In economic thermodynamics, Stephen Lee Gillett (1953-) is an American geologist and science fiction writer noted for his 2005 “Entropy and its Misuse: Energy, Free and Otherwise” wherein he shows how Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's ideas about low entropy are incorrect.
Overview
In 2005, Gillett, in his “Entropy and its Misuse: Energy, Free and Otherwise”, took aim at Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen’s 1971 highly-touted, albeit misconstrued, ideas about how “low entropy”, as advocated by the Roegen-Daly school, and resources apply in economics and ecology, along with other misconstrued Georgescu-Roegen based ideas, e.g. the 1999 work of American economist Gabriel Lozada.
Gillett’s paper spurred the followup 2005 rebuttal article “Entropy, Free Energy, Work, and other Thermodynamic Variables in Economics” by American economist Gabriel Lozada. [2]
Entropy of water
In 1975, Romanian economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, in his “Energy and Economic Myths”, supposedly stated: [3]
“The entropy of water is higher than that or oxygen and hydrogen.”
In 1993, New Zealand chemical engineer A.G. Williamson, in his “The Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Economic Process”, supposedly, pointed out, noted, or showed that Georgescu-Roegen’s statement was incorrect. [4]
Gillett, citing Williamson, does thermodynamic data table based calculation of the oxygen reacting with hydrogen to form water which he determines to have a -52.5 J/mol β K, thereby concurring that Georgescu-Roegen was “simply wrong” and that if “low entropy” were truly the resource, liquid water would be a better resource than the fuels it is formed from!
Education
Gillett completed his BS in geology at Caltech in 1975 and PhD in geology at SUNY, Stony Brook NY in 1981 with a dissertation on “Magnetization and Remagnetization Processes in some Early Paleozoic Limestones from the Great Basin”.
Quotes
The following are other related quotes:
“It is certainly true that the economy, and human affairs in general, are subject to physical laws. Confusion has arisen, however, because the thermodynamic laws have been commonly misunderstood and misapplied.”
— Stephen Gillett (2005), “Entropy and its Misuse” (pg. 58)
“Entropy’s significance is indirect: because of the second law free energy cannot be recycled. Thus free energy is the actual resource, not ‘low entropy’, a point also made by Ayres (1998). The earth is also not an isolated system, and thus it makes no sense to speak of scattering ‘high entropy’ into the biosphere; the ultimate sink for waste heat is outer space.”
— Stephen Gillett (2005), “Entropy and its Misuse” (pg. 59)
“If low entropy is not the ultimate resource, what is? It is free energy, the energy available to do work, (Fermi, 1937, pp. 77–78). Throughout this paper, either ‘free energy’ or ‘available energy’ will mean energy that is available to do work. Gibbs free energy, a special case, will always be specifically indicated. I also will not use the term ‘exergy’, for two reasons. First, it is not a standard term, at least in the English-language literature; Chemical Abstracts merely cross-references ‘exergy’ to ‘free energy’. The second is that it does not seem to be used consistently as a synonym for free energy.”
— Stephen Gillett (2005), “Entropy and its Misuse” (pg. 59)
“That free energy is in a very real sense the ultimate resource does not lead to a free energy theory of value [free energy theory of value], however, for two related reasons.”
— Stephen Gillett (2005), “Entropy and its Misuse” (pg. 61); there is semantic and conceptual confusion here, because Gillett convolutes the free energy of things such as photosynthesis, aluminum cans, and toxins, to reaction false conclusions about the economic value of matter, such as gold, oil, power via water falling, etc.; too lengthy to address, presently
“Because entropy must not decrease in spontaneous processes does not mean that entropy is the ultimate thermodynamic driving force.”
— Stephen Gillett (2005), “Entropy and its Misuse” (pg. 62); this is correct, as was first codified by Gilbert Lewis (1923)
“It is not the case, therefore, that a chemical reaction is driven merely by the increase of entropy (Beard and Lozada, 1999, pp. 94–95). It also is not true that chemical processes can be analyzed ‘not merely by thermodynamics in general but by the entropy law in particular’ (Lozada, 1999, p. 332). In general, both energy and entropy are important, because it cannot be assumed that energy is present daily as heat.”
— Stephen Gillett (2005), “Entropy and its Misuse” (pg. 62); this is funny, how correctly stupid Gillett makes Lozada look; the 19th century thermal theory of affinity comes to mind here
“Both energy and entropy are real physical quantities, and the general statements above can be well illuminated by some quantitative examples that indicate the magnitudes involved. In nearly all the appeals to the ‘entropy law’, the purported ‘high entropy costs’ of human or biological activity have not been buttressed with any actual values.”
— Stephen Gillett (2005), “Entropy and its Misuse” (pg. 63); very humorous
References
1. (a) Gillett, Stephen L., (2005a). “Entropy and its misuse, I. Energy, free and otherwise” (abs) (pdf). Ecological Economics (received Jan 2002), 56:58–70.
(b) Gillett, Stephen L. (2005b). “Entropy and its misuse, II. Matter matters less. Ecological Economics.
2. Lozada, Gabriel A. (2005). “Entropy, Free Energy, Work, and other Thermodynamic Variables in Economics”, Ecological Economics, 56: 71-78.
3. Georgescu-Roegen, Nicholas. (1975). “Energy and Economic Myths”, The Southern Economic Journal, XLI, #3, pgs. 347-81; in: Energy and Economic Myths: Institutional and Analytical Economic Essays (§1:3-36). Pergamon, 1976.
4. (a) Williamson, A.G. (1993). “The Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Economic Process” (ΡΊ), Ecological Economics, 7(1):69-71.
(b) Gillett, Stephen L., (2005). “Entropy and its misuse, I. Energy, free and otherwise” (abs) (pdf) (pg. 63). Ecological Economics (received Jan 2002), 56:58–70.
External links
β Stephen L. Gillett (profile) – Zyvex.com.
β Stephen L. Gillett (profile) – Foresight.org.
