Energetics Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Energy, such as lightening or sunlight, flows from one place to another. Energetics scientifically studies the way energy flows when it is being transformed from one form of energy into another form.

Energetics is a very broad scientific discipline that encompasses many disciplines, such as biological energetics, biochemistry, chemistry, ecological energetics, and thermodynamics. The boundary between these disciplines and other branches of energetics is a matter of considerable debate. The general aim of the discipline of energetics is to discover principles that can describe the useful and nonuseful tendencies of energy flows under transformation. The principles are statements that describe the way in which the phenomena observed as energy flows occur whenever they are observed in the same set of conditions. The ultimate goal of science in this and other areas is to identify and understand uniformities of nature than can be stated as laws of nature, or scientific principles. For example, the discipline of thermodynamics has developed principles that are usually referred to as the Laws of Thermodynamics. These descriptive statements of uniformities of nature can be called Laws of Energetics, as well.

Among the basic principles of energetics, the first is that if two systems are in a thermal equilibrium, and if the first of the two systems is also in equilibrium with a third system, then the second of the first two systems is also in equilibrium with the third system. A second principle says that the Second Law of Thermodynamics applies to a system so that over time, entropy increases so that energy is lost for further useful application. A third principle says that as energy increases in a system from an outside source, some of it is expended as work. A fourth principle states that as a system loses heat, all processes decline and eventually stop completely as the system approaches absolute zero.

The study of energetics in ecology systems is a quantitative discipline that is concerned with the flow of energy through environmental systems. Its goal is to discover the mechanism that allows energy to flow through ecological networks. The networks are composed of levels of energy-using or trophic relationships. A systemic approach seeks to discover the ecosystem energy interconnections.

Biological energetics studies the work done by organisms, everything from metabolism to reproduction to defensive actions. It measures work in either units of kilojoules (kJ) or units of kilocalories (kcal). The units measure how work is converted to heat or how heat can be used in work in the three biologically important forms of energy: chemical, electrical, and radiant energy, all of which may exist as potential or kinetic energy.

Organisms, fish, mammals, and all other life forms need to constantly acquire sources of energy such as food, and require the expenditure of energy to exist and to perform the functions of life. The energy facts of life are that the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics apply to all living organisms. There is a real sense that death is a successful operation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics in the life of an organism. Energetics studies the way in which energy is transformed from potential to kinetic energy by the mechanisms of an organism.

The discipline of energetics has an ancient lineage. The ancient Greek philosopher-scientists were the first to study the subject. Energetics was advanced by the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). It was given modern expression in the work of William John Macquorn Rankine (1820-72), a Scottish engineer and physicist. Rankine was, with Lord Kelvin (William Thomson) and Rudolf Clausius, an important contributor to the development of thermodynamics in the 19th century. His paper “Outlines of the Science of Energetics,” published in the Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow in 1855, is often cited as the beginning of the formal discipline of energetics.

The application of energetics to human-ecological problems in recent years has allowed new views onto old problems. Human ecologists have, for example, compared energy flows through differing agricultural systems, examining their relative efficiency, as in Bayliss-Smith’s comparative work, which reveals the remarkable efficiency of traditional agrarian practices relative to modern farming. Energetics has also been used to make more spurious and functionalist claims, however, using energy efficiencies as an explanation for cultural practices. Overall, the potential for energy-based analysis in modern environmentalism is arguably yet unrealized.

Bibliography:

T.P. Bayliss-Smith, The Ecology of Agricultural Systems (Cambridge University Press, 1982);
Hal Caswell, Food Webs: From Connectivity to Energetics (Elsevier Science & Technology Books, 2005);
Roger A. Hinrichs and Merlin Kleinbach, Energy: Its Use and the Environment (Thomson, 2002);
Neil Rooney, From Energetics to Ecosystems: The Dynamics and Structure of Ecological Systems (Springer-Verlag, 2006);
Stanley J. Ulijaszek, C. G. Mascie-Taylor, and R. A. Foley, , Human Energetics in Biological Anthropology (Cambridge University Press, 2005);
R. G. Wiegert, , Ecological Energetics (Elsevier Science & Technology Books, 1976).