Technological convergence and dematerialization's impact on energy and materials In 1991, the electronics retailer RadioShack ran an ad in the paper for the devices it sold.  Today in 2025, the ad seems like an artifact of a bygone era, as the ubiquitous smartphone has replaced all those electronic gadgets. Technological convergence, or device convergence, is when multiple once-separate tools or devices are replaced by a single device that can perform all the previous functio

Why Earth's largest rainforest is being destroyed The world's rainforests do many vital things, from providing habitat for millions of species to regulating the world's climate and rainfall patterns that we all depend upon.  By far the world's largest rainforest, the Amazon, is under threat of deforestation and degradation from human activities.  If we ignore what's happening there, we risk not only a regional loss but a change in the global climate system. The Amazon rainfor

It has been almost 2 years of writing Energy Resource Dynamics. I've learned a lot, and I hope you have too. My original intention was to help readers understand the physical details of how we humans use energy and other natural resources. I've written 50+ articles about how cogeneration, oil refineries, nuclear reactors, and photosynthesis works, explored the implications of biofuels and trophic levels, and investigated thermodynamic concepts like how entropy and exergy a

Water, heat, and soil in ancient and modern desert cities The desert is alive before the sun rises.  In the faint gray light, a...