Prediction United States

The market penetration of synthetic fuels from biomass and wastes in the United States depends on several basic factors, eg, demand, price, performance, competitive feedstock uses, government incentives, whether estabUshed fuel is replaced by a chemically identical fuel or a different product, and cost and availabiUty of other fuels such as oil and natural gas. Detailed analyses have been performed to predict the market penetration of biomass energy well into the twenty-first century. A range of from 3 to about 21 EJ seems to characterize the results of most of these studies. 

Some additives have the ability to lower the pour point without lowering the cloud point. A number of laboratory scale flow tests have been developed to provide a better prediction of cold temperature operability. They include the cold filter plugging point (CFPP), used primarily in Europe, and the low temperature flow test (LTFT), used primarily in the United States. Both tests measure flow through filter materials under controlled conditions of temperature, pressure, etc, and are better predictors of cold temperature performance than either cloud or pour point for addithed fuels. 

Nuclear Reactors. Nuclear power faciUties account for about 20% of the power generated in the United States. Although no new plants are plaimed in the United States, many other countries, particularly those that would otherwise rely heavily on imported fuel, continue to increase their nuclear plant generation capacity. Many industry observers predict that nuclear power may become more attractive in future years as the price of fossil fuels continues to rise and environmental regulations become more stringent. In addition, advanced passive-safety reactor designs may help allay concerns over potential safety issues. 

Extensive carbapenem and penem antibiotic research has been ongoing since thienamycin was discovered in 1978. However, only the imipenem-cilastatin combination has become a commercial product. Launched in 1985 in the United States as a broad-spectmm hospital product under the name Ptimaxin, this product had worldwide sales of some 300 million in 1988. Sales were predicted to rise to 345 million for the year ending 1989 (154). 

The average geothermal gradient used in most areas of the United States for initial predictions of subsurface temperatures is a value of0.016°F/ft [32]. 

Legislation enacted by both Canada and the United States (see the US-Canada Air Quality Accord, 1991) will, when implemented, reduce the North American emissions of sulphur dioxide by about 50% based upon the 1980 baseline. These projected emission fields have been appplied in the atmospheric source-receptor models that were described above, to provide a projected deposition field for acidic sulphate that would be expected (14). The predicted sulphate deposition fields have then subsequently been appUed in aquatic effects models that provide estimates of regional surface water acidification distributions (50). The regional acidification profiles have then been used in a model of fish species richness (51) that results in an estimate of the expected presence of fish species as compared to that expected in an unacidified case. 

How do we take a future-oriented approach to research on energy and metals What criteria do we use to set research priorities Short-term projections of prices and availability of resources are poor guides to a national policy for research. It is virtually impossible to predict the course that energy prices will take over the next few years or to prognosticate political events that might affect the snpply of key minerals to the United States. The most anyone can say is that oil prices will rise and that a real threat exists to the stability of onr snpply of several key minerals. 

What is predictable is that the cost of producing oil and minerals in the United States will be inflnenced by the rate of depletion of recoverable domestic sonrces. This rate will in turn be inflnenced by the economics of recovering nsable materials from these domestic sonrces. It is certain that there will be a need for engineers to develop and manage technologies that can slow the depletion rate by permitting recovery of a greater fraction of the resonrces that are there. 

Scitovsky et al. (1986) calculated the average cost per AIDS-related hospital admission as US 9,024 ranging from US 7,026 to US 23,425. A more comprehensive picture is presented by Scitovsky and Rice (1987), who estimated provider cost of the AIDS epidemic in the United States in 1985, 1986, and 1991, based on prevalence estimates provided by the Center for Disease Control (CDC). They predicted that the core provider costs of AIDS would rise from US 630 million in 1985 to US 1.1 billion in 1986 and to US 8.5 billion in 1991. The authors compared their estimates of the cost of AIDS in the USA with the estimates for end-stage renal disease (US 2.2 billion), traffic accidents (US 5.6 billion), lung cancer (US 2.7 billion), and breast cancer (US 2.2 billion). They concluded that the core provider costs of AIDS were relatively low in comparison with the provider costs of all illness as well as the costs of these other diseases. However, they also assessed the non-care costs (e.g., for research) to rise from US 319 million in 1985 to US 542 million in 1986 and to US 2.3 billion in 1991. 

Based solely on this relationship, it has been predicted that the ozone concentration should be about 2 pphm at solar noon in the United States. Indeed [7], in unpolluted environments, ozone concentrations are usually in the range of 2-5 pphm. However, in polluted urban areas, ozone concentrations can be as high as 50 pphm. Peroxy radicals formed from hydrocarbon emissions cause this enhanced ozone concentration. These radicals oxidize nitric oxide to nitrogen dioxide, thereby shifting the above steady-state relationship to higher ozone levels. 

Trichloroethylene has been detected in a number of rainwater samples collected in the United States and elsewhere (see Section 5.4.2). It is moderately soluble in water, and experimental data have shown that scavenging by rainwater occurs rapidly (Jung et al. 1992). Trichloroethylene can, however, be expected to revolatilize back to the atmosphere after being deposited by wet deposition. Evaporation from dry surfaces can also be predicted from the high vapor pressure. 

Only a few models applicable to paddy field conditions have been developed. RICEWQ by Williams, PADDY by Inao and Kitamura," and PCPF-1 by Watanabe and Takagi are useful for paddy fields. EXAMS2 by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), a surface water model, can also be used to simulate paddy fields with an appropriate model scenario and has been used for the prediction of sulfonylurea herbicide behavior in paddy fields. The prediction accuracy of PADDY and PCPF-1 is high, although these models require less parameter... 

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