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Helmut Burkhardt respects Howard Odum's work, but has some issues because Odum isn't a physicist.
Helmut Burkhardt attended a workshop by Howard Odum at a workshop on The Prosperous Way Down.
Burkhardt says that solar energy is plentiful, but Odum said that it was too diffuse.
Odum also said that the energy was highly distributed, it doesn't have quality, e.g. oil is concentrated.
Correct: second law of thermodynamics. The quality of the energy depends on the source, e.g. oil is about 3000-4000, whereas solar energy is 6000.
Technical efficiency is 95%, oil is 65%, bioenergy is 1%; thus, would need to collect a lot more.
Helmut Burkhardt admires Howard Odum's creativity in ecosystems, but Odum is working on some wrong assumptions.
Problem is theoretical.
Engineer's concept: entropy law is backward, you get more of something negative, not something for nothing: exergy
Energy as the ability to do work, that is nonsense.
There's lots of heat energy in the ocean, but can't get to it.
Ocean energy as waves, kinetic is pure exergy.
Exergy is the part we pay for.
Odum created a concept of emergy; Burkhardt is not sure that this is helpful.
James Kay uses exergy, less controversial.
Odum's damage has been to get a public perception that solar energy is not viable.
Gain of solar technology is not bad today, with a life of 30 years, and a payback in two years.
Look at Energy Return on Energy Invested