Sorting economics

In the nonclassical ion controversy discussed in Chapter 9, there was never any question on either side of the debate about the validity of the observed data, only about their interpretation. Had any of the experimental data been questioned or found to be incorrect, this would have been soon found out because so many people repeated and rechecked the data. This is the strength of science (in contrast to politics, economics, etc.), i.e., that we deal with reproducible experimental observation and data. Nevertheless, interpretation can still result in heated discussions or controversies, but science eventually will sort these out based on new results and data. 

The commercial production of shale oil as an alternative energy source has not been economically feasible. As of 1995, all commercial oil shale operations in the world (Petrobras, Bra2il PAMA, Israel The Chinese Petroleum Corporation, Fushun and Maoming, China KivioH Oil Shale Processing Plant, Kohda-Jarve, Estonia) receive some sort of economic incentives or assistance from the countries in which they are operating. 

The choice of the strain of microorganism is one of the important variables in the process. The strains to be used in manufacture are mutants of the original producer, which are chosen as the result of a planned program of mutant selection. Sometimes a spontaneous mutation occurs usually, it is induced by mutagenic agents or irradiation of various sorts. The choice of the best strain depends on its abiUty to produce large amounts of the proper antibiotic in a reasonable time from ingredients that are economically feasible (73). 

The economic balance must be considered between recovery, reuse, and modification of a waste material or by-product and its disposal. The future is expected to bring iacreases ia the practice of recycle, recovery, modification, and upgrading of wastes of all sorts, and a reduction ia disposal by iaciaeration (qv), biochemical oxidation, or discharge to the environment (see Recycling). 

Waste Generation Waste generation encompasses those ac tivi-ties in which materials are identified as no longer being of value and are either thrown away or gathered together for disposal. From the standpoint of economics, the best place to sort waste materials for recoveiy is at the source of generation. 

The basis for evaluation of piston speed varies throughout industry. This indicates that the subject is spiced with as much emotion as technical basics. An attempt to sort out the fundamentals will be made. First, because there are so many configurations and forms of the reciprocating compressor, it would appear logical that there is no one piston speed limit that will apply across the board to all machines. The manufacturer is at odds with the user because he would like to keep the speed up to keep the size of the compressor down, while the user would like to keep the speed down for reliability purposes. As is true for so many other cases, the referee is the economics. An obvious reason to limit the speed is maintenance... 

The third reason is economic. Many companies spend more on safety measures than some of their competitors and thus pay a sort of self-imposed tax. If we tell our competitors about the action we took after an accident, they may spend as much as we have done on preventing that accident from happening again. 

The ultimate goal of process development is to achieve feasibility where it is possible to produce amino adds on a large scale at a production cost per kg of amino add comparable to, or cheaper than, the processes currently used by other companies. If we presume that the technical performance (fermentation and recovery) are sorted out on a laboratory scale and scaling up looks promising, then it is time to find out whether it is possible to operate economically on a large scale. 

Poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) is one of the most extensively recycled polymeric materials. In 1995, 3.5 x 104 tons of PET were recycled in Europe.1 The main reason for the widespread recycling of PET is its extensive use in plastic packaging applications, especially in the beverage industry as plastic bottles. The consistency in terms of volume and availability of postconsumer bottles from sorting facilities and its high material scrap value create an excellent economic environment for PET recycling. 

Program SIMCAL was expressly written to allow these sorts of what-if questions to be explored, with realistic intercepts, slopes, signal noise, digitizer characteristics, and economical factors specified, so one can get a feeling for the achieved precision and the costs this implies. 

As we hinted in part 2 of this chapter, there are concerns with using the traditional neoclassical economics view of homo economicus as an expresser of welfare impacts. Not all persons can or wish to translate welfare into utility into money, and not all would be willing to accept monetary compensation out of moral reasons (these respondents are usually sorted out of WTP surveys as protest answers as we described earlier in this text). 

Because some sort of valuation and ranking of options always have and always will take place in decision making. The choice is between using economic values derived in a consistent and transparent way (environmental economics approach), or to use arbitrary and random economic or other values estimated in a case-by-case setting. And the authors of this chapter are in favour of a transparent approach that is open for improvements. 

These considerations suggest that all sorts of living creatures have much to offer us from a strictly economic point of view. While there are certainly many other factors involved, these biotechnol-... 

In those jurisdictions where money is specifically collected from consumers to underwrite the costs of recycling plastic containers, funds may be available to offset some costs of depolymerization. If bottles are provided at no cost at the sorting/baling facility, an economically attractive venture can be contemplated, but still at a large scale. Securing the feed on a long-term basis at a favorable price will require significant co-operation. 

This technique allowed us to prepare small colloids with a high proportion of AmB (33% molar proportion compared with 5% in AmBisome). However, at present we have used expensive, synthetic phospholipids. It may be possible to replace DMPC and DMPG by natural or partially hydrogenated natural phospholipids such as those from egg yolk or soy. This sort of economic consideration must be taken into account for the future development of the formulation. 

Combining this insight with the critical economy of O Connor, a clear pattern emerges. Under tightening economic conditions and in the face of crises, producers may not only be forced to shift increasing hazards downwards and outwards to consumers and workers, but also to present contemporary urban residents, like lawn people, with increasingly complex risk choices, the burden of which is increasingly the individual s to sort out, internalize, and live with. 

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