Materials And Energy Balances

Categories: Economics,

Materials and energy balances are accounting tables that provide information on the material input into an economy delivered by the natural environment, the transformation and use of that input in economic processes (extraction, conversion, manufacturing, consumption) and its return to the natural environment as residuals (wastes). The accounting concepts involved are founded on the first law of thermodynamics, which states that matter (mass/energy) is neither created nor destroyed by any physical process.