The crepuscular planet. A model for the exhausted continental crust

Alicia Valero, Antonio Valero and Javier B. Gómez

Energy, 2011, vol. 36, issue 1, 694-707

Abstract: We propose a model for an exhausted upper continental crust. The Crepuscular Earth represents a degraded planet where all resources have been extracted and dispersed, and all fossil fuels have been burned. The starting point of the model of crepuscular crust is the composition given by the geochemist Grigor’ev, which is constrained by the conservation of mass statement between the chemical composition of the crust in terms of elements and in terms of minerals. Additionally, the model is given geological consistence, by introducing a series of assumptions based on geological observations. As a result, the obtained crepuscular crust is composed of the 294 most abundant minerals. Together with the model of exhausted atmosphere and hydrosphere developed in a previous paper, the study will serve as a reference for calculating the exergy of the current mineral capital on Earth and its degradation velocity.

Keywords: Exergy; Upper continental crust; Crepuscular planet; Reference environment; Minerals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036054421000513X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:36:y:2011:i:1:p:694-707

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2010.09.034

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().