Net Energy, Ecology and Economics

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Figure 1 A. Generalized world model of man and nature based on one-shot fossil fuel usages and steady solar work. Pathways are flows of energy from outside source (circle) through interactions (pointed blocks marked 'X' to show multiplier action) to final dispersion of dispersed heat. The tank symbol refers to storage. Here world fuel reserve storage helps build a storage of structure of man's buildings, information, population, and culture.
Figure 1 A. Generalized world model of man and nature based on one-shot fossil fuel usages and steady solar work. Pathways are flows of energy from outside source (circle) through interactions (pointed blocks marked 'X' to show multiplier action) to final dispersion of dispersed heat. The tank symbol refers to storage. Here world fuel reserve storage helps build a storage of structure of man's buildings, information, population, and culture.
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Howard T. Odum, PhD has many environmental credits to his name and offers a consideration of energy as a net product that incorporates the biosystem, humanity and our inventions, and our efforts to produce more conventional forms of energy, such as electricity and gasoline.
Howard T. Odum, PhD has many environmental credits to his name and offers a consideration of energy as a net product that incorporates the biosystem, humanity and our inventions, and our efforts to produce more conventional forms of energy, such as electricity and gasoline.
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Figure 1 B. Graphs resulting from simulation of the model in Figure 1 A. Available world fuel reserve was taken as 5 X 10 19 kilocalories and energy converted from the solar input and converged into man's productive system of growth and maintenance was 5 X 10 16 kilocalories when structure was 10 18 kilocalories. Peak of structural growth was variable over a 50-year period depending on amounts diverted into waste pathways.
Figure 1 B. Graphs resulting from simulation of the model in Figure 1 A. Available world fuel reserve was taken as 5 X 10 19 kilocalories and energy converted from the solar input and converged into man's productive system of growth and maintenance was 5 X 10 16 kilocalories when structure was 10 18 kilocalories. Peak of structural growth was variable over a 50-year period depending on amounts diverted into waste pathways.
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Figure 1 C. The steady state observed in some simulations of Figure 1 A was an oscillating one as in the graph shown here.
Figure 1 C. The steady state observed in some simulations of Figure 1 A was an oscillating one as in the graph shown here.
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Figure 3. Relationships of money cycles to the energy circuit loops.
Figure 3. Relationships of money cycles to the energy circuit loops.
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Figure 2. Energy flow diagram illustrating energy laws, and the difference between net and gross energy flows.
Figure 2. Energy flow diagram illustrating energy laws, and the difference between net and gross energy flows.
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Figure 4. Relationship of general structural maintenance to diversity and secondary energy sources.
Figure 4. Relationship of general structural maintenance to diversity and secondary energy sources.
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Figure 5 C. Fossil-fuel-subsidized agriculture as a colonial member of a technological society of man with maximum possible solar conversion.
Figure 5 C. Fossil-fuel-subsidized agriculture as a colonial member of a technological society of man with maximum possible solar conversion.
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Figure 5 A. Man a minor part of the complex forest ecosystem.
Figure 5 A. Man a minor part of the complex forest ecosystem.
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Figure 5 B. Man a major partner in agricultural system on light alone.
Figure 5 B. Man a major partner in agricultural system on light alone.
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Figure 6 A. Diagram showing how energy sources and energy loss pathways affect the balance of payments and general economic competition position of single country. Better balance results when one's own energy sources are better, and one's waste less.
Figure 6 A. Diagram showing how energy sources and energy loss pathways affect the balance of payments and general economic competition position of single country. Better balance results when one's own energy sources are better, and one's waste less.

A Note from MOTHER: In early November of 1973 — during a visit to MOTHER’s new home in the mountains of western North Carolina — New Alchemist John Todd gave the magazine’s editors about the 14th-generation Xerox copy of what can conservatively be described as a dynamite paper.

We had only to glance at this extraordinary document to realize that the paper (originally written at the request of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences) is one of the most concise — yet most sweeping — examinations yet made of the real problems of the world. Read it and see for yourself. The paper which follows — written by the same author for a press conference held in January 1974— is more of the same. 

The man who produced this work is Howard T. Odum, PhD, Director of the Center for Wetlands and a Graduate Research Professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville. In the past, he has been Professor of Ecology at the University of North Carolina, Chief Scientist for the Puerto Rico Nuclear Center and Director of the Institute of Marine Science of the University of Texas at Port Aransas. Professor Odum has many other environmental credits to his name including the book, Environment, Power and Society (John Wiley, 1972). 

We feel that Dr. Odum’s papers, presented here with his permission and the permission of The Royal Academy of Sciences of Sweden, are important enough to replace the Plowboy Interview usually found in this section of the magazine. 


  • Published on May 1, 1974
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