International Society for the Advancement of Emergy
Research
(ISAER)

The Emergy Society
Reports from Conferences and Meetings

International Society for the Advancement of Emergy Research
Third Annual Meeting
Held at the University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida
On Saturday January 16, 2010


Dave Tilley, President
Sergio Ulgiati, President-Elect
Dan Campbell, Treasurer
Betty Odum, Secretary


Dave Tilley chaired the meeting.
                                                                              Minutes of the Meeting

    Dave Tilley called the meeting to order.

    Betty Odum gave a report of the state of the society. We are growing in number and activities.
    Prior to the annual meeting in April 2009, revisions to the by-laws were approved and the Executive Council was elected,
    which then voted for a President and President-Elect.
    At the first meeting of the Executive Council held in July, Mark Brown was elected Historian and Mary Odum Logan was
    approved to be a Trustee of the Society.
    The Standards Committee is working a database/handbook of transformities.
    The Communications Committee manages the website by suggesting features and providing or soliciting content.
     The Secretary and Treasurer handle memberships and announcements.
    The Emergy Society Listserv was set up by Wes Ingwersen with assistance from Sharlynn Sweeney.
     The Awards Committee developed and implemented an application and evaluation process for distributing travel awards.
    Four awards were given to support travel to the 6th Biennial Emergy Research Conference in 2010 totaling $3500. Also,
    the awards committee, chaired by Don Blancher, organized the evaluation and presentation of prizes for the best student-
    lead posters presented at the Emergy Research Conference. Five hundred dollars in prize money was distributed.

    The following awards for student posters were presented by our President, David Tilley.

    1st Place Award ($200): Amalia Zucaro, Silvia Viglia, Sergio Ulgiati for "Emergy Evaluation of Italian Agriculture across
    Space and Time Scales."

    2nd Place Award ($100): Elliott Campbell, David Tilley. "Emergy Synthesis for Valuing the Hydrologically Driven
    Ecosystem Services of Forest Lands."

    3rd Place Award ($50): Li-Fang Chang, Shu-Li Huang. "Emergy Indices for Assessing Vulnerability."

    Six Honorable Mentions Awards are given in alphabetical order ($25):

    Nana Yaw Amponsah and Olivier Le Core. "Use of Emergy Analysis in Comparing Hydrogen Production via Steam
    Methane, Reforming and Electrolysis."

    Ying-Chen Lin and Shu-Li Huang. "Emergy Synthesis of Food Consumption Pattern Change in Taiwan."

    Jeffrey W. Price and David Tilley. "Emergy Evaluation of a Green Facade."

    Gaetano Protano and Sergio Ulgiati. "Emergy Study of Worldwide Biogeochemical Formation of Fossil Fuels."

    Alexandre Souza and Enrique Ortega. "Integrated Systems for Food, Ethanol and Environmental Services Production in
    Land Reform Settlements."

    Brandon K. Winfrey and David Tilley. "A Comparison of the Total Emergy Requirements and Human Risks of Treating
    Municipal Wastewater to Background Conditions Using Conventional Systems and Wetlands."

    The Standards Committee reported that they are working on collecting and evaluating transformities. They made several
    recommendations. Written reports using emergy must give references and indicate which baseline is being used. Results of
    studies should be reported both with and without labor and services. Transformities should be place-specific and given in
    ranges.

    Dan Campbell presented calculations that indicate that the 15.83 baseline implies that the organizational processes on
    Earth should be different from those observed. Because of this discrepancy between theory and observation, the 9.26
    E24sej/y baseline was recommended as the best choice at present. Emergy researchers should consider if the evidence is
    strong enough to eventually move to a 10.57 E24 sej/y baseline. He also presented a proposal to report a country's
    sustainability using its emprint. The emprint is a 3X2 matrix with columns for renewable and nonrenewable emergy and
    rows for local, imported and exported emergy. Both of these ideas were presented on posters at the meeting  each of
    which had multiple authors.
     It was decided that the ideas and several examples will be put on the emergy society website.

    Angelo Tulimieri urged us to spread our influence by publishing in many journals and join many societies. In some
    societies the graduate students control the website.

     After thanking our host, Mark Brown, for a wonderful emergy conference in Gainesville, Dave Tilley adjourned the
    meeting.
The Third Annual Meeting of the International Society for the Advancement of Emergy
Research was held Saturday, January 16 2010. The meeting followed the sessions of the
Sixth Biennial Emergy Research Conference held at the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.
For further details on the conference, please go to the Emergy Conference web site.  The
minutes of the Third Annual Meeting follow and ISAER's Income Statement and Balance
Sheet for 2009 may be accessed through in the navigation bar.
Reception at the UF library to celebrate the
opening of the Howadt T. Odum Papers collection.
April 14, 2010
Dale Crider played and
sang special
Odum-emergy-nature
songs.
Corrado Giannantoni, Sergio Ulgiati, Carol Binello
-always lively conversation in the Center for
Environmental Policy!
Dan Campbell, Teldes Albuquerque,
Ira Winarsky at library reception.