Cost factors environmental damage

In considering the economics of process alternatives, it is important to think about the total life cycle costs. There is an increasing interest in this concept in the environmental area, with a recognition of the need to incorporate waste treatment, waste disposal, regulatory compliance, potential liability for environmental damage, and other long term environmental costs into project economic evaluation. Similarly, we must consider life cycle safety costs. Some examples of factors which should be considered include ... 

Ethanol from fermentation is relatively expensive because of the great financial and environmental costs of growing food biomass, a process that requires vast amounts of water and fertilizer. Ethanol derived from petroleum is actually less expensive. (But only because crude oil prices are kept artificially low. If taxpayer subsidies, exemptions from paying for the environmental damage from mining and drilling, and the cost of military protection are factored in, the price of crude oil quadruples.)... 

Knowledge of plant cuticular components which modify insect behavior will be useful in the control of a given pest. When the component is not a valuable quality factor for consumer acceptance, breeding of plants that lack ovipositional stimulants will reduce pest damage. The use of plant breeding to increase levels of insect ovipositional stimuli could produce plants which will be useful as trap crops. This could lead to the reduction in the use of pesticides which increases production costs and environmental contamination. 

Weighting Environmental Impacts. As mentioned previously in Section 6.1, societal costs, either alone or in combination with other types of environmental costs, may be used as weighting factors to value different environmental impacts. For illustration, Table 6.12 compares damage cost estimates for different air pollutants from different studies. The monetary figures listed are based on those reported... 

Several factors influence the selection of a pipehne repair method. Generally, new technologies are not readily accepted by O G operators because, in the absence of established service track records, the risk of hydrocarbon loss in the event of failure is deemed to be imacceptably high. Moreover, the severity of the pipeline damage, location, operating and environmental conditions, fluid composition, cost and urgency for repair aU contribute to the ultimate selection of a repair method. 

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