William Sacher

Research project

Entropo-logy. Entropies, material flows, circularity and sustainability. The case of minerals

Project summary

Entropo-logy. Entropies, material flows, circularity and sustainability. The case of minerals examines the multiple interpretations of the concept of entropy and its potential to characterise the limits of circularity and sustainability within the context of the energy and digital ‘transitions’. More specifically, the project aims to investigate how entropy can help us better understand the dual challenge posed by the growing flows of materials and energy associated with industrial mining: the potential depletion of ore deposits and the limits of recycling on the one hand; and the harmful consequences of mining waste and pollution on ecosystems and health, on the other.

Mining. A dual challenge for the circularity and sustainability of economies

Industrial mining accounts for 70 per cent of the material extracted annually worldwide (at least 100 billion tonnes in 2024), and thus constitutes the majority of anthropogenic material and energy flows. With the energy and digital ‘transitions’, it is anticipated that economies will increasingly rely on the extraction of minerals, particularly metals (copper, nickel, lithium, rare earths, etc.), leading to a significant increase in these flows. This renewed interest in minerals has prompted governments to redefine their supply strategies, leading to a new race for minerals whose known reserves are limited and unevenly distributed.

The industrial extraction of minerals poses a challenge to economies in terms of circularity and sustainability. Firstly, there is the challenge of scarcity, with the potential depletion of ore deposits and the limitations of metal recycling. Secondly, it poses a challenge in terms of the harmful effects of waste and pollution on ecosystems and health, as well as social and environmental injustices, particularly in the Global South.

But then, how should we conceive of the limits to these material-energy flows and their continuous growth? At first glance, complex physico-chemical phenomena determine our extraction capacities, as well as the limits on waste disposal and material recycling. However, these questions cannot be framed exclusively in terms of the life and earth sciences, as the categories of ‘resources’ and ‘pollution’ are jointly determined by biological, geological, physical, chemical, socio-economic and cultural factors.

Entropy: a concept with multiple meanings

Stemming from the origins of thermodynamics and associated with irreversibility, entropy is a complex, polysemic concept with blurred boundaries. Since its formulation by Clausius in the 19th century, it has been the subject of numerous interpretations, first in statistical mechanics, then in the 20th century in Shannon’s information theory, and subsequently in Ilya Prigogine’s thermodynamic theory of complex open systems far from equilibrium.

Over the past few decades, new formulations have emerged across a wide variety of fields and approaches, including the social sciences, literature and research-creation, sometimes straying far from the original definitions of entropy. In the social sciences and heterodox economics, entropy is invoked to justify the existence of limits that nature is said to impose on human action. However, the associated theories have not progressed beyond the metaphorical stage in their use of the concept, and struggle to avoid the pitfall of thermodynamic determinism.

A transdisciplinary approach to entropy for considering the sustainability and circularity of mining and its complexity

Entropo-logy aims to examine the relevance of multiple interpretations of entropy in describing the flows of matter, energy and information generated by the industrial extraction of minerals; to explain their scarcity and the limitations of recycling; and to account for the socio-environmental impacts of the waste associated with their extraction. Ultimately, the project aims to contribute to the development of an innovative transdisciplinary theoretical framework drawing on the concept of entropy, which both sheds light on these issues and recognises their socially and historically situated nature.

The working hypothesis here is that, despite its ambiguities, the concept of entropy can help us – provided it is approached from an inter/transdisciplinary and critical perspective – to better understand the complex problems associated with anthropogenic material and energy flows. The motivations behind the concept of entropy in the early 19th century were phenomenological and, in a sense, already transdisciplinary (Sadi Carnot was studying the limits of the economic efficiency of thermal engines), but scientific developments in the concept have gradually moved away from the initial approach. Whilst retaining this phenomenological approach, the aim here is to develop coherent representations and categories that can account for flows of matter and energy, as well as information, without falling into reductionism and/or determinism.

Biography

I am a contract lecturer and researcher at the Simón Bolívar Andina University in Quito, Ecuador. My background is interdisciplinary, with two PhDs, one in geosciences and the other in development economics. I study industrial mining processes in the Americas, Africa and Europe. I have worked on the case of Canada as a ‘mining haven’; the ways in which new large-scale mining territories are created in the Andes; the socio-environmental costs of industrial mining activities; and, more recently, the theoretical links between thermodynamics and economics. My approach combines ecological economics, political economy, engineering sciences, action research and the dialogue between the arts and sciences.