Capital Cost Development

A suitable maintenance strategy should be developed for equipment by considering the criticality and failure mode, and then applying a mixture of the forms of maintenance described above. In particular, the long-term cost of maintenance of an item of equipment should be estimated over the whole life of the project and combined with its capital cost to select both the type of equipment and form of maintenance which gives the best full lifecycle cost on a discounted basis), while of course meeting the technical, safety and environmental specifications. 

The 1993 market for LPC-type products in the United States was for dried alfalfa meal for animal feed. This product is sold for both protein and carotenoid content. The USDA Pro-Xan product attempts to obtain improved xanthophyU contents for use in egg-laying rations in addition to protein contents. The limitations to commercial development of LPC products for human food use are high capital costs as compared with the low yields of protein, seasonal availabihty of raw materials, and the need in the United States for FDA approval of the products. 

In the United States, CNG s initial use is in captive, centrally refueled fleets which require limited range, such as deHvery vans, taxis, or school buses. Such vehicle fleets can afford the capital cost of refueling equipment and can tolerate the slightly longer refueling times. Many utiHty companies, such as Brooklyn Union Gas (New York), have purchased CNG vehicles as a way of encouraging the development of this fuel. AH three domestic automobile manufacturers offer CNG vehicles for sale. 

Second, development efforts ia direct reduction and direct smelting processes have also iacreased. Whereas these developmeats require significant commitment of finances and labor to achieve commercialization, the rewards promised by avoiding cokemaking and hy utilizing smaller scale units which have relatively low capital costs make the commitment worthwhile. 

Future Methanol Processes. The process route for methanol synthesis has remained basically unchanged since its inception by BASF in 1923. The principal developments have been in catalyst formulation to increase productivity and selectivity, and in process plant integration to improve output and energy efficiency while decreasing capital cost. 

Union Carbide has developed Amine Guard, which essentially eliminates corrosion in amine systems (32—35). It permits the use of substantially higher amine concentrations and greater carbon dioxide pick-up rates without corrosive attack. This results in an energy requirement comparable to that of the carbonate process and allows the use of smaller equipment for a specific C02-removal appHcation thereby reducing the capital cost. 

Unproven Technology. When a project involves new or unproven technology, the capital estimates tend to understate the development, constmction, and start-up costs. A quantitative approach to account for the capital cost and performance shortfalls associated with unproven technology has been reported (14), but the data are meager. 

However, Lynn and Howland included in the fixed-capital cost not only money invested in production and storage facilities but also that invested in land, research and development costs, and any auxiliary facihties necessaiy to support the process. Typical values of capit ratios for the year 1958 are listed in Table 9-49. 

Table 9-63 uses the data of Fig. 9-44 to compare the relative fixed-capital costs for plant constnic tion in other countries with those for the United States. The relative cost ratios were developed from data similar to those in Table 9-62. Labor ratios were corrected for the different local rates and hours per working week, job duration, and degree of mechanization available in other countries. Some of these factors are difficult to estimate, and the final total ratios give a reasonable order-of-magnitiide value for relative construction costs for equivalent plants in the countries indicated.

The disadvantages are that the condensing turbine has a high capital cost because it is larger than a back-pressure type. It develops high specif-... 

An estimate of the cost for each corrective measure alternative should be developed, including capital, operating and maintenance costs. Capital costs consist of direct (construction) and indirect (nonconstruction and overhead) costs. 

In that case, protests caused delays that contributed to large cost overruns. But Seabrook was an exception most nuclear utilities got into financial trouble with little help from protesters. Although oil prices rose dramatically in the 1970s—a spur to nuclear development—the stagflation of the times drove down demand for electricity from 7 percent to 2 percent per annum and drove up interest rates into the double digits. Between 1971 and 1978, nuclear capital costs rose 142 percent, making them more expensive to build per kilowatt-hour of capacity than new fossil fuel plants. 

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