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concerned with energy conservation in their designs. It is becoming a more widely
accepted knowledge especially in building design.
Keil Moe and William Braham are two architects and academics, for instance,
who utilize and teach a comprehensive environmental accounting systems approach
to guide primary architectural design considerations. Both carefully contextualize
buildings as open thermodynamic systems able to be better designed to harness the
free energy that flows continuously into, out of, and around them. Keil Moe writes
extensively on the twentieth-century concept, emergy, or “energy memory,” to
attempt to capture energy’s dynamic play over time through a range of building materials (Srinivasan and Moe 2015). Emergy was a term coined by systems ecologist
Howard T. Odum and is useful when attempting to track both quantitative and qualitative energy transformations throughout systems at multiple scales (Odum 1995).
Although the boundaries of emergy analysis provide the fullest possible measurement of the embodied energy of labor, environmental systems, and solar energy
(GAO 1982) of all currently available assessment methods, accurately tracking,
measuring, and calculating emergy values are extremely challenging.
The chemical byproducts of high-quality energy released from fossil fuels lie at
the root of all environmental degradation problems. If the sources from which we
extract energy are the primary drivers of climate change, then common sense dictates that once the shift to a renewable energy powered world is complete, the problem is solved. We could produce and use as many things as we would like without
any negative consequences. The fact is, however, that while decarbonizing the
industrial economy is a rational and worthwhile endeavor, there are significant technical hurdles to overcome. As long as we need to refine raw materials in bulk using
high-temperature industrial processes, the need to burn energy-dense materials will
persist. While current industrial innovations continue to improve our prospects for
powering heavy industry with low-carbon processes and alternative energy, we may
be shifting ecological burdens to other areas. Furthermore, any strides made to marginally reduce harmful effects may lead to even larger negative consequences
over time.
2.10.1 The Jevons Paradox
Attempts to blunt the worst environmental impacts of energy consumption through
increasing system efficiency are limited when overall demand continues to outpace
incremental improvements. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scientific discoveries precede and coincide with the accelerating rise in global temperature throughout
the twentieth century. The Jevons paradox, first postulated by the British economist,
William Stanley Jevons in 1865, posits that successfully striving to improve energy
efficiencies of any device or system to reduce the use of primary fuel sources leads
ultimately to increasing consumption. This is due to a rebound effect caused by
greater demand by more people who want to benefit from the improved system.
Jevons concludes that: “It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the
2.10 Matter Is Embodied Energy
concerned with energy conservation in their designs. It is becoming a more widely
accepted knowledge especially in building design.
Keil Moe and William Braham are two architects and academics, for instance,
who utilize and teach a comprehensive environmental accounting systems approach
to guide primary architectural design considerations. Both carefully contextualize
buildings as open thermodynamic systems able to be better designed to harness the
free energy that flows continuously into, out of, and around them. Keil Moe writes
extensively on the twentieth-century concept, emergy, or “energy memory,” to
attempt to capture energy’s dynamic play over time through a range of building materials (Srinivasan and Moe 2015). Emergy was a term coined by systems ecologist
Howard T. Odum and is useful when attempting to track both quantitative and qualitative energy transformations throughout systems at multiple scales (Odum 1995).
Although the boundaries of emergy analysis provide the fullest possible measurement of the embodied energy of labor, environmental systems, and solar energy
(GAO 1982) of all currently available assessment methods, accurately tracking,
measuring, and calculating emergy values are extremely challenging.
The chemical byproducts of high-quality energy released from fossil fuels lie at
the root of all environmental degradation problems. If the sources from which we
extract energy are the primary drivers of climate change, then common sense dictates that once the shift to a renewable energy powered world is complete, the problem is solved. We could produce and use as many things as we would like without
any negative consequences. The fact is, however, that while decarbonizing the
industrial economy is a rational and worthwhile endeavor, there are significant technical hurdles to overcome. As long as we need to refine raw materials in bulk using
high-temperature industrial processes, the need to burn energy-dense materials will
persist. While current industrial innovations continue to improve our prospects for
powering heavy industry with low-carbon processes and alternative energy, we may
be shifting ecological burdens to other areas. Furthermore, any strides made to marginally reduce harmful effects may lead to even larger negative consequences
over time.
2.10.1 The Jevons Paradox
Attempts to blunt the worst environmental impacts of energy consumption through
increasing system efficiency are limited when overall demand continues to outpace
incremental improvements. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scientific discoveries precede and coincide with the accelerating rise in global temperature throughout
the twentieth century. The Jevons paradox, first postulated by the British economist,
William Stanley Jevons in 1865, posits that successfully striving to improve energy
efficiencies of any device or system to reduce the use of primary fuel sources leads
ultimately to increasing consumption. This is due to a rebound effect caused by
greater demand by more people who want to benefit from the improved system.
Jevons concludes that: “It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the
2.10 Matter Is Embodied Energy