The below was copied here from Economics and energy, which will probably, rightly, be deleted. It's here to possibly cannibalize for a disambiguation page late. CRETOG8(t/c) 05:34, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
A variety of disciplines deal with economic aspects of energy, and energy aspects of economies.
Energy economics edit
Energy economics concerns the application of economic theory and methods to issues of energy supply, energy demand, energy markets, and energy policy, as well as the interactions between energy and other issues (e.g., environment, finance).
Ecological economics edit
Ecological economics is a transdisciplinary field of academic research that aims to address the interdependence and coevolution of human economies and natural ecosystems over time and space. It is distinguished from environmental economics, which is the mainstream economic analysis of the environment, by its treatment of the economy as a subsystem of the ecosystem and its emphasis upon preserving natural capital.
Environmental economics edit
Environmental economics is a subfield of economics concerned with environmental issues. Environmental economics undertakes theoretical or empirical studies of the economic effects of national or local environmental policies around the world. Particular issues include the costs and benefits of alternative environmental policies to deal with air pollution, water quality, toxic substances, solid waste, and global warming. Many of these environmental issue originate at least in part from energy use.
Natural resource economics edit
Natural resource economics deals with the supply, demand, and allocation of the Earth's natural resources. One main objective of natural resource economics is to better understand the role of natural resources in the economy in order to develop more sustainable methods of managing those resources to ensure their availability to future generations. Resource economists study interactions between economic and natural systems, with the goal of developing a sustainable and efficient economy.
Energetics edit
Energetics is the scientific study of energy flows and storages under transformation. Because energy flows at all scales, from the quantum level, to the biosphere and cosmos, energetics is therefore a very broad discipline, encompassing for example thermodynamics, chemistry, biological energetics, biochemistry and ecological energetics.
Thermoeconomics edit
Thermoeconomics, also referred to as 'biophysical economics', is a school of heterodox economics that applies the laws of thermodynamics to economic theory. Thermoeconomics can be thought of as the statistical physics of economic value. Thermoeconomics is based on the proposition that the role of energy in biological evolution should be defined and understood through the second law of thermodynamics but in terms of such economic criteria as productivity, efficiency, and especially the costs and benefits (or profitability) of the various mechanisms for capturing and utilizing available energy to build biomass and do work.
EROEI edit
EROEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested), sometimes referred to as EROI (Energy Return On Investment), is the ratio of the amount of usable energy acquired from a particular energy resource to the amount of energy expended to obtain that energy resource. Emergy is a somewhat related measure of the quantity and nature of the energy that went into making a product or service.