On the rules of life and Kleiber's law: the macroscopic relationship between materials and energy

Heliyon

John R. Schramski¹  Benjamin Leiva² 

[1] Corresponding author.;OES, Universidad Del Valle de Guatemala, Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala;

关键词: Energy;    Mass;    Kleiber's law;    Metabolic ecology;    Limits;    Conservation;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Efforts to accommodate the growth in global energy consumption within a fragile biosphere are primarily focused on managing the transition towards a low-carbon energy mix. We show evidence that a more fundamental problem exists through a scaling relation, akin to Kleiber's Law, between society's energy consumption and material stocks. Humanity's energy consumption scales at 0.78 of its material stocks, which implies predictable environmental pressure regardless of the energy mix. If true, future global energy scenarios imply vast amounts of materials and corresponding environmental degradation, which have not been adequately acknowledged. Thus, limits to energy consumption are needed regardless of the energy mix to stabilize human intervention in the biosphere.

【 授权许可】

Unknown