Energy, Complexity and Wealth Maximization

This book describes the evolution and mechanisms of natural wealth creation. The author explains how natural wealth consists of complex physical structures of condensed ("frozen") energy and what the key requirements for wealth creation are, namely a change agent, a selection mechanism and a life-extending mechanism. He uses elements from multiple disciplines, from physics to biology to economics to illustrate this.Human wealth is ultimately based on natural wealth, as materials transform into useful artifacts, and as useful information is transmitted by those artifacts when activated by energy. The question is if the new immaterial wealth of ideas of the knowledge economy can replace depleted natural wealth. This book reveals the vital challenge for economic and political leaders to explore how knowledge and natural capital, energy in particular, can interact to power the human wealth engine in the future.