The Crepuscular Earth presented here is a guess reference model of the planet in which all mineral resources have been extracted and dispersed and fossil fuels have been burnt. It serves as a realistic limit of resources to assess the Earth’s non-renewable exergy capital.

In this paper, an exergy analysis of nickel processing is performed through the application of two methodologies: TEC (thermo-ecological cost) and ERC (exergy replacement cost). The merging of both methodologies allows to have a complete assessment of non-fuel mineral processing. TEC evaluates...

Exergy accounting of energy and material flows for the two main routes of nickel production (from laterites and sulphides ores) is performed so as to identify the main losses which take place in the overall chain. Accordingly, the chemical exergy of the different raw materials and utilities...