The paper is focused on the presentation of the Thermoeconomic Environment (TEE), showing the motivations
for introducing this new concept, the consistency of the TEE with some important and recent updates of the
extended exergy accounting methodologies, as well as the new perspectives that the concept of TEE allows us to
identify. The TEE is a consistent ultimate boundary of the exergy cost accounting, where various exergy reservoirs,
of limited content, are immersed in a background with no exergy (the zero-exergy matrix). The exergy reservoirs
are kept separated from the zero-exergy matrix by some confinement constraints. Based on this very simple, but
meaningful framework, some of the main issues of extended exergy accounting methodologies are reviewed and
some possible new perspectives are highlighted for the exergy cost accounting of polluting emissions and of the
products of biological systems. In addition the paper discusses the exergy cost of mineral resources, of capital and
of human work.
