The Timing of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Bioenergy Systems Using Financial Type Indicators and Terminology to Discuss Emission Profiles from Bioenergy

摘要

Bioenergy systems in the long-term reduce greenhouse gas emissions whencompared to fossil energy systems. This is one of the reasons that there is suchinterest currently in bioenergy.However, in the short-term it can cause moreemissions than its comparable fossil energy system but these are recoveredover time. This emission profile has the same characteristics as a typicalinvestment. Initially there are “costs” associated with investments, followed by“income” and finally “profit”. In fact, authors have used the term “carbon paybacktime” to describe this feature. In this paper, the authors raise the questionif adaption of terms and methods from financial theory may be of use tounderstanding the dynamic GHG characteristics of bioenergy systems. A shortintroduction to key financial theory concepts is provided. The potential adaptionof the theory to bioenergy GHG metrics is explored and discussed.