Ecological and economic costs and benefits of the use of pyrolysis as a climate change mitigation technique in the neotropical developing world

摘要: In 1973, HT Odum recognized the “unity of the single system of energy, ecology and economics”(Odum, 1973). Since Odum, much work has been aimed at integrating ecology and economics, but the two fields tend to have fundamentally different value systems (Odum and Barrett, 2005; Nelson, 2010). Economics is generally cornucopian and places value on increasing the standard of living for humans (Nelson, 2010) while ecology often emphasizes scarcity and generally places an inherent value on natural systems beyond their use as natural resources (Nelson, 2010; Leopold, 1949). Global climate change is one of the world’s most pressing environmental problems, but as a result of these differences in worldview, ecologists and economists may have different ideas about the technologies and policies most suitable for addressing climate change (Fitzpatrick and Spohn, 2009) and a trans-disciplinary approach including ecology, engineering and economics is required. There are an assortment of technologies for producing electricity and liquid fuels with little or no carbon dioxide emissions. Solar, wind, geothermal, hydrokinetic and biomass energy can be used to produce electricity while biomass can be used to produce fuels either through conversion to ethanol, biodiesel or bio-oil via pyrolysis. All of these technologies have existed for decades, yet they have been underutilized because conventionally derived energy (coal, natural gas, oil) is usually less expensive than alternative energy. When alternative energy becomes less expensive than conventional energy the use of alternative energy sources will increase, as occurred with wind …