Analyzing the international exergy flow network of ferrous metal ores

PLoS One. 2014 Sep 4;9(9):e106617. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0106617. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

This paper employs an un-weighted and weighted exergy network to study the properties of ferrous metal ores in countries worldwide and their evolution from 2002 to 2012. We find that there are few countries controlling most of the ferrous metal ore exports in terms of exergy and that the entire exergy flow network is becoming more heterogeneous though the addition of new nodes. The increasing of the average clustering coefficient indicates that the formation of an international exergy flow system and regional integration is improving. When we contrast the average out strength of exergy and the average out strength of currency, we find both similarities and differences. Prices are affected largely by human factors; thus, the growth rate of the average out strength of currency has fluctuated acutely in the eleven years from 2002 to 2012. Exergy is defined as the maximum work that can be extracted from a system and can reflect the true cost in the world, and this parameter fluctuates much less. Performing an analysis based on the two aspects of exergy and currency, we find that the network is becoming uneven.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Conservation of Natural Resources*
  • Ecosystem
  • Ferrous Compounds*
  • Metals

Substances

  • Ferrous Compounds
  • Metals

Grants and funding

This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71173199) and the Ministry of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences Planning Fund (Grant No. 10YJA630001). Prof. Haizhong An is the author received the funding. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.