How does nature do it: how does she transform the disordered form of matter by recycling back to an ordered form without violating the second law of thermodynamics? And how does Nature prevent disorder to accumulate on earth when she processes matter and energy from available form to unavailable form? How to develop planetary technology analogous with these natural processes?

The planet earth is materially a huge system processing matter (mainly by recycling) and energy (mainly by dissipating exergy flux from the sun or from the stores in the ground, and active information. Doing it Nature necessarily produces entropy which contrary to the human system is, however not accumulated on earth but discarded to the space by a proper natural process.

First the material entropy (related to matter transformed into an unavailable state) is processed back to an available state by recycling etc. This work is done by microbes, etc with use of solar energy or energy available in the material under processing. But when the disordered form of matter is transformed to an ordered form again – entropy is decreased! But according to the second law it is possible only, if somewhere entropy at the same token increases even more. In fact the decrease of material disorder is compensated by increase of the exergy dissipation (energy entropy) when the work of recycling is done. And in the next stage the exergy dissipation related entropy is bound to warm up a little water vapour and CO2 gases and lift them to stratosphere and then the low quality energy (energy entropy) is “released” to the space.

This kind of planetary technology is totally missing from the human system and we are accumulating disorder in increasing amount on the earth.

What is the exergy balance and its break down into components of the planet earth and how is it fluctuating over time (seasonal and long term)? Has it been changed by human impact?

Exergy is the general thermodynamical quantitative concept of the resources available for any activity and changes in nature or by human origin. It measures useful energy, structured matter, and active information. Exergy is dissipated when used (the amount of exergy is conserved but its quality is lowered when dissipated) and that quality change is related to entropy production. Exergy balance could give us the most complete picture of the planet earth situation from a resource point of view.