Efforts to Maintain a Material World
Every 10 to 15 years I need to replace the wooden edging in my garden, the delimiter separating the green grass of an English lawn from the gravel of the foot path. The edging renewal this spring prompted me to think once more about the tedium associated with our material existence as well as our material belongings such as chores in and around the house. In this story I would like to share my thoughts about the effort required to maintain our material world in general: we have to compensate natural decay, wear & tear of our material assets by investing energy¹; it is in essence the human struggle against naturally increasing entropy².
Accumulated Embodied Energy
Matter tends to assume the lowest state of energy¹ and highest state of entropy²; it tends to converge towards an equilibrium state. Nevertheless Earth has experienced the opposite: in-formation, the becoming of form, driven by the invisible force of life and fuelled by the sun’s energy; both together organise matter into shape, from simple organisms to complex ecosystems, including humans. Being both result and part of this world, our creativity appears to be pushing us to organise matter into shape, too, far beyond the necessary: we do show a propensity to create and accumulate organised matter, from useful devices to objects of art.
What does that mean in energetic terms? Well, formless matter tends to converge to and remain at its lowest state of energy unless we invest additional energy to enable its change. For instance, iron ore is iron oxide; it takes some energy to separate the oxygen from the iron to create raw iron. Hence there is more energy in iron than there was in the ore it came from. Any further transformation requires even more energy: converting a lump of raw iron into steel, shaping red hot steel ingots into beams, later combining those into a building, etc. Consequently, any material asset consumes and as such absorbs energy during its creation. The total expenditure for its existence can be called its “embodied energy”.
As said earlier, we humans not only like to create “stuff” but we also like to own and accumulate “stuff” with all items carrying a certain amount of embodied energy. In addition, we like things to be “shaped”, we like strict separation and clear lines: lawn must only contain grass, a foot path must not contain grass. Or, we like the inside of the house warm when it is cold outside, and we like it cool inside when it is warm outside. Keeping things in shape or away from their natural state of thermodynamic equilibrium requires energy, too. All in all, every person could make an inventory of material assets and trace the embodied energy of each item as well as the total embodied energy as a function of time. As shown below, there are at least three different cases:
- Invest energy in an asset, then use it and let it decay in its natural way until it does not fulfil its function any more, e.g. a wooden gravel board separating lawn from gravel. Decay is assumed to follow an exponential law; the remainder at the end can be re-introduced to nature.
- Invest energy in an asset, use it up to a certain level of wear & tear, throw it away (and with it the embodied energy), get a new one; this is the model in the so-called linear economy for the consumer society: take, make & waste. This is true for a lot of our assets.
- First, invest energy in an asset, use it up to a certain level of wear & tear, then refurbish the item to make it as good as new for yourself, or put it back into the market; this is the model of the so-called circular economy with an opportunity for new businesses such as Refurbed.
By stacking up the embodied energy over life-time of all material assets the sum total of all these assets as a function of time can be created. Since there is a certain equivalence between energy and money, all our belongings correspond to a certain amount of embodied energy.
Total Maintenance Power
As it can seen in the diagram above, all matter has the tendency to decay, either naturally or through wear & tear. Iron rusts, metals corrode, wood rots, stone withers, etc. Therefore, a certain amount of energy needs to be invested periodically to maintain the status of any asset as a compensation of decay or wear & tear:
- For the asset class which is completely worn down such as things made from wood, they do usually not need too much energy in the first place and can last a long time; the average maintenance power equals the periodic energy expenditure divided by the usage period.
- For the asset class in the make, take & waste world, the energy invested is usually quite high (derived from fossil fuel quite often too), and the usage period is quite short (due to obsolescence or fashion). Hence, the average maintenance power equals of periodic high energy expenditure divided by the short period is quite high.
- For the asset class in a circular economy, there is an initial energy expenditure and a periodic refurbishment expenditure. The average maintenance power equals of periodic refurbishment energy expenditure divided by the usage period plus the initial energy expenditure divided by the total life span. For a long life span, the average maintenance power can be expected to be low as it is dominated by the refurbishment energy over usage period.
Similarly to the case of the total embodied energy of all our material assets as a function of time, the total average maintenance power can be determined and plotted as a function of time.
Conclusion
Using the equivalence between energy and money, all our belongings require maintenance power, or monetary expenditure commensurate with the total assets. To keep the amount of effort (or maintenance power or expenditure) small as well as help in building a sustainable world, we can:
- own few material things, free ourselves from consumerism, try to live with only the necessary items, or try to share assets where possible;
- for those things we do need, consider items with lower embodied energy, e.g. made from wood; metals, in particular aluminium require a lot of energy to make and are often over the top;
- wherever possible, only buy and use material assets with little decay, i.e. items that are designed and built to last and to be repaired, yet keeping their production energy low, too. Longevity is important.
By observing these rules, the amount of energy needed to create and maintain our material assets can be kept low; this keeps the tedium at bay. Automation is often seen as solution to tedium; unfortunately, this adds more material assets and even more need to invest energy in its maintenance. What comes to my mind is Janis Joplin’s interpretation of the song Me and Bobbie McGee by Kris Kristofferson: “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose”.
There is one further snag: humans seem to have this internal drive to create and grow, and by extensions a proclivity to accumulate material assets. On the other hand there is a finite planet with its limited resources. Perhaps the predicament of our civilisation is to fail unless we can reconcile our ambition and the finiteness of our planet.
Post Scriptum
- There is one very important concept in physics and engineering: energy. Energy can be seen as the quantification of a physical property that is related to the potential of work or transformation. It comes in many shapes: mechanical energy as kinetic energy in a moving mass, or potential energy as an elevated mass; electrical energy as current in a coil or an electrical charge in a capacitor; thermal energy as heat at a certain temperature above the surrounding; chemical energy in the bonds of elements and compounds. The most important aspect is the conservation of energy in a system. Energy is not created nor destroyed, but only transformed, also known the First Law of Thermodynamics.
- The second, equally important concept in physics and engineering: entropy. While most forms of energy can and will eventually be transformed into heat, not all heat can be transformed back into higher forms of energy such as mechanical or electrical energy. For instance, friction will slow a moving mass down and convert its kinetic energy into heat; but heat on its own won’t make the object move. Or, both hot tea and cold beer each in a glass will eventually assume the same common temperature. In other words, there is a natural tendency for matter to assume the most stable state possible: a uniform temperature, the lowest altitude, or the lowest possible energy in a chemical compound. Entropy can be seen as the quantification for irreversibility of physical processes. While energy is always conserved entropy increases in a closed system, known as the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
