor of Economics and the Patti McGill Peterson Professor of Social Sciences at Wells Collegein Aurora, New York, where he has taught since 1991. Kent received his Bachelor’s degree at San Diego State University and his Master’s and PhD at the University of New Hampshire. At Wells, he teaches a diverse array of courses including the History of Economic Thought, Political Economy, Ecological Economics, The Economics of Energy, Technology and the Labor Process, and Microeconomic Theory, and is a co-founder of the Environmental Studies Program. Kent is active in the International Society for Ecological Economics, and is a founding member of the International Society for Biophysical Economics. Recently, his interests have turned towards the degrowth movement, and he has published multiple papers on the subject for Research and Degrowth.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Energy and the Wealth of Nations
Book Subtitle: An Introduction to Biophysical Economics
Authors: Charles A.S. Hall, Kent Klitgaard
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66219-0
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Energy, Energy (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing AG 2018
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-66217-6Published: 20 March 2018
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-09764-6Published: 19 December 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-66219-0Published: 05 March 2018
Edition Number: 2
Number of Pages: XI, 511
Number of Illustrations: 12 b/w illustrations, 145 illustrations in colour
Topics: Energy Policy, Economics and Management, Sustainable Development, Environmental Economics, Energy Policy, Economics and Management, Data-driven Science, Modeling and Theory Building, Economic Geography