Economic decisions

Among the key variables in strategic alkylphenol planning are feedstock quaHty and availabiHty, equipment capabiHty, environmental needs, and product quahty. In the past decade, environmental needs have grown enormously in their effect on economic decisions. The manufacturing cost of alkylphenols includes raw-material cost, nonraw-material variable cost, fixed cost, and depreciation. 

Accommodation of risk (or uncertainty) in resei ve estimations is incorporated in economic decisions in several ways. One common method... 

The Stated preferences method is a controversial method and well debated between economists. The main criticism towards the Contingent Valuation (CV) method is that the elicited values and people s WTP is based on hypothetical answers and not real economic decisions and thereby meaningless because people are not facing real payments or a real budget constraint [18]. 

Figure 5.18 illustrates short-run marginal generation costs by RES-E category. Short-run marginal costs are relevant for the economic decision of whether or not... 

Each project has its own unique characteristic physical, environmental, cultural, and regulatory setting. No single approach (technology, process, or cleanup standard) can be universally applied. The following sections discuss the key elements that impact the economic decisions of remediation projects and result in the most efficient, cost-effective restoration. 

With packed towers it is considerably more difficult to arrange for cooling, and it is usually necessary to remove the liquid stream at intervals down the column and to cool externally. Coggan and Bourne149 have presented a computer programme to enable the economic decision to be made between an adiabatic absorption tower, or a smaller isothermal column with interstage cooling. 

In many full-scale applications the variable costs for energy and oxygen are regarded as economically decisive. Ozone and cost savings have often been achieved by the application of combined ozonation/biodegradation systems. Today, in most cases, ozonation of waste... 

Disparate elements, which affect economic decisions for bioprocesses, can be combined into a logical approach. An attempt must be made to combine fundamentals of bioreactor design, downstream processing, and properties of biomolecules in the context of process evaluation. The ability to set technical priorities based on economic assessment is essential, and requires communication betv/een researchers, process engineers, technical managers, and marketing managers. 

Taylui, G.A. Managerial and Engineering Economy, Economic Decision Making, D Nostrand Co 7 New York, NY, 1966. 

Refined products establish the order in which each refining unit will be introduced. Only one or two key product(s) specifications are used to explain the purpose of each unit. Nevertheless, the reader is reminded that the choices among several types of units and sizes of these units are complicated economic decisions. The trade-offs among product types, quantity, and quality will be mentioned only to the extent that they influence the choice of one type of processing technology over another. 

The relative location of refinery and acid plant is one of the most important factors in the economic decision between sulfuric acid and anhydrous hydrogen fluoride as a catalyst for alkylation. Besides the distance, other factors such as regeneration of spent acid, energy costs, the nature of the feed and increasingly stringent regulatory constraints play an important role in the selection of alkylation catalyst. Sulfuric acid is selected for alkylation if feed is rich in pentenes or n-butene. HF is selected if the feed is rich in propenes or isobutane. 

Social values, that is, the collective societal beliefs about the nature of the human being and the structure of a society, play a strong role in the development of national policies. Political and economic decisions rest in large measure on the prevailing values held in a society. Hence, if a predominant social value rests on the notion that all societal members have a right to health care, political and economic policy developments will follow suit. One way of examining these contexts is to look at a spectrum of social values. 

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