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Waste Heat Is Not Waste: The Global Exergy Opportunity in Industry
This seventh volume in the Exerginity series evaluates industrial rejected heat, estimated at thousands of terawatt-hours annually, as a critical energy resource. By categorising heat into high, medium, and low temperature bands, author Wim Adriaan Bakker demonstrates how exergy-based assessments identify commercial recovery opportunities. The paper outlines a technical toolkit for using, moving, upgrading, converting, and storing heat across nine industrial sectors, concluding that temperature-graded inventories and formal offtake agreements are essential for establishing a viable recovery economy.
White papers17 min read
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From Energy Transition to Exergy Transition: A Better Framework for Global Decarbonization
This white paper proposes the Exergy Transition framework to address limitations in carbon-only accounting. By applying energy, exergy, exergoeconomic, and exergoenvironmental analysis (the 4E method), the paper introduces three indicators: second-law efficiency, avoidable destruction cost, and avoidable impact. Wim Adriaan Bakker demonstrates how identifying thermodynamic irreversibilities can optimise decarbonisation routes, potentially reducing the required scale of new generation infrastructure by factors of three to five through more intelligent resource use and resource-quality management.
White papers16 min read
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The Global Exergy Report: Where Humanity Destroys Useful Energy and What We Can Do About It
This report establishes an annual audit of global second-law efficiency, mapping the flow of six hundred exajoules harvested annually. Utilising engineering coefficients and historical exergy accounting, the research identifies seven primary sectors of destruction, including thermal power and low-temperature heating. It introduces the Exerginity Global Exergy Index (EGEI) to rank nations and industries, concluding that adopting ten specific technological levers, such as heat pumps and electrification, can double global energy intelligence within a generation.
White papers20 min read
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Beyond Energy Efficiency: Why Exergy Should Become the New Measure of Industrial Efficiency
Authored by Wim Adriaan Bakker, this white paper demonstrates that traditional energy efficiency metrics mislead by ignoring energy quality, often inverting performance rankings. By applying second-law exergy analysis, the author shows that true societal efficiency resides between 10 and 25 percent rather than the reported 65 to 75 percent. The document proposes a transition to formal exergy standards, including equipment labelling, corporate accounting, and certified audits to identify avoidable losses that are invisible to standard energy balances.
White papers16 min read
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Exergy and the Circular Economy
This technical white paper identifies mass-based metrics as insufficient for measuring material quality and thermodynamic investment. By defining matter as 'frozen work', author Wim Adriaan Bakker establishes a hierarchy of material value based on chemical and concentration exergy. The framework audits circular strategies, ranking reduction and reuse highest for preserving embodied work. The paper proposes four exergy-based indicators, including the exergy retention ratio, to replace 'tonnage theatre' with a physically grounded measurement of circular efficiency.
White papers16 min read
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The Exergy of Energy Storage
This white paper redefines energy storage as the technology of time, moving beyond megawatt-hour metrics to evaluate work potential retention. Through a three-axis framework—exergy retention, duration, and cost decoupling—it audits electrochemical, mechanical, thermal, and chemical families. The analysis establishes the Portfolio Theorem, proving no single technology dominates. It concludes that progress is measured by exergy preserved, positioning thermal storage for heat duties and hydrogen for seasonal risks within a duty-led selection framework.
White papers16 min read
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The Hidden Energy Cost of Artificial Intelligence: An Exergy Analysis of AI Data Centers
This white paper examines the thermodynamic efficiency of AI data centres, moving beyond quantity-based kilowatt-hour metrics to assess the quality of energy use. By applying the second law of thermodynamics, the research details how computational processes destroy pure exergy, resulting in concentrated heat rejection. It identifies liquid cooling as a critical bridge for thermal recovery in district heating, proposing that AI's concentrated load can be transformed into a reliable urban heat supply through improved disclosure and regulatory frameworks.
White papers18 min read
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Exergy, LCA and Carbon Accounting: Building a Better Measure of Sustainability
This white paper proposes a three-line accounting framework—ExLCA—to resolve blind spots in current sustainability metrics. By combining carbon emissions, cumulative exergy demand, and exergy efficiency, the method identifies inefficient 'fourth quadrant' technologies like resistance heating and wasteful green hydrogen applications. The paper establishes five strict rules for implementation, including exergy-based allocation and service-term functional units, providing a diagnostic tool for engineering priorities and resource honesty in the energy transition.
White papers15 min read
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The Exergy Economy: Why Energy Quality Matters More Than Energy Quantity
This white paper by Wim Adriaan Bakker for Exerginity examines the discrepancy between reported energy efficiencies and actual exergy destruction. While national statistics claim 65–75% efficiency, exergy audits reveal true resource-to-service rates of only 10–25%. The document outlines how adopting 'Exergist' disciplines—including exergoeconomics and exergetic life cycle assessment—can bridge the gap between technical readiness and commercial bankability by prioritising the preservation of work potential over the mere supply of energy quantities.
White papers17 min read
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Tilting a thermal store lifts its exergy efficiency by eight points
Geometry is a free variable in thermal storage. Inclining a paraffin shell-and-tube store changes the natural convection field enough to move exergy efficiency by several points.
Research2 min read
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Sensible against latent: a packed bed puts the two storage routes side by side
Most storage comparisons are made across papers, rigs and assumptions. This one holds the hardware fixed and swaps only the medium.
Research2 min read
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Industry
Industry briefs
Waste heat recovery and efficiency targets push thermoelectric materials towards a USD 1.59 billion market
Emergen Research values the global thermoelectric materials market at USD 728.4 million in 2025, reaching USD 1.59 billion by 2035. Waste heat recovery leads applications, while tellurium supply and modest conversion efficiency remain constraints.
Industry3 min read
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IEA finds critical mineral security weakening as prices rebound and investment falls
The IEA's Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026 reports a price rebound, refining concentration edging higher to 72%, a 9% fall in critical mineral investment and persistent copper and lithium supply deficits to 2035.
Industry3 min read
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UNCTAD maps a critical minerals trade order built on export measures and partnerships
UNCTAD's Global Trade Update for June 2026 finds lithium demand rising 353% between 2024 and 2040, supply concentrated in a few countries, nearly 100 new export measures since 2020 and 73 critical mineral partnership agreements analysed.
Industry2 min read
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IEA-PVPS rebuilds the benchmark PV life cycle inventory on 83 factory-level assessments
IEA-PVPS has published its first life cycle inventory update since 2020, drawing on 83 factory-level LCAs collected through France's ADEME tender process. It reports higher internally recycled silicon, lower kerf loss and markedly reduced supply chain impacts.
Industry3 min read
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Research briefs
Tilting a thermal store lifts its exergy efficiency by eight points
Geometry is a free variable in thermal storage. Inclining a paraffin shell-and-tube store changes the natural convection field enough to move exergy efficiency by several points.
Research2 min read
Read articleSensible against latent: a packed bed puts the two storage routes side by side
Most storage comparisons are made across papers, rigs and assumptions. This one holds the hardware fixed and swaps only the medium.
Research2 min read
Read article
Hydrogen or ammonia from residues: an exergy and environmental comparison
Residual biomass can be turned into hydrogen or into ammonia. The two routes look similar on a mass balance and quite different on an exergy balance.
Research2 min read
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Maize cobs in a concentric tube reactor: allothermal gasification assessed on exergy
Allothermal gasification supplies process heat from outside the bed. The exergy balance shows what that architecture buys, and what the external heat costs.
Research2 min read
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White papers
The Exergy of Electrification: Heat Pumps, Hydrogen and the Rational Use of Electricity
This technical report examines electrification through the lens of exergy, defining electricity as a premium carrier produced at nearly 100 percent quality. By auditing transport, heating, and industry, it introduces an 'electricity merit order' to prioritise high-leverage uses like heat pumps and electric motors. The document critiques 'carrier-neutral' accounting and identifies that a merit-order approach to domestic heating could reduce peak infrastructure demand by five-sixths compared to resistive or hydrogen-based alternatives.
White papers17 min read
Read articleWaste Heat Is Not Waste: The Global Exergy Opportunity in Industry
This seventh volume in the Exerginity series evaluates industrial rejected heat, estimated at thousands of terawatt-hours annually, as a critical energy resource. By categorising heat into high, medium, and low temperature bands, author Wim Adriaan Bakker demonstrates how exergy-based assessments identify commercial recovery opportunities. The paper outlines a technical toolkit for using, moving, upgrading, converting, and storing heat across nine industrial sectors, concluding that temperature-graded inventories and formal offtake agreements are essential for establishing a viable recovery economy.
White papers17 min read
Read articleFrom Energy Transition to Exergy Transition: A Better Framework for Global Decarbonization
This white paper proposes the Exergy Transition framework to address limitations in carbon-only accounting. By applying energy, exergy, exergoeconomic, and exergoenvironmental analysis (the 4E method), the paper introduces three indicators: second-law efficiency, avoidable destruction cost, and avoidable impact. Wim Adriaan Bakker demonstrates how identifying thermodynamic irreversibilities can optimise decarbonisation routes, potentially reducing the required scale of new generation infrastructure by factors of three to five through more intelligent resource use and resource-quality management.
White papers16 min read
Read articleThe Global Exergy Report: Where Humanity Destroys Useful Energy and What We Can Do About It
This report establishes an annual audit of global second-law efficiency, mapping the flow of six hundred exajoules harvested annually. Utilising engineering coefficients and historical exergy accounting, the research identifies seven primary sectors of destruction, including thermal power and low-temperature heating. It introduces the Exerginity Global Exergy Index (EGEI) to rank nations and industries, concluding that adopting ten specific technological levers, such as heat pumps and electrification, can double global energy intelligence within a generation.
White papers20 min read
Read article