This short article was written by Mark Brown and published in 2023. Brown did his graduate work at the University of Florida under the guidance of H. T. Odum and is one of the leaders of the International Society for the Advancement of Emergy Research. In this article, he provides a brief overview of the maximum power principle.
The abstract states: “The historical development of the Maximum Power Principle (MPP) is explored. Darwin’s original use of the term natural selection and later changed to survival of the fittest applied to biological species. Over the next 150 years the concept has been expanded as a general system principle, where Darwin’s concept that species preserve favorable traits and destroy unfavorable ones, has been replaced with the appreciation that system components are selectively reinforced based on their contribution to the larger systems within which they are embedded. The MPP, while suggesting that power should be maximized when there are ample available resources, also suggests that when resources are in short supply, they need be used efficiently. With the realization that different forms of energy have differing abilities to do useful work, the concepts of emergy and empower (emergy per unit time) replaced energy and power and the Maximum Empower Principle (MePP) replaced the MPP.”
Brown, M. T. 2023. The Maximum Power Principle. In Elgar Encyclopedia of Ecological Economics, edited by Emilio Padilla Rosa and Jesus Ramos-Martin. Edward Elgar Publishing, 363-367.