Special Issue "Net Gains from Depleting Fossil Energy and Mineral Sources"

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Special Issue Information
Published Papers

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2011)

Special Issue Editors

Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. Charles A.S. Hall
Faculty of Environmental & Forest Biology, College of Environmental Science & Forestry, State University of New York, 354 Illick Hall, 1 Forestry Drive, Syracuse, New York 13210, USA
Website: http://www.esf.edu/EFB/hall/
E-Mail: chall@esf.edu
Phone: +1 315 470 6870
Fax: +1 315 470 6934
Interests: systems ecology; computer simulation models; integrative geographical modeling of environments and economies

Guest Editor
Dr. Doug Hansen
Hansen Financial Management 12717 Monterey Cypress Way San Diego, CA 92130, USA
E-Mail: doug6636@gmail.com

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The energy and material demands of societies continue to grow, along with considerable empirical evidence suggesting that many economies are becoming less efficient. Thus, present rates of extraction and consumption of natural resources, and general growth will remain or increase. These trends will change when the energetic costs to procure materials can no longer be covered. Several materials have the potential to become limiting factors to society within the short to medium term and would affect strategies towards sustainability.

The ongoing depletion of cheap fossil fuel affects the availability of crude oil for synthetic products as well as for its energy content. The ongoing depletion of several elements will affect industrial processes including the production of alternative energy sources to compensate the dwindling fossil energy sources. Other elements in decline are essential in food production and in addition are being competed for by the rapidly increasing biofuel production. The depletion of high quality sources of various elements could be compensated for by accessing lesser quality sources, however it requires an elevated input of energy which is already in shortage.

This Special Issue aims to look at sustainability through the analysis of net gains from extraction of fossil fuels and critical elements. How much energy is needed to extract and deliver a unit of energy from a fossil source? How much energy does it take to extract rare earth elements from declining sources and produce alternative energy devices? How costly are the externalities resulting from the artificial dissipation of extracted elements?

Dr. Werner T. Flueck
Guest Editor

Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed Open Access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 800 CHF (Swiss Francs).

Published Papers (3 papers)

Werner T. Flueck

Article: Biotic Translocation of Phosphorus: The Role of Deer in Protected Areas

Sustainability 2009, 1(2), 104-119; doi:10.3390/su1020104

Received: 23 February 2009 / Accepted: 7 April 2009 / Published: 14 April 2009

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Abstract: Biogeochemical cycles are cornerstones of biological evolution. Mature terrestrial ecosystems efficiently trap nutrients and certain ones are largely recycled internally. Preserving natural fluxes of nutrients is an important mission of protected areas, but artificially leaky systems remain common. Native red deer (Cervus elaphus) in the Swiss National Park (SNP) are known to reduce phosphorus (P) in preferred feeding sites by removing more P than is returned with feces. At larger scales it becomes apparent that losses are occurring due to seasonal deer movements out of the SNP where most deer end up perishing. Thus, the SNP contributes to producing deer which translocate P to sink areas outside the SNP due to several artificial factors. An adult female dying outside of SNP exports about 1.8 kg of P, whereas a male dying outside of SNP at 8 years of age exports 7.2 kg of P due also to annual shedding of antlers. Averaged over the vegetated part of the SNP, the about 2,000 deer export 0.32 kg/ha/yr of P. Other ungulate species using the SNP and dying principally outside of its borders would result in additional exports of P. Leakiness in this case is induced by: a) absence of the predator community and thus a lack of summer mortalities and absence of several relevant non-lethal predator effects, b) hunting-accelerated population turnover rate, and c) deaths outside of SNP principally from hunting. The estimated export rate for P compares to rates measured in extensive production systems which receive 10-50 kg/ha/yr of P as fertilizer to compensate the losses from biomass exports. Assumptions were made regarding red deer body weight or population turnover rate, yet substituting my estimates with actual values from the SNP would only affect somewhat the magnitude of the effect, but not its direction. The rate of P loss is a proxy for losses of other elements, the most critical ones being those not essential to autotrophs, but essential to heterotrophs. High deer turnover rates combined with accelerated biomass export warrants detailed mass balances of macro and micro nutrients, and studies of biogeochemical cycles in protected areas are essential if preserving natural processes is a mandate.

Ugo Bardi

Article: Extracting Minerals from Seawater: An Energy Analysis

Sustainability 2010, 2(4), 980-992; doi:10.3390/su2040980

Received: 10 February 2010; in revised form: 23 March 2010 / Accepted: 29 March 2010 / Published: 9 April 2010

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Dana Cordell and Stuart White

Review: Peak Phosphorus: Clarifying the Key Issues of a Vigorous Debate about Long-Term Phosphorus Security

Sustainability 2011, 3(10), 2027-2049; doi:10.3390/su3102027

Received: 23 August 2011 / Accepted: 3 October 2011 / Published: 24 October 2011

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Last update: 14 November 2012

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