Recycling, Thermodynamics and Environmental Thrift

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Abstract
Our world contains a vast, stored energy potential. By comparing the potential consumed by different processes, one can choose the process that uses fewer resources to accomplish a task. If we could identify areas in which there were economies to be found in energy utilization, then we could begin, perhaps, to reconcile the technological life style we have so thoroughly adopted with the increasing environmental insults that seem to accompany our technology. The author, professor of chemistry at the University of Chicago, carried out the calculations presented here, which are a rough first approximation, at the Aspen Center for Physics during the summer of 1971. A much more accurate and detailed study has now been carried out for the Illinois Institute for Environmental Quality. The real thermodynamic costs are considerably higher than reported here, but the inferences are, if anything, strengthened.

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