Energy economics is a broad scientific subject area which includes topics related to supply and use of energy in societies. Due to diversity of issues and methods applied and shared with a number of academic disciplines, energy economics does not present itself as a self-contained academic discipline, but it is an applied subdiscipline of economics. From the list of main topics of economics, some relate strongly to energy economics:
Energy economics also draws heavily on results of energy engineering, geology, political sciences, ecology etc. Recent focus of energy economics includes the following issues:
Energetics (also called energy economics) is the study of energy under transformation. Because energy flows at all scales, from the quantum level to the biosphere and cosmos, energetics is a very broad discipline, encompassing for example thermodynamics, chemistry, biological energetics, biochemistry and ecological energetics. Where each branch of energetics begins and ends is a topic of constant debate. For example, Lehninger (1973, p. 21) contended that when the science of thermodynamics deals with energy exchanges of all types, it can be called energetics.
In general, energetics is concerned with defining relationships to describe the tendencies of energy flows and storages under transformation, defined here as phenomena which behave like historical invariants under repeated observations. When some critical number of people have observed such invariance, such a principle is usually then given the status of a 'fundamental law' of science. As in all scientific inquiry, whether a theorem or principle is considered a fundamental law appears to depend on how many people agree to the proposition. The ultimate aim of energetics therefore is the description of fundamental laws. Philosophers of science have held that the fundamental laws of thermodynamics can be treated as laws of energetics, (Reiser 1926, p. 432). By continuing to more accurately describe these laws, energetics aims to produce reliable predictions about energy flow and storage transformations at any scale.
Energy economics is a broad scientific subject area which includes topics related to supply and use of energy in societies.
Energy economics may also refer to: