ABSTRACT
The vision of the interaction of values, principles, and resource dynamics, of policies and social effects, constitutes the paradigm of economics, the environment, and distributed generation. Such a paradigm brings together the views of environmentalists, economists, and end users. Environmentalists are interested in maintaining the equilibrium, renewal, and regeneration of ecosystems; their main perspective is embodied in the sustainability of natural systems. Economists and market decision makers are interested in how natural resources or natural services can be used for human benet. From this perspective, only things useful to human beings have any value. Standard economic analysis so far does not consider the ecosystem to have any intrinsic value, whereas the ecological view suggests that natural systems must be protected independently of their use or economical value to humans. The end user is interested in converting the available resources into products and services. If electric energy is good for home and industrial needs, the end user is interested in how electrical energy will be priced and how reliable its availability will be.
