the company's short-term decisions, the majority focus on profits

Initially, probably it was ignorance and shortsightedness in terms of the finiteness of resources.

Do your have a definition of Sustainable Economic Development?  When I try to use classical definitions of 'Economy' or 'Economic Development', it all turns to mud when one applies the filter from Brundtland.   Have you been able to get something that works?

In my opinion, the biggest barriers and limitations for the global dissemination in the business processes of sustainable green economy are stringent policies by international regulatory board and bureaucratic barriers.

Thanks

The concepts of sustainable develpment and green economy themselves are problematic. You can fit whatever meaning you want behind these. The market itself has no reason to implement longterm sustainable options. Liberalism and lack of environmental regulation is obvious. Sustainability implies a collective socio-political project ( which is missing due to privatisation of politics and lack of direct democracy) . As long as economic growth is not questioned, sustainability remains whishfull thinking

Economy, of course, plays very important role to develop any technology. But in my opinion the strongest obstacles are 1. Unawareness, 2. Power in the hands of unaware people. When scientists will make the policies, it may bring best sustainable development.

In view of the above, it is also important to include in the above discussion also the following issue:

Has the classic economy lost its relevance for the energy market?

Has the classic economy lost its relevance to the energy market and therefore whether the process of necessary proecological reforms in the energy sector involving the replacement of energy sources, ie classic energy sources based on burning minerals for renewable energy sources should be coordinated by the state as a pro-environmental interventionist anti-crisis state?

Still at the end of the 21th century, in many publications written in the convention of classical economics, theses were formulated that energy should be shaped by the mechanism of market-harmonizing sides of demand and supply. However, this philosophy concerned classic energy based on the combustion of minerals. Mineral energy deposits in certain parts of the world are determined for several decades of extraction.

If the development of mining technology allows to reach and extract energy from deeper deposits than currently exploited and decks located under the sea and ocean bottoms, such estimated deposits would allow mining of these deposits in some places of the world for much longer than 100 years. However, humanity can not wait so much for pro-ecological reforms in the energy sector and the slow process of switching to renewable energy sources, which is happening in some countries, including the largest economies in the world, the largest emitters of greenhouse gases.

Currently, the philosophy of the energy sector is starting to change. Now the obvious issue is the need to quickly implement pro-ecological reforms without contemplating the depleted energy resources of the Earth's crust. This wait could take about 100 years or more than 100 years in many countries and this is too long, because at the end of the 21st century, according to climate change analysis, drastic climatic catastrophes will occur due to the predicted acceleration of the global warming process in the following decades.

According to the published and presented results of climatologists' research during the recent UN Climate Summits and Conferences on the problem of progressing global warming process, unless by 2030 at the latest the world will not show the classic energy based on the burning of minerals for renewable energy sources and motorization for electromobility and there will be no appropriate improvement of segregation waste and recycling, by the end of the 21st century, the average temperature at the Earth's surface will increase by 3-4 degrees Celsius globally, and the scale of climate cataclysms and weather anomalies will increase many times in relation to the current state.

In view of the above, the world can no longer wait for the depletion of energy minerals. This issue, which is particularly important for humanity and life on Earth, can not be left to the market mechanism and classical economy, whose philosophy has long been undermined, already in the period of the Great Depression of 1929-1934 it was demonstrated that Keynsovian state interventionism is needed to bring the economy out of the deep economic crisis if the liberalized private sector led to a crisis and the economy quickly does not return itself to balance and high economic growth on the basis of self-acting market mechanisms.

We currently have a similar situation. The world inevitably aims at increasing climatic cataclysms caused by the accelerating global warming process. these unfavorable processes for humanity and life on Earth will become a source of intensification of migration of people from subtropical areas, on which it will be impossible to live and live in a few dozen years due to high temperatures and droughts. In addition, there will be economic crises resulting from the global warming process. Humanity has no time to put off the necessary pro-ecological reforms for the future, these pro-ecological reforms in the energy sector need to be implemented now and it should be a process coordinated by the state in the context of pro-environmental anti-crisis state interference.

Do you agree with my opinion on this matter?

In view of the above, I am asking you the following question:

Has the classic economy lost its relevance to the energy market and therefore whether the process of necessary proecological reforms in the energy sector involving the replacement of energy sources, ie classic energy sources based on burning minerals for renewable energy sources should be coordinated by the state as a pro-environmental interventionist anti-crisis state?

Please reply

I invite you to the discussion

Thank you very much

Best wishes

Dear Friends and Colleagues of RG

Thanks to ecological innovations, the scope and possibilities of implementing sustainable ecological development are increasing. In connection with the progressing global warming process, it is necessary to develop eco-innovations in the field of renewable energy development, improvement of sorting techniques, recycling, electromobility, organic farming, plastic reduction from packaging and conversion of plastics to biodegradable materials, etc.

In this way, through the development of eco-innovations and their implementation on an industrial scale, it is possible to implement a sustainable pro-ecological economic development in modern economies. This is a key challenge for humanity in the 21st century. It is a challenge to the necessary and possibly quick implementation in the coming years.

Best wishes

Ecology is related to environment and sustainability is nothing that the maintenance of environment . So I support this innovative equation .

In view of the above, it is important to find the answer to the question: How to activate enterprises to implement the principles of sustainable development? In other words, how to get companies polluting the environment, power plants emitting greenhouse gases, banks to credit pro-ecological projects, politicians to create normative solutions that will significantly accelerate the processes of implementing sustainable development principles into business operations? In the current reality, the key issue is the widest possible publication of research results presenting the accelerating global warming process and the risks associated with climate disasters, which will increase in the coming years.

In view of the above, the current question is: How to activate enterprises to implement the principles of sustainable development?

I invite you to discuss

Regards,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

Dear Jaydip Datta,

Yes, I agree with your opinion. The principles of sustainable development are implemented in economic processes to, inter alia, increasing the scale of reducing environmental pollution, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, etc. in order to increase the scope of protection of the biosphere and climate of the planet Earth. Thank you for your answer and confirmation of my thesis. I am delighted with our cooperation on the Research Gate discussion forum.

Best regards,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

I don't think the economy has lost the relevance for energy market or ever it will be so until we can find some renewable energy sources which can be produced free of cost or the system becomes so natural that the requirement of energy does not remain any more.

The market is there which is why the electric vehicles are given more importance these days. But it runs on electricity. So, it, again, depends on the non-renewable energy sources. There are many renewable eco-friendly resource for energy production. But those are not promoted in the market although they are proven and efficient technologies.

Dear Rachan Karmakar,

Yes, as part of the implementation of the sustainable development goals it includes the development of electromobility should be based on renewable energy sources.

Regards, Stay healthy! Best wishes,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

The concept of the "green economy" in current usage is too poorly defined, too complex and too full of conflicting priorities to be meaningful or useful. In particular, the following goals tend to conflict with each other and to distract from initiatives that would be truly green: economic growth, mitigation of environmental impacts, and decarbonization.

In particular, policies aiming to decarbonize industrial economies via the so-called "renewables" (an alluring misnomer) imply the extraction of increasing quantities of minerals by a factor of 10, and the conversion of increasing land areas to energy production by a factor of 100-1000, relative to fossil-fuel-based energy production. The requirement for great quantities of minerals and vast land areas conflicts with mitigation of environmental impacts. And this proposed path to decarbonization is scarcely plausible in the time frame of 10-30 years, so it also conflicts with economic growth. The development of bioenergy likewise conflicts with environmental policy and doesn't offer a practicable route to sustainable energy systems in the time frame of a few decades.

Meanwhile, the development of urban green infrastructure barely gets a look in, despite the fact that it would be truly green and would make a very valuable contribution to climate adaptation in large cities that are susceptible to heat waves.

So, despite massive global expenditure on climate initiatives, via both public and private finance, the supposed "green" energy transition will quite likely prove unsustainable, in the sense that it will be abandoned as it is found to be unworkable.

Returning to the terms of the question, the so-called "green" energy systems have inherent limitations with regard to the feasibility of their development at utility scale. Widespread awareness of such limitations, of adverse environmental impacts, and of competition with other land uses presents barriers to global dissemination of sustainable economic development as understood with regard to current concepts of the green economy.

I hope this helps.

I'm attaching a figure about 'green'. This comes from work by folks like Regenesis, and doesn't really show all of the nuance. Conventional is one-step better than illegal. Green does less harm. Sustainable does no more harm, but doesn't address existing harm. Restorative puts back what was lost. Regenerative allows economic, social, and ecological systems to co-evolve to enhance well-being over time.

When talking about a green economy, be sure you know where on that spectrum you are really intending. It has multiple meanings.

I would argue that the declining EROI of fossil carbon from the use of tarsands, oil shales, and heavy oils, necessarily causes an economic decline in that same 10-30 year time horizon you've mentioned, Coilín Oscar ÓhAiseadha , and the only effective treatment is to invest heavily in those energy sources that have an EROI that is significantly higher than 12:1.

Today, in Canada, that would be solar, wind, natural gas, nuclear, and hydro. World Natural Gas is expected (by the gas companies) to peak in 2030. Nuclear would be far better if we could get modular thorium breeder reactors (which we don't, so that's still a fantasy). Hydro is mostly tapped out. So, what next?

Tarsands is currently an average EROI 6.1:1, which is significantly lower than the 9:1 that would be required to maintain a first-world economy (eg, the investor-class gains substantially less than the working class, allowing a large working class and small investor class). At 5:1 (approximately shale oil numbers - that's hard to be confident on, since EROI is dependent on longevity, and the longevity is a function of interest rates, and they change), one can support an early-industrial economy. At 3:1, you have an agrarian society.

If we try to ride out fossil carbon to the bitter end, we prove that statement "I don't know what we will fight WW III with, but WW IV will be fought with stone spears" to be true.

Dear Coilín Oscar ÓhAiseadha,

Thank you for your comments and explanations regarding the concept of green economy and the goals of sustainable development. I drew attention to important issues related to the green economy.

Best regards,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

Dear Douglas Nuttall,

Yes, you raised an important point. Thank you for your participation and your valuable valuable contribution to our discussion. You raised an important issue in the context of the ecological transformation of the energy sector. You have added to our discussion important determinants of the possibility of an efficient ecological transformation of the energy sector.

Have a nice day, Stay healthy! Best wishes,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

Thank you, @Douglas Nuttall.

I am in broad agreement with you on most points. In particular, I agree that we need to be mindful of the multiple meanings of the term "green economy" and of where we are on that spectrum.

I also agree that we need to consider dynamic EROI of the fossil fuels, which may make them less dependable to drive future economic growth. On the other hand, the same applies to all other options, and I think particularly wind and solar energy, since they require such large quantities of minerals. The EROI estimates you offer today may not hold in ten years' time.

Even if these estimates do hold, wind and solar present formidable engineering challenges in terms of intermittency and power density. The intermittency problem raises pressing concerns as wind and solar are scaled up to provide substantial shares of energy mix. Our options are either to find ways of storing the energy they produce to cover periods when there is no wind and no sun, or to ensure that we have other sources of baseload power to provide for our full needs during these periods, to power water treatment plants, hospitals and other vital services without interruption, 24 hours a day. Storage solutions are challenging, requiring further large-scale mineral extraction, and if we have access to other options, particularly nuclear and hydro, we might envision that we can do without large shares of wind and solar.

The power density problem is as mentioned above, that utility-scale wind and solar require very great land areas, giving rise to "energy sprawl". If we wish to pursue this option, we must ask, Who or what will the land be taken from? Will it displace suburban residential land, agriculture, indigenous peoples, or what?

Kind regards,

Coilín

Right now, the spring flow going over Niagara Falls is about 30,000 cubic meters per second, and average is below 10,000. There is no reason we can't pump water out of Lake Ontario and into Lake Erie when the sun is shining/wind is blowing, and pull it through turbines (right now, sized for 1500 m3/s, generating 2.4 GWe but fed by a channel 30m deep and 120m wide). Or, we can drill an 8" diameter well, 400' deep, line it with a thin walled steel pipe, and pressurize it to hundreds of atmospheres to store 30 kWh of usable energy. Or stick a bladder under a deep lake. Or close off a mountain valley with 2 dams (one much higher than the other) and pump from one to the other - the list of stored energy is long and not really all that complex. All of those are better than switching to hydrogen (for example) or relying on complex storage systems. Pumped hydro and compressed air systems are the two most efficient and well developed technologies; far, far better than batteries, flywheels, or other techniques that require large scale mineral extraction.

Windmills do not 'occupy' farmland - they are complementary uses, and used that way in Saskatchewan (with an EROI of about 18:1). Solar panels occupy deserts, true, but their presence provides shade that increases habitat. Solar electrical panels covering 7% of Nevada would provide all the electricity required to power the United States (at an EROI of about 24:1). Of course, any such intermittent power source would have to be coupled with local distributed storage, but that is relatively straight forward, even through it does significantly reduce the EROI.

If we assume the pumps for an elevated storage system would have an invested energy cost comparable to a hydro electric dam, it would bring the EROI of a windmill-pump-reservoir-turbine system to 1/(1/18+1/60+1/60)=11:1. So, yeah, that's OK, but borderline. There won't be many places that can use that combination. Might be better just to install more turbines.

Lets try again - compressed air bladders under a deep lake: Solar at 12:1, and lets assume the compressor/turbine combination is 60% efficient, and has an embodied energy of about 1/100th of the usable energy. Overall is 1/(1/(12*0.6 + 1/100) = 6.7:1. Better than tarsands, worse that coal, can't support an economy... hmmm, we'd have to use the waste energy for heating and cooling (some form of CHP?) or it's dead in the water...

"Sustainable green economy" is advertising and poltical hype.

Dear Phil Geis,

Yes, "Sustainable green economy" is advertising and political buzz, if, for example, commercial companies add the philosophy of achieving the goals of sustainable development to their missions and advertising campaigns, and in fact do not really implement it in this matter. Similarly, some banks promote green loans that are taken out by enterprises implementing pro-ecological projects, e.g. in the field of building power plants based on renewable energy sources. However, if the bank behaving in this way announces in its advertising campaigns that it mainly implements green finances, while green loans constitute, for example, less than 1 percent of as a whole, it is actually not ethical business treatment of customers by knowingly misleading customers who are presented with advertising offers inconsistent with the facts. Let us hope, however, that this unethically implemented practice, the use of unreliable marketing practices, and conduct not in accordance with the principles of corporate social responsibility are carried out by a small part of business entities and in the future it will function on an even smaller scale than at present. I hope that the majority of business entities that present themselves, their brand image, their product and / or service offers in advertising campaigns and add the implementation of sustainable development goals to their mission, actually do it fully. It is good that even in the world of science skepticism regarding the need to urgently implement the goals of sustainable development, environmental protection, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, protection of the biosphere and climate of the planet Earth is already on a very small scale. A few more years are needed for analogous changes in awareness, including increasing the scale of pro-environmental awareness in the world of business and politics. May it be just a few more years because there is little time left to save the biosphere and climate on the planet Earth.

Best regards, Have a nice day, Stay healthy!

Dariusz Prokopowicz

I try to define terms before I use them. The definitions I tend to use are:

Sustainability = the capacity of the people living in a community to meet all their needs, using the skills of the population and the energy, resources, and ecological functions of the land/air/water that they are stewards of, in perpetuity.

Development = the increase in quality of life and/or an increase in resiliency within a community between two points of time

Sustainable Development = an increase in quality of life of the population of a community between two points in time, using the skills of the population and the energy, resources, and ecological services from the landmass they are stewards of, in a manner that can be maintained in perpetuity.

Economy = the use of trade to access critical resources unavailable to the individual, industry, and government; to disburse wealth throughout the community; and to facilitate the creation and use of infrastructure of all kinds.

Infrastructure = an investment of time, energy, and resources with an expectation of a return on that investment in the form of time and/or resources into the future.

Economic Sustainability = the capacity of the people of a community to meet their needs through internal trade arrangements and co-management relationships with other communities, so that no skills, resources, energy, or ecological functions are required to be purchased from outside of the community and its partners, to meet needs, in perpetuity.

Sustainable Economic Development = an increase in the quality of life between two points in time by increasing specialization and productivity of the population, while reducing the internal barriers to trade of critical resources and the external barriers to co-management of critical resources, and retaining a sufficient financial reserve to address economic disruptions.

Society = the use of community by its citizens to encourage the conditions that allow people to have their needs met more efficiently and effectively than is possible as a family.

Social Sustainability = the capacity of the people of a community to ensure they can operate as a cohesive group by having a sense of mutual respect, equity, and belonging, and generally agreed-on goals and aspirations, past any planning horizon.

Sustainable Social Development = an increase in the quality of life of a community between two points in time, by encouraging the unique customs, arts, and social institutions of those people that provide them with a sense of mutual respect, equity, and belonging while ensuring that no subset of the community receives a greater burden than benefit from any development initiative.

Ecology = the ecological capital and functions of the land, water, and air that the people of a community are stewards of.

Ecological Sustainability = the capacity of the people of a community to maintain the ecological functions of the land, air, and water that they are stewards of, in perpetuity.

Sustainable Ecological Development = an increase in the quality of life of the people of a community between two points of time by restoring or enhancing the ecosystem services that provide resources and absorb waste from the land/water/air that they are stewards of, while ensuring that a non-declining portion of each biome is maintained as a ‘wilderness’ that is neither a sink for wastes nor a source for resources.

Quality of life is dependent on how needs are met. There is no consensus on a specific exclusive definition of Quality of Life. I will introduce two concepts that are expected to cover the range of the term.

-Potential Quality of Life = the time available within a community for activities other than those that are expected to meet needs, while considering the impact of the eventual loss of overconsumed resources

-Actualized Quality of Life = the time available within a community for activities other than those that are expected to meet needs, while considering the impact of the eventual loss of overconsumed resources, as if all needs were met.

Meeting Needs = activities that prevent the degradation of the self, family, or community. Needs themselves are aspects of being human and are universal and invariant.

Technological Development = the creation or enhancement of systems of infrastructure with an expectation of an improvement in the actualized quality of life of a community.

Sustainable Technological Development = the creation or enhancement of systems of infrastructure with an expectation of an improvement in the quality of life of a community, focusing on the needs of the community and the resources available in perpetuity.

Human Development = the identification and removal of the obstructions that prevent people from being able to meet their needs, and the education, encouragement, and advocacy for people to take control of their lives and social environment, such that freedoms, choices, and capabilities are enhanced.

Sustainable Human Development = the identification and removal of the obstructions that prevent people from being able to meet their needs and the education, encouragement, and advocacy for people to take control of their lives and social environment, such that freedoms, choices, and capabilities are enhanced, in a manner that can be maintained in perpetuity.

Community Development = the reduction of disparity and the increase in social integration, allowing people to meet more needs by working better together.

Sustainable Community Development = the reduction of disparity focused around access to the energy, resources and ecological functions that are available in perpetuity, and the increase in social integration at a greater scale.

Critical Resource = any of a renewable or non-renewable resource or an ecological function that is used to meet needs.