When Low-Carbon means Low-Cost: Putting Lessons from Nature to work in our Cities

Stephen J. Salter
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Stephen J. Salter: Farallon Consultants Limited, Canada

International Journal of Social Ecology and Sustainable Development (IJSESD), 2011, vol. 2, issue 4, 12-25

Abstract: Ecology is often discussed as a matter of balance, in which environmental protection must be affordable and not interfere with jobs or the economy. At the same time, the economy is based on wastefulness. It has been estimated that the embodied energy in wasted food in the United States is greater than the energy available from the production of ethanol and from the annual yield from petroleum drilling in the outer continental shelf (Cuéllar & Webber, 2010). In addition, rising demand for fossil fuels is being met by sources that bring increasing environmental risk. This paper summarizes the industrial ecology aspects of a 2010 study completed by a cross-functional team of specialists in ecology, engineering, economics, and governance in Vancouver, Canada. The Integrated Resource Recovery Study, Metro Vancouver North Shore Communities (the North Shore Study) modeled the value of producing reclaimed water, electricity, and heat from wastewater, clean organic wood waste, and waste heat from industry simultaneously. The results suggest that this integrated approach could yield significant ecological benefits, and reduce the community’s greenhouse gas emissions by 25%. In addition, revenues from sales of recovered heat, water, greenhouse gas credits, and fertilizer could significantly reduce the cost of municipal waste management to taxpayers.

Date: 2011
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:igg:jsesd0:v:2:y:2011:i:4:p:12-25

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