Opportunity costs

In recent years several commercial plants have been constructed for conversion of coal to synthesis gas for chemical manufacturing. These include the Eastman Chemical s acetic anhydride plant, the Ube (Japan) ammonia plant, the SAR (Germany) oxo chemicals plant, and several coal to ammonia plants in China (e.g., Weihe, Huainan, and Lunan). The Ube plant and the SAR plant have since converted to lower-cost opportunity fuels (petroleum coke and residues). The Eastman plant is still operating exclusively on coal. Feedstock changes at the other plants illustrate the vulnerability of coal conversion processes to a changing economic climate. The fact that the Eastman process remains competitive under changing conditions is due to a set of special circumstances that favor a coal-based process. The success of the Eastman chemicals from coal complex demonstrates that synthesis gas from coal is a viable feedstock for some industrial chemicals under certain conditions. 

When faced with a conflict, two major, related questions need to be answered Is this conflict important to me How do I know whether the situation is imperative to address Ury et al. (1988) gauge the answers to these questions in terms of transaction cost. The authors reason that in conflict, like in business, you want to minimize the costs. You need to consider the time cost, actual money cost, opportunity cost, and property cost and then determine the course of action that minimizes them. The answers also factor in satisfaction, long-term effects on relationships, and durability of a solution. For you, it may be helpful to analyze the person s relationship to you. Is this a significant relationship Will you have to deal with this person in the future Do you want things to work out In the case of a family member, boss, subordinate, or colleague, the answer is usually yes. With other scenarios such as a rude street vendor or casual acquaintance, the answer might be no. If this is your decision, there is no need to continue further. 

Bioenergy resource cost) = (supply cost) + (opportunity cost)... 

Measuring wastes some resources, and the concept of cost-opportunity makes us cautious when tempted to measure whatever is at hand. We should measure little, and just what is critical (even monitoring and... 

In this article, it was our intent to present a perspective on this topic, providing different tools to approach the quality of pharmaceutical services. These have been placed in a context where the concepts of limited resources, cost-opportunity, and efficacy are implicit. The concept has been abstracted so it can be applied to the public or private sectors, to hospital or ambulatory settings, and to different societies, with different values. 

Hansen BG and Araman PA (1985) Low-cost opportunity for small-scale manufacture of hardwood balks. USDA, Forest Service, Northeastern Forest Experiment Station, Research Paper NE-559... 

Research on the uses of porous silicon as a food additive is in its infancy, whereas nanostructured silica is both approved and heavily utilized by the food industry. Preliminary work described here on mesoporous silicon has briefly covered issues such as material stability in food, oral toxicology, taste, mouthfeel, color, and cost. Opportunities exist for both high-value nutrient protection and bioavailability enhancement. In contrast, the use of mesoporous silicon as a filtration adsorbent for functional food ingredients does not look viable. Continued studies on the biological role of orthosilicic acid in humans are very important to this nutritional field. If silicon becomes an approved essential nutrient, with an RDA, then a major expansion of the silicon supplement market would seem inevitable. 

It focuses the organisation on wastes generated by its operations. The term wastes has a wide interpretation and includes the excessive use of water and energy, and solid waste disposal costs. Opportunities to reduce costs by reducing these waste streams can be identified by the application of such a system. 

Reducing beneficiaries costs. Beneficiaries face a variety of costs when they collect their benefits, including transport costs, fees to maintain and use bank accounts, identification card costs, opportunity costs of the time spent getting to the payment site and waiting, and possibly the costs of bribes and fees to receive the payment. Programs must endeavor to make the collection of benefits affordable for beneficiaries. 

Saaty, TL. 2004. Fundamentals of the analytic network process—multiple networks with benefits, costs, opportunities and risks. Journal of Systems Science and Systems Engineering, 13(3), 348 379, EK9I 10.1007/S11518-006-0171-1. 

Despite the constraints specific to the automotive field in terms of size, weight, cost, opportunities for maintenance, etc., there are many adaptable safety possibilities depending on the application. 

Having defined and gathered data adequate for an initial reserves estimation, the next step is to look at the various options to develop the field. The objective of the feasibility study is to document various technical options, of which at least one should be economically viable. The study will contain the subsurface development options, the process design, equipment sizes, the proposed locations (e.g. offshore platforms), and the crude evacuation and export system. The cases considered will be accompanied by a cost estimate and planning schedule. Such a document gives a complete overview of all the requirements, opportunities, risks and constraints. 

The objective of any exploration venture is to find new volumes of hydrocarbons at a low cost and in a short period of time. Exploration budgets are in direct competition with acquisition opportunities. If a company spends more money finding oil than it would have had to spend buying the equivalent amount in the market place there is little Incentive to continue exploration. Conversely, a company which manages to find new reserves at low cost has a significant competitive edge since it can afford more exploration, find and develop reservoirs more profitably, and can target and develop smaller prospects. 

In the above example, the discount rate used was the annual compound interest rate offered by the bank. In business investment opportunities the appropriate discount rate is the cost of capital to the company. This may be calculated in different ways, but should always reflect how much it costs the oil company to borrow the money which it uses to invest in its projects. This may be a weighted average of the cost of the share capital and loan capital of a company. 

If the company is fully self-financing for its new ventures, then the appropriate discount rate would be the rate of return of the alternative investment opportunities (e.g. other projects) since this opportunity is foregone by undertaking the proposed project. This represents the opportunity cost of the capital. It is assumed that the return from the alternative projects is at least equal to the cost of capital to the company (otherwise the alternative projects should not be undertaken). 

Manual ultrasonic testing offers the advantages of low equipment cost combined with the flexibility of the human operator to provide good access and complex scanning capability. However, a total reliance on the capabilities of the ultrasonic technician to visualise the physical situation leads to a number of drawbacks, including lack of accuracy and consistency of defect size and location measurements, lack of verification that the required scan coverage has been fully achieved, and lack of consistency in flaw classification. A further disadvantage is that the ultrasonic data is not permanently recorded there is therefore no opportunity for the data to be re-examined at a later date if required. 

A more constrained opportunity for nitrate bioremediation arose at the US-DoE Weldon Spring Site near St. Louis, Missouri. This site had been a uranium and thorium processing faciUty, and treatment of the metal had involved nitric acid. The wastestream, known as raffinate, was discharged to surface inpoundments and neutralized with lime to precipitate the metals. Two pits had nitrate levels that requited treatment before discharge, but heavy rains in 1993 threatened to cause the pits to overflow. Bioremediation by the addition of calcium acetate as a carbon source successfully treated more than 19 million liters of water at a reasonable cost (75). 

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