**1. Introduction**

20 Sustainable Growth and Applications in Renewable Energy Sources

Kolstad Charles D., 2000. Environmental Economics, *Oxford University Press*, ISBN -19-

IEA, 2010. CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion - Highlights. International Energy

Lorenzini A., 2003. The Italian Green Certificates market between uncertainty and

Morthorst P.E. (2008). Wind Energy – the Facts. The Economics of Wind Power, World Wind

Nakicenovic N., Kolp P., Riahi K., Kainuma M., Hanaoka T., 2006. Assessment of emissions

Nordhaus W.D., 2006. After Kyoto: Alternative Mechanisms to Control Global Warming.

Nordhaus W.D., 2009. The impact of Treaty nonparticipation on the Costs of Slowing Global

Petrakis Emmanuel, Rasmusen Eric, Roy Santanu, 1997. The Learning Curve in a Competitive Industry, *The RAND Journal of Economics*, Vol.28, No.2, pp. 248-268. Sandmo A., 1976. Optimal taxation: An introduction to the literature, *Journal of Public* 

Stern N., 2007. The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review. Cambridge University

scenario revisited. *Environmental Economics and Policy Studies*, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 137-

opportunities, Energy Policy, Vol.31, No. 1, pp. 33-42.

Energy Association, Technical University of Denmark

*The American Economic Review*, Vol.96, No.2, pp.31-34

Warming. *The Energy Journal*, Vol.30, No.2, pp.39-52

*Economics,* Vol. 6, No. 1-2, pp. 37-54

Press, Cambridge, UK

511954-1, Oxford.

173

Agency, Paris, 2010 edition

With the growth of the world population and the ever-new technologies emerging from R&D – both creating ever higher needs and expectations – also the energy amount to be acquired, stored, transformed, and finally used is exponentially growing and thus believed to be always at the limit. Actually this capability to use energy, has since the origin of our universe been the central drive of nature: first in its physical evolution, then in the evolution of biological life and finally in the emergence of human societies and cultures. In our modern industrialized life from primary food to industrial good production, via transport and information processing, to every form of cultural activity, everything is depending on this agent allowing the change of the physical state of matter or organisms. This is underlined by the fact that mass and energy are two sides of the same medal as shown by E=mc2 (Einstein, 1905) and always conserved (Noether, 1918a, 1918b). Without energy no work, no process, no change, and no time would exist and consequently the thirst for energy, surpasses the currently accessible resources by far. Interestingly, there is only one other basic resource, which might be equally important as matter and energy: information – the way of how energy is used for change. Also the information amount to be stored and processed is growing exponentially and believed to be always at the limit. Without doubt information technologies have become the key to success in nearly all sectors of modern live: R&D is meanwhile mostly based on the storage and analysis of huge data amounts. In health care, diagnosis and treatment rely on imaging facilities, their sophisticated analysis and treatment planning. In logistics, the shipment of goods, water, electricity and fuels is driven by distribution management systems. The financial and insurance sectors are unthinkable without modelling. Finally, the IT sector itself is inevitably carried by the creation and manipulation of data streams. Thus, also here the demands outweigh the useable resources and especially the public sector struggles to increase their capabilities.

Limits showing e.g. syntropic/entropic materialistic, energetic or other barriers as those of the energy or IT sectors, are well known (Egger, 1975; Faber & Manstetten, 2003). They have constrained first nature and later life since their beginnings and are one of the evolutionary drivers by the "survival of the fittest". Exponential demand growth until reaching a limit seems

Sustained Renewability: Approached by Systems Theory and Human Ecology 23

Here, the internalization challenge of underused energy resources in general and especially of the vastly underused renewable energies is analysed by the new concept of *Sustained Renewability* combining systems theory with *Human Ecology* and describing adequately the integrated holistic ecology like system parameters and strategies necessary. Therefore, fossil, renewable energy as well as grid and cloud IT resources (Foster & Kesselmann, 2004), their exploitation networks and organizational exploitation structures are analysed generically in relation to their technical systemic challenge. To approach the internalization challenge of underused renewable resources, the novel generic notion of the *Inverse Tragedy of the Commons*, i.e. that resources are underused in contrast to their overexploitation, is introduced. It is combined with the challenges on the micro level of the individual with its security/risk/profit psychology (Egger, 2008) as well as on the macro level of autopoietic social subsystems (Egger, 1996; Luhmann, 2004, 2008; Maturana & Varela, 1992). To derive points of action, the classical *Human Ecology* framework (Bruckmeier & Serbser, 2008; Egger, 1996) will be extended to describe the interactions between invironment-individual-society-environment completely and then is combined with the systemic complexity challenge. This leads inevitably to the new concept of *Sustained Renewability* and defined point of actions. Thus, sustained systemic renewability of resources in general can be really reached and thus leaves at least on the

human scale much room for advancement for a big part of our future.

**2. Fossil and renewable energy resources and their means of exploitation** 

Energy is always bound to and thus stored in a state of matter and has to be extracted thereof and transformed into the corresponding form for a certain usage. Primarily the energy we have access to comes either from nuclear fusion as in our sun (heating and driving the atmosphere), from nuclear decay within earth (keeping a molten core, volcanism, plate tectonics), and from the gravitational fields of our planetary system (tidal changes). This primary access is far from endless or renewable: e.g. hydrogen fusion has been done 2/3 already, i.e. only ~2 billion years are left for hydrogen fusion and thus already in ~300 million years the earth atmosphere will start to be heated up so much that life as one knows cannot exist anymore. Radioactive decay and the gravitational energy are also slowly used up. Consequently, the term renewable in that sense is only a relative terminology in respect to human time scales: Considering sun energy present for another 100 million years means ~30 million human generations or ~30 times the evolutionary development to homo sapiens. Nevertheless, on a human scale the term renewable thus really makes sense. In contrast, fossil energy resources (despite geogene gas and radioactives) consist mainly of organic substances produced through biogene conversion of sun energy by photosynthesis and their further transformation by geological process to coal, gas and oil. I.e. they are in principle a tertiary energy resource already. Due to the slow geogene processes and geological exploitation degree, the accessible size of these resources is fairly limited and especially concerning the human energy consumption very limited compared to the size of primary energy resources, their lasting and also not changeable natural production. Also the forms of energy which are termed renewables are in that sense secondary resources: i) sun energy is stored in photons, i.e. light, ii) wind energy is due to the sun energy transformed to heat creating atmospheric pressure imbalances, iii) hydro energy is due to water evaporation and gravitational lifting to higher altitudes and rain, iv) tidal energy is based on the earth-moon gravitational energy and stored in ocean movement,

to be an inherent property of life and evolution in general (Faber, 1987). The other side of demand growth – waste and pollution – complies with this, although it is not using a resource but destroying the purity of another one. Obviously, this sustainability challenge beyond the materialistic regime can be found on all evolutionary levels up to the psychological, societal, and cultural level. All these levels act as a possible cause for exponential growth. Especially, the abilities of man in his modern societies have accelerated the use of common resources tremendously reaching the planetary carrying capacity (IPCC). Climate change and the sustainability challenge, thus is a complex combination of various effects, which in their holistic consequences have reached an unsustainable level threatening survival. The *(Classic) Tragedy of the Commons* (Hardin, 1968, 1994, 1998; Ostrom, 1990; Commons) describes this dilemma, in which (multiple) independently acting individuals due to their own self-interest can ultimately destroy a shared limited resource despite it is clear that it is not in the long-term interest of the local community or for the whole society. On universal time scales syntropy/entropy laws obviously predict that mankind will reach fundamental limits. Nevertheless, on short time scales huge resources are available: Already the sun delivers ~3.9 106 Exajoules to earth per year, i.e. ~10,000 times the current human energy consumption (~5.0 102 Exajoules/a). The natural geogene radioactive decay is also considerable and has kept the earth core molten now for 4.5 billion years. Both the energy inflow and outflow is balanced. Thus, with the little usage efficiency of our human societies of ~10% the current renewable energy capacity surpasses the human consumption still ~1 million fold! Not only are those resources renewable on a human scale but also free of primary resource costs. Thus, more efficient usage of renewables here is undoubtedly the key to the further success of our societies.

Again there are striking similarities to the IT sector: Due to the pervasiveness of PCs, their number has grown beyond 1.5 billion, outweighing the capacity of computing centres >100 times. Since the capacity is peak performance oriented, less than 5% are used, i.e. >95% of the capacity would be available 99% of the time. In a generic IT sense the term, a resource is any capability that may be shared and exploited by a network – normally termed "grid". These resources have been already paid for including their external follow-up costs (environmental etc.). The same holds to less extent for cluster infrastructures due to virtualization strategies. The Erasmus Computing Grid (de Zeeuw et al., 2007) with ~20,000 PCs (~50,000 cores, ~50 Teraflops), corresponds to a ~30 M€ investment. Especially in the notoriously under-funded public domain more efficient resource usage by means of grid would satisfy a big demand challenge. Thus, both in the energy, IT, as in any resource sector more efficient usage is of major importance for advancements. Thus, at least locally the disaster of reaching the (physical) limit can be delayed largely. A prime example from the production of fundamental raw materials is e.g. the integrated production in the chemical industry (Faber et al., 1987): Here byproduct usage, i.e. the waste of one process, is reused in another one as basic resource or often even as main process component (Jentzsch, 1995). Integrated production can reach the level of an extremely fine-tuned ecological organism (as in the highly sophisticated chlorine chemistry) that little changes have severe "survival" consequences for the whole system (Egger & Rudolph, 1992; Faber & Schiller, 2006). In real biological systems, however, there is more flexibility as in the highly integrated and sophisticated agro-forestry systems e.g. in Indonesia, which have been developed over centuries reaching extremely high efficiencies and are one of the biggest cultural achievements ever. In both cases the efficiency, i.e. the relation between system input and output, are maximized and beat every other process or management (Faber et al., 1998).

to be an inherent property of life and evolution in general (Faber, 1987). The other side of demand growth – waste and pollution – complies with this, although it is not using a resource but destroying the purity of another one. Obviously, this sustainability challenge beyond the materialistic regime can be found on all evolutionary levels up to the psychological, societal, and cultural level. All these levels act as a possible cause for exponential growth. Especially, the abilities of man in his modern societies have accelerated the use of common resources tremendously reaching the planetary carrying capacity (IPCC). Climate change and the sustainability challenge, thus is a complex combination of various effects, which in their holistic consequences have reached an unsustainable level threatening survival. The *(Classic) Tragedy of the Commons* (Hardin, 1968, 1994, 1998; Ostrom, 1990; Commons) describes this dilemma, in which (multiple) independently acting individuals due to their own self-interest can ultimately destroy a shared limited resource despite it is clear that it is not in the long-term interest of the local community or for the whole society. On universal time scales syntropy/entropy laws obviously predict that mankind will reach fundamental limits. Nevertheless, on short time scales huge resources are available: Already the sun delivers ~3.9 106 Exajoules to earth per year, i.e. ~10,000 times the current human energy consumption (~5.0 102 Exajoules/a). The natural geogene radioactive decay is also considerable and has kept the earth core molten now for 4.5 billion years. Both the energy inflow and outflow is balanced. Thus, with the little usage efficiency of our human societies of ~10% the current renewable energy capacity surpasses the human consumption still ~1 million fold! Not only are those resources renewable on a human scale but also free of primary resource costs. Thus, more efficient usage of renewables here is

Again there are striking similarities to the IT sector: Due to the pervasiveness of PCs, their number has grown beyond 1.5 billion, outweighing the capacity of computing centres >100 times. Since the capacity is peak performance oriented, less than 5% are used, i.e. >95% of the capacity would be available 99% of the time. In a generic IT sense the term, a resource is any capability that may be shared and exploited by a network – normally termed "grid". These resources have been already paid for including their external follow-up costs (environmental etc.). The same holds to less extent for cluster infrastructures due to virtualization strategies. The Erasmus Computing Grid (de Zeeuw et al., 2007) with ~20,000 PCs (~50,000 cores, ~50 Teraflops), corresponds to a ~30 M€ investment. Especially in the notoriously under-funded public domain more efficient resource usage by means of grid would satisfy a big demand challenge. Thus, both in the energy, IT, as in any resource sector more efficient usage is of major importance for advancements. Thus, at least locally the disaster of reaching the (physical) limit can be delayed largely. A prime example from the production of fundamental raw materials is e.g. the integrated production in the chemical industry (Faber et al., 1987): Here byproduct usage, i.e. the waste of one process, is reused in another one as basic resource or often even as main process component (Jentzsch, 1995). Integrated production can reach the level of an extremely fine-tuned ecological organism (as in the highly sophisticated chlorine chemistry) that little changes have severe "survival" consequences for the whole system (Egger & Rudolph, 1992; Faber & Schiller, 2006). In real biological systems, however, there is more flexibility as in the highly integrated and sophisticated agro-forestry systems e.g. in Indonesia, which have been developed over centuries reaching extremely high efficiencies and are one of the biggest cultural achievements ever. In both cases the efficiency, i.e. the relation between system input and output, are maximized and beat every other process or management (Faber et al., 1998).

undoubtedly the key to the further success of our societies.

Here, the internalization challenge of underused energy resources in general and especially of the vastly underused renewable energies is analysed by the new concept of *Sustained Renewability* combining systems theory with *Human Ecology* and describing adequately the integrated holistic ecology like system parameters and strategies necessary. Therefore, fossil, renewable energy as well as grid and cloud IT resources (Foster & Kesselmann, 2004), their exploitation networks and organizational exploitation structures are analysed generically in relation to their technical systemic challenge. To approach the internalization challenge of underused renewable resources, the novel generic notion of the *Inverse Tragedy of the Commons*, i.e. that resources are underused in contrast to their overexploitation, is introduced. It is combined with the challenges on the micro level of the individual with its security/risk/profit psychology (Egger, 2008) as well as on the macro level of autopoietic social subsystems (Egger, 1996; Luhmann, 2004, 2008; Maturana & Varela, 1992). To derive points of action, the classical *Human Ecology* framework (Bruckmeier & Serbser, 2008; Egger, 1996) will be extended to describe the interactions between invironment-individual-society-environment completely and then is combined with the systemic complexity challenge. This leads inevitably to the new concept of *Sustained Renewability* and defined point of actions. Thus, sustained systemic renewability of resources in general can be really reached and thus leaves at least on the human scale much room for advancement for a big part of our future.
