It might be reasonable to merge biophysical economics into thermoeconomics in that “biophysical economics” may be a subset of general “thermoeconomics” based on the following notes:
Although work has been done which supports some of the basic hypotheses of biophysical economics, no overarching text book is yet to appear. Researchers in the field are therefore eagerly awaiting the publication of a new book by Charles A.S. Hall and economist Kent Klitgaard called Biophysical economics: a basic textbook in economics for the second half of the age of oil. It should be ready early 2007.
Second, according to the following article, they seem approximately to be the same subject:
Please comment if you have an opinion. Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 14:33, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I really like the idea on applying thermodynamic knowledge on economics and adapting economical models [1]. Alas, neither thermoeconomics nor ecophysics sounds suitable for my German ears. As thermodynamics talks about the process of heat transfer, energy forms and a system's ability to perform work, I'd prefer the term economical dynamics (or shorter ecodynamics) to describe the processes of money flow, trade, and production to analyse the substitution potential of production factors. --Gunnar.Kaestle 15:10, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Wrong! You fools! Thermoeconomics is not biophysical economics! This is classic wikipedia ignorance.
I completely agree that Thermoeconomics is not biophysical economics, I am in the field of thermal processes (geothermal engineering), I deal a lot with thermoeconomics and never use any biology or biological evolution terms as it does not have to be related (therefore cannot be synonyms). Bejan, Tsatsaronis and Moran in the book "Thermal design and optimization" define thermoeconomics as follows: "Thermoeconomics is the branch of engineering that combines exergy analysis and economic principles to provide the system designer or operator with information not available through conventional energy analysis and economic evaluations but crucial to the design and operation of a cost-effective system. We can consider thermoeconomics as exergy-aided cost minimization. Since the thermodynamic considerations of thermoeconomics are based on the exergy concept, the term exergoeconomics can also be used to describe the combination of exergy analysis and economics" [1] Many papers, articles and theses use thermoeconomics and exergoeconomics terminology and are not related to biology or biological evolution. Albe hp39 (talk) 11:44, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
The intro seems to be saying that there are two definitions:
Later in the article, a third meaning is described: the application of the mathematics of thermodynamic theory to economics, not necessarily involving economic activity that has anything to do with real thermal energy. Is this merely a better version of the first definition, or are there really three meanings to the term? -- Beland 17:34, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I am suprised to see this article on "thermoeconomics," a word that I read for the first time. I mean, "thermoeconomics" is surely a word, and it surely has a meaning, but it is surely not a field. A scientific field would need practitioners in academia, and yet when I search for "thermoeconomics" in the database of major academic journals (J-Stor), I get no hit for the period (1860-2000). My own readings in the field of history of economics never showed up this term. I understand that it can be meant to define a subset of economic theories (those which get inspiration from thermodynamics, or what not), but to the best of my knowledge this term has never been used historically by the actors included in this article as practionners of thermoeconomics. Therefore, I delete mentions to thermodynamics as a "field."Seinecle 16:34, 15 August 2007 (UTC) In fact I give up, this article is a mess and should be deleted entirely. You just can't pick up an obscure term and then reconstruct a theory / invent a field / pick scientists and name them as participants to the field / just to fill an article. The pity is that people reading this and quoting this will be horribly confused.Seinecle 16:48, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Since Thermoeconomics is not widely recognized and doesnt appear to have any proven (statistically convincing) succes as a predictive tool then it seems there must be some criticisms. If it has no criticims, it is probably a lack of notability. I think someone needs to produce either some published criticisms or show some strong empirical predictive success - or consider merging it with something else as a subarticle.BillGosset 12:50, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
It is quite possible to have two computer programs for the same purpose - say, weather forecasting - that create the same amount of system heat but produce different results. In other words, they are thermodynamically identical, even though the answers are different. Then we can imagine that one of these programs always produces less accuarate forecasts than the other. So how do thermodynamic limits even matter? There are computing problems where thermodynamic limits are relevant but not for most problems. I suspect that whatever the thermodynamic limits are, the economy is so far below them that they have no predictive power at all. Various economies are like different computer programs with the same thermodynamic properties but very different outcomes.
In short, until someone can show me Thermoeconomics predicts inflation, interest rates, unemployment figures, etc. more accurately than other methods, I have to seriously doubt the validity of it.BillGosset 12:59, 16 June 2007 (UTC)Hubbardaie
I have deleted totally made up claims about Paul Samuelson. Samuelson never conducted any research that could be described as akin to this totally fringe theory. Bigdaddy1981 07:17, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
It's true that Samuelson's book Foundations of Economic Analysis used some methods from physics. So if this page wants to claim that physics methods influenced Samuelson, that's fine. But it's completely false to say that Samuelson is a "dominant researcher" in thermoeconomics. He never ever claimed that societies could be considered thermodynamic systems, etc. --Rinconsoleao 08:16, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
A referenced sentence is not a bogus claim:
You can also read about this in the 1983 book Foundations of Economic Analysis (Expanded Edition), where Samuelson gives a detailed discussion of the application of thermodynamics in economics. Thank you: --Sadi Carnot 02:15, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
I have deleted another section of the article which claims Jevons as an early proponent of this approach (this time by inaccurately characterising his Coal Question as an energy-based approach - in fact it was an applied work discussing an apparent decline in UK coal output ---- nothing to do with "thermoeconomics"). I believe the authors of this article are attempting - through mis-characterisation of the target economists' work - to claim respected economists as proponents of this fringe theory. Bigdaddy1981 22:03, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
Instead of complaining to me, why don't you buy a book on thermoeconomics and read it? --Sadi Carnot 19:27, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
What, if anything, does William Armstrong Fairburn have to do with this article. I cannot see the connection. Bigdaddy1981 02:18, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
As discussed above, many economists (perhaps most) use methods borrowed from physics and engineering. If you want to label all such economists (who include Samuelson) as "thermoeconomists" then the term is trivial and this article is pointless. If you insist on claiming that Samuelson posits that an economy is best thought of as an open thermodynamic system then put up or shut up. Let's see a real (not slyly truncated) reference to a specific portion of one of Samuelson's books or a specific paper. If you don't then I'll know you are the same as those chaps over at Time Cube. Maybe Samuelson was into that too, eh? Bigdaddy1981 04:43, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
You can also read more about this in the following book (pg. 222):
Thank you: --Sadi Carnot 15:51, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Please take your trolling somewhere else. People have been applying thermodynamics to economics since 1850. This is what this article is about (as well as the engineering aspect). I happen today to be reading the new 2007 book A History of Thermodynamics by Ingo Muller and here’s a quote from page 73: “economists use entropy (developed in 1850 by Rudolf Clausius) for estimating the distribution of goods”. In sum, do not revert "referenced" sections. I am guessing that you don't understand thermodynamics and the idea of thermodynamics used in economics irritates you? In any event, everything in this article is referenced and it is a legitimate and published topic. Thank you. --Sadi Carnot 19:13, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Added this one http://telstar.ote.cmu.edu/environ/m3/s3/05account.shtml Environmental Decision making, Science and Technology ---- in regard to the mechanics of energy accounting... whether in a traditional system or an alternative Non-market economics it works... and also a reference to another wiki article Energy Accounting. skip sievert (talk) 23:51, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
I can't find any evidence that Georgescu-Roegen ever used the term "thermoeconomics". It seems more likely that his work has been claimed, retrospectively, as a foundation for thermoeconomics. JQ (talk) 07:47, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
I am not ease with this merge as biophysical economics is quite different and wider than the term thermoeconomics so I would suggest a new article for biophysical economics. What do you think? Ledjazz (talk) 10:07, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
It appears that both of the vociferous advocates for this article, Sadi Carnot and skip sievert have been blocked. I read through the comments, and I am in agreement with the consensus opinion of many others over the past SEVEN years, e.g.
Also, the Carnegie-Mellon University link has no relevance here, the one that Skip Sievert added. It is a fine web page, explaining basic measurements of time and energy associated with electric power generation, and associated costs. The title of the webpage is "Energy Accounting", and it mentions nothing, nowhere, the word or concept of "Thermoeconomics".
Next, Georgescu-Roegen's work was "back fitted" to support this article:
Both BillGosset and Hubbardaie raise legitimate and as yet, un-addressed concerns about the suitability of this topic for a Wikipedia article, citing lack of notability.
I removed the designation for the Wiki Physics project, as it is embarrassing to include it, and is unarguably misleading.
Any thoughts, suggestion, about this article? --FeralOink (talk) 02:42, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
This is a necessary page, and hope it is not deleted. Whether a topic is accepted by academia is not always relevant, as has been shown many times in the past. Many (maybe even most) of the great advances in science and technology were done outside of, or in spite of, academia. This topic is particularly important now that we are approaching the end of the petroleum age, when we don't even know yet if it is thermodynamically feasible to create a substitute energy source like it on the same global scale, although many keep trying with batteries, synthetic fuels, bio-fuels, and the like. A better understanding of the potential futility of that would be great for focusing the world on cutting energy consumption while maintaining or improving the standard of living, instead (another thermodynamic challenge, actually).
What I am driving at is petroleum was created as a relatively low entropy (high availability) substance chock full of portable energy, over millions of years, while the accompanying increase in entropy required by the 2nd Law to create it was also spread out over the same period of time, a lot of which is manifested in folded and crushed geologic formations, the source of the pressure that was part of the creation process. What's the physical effect of the entropy increase (presumably all on the surface of the earth now) if we try to replace petroleum with batteries, biofuels and windmills on a global scale over 1 year, 10 years, or even 1,000 years, orders of magnitude shorter periods of time? If the answer to that isn't directly pertinent to the field of economics, I don't know what is. Please, let's keep the page, and let's expand on it, too. --Old engineer 2 (talk) 15:39, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Thermoeconomics/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
Last edited at 02:04, 1 June 2013 (UTC). Substituted at 20:17, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
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I propose merging this page with Econophysics. As far as I can tell, Econophysics is a slightly more general treatment of the same concept. 96.227.134.54 (talk) 04:19, 14 June 2018 (UTC)