Future Directions
The ecosystem metaphor popularized by Frosch and Gallopoulos has been a valuable creative tool for helping researchers look for novel solutions to difficult problems. Recently, it has been pointed out that this metaphor is based largely on a model of classical ecology, and that advancements in understanding ecology based on complexity science have been made by researchers such as C. S. Holling, James J. Kay, and others. For industrial ecology, this may mean a shift from a more mechanistic view of systems, to one where sustainability is viewed as an emergent property of a complex system. To explore this further, several researchers are working with agent based modeling techniques .
Exergy analysis is performed in the field of industrial ecology to use energy more efficiently. The term exergy was coined by Zoran Rant in 1956, but the concept was developed by J. Willard Gibbs. In recent decades, utilization of exergy has spread outside of physics and engineering to the fields of industrial ecology, ecological economics, systems ecology, and energetics.
Recently, there has been work advocating for large scale photovoltaic production facilities in an industrial ecology setting. These facilities not only reduce their environmental impact but also decrease the costs of photovoltaic productions to as little as $1 per Watt by economy of scale.
Read more about this topic: Industrial Ecology
Famous quotes containing the words future and/or directions:
“We accept and welcome ... as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment; the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few; and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race.”
—Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919)
““Have we any control over being born?,” my friend asked in despair. “No, the job is done for us while we’re sleeping, so to speak, and when we wake up everything is all set. We merely appear, like an ornate celebrity wheeled out in a wheelchair.” “I don’t remember,” my friend claimed. “No need to,” I said: “what need have us free-loaders for any special alertness? We’re done for.””
—Marvin Cohen, U.S. author and humorist. The Self-Devoted Friend, New Directions (1967)