Economic aspects investment costs

Life-cycle analysis (LCA) does not account for economic aspects, and such analysis should therefore be considered together with a life-cycle cost analysis (LCC), which takes into account the costs of investment, energy, maintenance, and dumping the final waste product throughout the lifetime of a plant. 

In general it is not possible to develop a complete treatment scenario that is optimal technically, financially and also with respect to environmental sustainability. A solution has to be found which is economically and technically feasible and also satisfies the criteria of environmental sustainability to the greatest possible extent. An additional criterion for the selection of a complete closed loop water system can be obtained if the net environmental benefits are compared with the extra costs of the closed loop system. In this way the extra environmental benefits per unit investment costs or operating costs can be calculated. In the final selection of a closed loop water system aspects dealing with acceptability and public environmental awareness also play an important role. 

Based on the flow equation some essential economic aspects can be derived. First, the investment cost of a pipeline is obviously linked to the diameter of the pipeline. The larger the diameter, the more steel is needed, and the more weight the pipeline will have. This implies that investment costs increase with increasing diameter as costs for pipeline material and installation will increase. As we can see from the equation however, the output (flow) will increase in the power of 2.5 for every unit of diameter invested. This economic fact is often referred to as economy of scale. 

Process Refinements. Handling the carbon slurry is an important aspect of partial oxidation processes. The traditional approach to handling the carbon slurry was to contact it with a hydrocarbon to retain the carbon, which could thus be recycled to the reactor. The early Shell units used fuel oil as the extraction medium. This allowed atmospheric operation, providing a plant with low investment costs and, at least initially, low operating costs as well. The economics of this approach deteriorated with heavier feedstocks. The pelletizing oil had to be purchased at a premium to the main... 

ABSTRACT The Dutch government is in the process of revising its national flood safety policy. The current Dutch Flood Defense Act lays down design standards for the Dutch flood defenses. These standards have been based on/rationahzed by economic optimizations in which investment costs are balanced against the discounted value of (potential) future losses. Loss of life is not considered separately. This paper presents the results of a research project that evaluated the potential roles of two risk metrics individual and societal risk. These metrics are already used in the in the Dutch major hazards pohcy for the evaluation of risks to the public. Individual risk concerns the annual probabihty of death of an average, unprotected person. Societal risk concerns the probability of a multi-fatality event. This paper discusses technical aspects of the use of individual and societal risk metrics in flood risk management, as well as policy implications. 

Also if coupled biogas and digestate facility would have no positive economical balance considering bioresource collection, pretreatment, facility operation, and investment costs, the overall system could be beneficial compared to the state-of-art. If various scenarios are suggested, the various aspects of sustainability—economical, ecological, and social—should be compared for a decision. 

A first obvious consequence of such considerations is that we should not only look at the costs of the product from an economic point of view, but that we must consider the costs of the production process in a broader sense. We must take into account the raw materials used, the amount of energy invested and the possibility to design alternatives, more environmentally friendly processes. In other words, we should not only look at the desired product, but we must consider the total life cycle of the product The design of a production process taking into account these aspects is often referred to as integral life cycle management. 

Surveys and interviews show that the attention paid to energy-efficiency investments in companies, public administrations and private households is often very low and heavily influenced by the priorities of those responsible for decision making (Ramesohl, 2000 Schmid, 2004 Stern, 1992). In other cases, project-based economic evaluations do not consider the relatively high transaction costs of the investor and also the substantial risks involved in the case of long-term investments both aspects may be decisive for small efficiency investments (Ostertag, 2003). 

There is no reason why a mathematical model should be limited to simulation of only the physical aspects of a given system. Usually the behavioral response of most interest from a management viewpoint will be an economic variable, such as cost, profit, investment, etc. In many cases the motivation for development of the model will be the optimization of one of these variables. This problem will be considered in the next section. 

In a chemical plant the capital investment in process piping is in the range of 25-40% of the total plant investment, and the power consumption for pumping, which depends on the line size, is a substantial fraction of the total cost of utilities. Accordingly, economic optimization of pipe size is a necessary aspect of plant design. As the diameter of a line increases, its cost goes up but is accompanied by decreases in consumption of utilities and costs of pumps and drivers because of reduced friction. Somewhere there is an optimum balance between operating cost and annual capital cost. 

Good chemicals control has, however, considerable positive economic effects for enterprises. It is increasingly important for the competitiveness of enterprises. Furthermore, investments in preventive chemicals control leading to the use of less hazardous chemicals and improved information on risks and safe use will have paybacks in the form of a reduced need for costly risk reduction measures for control of exposure, emissions and waste. In addition, better control of chemicals very often results in more cost-effective processes with reduced use of chemicals and less hazardous waste. By applying the concepts of Clean Products and Clean Production as aspects of improved chemicals control, costs for initial investments in many cases may have paybacks within just a few years time. 

The main objective here is to determine the production cost of a chemical. Estimating the product-sales price and the return on investment is beyond the scope of this discussion. There are several texts, such as Valle-Riestta [20], Peters and Timmerhaus [4], and Holland and Wilkinson [38], that discuss methods of evaluating profitability and other aspects of process economics. 

This point evidences the slow turnover in changing technologies to more sustainable ones, even in the case of evident economic advantages. When these aspects are less relevant, such as in the case of the process cited above of isobutane alkylation, the turnover is even lower. In the field of fine and spedalty chemicals production, where the fixed costs are much lower, the rate of introduction of the novel, more sustainable processes, could be faster, but it is contrasted with the lower economic incentives, due to lower production volumes. In refinery/base petrochemistry, the product volumes justify the introduction of new processes, but the problem instead is the large cost of construction (and sometimes also revamping) of the plants in a period where uncertain economics, due to a global market, disincentives new investments. This is the dilemma for sustainable chemical processes. 

Besides cost aspects, the enviroiunental aspects of the process should be analyzed at as early a stage as possible. For example, eco-eflidency analysis (Figure 6.1-7) can be used to analyze the process from the viewpoints of cost and the environment. The aim is to obtain a clear depiction of the economic and ecological influences during the entire lifetime of a product, so that investment decisions can choose the alternative with the best long-term perspective [Kircherer 2001, Gartner 2000]. 

The economic analysis of investment alternatives generally entails the estimation of cash flows and the application of some measure of worth, such as net present value or the internal rate of return, in order to make a decision. The estimation of these cash flows requires the estimation of prices, whether they be the price of goods sold to forecast revenues or the estimation of wages to forecast labor costs. Over time these prices change. An increase in price is known as inflation, while a decrease in price is termed deflation. These concepts and their measurement are explained in this chapter. Cash flow analysis methods are revisited under the assumption of price changes, as their effects can be significant (Fleischer 1994). This is especially true when one considers after-tax cash flow analysis, as the effects of depreciation and taxes represent one of the most important aspects of investment analysis (Park and Sharp-Bette 1990). 

However, realization of these potential benefits has seldom been achieved in an economically viable manner. Commercial applications of the biotechnology of plant cell culture historically have been concerned primarily with the production of high-value secondary metabolites. This aspect of plant biotechnology is not only complex from a science and engineering standpoint, but also a very costly business expensive in terms of the necessary investment in research and development personnel, facilities, and clinical trials, in addition to the capital costs required to construct and validate the complex manufacturing equipment and supporting infrastructure necessary to meet the cGMP standards and EDA requirements. 

For the retrofit action, which does not affect the external stakeholders, the process assessment area is the most suitable boundary for sustainability analysis (Fig. 11.2). In the process assessment, the areas of improvement are the traditional economic indicators applied to retrofit design analysis. The operational results as well as the investment analysis of the proposed retrofit designs are accounted for. The operational results are the traditional indicators applied by engineers in retrofit design assessment [12]. They should be always contemplated, since after the implementation of a retrofit design those costs are going to be incurred at least for the next 5 years (minimum lifetime for a project). Regarding the operational results, several authors point out different aspects that should... 

The choice of the moderator material for a central-station powerplant is generally based on the economics involved. Obviously, many factors other than the cost per unit weight or volume, per se, enter into the economics. The neutron slowing-down capability of the material has an important effect on the size of the reactor core and, therefore, the capital cost of the plant, because of the investment in moderator, pressure vessel, shielding, etc. Containment requirements for the moderator (particularly liquid moderators) can affect both the capital cost of the plant and the fuel cycle economics, the latter because of possible neutron losses. Integrity and stability of the moderator material can, of course, have important implications on other aspects of the reactor design. The neutron absorption behavior of the moderator itself affects the potential conversion ratio of the reactor and, therefore, the fuel cycle economics of the reactor. The properties of the more important moderators and the implications of these properties on the choice and performance characteristics of gas-cooled reactors will be reviewed in this section. 

---