It was the ’drastic influence’ that energy quality and availability had on economic development that led M. King Hubbert and Frederick Soddy among others, to criticize standard economics for its lack of a biophysical basis. Echoing the words of Frederick Soddy written almost a half-century earlier in Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt (1926), Hubbert stated:
"...when one speaks of the state of growth of GNP, I haven’t the faintest idea what this means when I try to translate it onto coal, oil, iron, and the other physical quantities which are required to run an industry...the quantity GNP is a monetary bookkeeping entity. It obeys the laws of money. It can be expanded or diminished, created or destroyed, but it does not obey the laws of physics."
Thermoeconomics research dealing with biophysical economics questions the ability of money to come to terms with the operation of our current high energy civilization.
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