Designing sustainability under Earth-system rate constraints
Abstract
Sustainability debates are monopolized by quantities: total energy use, material stocks, or recycling volumes. These metrics are informative, but they obscure a more fundamental constraint. On a materially closed but energetically open Earth, long-term viability is governed by rates: power density, areal power density, and the rate at which dispersed materials can be repurified under dif- fuse solar fluxes. We develop a physical framework that links technological metabolism, material dilution, and recycling limits through these rate con- straints. This perspective clarifies why many contemporary technologies remain viable only through stock drawdown and high-power buffering, and why green growth strategies often shift rather than resolve the underlying mismatch between industrial activity and Earth-system dynamics. We argue that long-term sustain- ability requires both quantitative reduction in aggregate industrial throughput toward rate-bounded regimes and the development of technologies qualitatively compatible with biospheric operating conditions.
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BibTeX
@misc{halloy2026designing,
title = {{Designing sustainability under Earth-system rate constraints}},
author = {José Halloy and Petros Chatzimpiros and François Graner and Thomas Gregor},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.34026},
eprint = {2610.34026},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.34026},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Designing sustainability under Earth-system rate constraints
AU - José Halloy
AU - Petros Chatzimpiros
AU - François Graner
AU - Thomas Gregor
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/25
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.34026
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.34026
AB - Sustainability debates are monopolized by quantities: total energy use, material stocks, or recycling volumes. These metrics are informative, but they obscure a more fundamental constraint. On a materially closed but energetically open Earth, long-term viability is governed by rates: power density, areal power density, and the rate at which dispersed materials can be repurified under dif- fuse solar fluxes. We develop a physical framework that links technological metabolism, material dilution, and recycling limits through these rate con- straints. This perspective clarifies why many contemporary technologies remain viable only through stock drawdown and high-power buffering, and why green growth strategies often shift rather than resolve the underlying mismatch between industrial activity and Earth-system dynamics. We argue that long-term sustain- ability requires both quantitative reduction in aggregate industrial throughput toward rate-bounded regimes and the development of technologies qualitatively compatible with biospheric operating conditions.
ER -