Investment infrastructure

For the intermodal equipment and infrastructure investments to fully pay off, and to grab a larger share... 

The industry has developed higher compression tanks to expand the range, and more fast-fill stations are becoming available, yet the prospects of the majority of service stations adding compressed natural gas refueling anytime in the near future are bleak. The oil companies, which control most of the service stations and over 60 percent of America s natural gas reserves, are not eager to make the massive infrastructure investment to cannibalize the billions of dollars they have tied up in refineries, pipelines, and service sta-... 

However, it is important to understand where there is scope to improve an existing system, even if changes cannot be justified economically. Steam systems change over many years, and the demands on them change correspondingly. If the existing steam system is understood properly, then longterm infrastructure investment can steadily improve the system, even if short-term investment cannot be justified. 

Fuel companies like Royal Dutch/Shell have invested heavily in hydrogen. Transition fuels such as onboard methanol-to-hydrogen conversion would require infrastructure investments, which would be difficult to justify. 

Portable power and stationary or transport systems are validated infrastructure investment begins with governmental policies. 

While refuelling dominates infrastructure investments in the early phases, in the later phases it is superseded by production. The total investment of the ten countries until 2025-2030 (i.e., to reach a hydrogen vehicle penetration rate of approximately 12%) is around 60 billion. Flowever, conventional fuels also require large investments e.g., the IEA recently assumed that a global investment of as much as US 4300 billion will be required in the oil sector until 2030, to maintain current production levels (IEA, 2006a). Even though a direct comparison of these numbers is not valid, this may be helpful for a placement of the investment needed for hydrogen infrastructure. 

A small shift away from the refinery sector towards the new and more labour-intensive hydrogen production sector could also be identified. Employment gains could also be made in the construction and the machinery and equipment sectors because of hydrogen infrastructure investments. 

Policy instruments (see Table 19.5) to meet the various sustainability targets may be classified into infrastructure investment, traffic demand management (TDM), regulation, pricing and support research and development (R D) in new technologies. Each of these measures consists of several variants, which will, however, not be considered in detail in this volume. The following matrix undertakes an attempt to propose the appropriateness of the various classes of policy measures to meet specific subobjectives of a sustainable transport development. 

Phase 2 is the Initial Market Penetration Phase. This could begin as early as 2010 using existing natural gas and electric grid infrastructure for applications such as portable power and some stationary and transportation applications it will continue as hydrogen-related technologies meet or exceed customer requirements. As markets are established, this leads to Phase 3, or the Infrastructure Investment Phase, in which there is expansion of markets and infrastructure. 

The overall issue of gas quality within the Azerbaijan transportation system will require policy development prior to decisions on infrastructure investment. 

The topic of tourist behaviour depends upon, interacts with, and occasionally determines other components of tourism. Tourist behaviour is powerfully connected to and often contingent upon marketing activities it strongly shapes the wellbeing of many small businesses, and it can generate considerable socio-cultural and environmental impacts. These influences should not, however, be extended too far. Tourist behaviour is indirectly connected to tourism issues such as globalisation and localisation it influences only peripherally major financial decisions on infrastructure investment and as a specific topic it attracts relatively little attention in governmental policies. 

Expansion of markets and infrastructure 111 III. Infrastructure investment phase... 

Building infrastructure in anticipation of market development has rarely happened, and when it has, the investors have usually been disappointed, especially with high cost refueling stations, such as for natural gas or electricity. Fuels with lower infrastructure investment costs, such as ethanol, would appear to have lower barriers to introduction. However, the target markets for these fuels are general consumer vehicles which refuel at branded and independent stations. Branded stations have been reluctant to offer fuels not supported by the parent companies both types of stations have thin profit margins that increase the opportunity costs of replacing a conventional pump with an alternative fuel. 

Fourth, infrastructure development may be the limiting factor. It is hard, and perhaps impossible, to see how private sector infrastructure investment will be made in the timeframe and scale needed to achieve success without clear stimulus from government. This is true even assuming hydrogen technology performance and cost goals are achieved. High risk and costly investments are needed to overcome the chicken and egg issue. 

Adequate infrastructure investments are one key to ensure a resilient system and therefore secure natural gas supplies. This refers to both pipeline interconnections between neighboring countries, and investments along the vertical value-added chain. It is generally estimated that the downstream infrastructure investments in Europe as well as in the US are adequate the challenge will lie in the initiation of sufficient upstream investments (that is, field development, addition of pipeline capacities and LNG liquefaction facilities and vessels). 

Competitive markets favor the right timing of infrastructure investment. As long as prices are determined by supply and demand, competition will also incite the right level of investment, indicated by scarcity rents in energy-only markets. 

The first conference, entitled Economic Mechanisms Sustaining Robust Development of Natural Gas Investment and Infrastructure , was held in Berlin on June 1, 2007. Its objectives were to set out the issues for the subsequent project, and to oppose European and North American perspectives. There was a very broad overview of the relevant topics, ranging from pipeline infrastructure investments, strategic use of storage, geopolitical issues (with a focus on Eastern Europe) to the numerical modeling of international natural gas supplies. 

A high hydrogen penetration rate can be critical in order to justify the huge infrastructure investment required, as well as the huge involved R D cost. Therefore, subsidies intended to boost early hydrogen demand could also be established. 

Nevertheless, the total investment for the early infrastructure on a country level is limited to 30-120 million. Assuming approximately 1,000 vehicles per country, this represents a high specific infrastructure investment per vehicle because the FS utilization is assumed to be very low. This is thought to be necessary for the initialization of hydrogen deployment and must be overcome by adequate policy measures. Substantially higher vehicle penetration rates will level out the costs to values between 11 and 16 ct/kWh hydrogen in the medium term. When comparing these numbers to today s fuel costs, the substantial reduction in consumption due to improved fuel efficiency must be taken into account. 

Iyer R.R., Grossmann I.E., Vasantharajan S. and CuUick A.S. 1998. Optimal planning and scheduling of offshore oil field infrastructure investment and operations, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 37, 1380-1397. 

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