Welcome back to the second session of the week.

And here is the introduction of

the Relational Analysis to

the analysis of the metabolic pattern social-ecological system.

In this second session we will deal with the concept of processor.

In particular, we'll be organizing three points.

First, a conceptualization of the processor

as the reference for the analysis for the metabolic pattern.

The second, I will go through slides we already saw just to remember, remind you,

the concept of Holon and how we need to-

we can use the processor to link the characteristics of functionality structure element.

And finally, I will present

an example of scaling across levels of analysis basic processor.

The processor is a way for specifying an expected mix of

input and output that are required to have a specified process,

a task, within an element of the metabolic pattern.

Ok, so this is a processor and so is an expected pattern of input and output.

But there are different type of input and different types of output.

So there are input flows.

So water, electricity, food, whatever.

And there are input funds. It could be labor, capital, land.

And then of course,

the outputs from this processor,

I will call it Internal output because

this output will be used by other elements within the technosphere.

So basically, you have

input and outputs, that are typical. This will be the production function in economics.

So these are the inputs on the economic process and these will be

the outputs of the economic process.

This is have cost and there's a benefit.

Then to this, you have to add,

so these are internal flows.

They are something relevant

from the technosphere and you have to add additional flows, they are flows,

they are coming from

the biosphere the oxygen, you're respiring,

using the water, other environmental services.

And then external outputs. These are in general detrimental to the environment.

Is that you are that big to the biosphere.

The biosphere has to handle.

So basically these are external flows and then we can say that

the processor is basically data array made of

five different type of

flows,TechnoFlowInput,TechnoFundInput,TechnoFlowOutput and then you

have BioshExternFlowIn and ExternalFlowOut.

Just to give you an example,

a very practical example.

I think you will see this in the next lesson.

This is a processor for the desalination plant.

You have external flows, wind,

sea water getting in

and then electricity taken from the grid is coming as an internal flow.

Internal funds would be,human activities,

land use and power capacity.

Then, flows dumped into

the biosphere becoming an environmental load could be the brine and CO2 emissions.

Then, of course this is the water that remain

an internal affair because these water will be used by another processor.

In this case they will be used to produce, pumping.

So, now it is important to conceptualize the fact that

that processor can be used to handle the challenge of the holon.

You remember the holon.

The holon imply that it is impossible to have a mapping between

a functional structural element because there is the generality in the mapping.

This is one of the first classes that we had.

So you could have a clock,

something is the devices that you need to keep time.

This could be done in different way.

It could be a sand clock,

an electronic clock, a pendulum,

see all these structural elements here mapped into the same functional element.

So you could have a processor for this one, for this one,

for this one and then you would have a processor for in general,

a type of g fast clock.

Again, we also have this same example when talking about energy.

We could have a functional processor whether in construction, in transport, in refining.

But, we would have structural- different structural processor.

If the extraction is off-shore or on-shore.

If the transport is going through a pipeline,oil tanker or truck.

If the refinery is small, medium or large.

So then, you will have the characteristics of the functional processor

depend on the characteristics

of structural processors and by the relative importance of these two typologies.

Then this is transport and this is transport.

We already had an example

how to do this scaling, I will go through again.

If you remember, this is pretty complicated,

so you have to be passion with me and keep some attention.

We already went through this.

You remember this is

extraction, functional type, transport functional type, refinery functional type,

then you have two different structural type on-shore and off-shore,

90 % off-shore and 10% on-shore.

You memorize this one. We have to keep looking at this one.

Then, 50, 25, 25.

We are looking at 50,25, 25.

So these are, the amount of

labor per cubic meter

and the amount of fuel per cubic meter and the amount of electricity per cubic meter,

and these are 118 million cubic meter.

So if you want to have how much is consumed at the all gas sector of Brazil,

you have to start with the total consumption of labor,

energy and electricity and then you can add this information

at the aggregate level for the whole sector

or for the individual structural processors.Then,

from the individual structural processors, you can go

to the overall requirement for the functional type.

And Is to go from this information to this information, you have to do scaling.

How you do scaling?

You have to multiply the amount of hours per tons

by the number of tons and by the fraction of these.

It will be is zero one by eleven

plus the fraction of these for the hours per tons and by tons year.

This one and then finally you get this Then you can repeat

this operation for all the numbers

here,Then you can get the labour, labour, labour, labour.

And this is the the total

labor for this different processor and in different electricity and so on.

So it is possible to angle in these way.

The ambiguity between functional and structural and then doing the scaling.

Ok, now, An example of scaling applied in more general terms.

This is Luisa, basically one of the most important person for this work.

She has really worked to put all the material together.

And I present the era analysis of

Catalonia electricity and basically you can start from structural type,

where the different types of plant producing electricity.

Then you can solve this in terms of functional type,

hydro, natural gas are peak here. You remember we did this section on bigger base loader.

Wind, Solar, Voltaic are intermittent, Nuclear, co generation are base loader.

There's a problem here with the colors.

Then you have two scaling factor.

The Base loader do 65% of the electricity,

the peak 28%, and the intermittent only seven percent.

Then you can define what are the input output for

the different functional processor by going up

and then you can go to the end users of electricity,

who is using it.

These are the different manufacturing,

construction, transportation, household services,

government, agriculture, energy, mining.

So what fraction of base load,

peaker and intermittent is used by

the different end use sector and how much flow of fund are used to do that?

So and how much is the amount of flows that

go to the environment?

In the same way you can do it more details.

For each by each, you can define the megawatt hour, Tera joule,

mega joule and the amount of labour

going into, and then water and the other going into the individual

processor,then you can go from there to the process

of peak electricity, base electricity, intermittent electricity,

And of course from there you get to the total electric system of Catalonia

to have how much water,

CO2 emission, labour you need.

And of course if you want to know,

what happens if you change some policy you have to

know what type of change you'll have in the required peak electricity,

base load electricity,

intermittent electricity and then what type of technology would you

use to supply these type of electricity?

We are now getting now into this analysis.

This are just trying to show you that the possibility of

scaling into individual weight relevant factor by using these approach.

So, in conclusion, we

can say that the concept

of processor makes it

possible the analysis of

the NEXUS through the identification

of different elements determining

the characteristics of the metabolic pattern of social ecological system.

The rationale of relational analysis based on the use of

the four causes proposed by Aristotle provide a logical criterion

to define functional and structural elements in social ecological systems.

The conceptualization of the processors can be used to handle the ambiguity

associated to the holons that the coupling of the structural and functional types

is not with the concept or that the structure function at times is not deterministic,

is asymmetrically open and that finally,

that the scaling of the characteristics of metabolic pattern through

functional and structural types makes it possible

to discuss policies in a better informed way.

The concept of processor

Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems: the Nexus between Water, Energy and Food

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