Research project to calculate the potential reduction in the use of materials and energy for our production systems, if the peer production stack would be applied integratively.

This project fully takes into account the Jevons Paradox, i.e. without structural reforms, thermodynamic gains are useless. What we aim for therefore, is Perma-Circularity, i.e. a systemic approach of the circular economy to the system as a whole.

Provisional documentation via [1].

This is a joint research project by the P2P Foundation and the Blaqswans Collective, coordinated by Xavier Rizos and Celine Trefle. For more see: Thermodynamic Efficiencies of Peer Production.

Introduction

The aim of this project is to calculate the 'savings' that could be obtained through a full use of peer production as the mode of production and exchange, and to quantify some of the following effects:

1) moving artificial scarcity driven design (generalized planned obsolescence) to global open design communities and their sustainability driven motives saves x percent of matter and energy

2) moving towards more shared physical infrastructures saves x percent of matter and energy

3) moving to open supply chains and open book accounting and its speed up effect on circular economy integration saves x percent of matter and energy

4) moving to a cosmo-localized production (4a) for on demand (4b) distributed production saves x percent of matter and energy

Jason Moore's work on World-Ecology

• World-Ecological Surplus
• World-Ecological Regimes

Potential background documentation of interest

• Economic Calculation Problem [2]

• P2P Accounting http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:P2P_Accounting

• Open Source Circular Economy: "from the current linear system (we take resources out of the ground, and transform them into (often hazardous) waste. We consume and destroy our own planet faster than it can possibly recover) to a circular economy in tune with the cycles in the natural world.

[3]

• Sustainable Manufacturing section on the P2P Foundation wiki, at http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Sustainable_Manufacturing

• Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR): “regulatory principle based on the life-cycle approach, and aims to implement ownership patterns that encourage stewardship and conservation of resources.” [4]

Citations

Without Structural Reforms, Increased Efficiencies are Useless

"Gains in resource and energy efficiency have never led to a sustained decrease in humanity’s raw materials and raw fuels consumption with a stationary level of GDP. Invariably, in waves, the engineers’ contribution to shop-floor efficiency in production processes have been used by the businesses that employ these engineers to save on costs so as to be able to produce and sell more. In fact, what we call economic growth is the long history of the diversion of efficiency gains into production increases. And quite often, this also ends up leading to more, rather than less, raw material extraction and consumption. If any engineer ever had the illusion that they would be working to improve the world through efficiency, he or she should think again — and take a good, hard look at how businesses and industries are, by the very logic of single-minded profit-seeking that moves them, hijacking the efficiency gains and transforming them (when 'successful') into gains in sales and in profits, and usually also into increases in global resource consumption. More fuel-efficient automobiles or airplanes, for instance, are a total scam — not in themselves or as feats of cutting-edge engineering, but because they make driving or flying cheaper per kilometer, so that all of us car or airline users can do more kilometers than before with a 'clean conscience', all the while helping companies reap profits from diverting their engineers’ well-meaning micro-level efforts into ecologically deleterious impacts at the macro level."

- Christian Arnsperger [5], 22/06/16

Key Resources

Key Articles

• Christian Arnsperger: The Circular Economy Effects Only Work Under One Percent Growth

• World History as a Thermodynamic Process

• Richard Heinberg: Ecological Backgrounds of the Deep Infrastructural Shifts in the History of Human Civilization

• Herman Daly: The Thermodynamic Roots of Economics

• A Systems and Thermodynamics Perspective on Technology in the Circular Economy. By Crelis F. Rammelt and Phillip Crisp. real-world economics review, issue no. 68, 2014

[6]: "The paper ultimately reflects on what role society can realistically assign to technology for resolving its ecological concerns. While environmental engineering undoubtedly has something to offer, it will end up chasing its tail if the social and economic forces driving up production and consumption are not addressed."

Key Books

* A Prosperous Way Down: Principles and Policies. By Howard T. Odum and Elisabeth C. Odum. University Press of Colorado, 2001.

"Consider the future with less fossil fuel and no new natural or technological energy sources. How can it be peaceful and prosperous? More and more leaders concerned with the global future are warning of the impending crisis as the surge of unsustainable growth exceeds the capability of the earth's resources to support our civilisation. But while history records the collapse of countless civilisations, some societies and ecosystems have managed to descend in orderly stages, reducing demands and selecting and saving what is most important. Although some scientists predict disaster, this book shows how our world can still thrive and prosper in a future where we live with less and charts a way for our modern civilisation to descend to sustainable levels. The authors make recommendations for a more equitable and co-operative world society, with specific suggestions based upon their evaluations of trends in global population, wealth distribution, energy sources, conservation, urban development, capitalism and international trade, information technology, and education. This thoughtful and provocative book will force us to confront our assumptions and beliefs about our world's future, which is all too often taken for granted." (publisher)

* Environment, Power, and Society for the Twenty-First Century: The Hierarchy of Energy. By Howard Odum. Columbia University Press, 2007.

"Howard T. Odum possessed one of the most innovative minds of the twentieth century. He pioneered the fields of ecological engineering, ecological economics, and environmental accounting, working throughout his life to better understand the interrelationships of energy, environment, and society and their importance to the well-being of humanity and the planet.

This volume is a major modernization of Odum's classic work on the significance of power and its role in society, bringing his approach and insight to a whole new generation of students and scholars. For this edition Odum refines his original theories and introduces two new measures: emergy and transformity. These concepts can be used to evaluate and compare systems and their transformation and use of resources by accounting for all the energies and materials that flow in and out and expressing them in equivalent ability to do work. Natural energies such as solar radiation and the cycling of water, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen are diagrammed in terms of energy and emergy flow. Through this method Odum reveals the similarities between human economic and social systems and the ecosystems of the natural world. In the process, we discover that our survival and prosperity are regulated as much by the laws of energetics as are systems of the physical and chemical world." (publisher)

Key Research Projects

P2P Foundation Network

Institutions

• International Learning Network of Networks on Sustainability: designers for sustainability, European research project
• P2P Lab: P2P Foundation lab and research network, focusing on 'DGML' researh, "Design Global, Manufacturing Local"
• Thermodynamics of Peer Production, project of the P2P Foundation, with the Blaqswan's Collective

Individual Researchers

1. Cindy Kohtala
2. Vasilis Kostakis
3. Jose Ramos
4. Xavier Rizos
5. Anna Seravalli
6. John Thackara
7. Celine Trefle
8. Alekos Pantazis
9. Christina Priavolou

External

Individual Researchers

Compiled via [7]:

• Aguinaldo Dos Santos <asantos@ufpr.br> ; Distributed Design & Distributed Manufacturing [8]; Curitiba, Brazil
• Andrea Broom <andrea.broom@gmail.com> ; Distributed Renewable Energy, Distributed Manufacturing, Distributed production of Software, and Distributed production of Information [9] ; (CPUT), Cape Town, South Africa
• Sandra Molina <unasandra@yahoo.com.mx>; Distributed Design & Distributed Manufacturing ; (UAM) Azcapotzalco, Mexico City, Mexico

Key Statistics

• Thanatia. Thermodynamic Cradle-to-Cradle Assessment of the Earth's Mineral Resources (book)

• Natural Resources in a Planetary Perspective. By Harald Sverdrup & K. Vala Ragnarsdóttir. Geochemical Perspectives, Volume 3, Number 2, October 2014

[10]: resources have peaked or will peak within 50 years.

The Circular Economy is only sustainable under 1% raw material consumption growth

Post-Growth Institute, by Sharon Ede:

"In 2011, a study commissioned by the CEO of Veolia was published in a peer-reviewed journal focused on sustainability, with the objective of assessing the business opportunities of the circular economy and recycling. It found that the ability to ‘decouple’ is only possible if the total annual raw material consumption growth rate is under one percent, and that ‘the influence of recycling on resource preservation is negligible for any raw material with a greater than 2% per annum increase in world production’.

Even then, growth in material consumption kept below that rate is still insufficient to decouple, and requires a high rate of recycling (60% – 80%). Economist and Professor of Sustainability and Economic Anthropology Christian Arnsperger of the University of Lausanne analyses what this means:

Efficiency gains…become themselves the ‘raw material’ for generating new economic growth thanks to lower raw material requirements…and it explains why the circular growth economy attracts so much enthusiasm among businesspeople and industrialists: The mirage is that of perpetually expanding markets along with perpetually contracting raw material consumption…we have no use for a pseudo-circular metabolism that is actually a steadily widening spiral: circling, yes, but spinning slowly out of control nevertheless, in ever-broader circles of ever-growing circumference. We need a genuinely circular metabolism…one that doesn’t spiral outward but, rather, promises to keep the same circumference… " (http://postgrowth.org/the-real-circular-economy/)

Global Footprint: biophysical accounts of over 200 countries

Post-Growth Institute, by Sharon Ede:

"Biophysical accounts for over 200 countries dating back to 1961 maintained by the Global Footprint Network show that humanity uses around 1.5 planets’ worth of bioproductive space, meaning the Earth takes one year and six months to regenerate what we use in a year. If population and consumption trends continue on their current trajectory, we will need the equivalent of two Earths by 2030. There are billions of people whose material living standard needs to increase, and many who wish to emulate consumerist lifestyles, yet we are already in overshoot — using more human demand on nature’s capacity exceeds what nature can supply." (http://postgrowth.org/the-real-circular-economy/)

History

• Thomas Homer-Dixon. The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization. [11]]: explains the decline of the Roman Empire through its energy overshoot, then examines the current crises of China, Europe and Pakistan as current examples.

• Ecological Revolution: The Political Origins of Environmental Degradation and the Environmental Origins of Axial Religions; China, Japan, Europe. by Mark D. Whitaker: a 3,000 year comparative review of ecological crises in Europe, Japan and China, reveals that resource depletion is more the rule than the exception for competing elite systems, and that civilizations reacted through religious reform movements leading to renewed mutualization of resources.

Key People

Biophysical Economics

1. Podolinsky
2. Frederick Soddy
3. ? Alfred Lotka
4. W. Fred Cottrell
5. ? M. King Hubbert
6. Howard T. Odum
7. Robert Costanza
8. Earl Cook
9. Robert Ayres
10. Herman E. Daly
11. Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen

Key Research Projects

• The Thermodynamic Efficiencies of Peer Production. A project of the Blaqswan's Collective in collaboration with the P2P Foundation.

• Evaluating Open Hardware From an Ecological Economics Perspective. A project of the P2P Lab

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