Redefining Progress - The Nature Of Economics

Basics

Glossary of Vocabulary

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Anthropogenic	Human-induced. Hence, anthropogenic climate change is change in Earth's climate caused by humans.
Biosphere	The portions of Earth where life can exist. This includes the oceans, lower atmosphere, surface, and a very thin section of the sub-surface.
Co-generation	When electricity production is used to produce both electricity and useable heat (from what otherwise would be waste heat).
Carbon sequestration	Taking carbon from the atmosphere (or preventing it from entering the atmosphere) and locking it into a stock that prevents it from reentering the atmosphere over the relatively long term. Carbon is sequestered naturally by ecosystems (e.g. regrowing forests and grasslands). The feasibility of technologically-mediated sequestration is also being pursued.
Compound units	Units that are made up of two or more other units. Examples include the foot-pound and the kilowatt-hour.
Efficiency	In the energy field this refers to energy conversion efficiency. When converting from a lower quality to a higher quality forms of energy (for example heat to electricity) the conversion is never 100% efficient. For example most electricity is generated by old coal fired power plants that are only 33% efficient at turning coal's thermal energy into electricity.
Fissile material	A material that is capable of sustaining a fission reaction. In a fission reaction a heavy element absorbs a free neutron, causing it to split into lighter elements (fission), and emit more neutrons in the process. These can induce new fissions, thereby sustaining the nuclear reaction--the source of energy in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Uranium-235 is a naturally occurring fissile isotope of uranium. Plutonium-239 and uranium-233 are fissile isotopes that are produced in nuclear reactors.
Fossil fuels	Fuels formed under ground by geological action (heat and pressure) on ancient biomass remains. The conventional fossil fuels are coal, oil, and natural gas. Other lower quality and less utilized sources include oil-shales and tar-sands.
Primary energy	This concept tracks energy at its first (primary) point of use and thereby avoids double counting of fossil-fuel-derived electricity and fuel used to generate it. Thus, all fossil fuels, whether used for heat or electricity generation, are counted as primary energy and their electricity output is ignored in primary energy accounting. In contrast, electricity output is counted as primary energy for photovoltaics, nuclear, geothermal, hydro, and wind power, because those are the first useful forms of energy in the conversion processes being considered.