c The external costs of nuclear electricity are compared with the alternatives. c Frequency and c... more c The external costs of nuclear electricity are compared with the alternatives. c Frequency and cost of nuclear accidents based on Chernobyl and Fukushima. c Detailed comparison with wind as alternative with the lowest external costs. c High external cost of wind because of natural gas backup (storage too limited). c External costs of wind higher than nuclear but uncertainty ranges overlap. a b s t r a c t Since Fukushima many are calling for a shutdown of nuclear power plants. To see whether such a shutdown would reduce the risks for health and environment, the external costs of nuclear electricity are compared with alternatives that could replace it. The frequency of catastrophic nuclear accidents is based on the historical record, about one in 25 years for the plants built to date, an order of magnitude higher than the safety goals of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Impacts similar to Chernobyl and Fukushima are assumed to estimate the cost. A detailed comparison is presented with wind as alternative with the lowest external cost. The variability of wind necessitates augmentation by other sources, primarily fossil fuels, because storage at the required scale is in most regions too expensive. The external costs of natural gas combined cycle are taken as 0.6 hcent/kWh due to health effects of air pollution and 1.25 hcent/kWh due to greenhouse gases (at 25h=t CO2eq) for the central estimate, but a wide range of different parameters is also considered, both for nuclear and for the alternatives. Although the central estimate of external costs of the wind-based alternative is higher than that of nuclear, the uncertainty ranges overlap.
Decisions with intergenerational consequences may leave future generations worse off (i.e., not b... more Decisions with intergenerational consequences may leave future generations worse off (i.e., not be Pareto optimal) if costs and benefits are not discounted correctly. We point out that this happens if the conventional social discount rate is applied to intergenerational costs: with this rate the justification of intergenerational costs (benefits of a project are invested and the proceeds can cover future costs) leads to an inconsistency over the long term (eventually the supposed benefits of any project become larger than the entire GNP). The conventional approach commits an error of double counting by treating the time preference component of the discount rate as if it represented creation of wealth while it really involves only redistribution. The time horizon of the redistribution is limited by the duration of market transactions, especially loans. Thus we recommend a two-step discounting procedure, with the conventional social discount rate for the short term (about 30 years) and the growth rate of the economy for the long term. Data for GNP per capita growth in the US, the UK, France, Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union since the industrial revolution, combined with data for net economic welfare per capita suggest an intergenerational discount rate in the range of 1 to 2%. For practical application the rate at which costs and benefits will grow over time is just as important as the discount rate; only the difference between these two rates matters. For many environmental costs these rates may be close to each other, during the next few generations; this implies that some of the uncertainty in the prediction of rates cancels and one can treat the problem as if the effective rate were close to zero. The consequence for costs such as global warming or nuclear power can be very significant: the valuation can increase by more than an order of magnitude compared to values based on conventional discounting.
Environmental health : a global access science source, 2006
Information on life expectancy change is of great concern for policy makers, as evidenced by the ... more Information on life expectancy change is of great concern for policy makers, as evidenced by the discussions of the so-called "harvesting" issue (i.e. the question being, how large a loss each death corresponds to in the mortality results of time series studies). Whereas most epidemiological studies of air pollution mortality have been formulated in terms of mortality risk, this paper shows that a formulation in terms of life expectancy change is mathematically equivalent, but offers several advantages: it automatically takes into account the constraint that everybody dies exactly once, regardless of pollution; it provides a unified framework for time series, intervention studies and cohort studies; and in time series and intervention studies, it yields the life expectancy change directly as a time integral of the observed mortality rate. Results are presented for life expectancy change in time series studies. Determination of the corresponding total number of attributable...
This paper examines the relation between the results of epidemiologic studies of air pollution mo... more This paper examines the relation between the results of epidemiologic studies of air pollution mortality and impact indicators that can be informative for environmental policy decisions. Using models that are simple and transparent, yet contain the essential features, it is shown that (1) number of deaths is not meaningful for air pollution, whereas loss of life expectancy (LLE) is an
The methodology for evaluating the impacts and damage costs ('external costs') due to pollution f... more The methodology for evaluating the impacts and damage costs ('external costs') due to pollution from waste treatment is described and the results are presented, based on the ExternE project series of the European Commission. The damage costs of landfill and incineration of municipal solid waste are compared, with due account for energy and materials recovery, as well as possible differences in transport distance. We have not been able to quantify the total damage costs of leachates because of the complexity of the environmental pathways and of the long time horizon of some persistent pollutants, but we consider an extreme scenario to show that they are not worth worrying about in the sense that reducing the pollutants in leachates beyond current regulations would bring negligible benefit in comparison with the abatement of other sources of the same pollutants. The damage costs due to the construction of the waste treatment facility are negligible. The damage costs of waste transport, which are illustrated by an arbitrary choice of a 100 km round trip by a 16 tonne truck, are also negligible. The benefits of materials recovery make a small contribution to the total damage cost. The only significant contributions come from direct emissions (of the landfill or incinerator) and from avoided emissions due to energy recovery (from an incinerator). Damage costs for incineration range from about 4 to 21 € tonne waste -1 , and they are extremely dependent on the assumed scenario for energy recovery. For landfill the cost ranges from about 10 to 13 € tonne waste -1 ; it is dominated by greenhouse gas emissions because only a fraction of the CH 4 can be captured (here assumed to be 70%). Amenity costs (odour, visual impact, noise) are highly site-specific and we only cite results from a literature survey which indicates that such costs could make a significant contribution, very roughly on the order of 1 € tonne waste -1 .
This paper offers a perspective on the health impacts of air pollution from incinerators, by maki... more This paper offers a perspective on the health impacts of air pollution from incinerators, by making a number of comparisons, in terms of emissions, concentrations, damages and damage costs. The latter are estimated by an impact pathway analysis, tracing the fate of a pollutant from source to receptors. Linearity is assumed for the increase of damages with incremental exposure. The
Since much of the emission is in the form of metallic Hg whose atmospheric residence time is long... more Since much of the emission is in the form of metallic Hg whose atmospheric residence time is long enough to cause nearly uniform mixing in the hemisphere, much of the impact is global. This article presents a first estimate of global average neurotoxic impacts and costs by defining a comprehensive transfer factor for ingestion of methyl-Hg as ratio of global average dose rate and global emission rate. For the dose-response function (DRF) we use recent estimates of IQ decrement as function of Hg concentration in blood, as well as correlations between blood concentration and Hg ingestion. The cost of an IQ point is taken as $18,000 in the United States and applied in other countries in proportion to per capita GDP, adjusted for purchase power parity. The mean estimate of the global average of the marginal damage cost per emitted kg of Hg is about $1,500/kg, if one assumes a dose threshold of 6.7 μg/day of methyl-Hg per person, and $3,400/kg without threshold. The average global lifetime impact and cost per person at current emission levels are 0.02 IQ points lost and $78 with and 0.087 IQ points and $344 without threshold. These results are global averages; for any particular source and emission site the impacts can be quite different. An assessment of the overall uncertainties indicates that the damage cost could be a factor 4 smaller or larger than the median estimate (the uncertainty distribution is approximately log normal and the ratio median/mean is approximately 0.4).
Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A, 2007
This paper offers a brief review of the need for cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and the available po... more This paper offers a brief review of the need for cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and the available policy instruments for air pollution. To prioritize different possible actions, one needs to know which source of pollution causes how much damage. This requires an impact pathway analysis, that is, an analysis of the chain emission --> dispersion --> dose-response function --> monetary valuation. The methodology for this is described and illustrated with the results of the ExternE (External Costs of Energy) project series of the European Commission. Two examples of an application to CBA are shown: one where a proposed reduction of emission limits is justified, and one where it is not. It is advisable to subject any proposed regulation to a CBA, including an analysis of the uncertainties. Even if the uncertainties are large and a policy decision may have to take other considerations into account, a well-documented CBA clarifies the issues and provides a basis for rational discussion. One of the main sources of uncertainty lies in the monetary valuation of premature mortality, the dominant contribution to the damage cost of air pollution. As an alternative, an innovative policy tool is described, the Life Quality Index (LQI), a compound indicator comprising societal wealth and life expectancy. It is applied to the Canada-wide standards for particulate matter and ozone. Regardless of monetary valuation, a 50% reduction of PM10 concentrations in Europe and North America has been shown to yield a population-average life expectancy increase on the order of 4 to 5 mo.
The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 1999
In contrast to the various "potential impact" indices that have been proposed, we show that indic... more In contrast to the various "potential impact" indices that have been proposed, we show that indices for real damage can be derived, based on the impact pathway methodology which involves the calculation of increased pollutant concentration in all affected regions due to an incremental emission (e.g. pg/m -~ of particles, using models of atmospheric dispersion and chemistry), followed by the calculation of physical impacts (e.g. number of cases of asthma due to these particles, using a concentration-response function). The numbers are summed over all receptors of concern (population, crops, buildings, ...). We show that in a uniform world (linear dose-response function, uniform receptor density and uniform atmospheric removal rate) the conservation of matter implies a very simple formula for the total damage. The generalization to secondary pollutants is straightforward. By detailed numerical evaluations, using real data for atmospheric dispersion and geographic receptor distribution, we have demonstrated that this simple formula is an excellent representation of typical damages. Results are shown for the principal air pollutants emitted by smoke stacks of industrial installations or by road transport.
consequences may leave future generations worse off (i.e., not be Pareto-optimal) if costs and be... more consequences may leave future generations worse off (i.e., not be Pareto-optimal) if costs and benefits are not discounted correctly. We point out that this happens if the conventional social discount rate is applied to intergenerational costs: with that rate the justification of intergenerational costs (benefits of a project are invested and the proceeds can cover future costs) leads to an inconsistency over the long term (eventually the supposed benefits of any project become larger than the entire GNP). The conventional approach commits an error by treating the time preference component of the discount rate as if it represented creation of wealth while it really involves only redistribution. The time horizon of the redistribution is limited by the duration of market transactions, especially loans. Thus we recommend a two-step discounting procedure, with the conventional social discount rate for the short term (about 30 years) and the growth rate of the economy for the long term. Data for GNP per capita growth in the US, the UK, France, Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union since the industrial revolution, combined with data for net economic welfare per capita suggest an intergenerational discount rate in the range of 1 to 2%. For practical application the rate at which costs and benefits will grow over time is just as important as the discount rate; only the difference between these two rates matters. For many environmental costs these rates may be close to each other during the next few generations; this implies that some of the uncertainty in the prediction of rates cancels and one can treat the problem as if the effective rate were close to zero. The consequence for costs such as global warming or nuclear power can be very significant: the valuation can increase by more than an order of magnitude compared to values based on conventional discounting.
The differential equation is derived that describes the reflector of an ideal two-dimensional rad... more The differential equation is derived that describes the reflector of an ideal two-dimensional radiation concentrator with an absorber of arbitrary convex shape. For the special case of an absorber with circular cross section, the equation can be solved in closed form if suitable coordinates are used. The effect of absorption at the reflector is considered, and formulas are presented for determining the attenuation of radiation on its passage from aperture to absorber.
A simple formalism is developed for analyzing the optical performance of point focus parabolic ra... more A simple formalism is developed for analyzing the optical performance of point focus parabolic radiation concentrators. To account for off-axis aberrations of the parabola, an angular acceptance function is defined as that fraction of a beam of parallel radiation incident on the aperture that would reach the receiver if the optics were perfect. The radiation intercepted by the receiver of a real concentrator is obtained as a convolution of angular acceptance function, of optical error distribution, and of angular brightness distribution of the radiation source. For numerical calculations this method is more accurate and less time-consuming than the ray-tracing method.
Environmental health : a global access science source, 2010
Presently, health costs associated with nitrate in drinking water are uncertain and not quantifie... more Presently, health costs associated with nitrate in drinking water are uncertain and not quantified. This limits proper evaluation of current policies and measures for solving or preventing nitrate pollution of drinking water resources. The cost for society associated with nitrate is also relevant for integrated assessment of EU nitrogen policies taking a perspective of welfare optimization. The overarching question is at which nitrogen mitigation level the social cost of measures, including their consequence for availability of food and energy, matches the social benefit of these measures for human health and biodiversity. Epidemiological studies suggest colon cancer to be possibly associated with nitrate in drinking water. In this study risk increase for colon cancer is based on a case-control study for Iowa, which is extrapolated to assess the social cost for 11 EU member states by using data on cancer incidence, nitrogen leaching and drinking water supply in the EU. Health costs ...
We present an analysis of the costs of reducing CO2 emissions in the US in the near-term (the nex... more We present an analysis of the costs of reducing CO2 emissions in the US in the near-term (the next ten years), by taking a bottom-up engineering-economic approach and covering a broad spectrum of technology-based abatement measures. In this meta-study technology cost-performance data are extracted from publicly available literature and "normalized" to a standard set of economic parameters and assumptions to assure consistency. Although the normalization is most complete for electric power and vehicles, the work covers buildings and industry as well. Costs of CO2 transport and sequestration are also discussed, but we have not considered emission reductions achievable by changes in the management of forest and agricultural land. Abatement costs are calculated with respect to a baseline, for which we have chosen the EIA forecast of the Annual Energy Outlook 2005. The emissions data are expressed as equivalent CO2, including CH4 and N2O; they also include upstream emissions, e.g. for fuel production. We also estimate the potential near-term emission reductions, as well as the uncertainties in abatement cost and reduction potential. The results are used to derive a supply curve, along with confidence intervals.
c The external costs of nuclear electricity are compared with the alternatives. c Frequency and c... more c The external costs of nuclear electricity are compared with the alternatives. c Frequency and cost of nuclear accidents based on Chernobyl and Fukushima. c Detailed comparison with wind as alternative with the lowest external costs. c High external cost of wind because of natural gas backup (storage too limited). c External costs of wind higher than nuclear but uncertainty ranges overlap. a b s t r a c t Since Fukushima many are calling for a shutdown of nuclear power plants. To see whether such a shutdown would reduce the risks for health and environment, the external costs of nuclear electricity are compared with alternatives that could replace it. The frequency of catastrophic nuclear accidents is based on the historical record, about one in 25 years for the plants built to date, an order of magnitude higher than the safety goals of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Impacts similar to Chernobyl and Fukushima are assumed to estimate the cost. A detailed comparison is presented with wind as alternative with the lowest external cost. The variability of wind necessitates augmentation by other sources, primarily fossil fuels, because storage at the required scale is in most regions too expensive. The external costs of natural gas combined cycle are taken as 0.6 hcent/kWh due to health effects of air pollution and 1.25 hcent/kWh due to greenhouse gases (at 25h=t CO2eq) for the central estimate, but a wide range of different parameters is also considered, both for nuclear and for the alternatives. Although the central estimate of external costs of the wind-based alternative is higher than that of nuclear, the uncertainty ranges overlap.
Decisions with intergenerational consequences may leave future generations worse off (i.e., not b... more Decisions with intergenerational consequences may leave future generations worse off (i.e., not be Pareto optimal) if costs and benefits are not discounted correctly. We point out that this happens if the conventional social discount rate is applied to intergenerational costs: with this rate the justification of intergenerational costs (benefits of a project are invested and the proceeds can cover future costs) leads to an inconsistency over the long term (eventually the supposed benefits of any project become larger than the entire GNP). The conventional approach commits an error of double counting by treating the time preference component of the discount rate as if it represented creation of wealth while it really involves only redistribution. The time horizon of the redistribution is limited by the duration of market transactions, especially loans. Thus we recommend a two-step discounting procedure, with the conventional social discount rate for the short term (about 30 years) and the growth rate of the economy for the long term. Data for GNP per capita growth in the US, the UK, France, Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union since the industrial revolution, combined with data for net economic welfare per capita suggest an intergenerational discount rate in the range of 1 to 2%. For practical application the rate at which costs and benefits will grow over time is just as important as the discount rate; only the difference between these two rates matters. For many environmental costs these rates may be close to each other, during the next few generations; this implies that some of the uncertainty in the prediction of rates cancels and one can treat the problem as if the effective rate were close to zero. The consequence for costs such as global warming or nuclear power can be very significant: the valuation can increase by more than an order of magnitude compared to values based on conventional discounting.
Environmental health : a global access science source, 2006
Information on life expectancy change is of great concern for policy makers, as evidenced by the ... more Information on life expectancy change is of great concern for policy makers, as evidenced by the discussions of the so-called "harvesting" issue (i.e. the question being, how large a loss each death corresponds to in the mortality results of time series studies). Whereas most epidemiological studies of air pollution mortality have been formulated in terms of mortality risk, this paper shows that a formulation in terms of life expectancy change is mathematically equivalent, but offers several advantages: it automatically takes into account the constraint that everybody dies exactly once, regardless of pollution; it provides a unified framework for time series, intervention studies and cohort studies; and in time series and intervention studies, it yields the life expectancy change directly as a time integral of the observed mortality rate. Results are presented for life expectancy change in time series studies. Determination of the corresponding total number of attributable...
This paper examines the relation between the results of epidemiologic studies of air pollution mo... more This paper examines the relation between the results of epidemiologic studies of air pollution mortality and impact indicators that can be informative for environmental policy decisions. Using models that are simple and transparent, yet contain the essential features, it is shown that (1) number of deaths is not meaningful for air pollution, whereas loss of life expectancy (LLE) is an
The methodology for evaluating the impacts and damage costs ('external costs') due to pollution f... more The methodology for evaluating the impacts and damage costs ('external costs') due to pollution from waste treatment is described and the results are presented, based on the ExternE project series of the European Commission. The damage costs of landfill and incineration of municipal solid waste are compared, with due account for energy and materials recovery, as well as possible differences in transport distance. We have not been able to quantify the total damage costs of leachates because of the complexity of the environmental pathways and of the long time horizon of some persistent pollutants, but we consider an extreme scenario to show that they are not worth worrying about in the sense that reducing the pollutants in leachates beyond current regulations would bring negligible benefit in comparison with the abatement of other sources of the same pollutants. The damage costs due to the construction of the waste treatment facility are negligible. The damage costs of waste transport, which are illustrated by an arbitrary choice of a 100 km round trip by a 16 tonne truck, are also negligible. The benefits of materials recovery make a small contribution to the total damage cost. The only significant contributions come from direct emissions (of the landfill or incinerator) and from avoided emissions due to energy recovery (from an incinerator). Damage costs for incineration range from about 4 to 21 € tonne waste -1 , and they are extremely dependent on the assumed scenario for energy recovery. For landfill the cost ranges from about 10 to 13 € tonne waste -1 ; it is dominated by greenhouse gas emissions because only a fraction of the CH 4 can be captured (here assumed to be 70%). Amenity costs (odour, visual impact, noise) are highly site-specific and we only cite results from a literature survey which indicates that such costs could make a significant contribution, very roughly on the order of 1 € tonne waste -1 .
This paper offers a perspective on the health impacts of air pollution from incinerators, by maki... more This paper offers a perspective on the health impacts of air pollution from incinerators, by making a number of comparisons, in terms of emissions, concentrations, damages and damage costs. The latter are estimated by an impact pathway analysis, tracing the fate of a pollutant from source to receptors. Linearity is assumed for the increase of damages with incremental exposure. The
Since much of the emission is in the form of metallic Hg whose atmospheric residence time is long... more Since much of the emission is in the form of metallic Hg whose atmospheric residence time is long enough to cause nearly uniform mixing in the hemisphere, much of the impact is global. This article presents a first estimate of global average neurotoxic impacts and costs by defining a comprehensive transfer factor for ingestion of methyl-Hg as ratio of global average dose rate and global emission rate. For the dose-response function (DRF) we use recent estimates of IQ decrement as function of Hg concentration in blood, as well as correlations between blood concentration and Hg ingestion. The cost of an IQ point is taken as $18,000 in the United States and applied in other countries in proportion to per capita GDP, adjusted for purchase power parity. The mean estimate of the global average of the marginal damage cost per emitted kg of Hg is about $1,500/kg, if one assumes a dose threshold of 6.7 μg/day of methyl-Hg per person, and $3,400/kg without threshold. The average global lifetime impact and cost per person at current emission levels are 0.02 IQ points lost and $78 with and 0.087 IQ points and $344 without threshold. These results are global averages; for any particular source and emission site the impacts can be quite different. An assessment of the overall uncertainties indicates that the damage cost could be a factor 4 smaller or larger than the median estimate (the uncertainty distribution is approximately log normal and the ratio median/mean is approximately 0.4).
Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A, 2007
This paper offers a brief review of the need for cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and the available po... more This paper offers a brief review of the need for cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and the available policy instruments for air pollution. To prioritize different possible actions, one needs to know which source of pollution causes how much damage. This requires an impact pathway analysis, that is, an analysis of the chain emission --> dispersion --> dose-response function --> monetary valuation. The methodology for this is described and illustrated with the results of the ExternE (External Costs of Energy) project series of the European Commission. Two examples of an application to CBA are shown: one where a proposed reduction of emission limits is justified, and one where it is not. It is advisable to subject any proposed regulation to a CBA, including an analysis of the uncertainties. Even if the uncertainties are large and a policy decision may have to take other considerations into account, a well-documented CBA clarifies the issues and provides a basis for rational discussion. One of the main sources of uncertainty lies in the monetary valuation of premature mortality, the dominant contribution to the damage cost of air pollution. As an alternative, an innovative policy tool is described, the Life Quality Index (LQI), a compound indicator comprising societal wealth and life expectancy. It is applied to the Canada-wide standards for particulate matter and ozone. Regardless of monetary valuation, a 50% reduction of PM10 concentrations in Europe and North America has been shown to yield a population-average life expectancy increase on the order of 4 to 5 mo.
The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 1999
In contrast to the various "potential impact" indices that have been proposed, we show that indic... more In contrast to the various "potential impact" indices that have been proposed, we show that indices for real damage can be derived, based on the impact pathway methodology which involves the calculation of increased pollutant concentration in all affected regions due to an incremental emission (e.g. pg/m -~ of particles, using models of atmospheric dispersion and chemistry), followed by the calculation of physical impacts (e.g. number of cases of asthma due to these particles, using a concentration-response function). The numbers are summed over all receptors of concern (population, crops, buildings, ...). We show that in a uniform world (linear dose-response function, uniform receptor density and uniform atmospheric removal rate) the conservation of matter implies a very simple formula for the total damage. The generalization to secondary pollutants is straightforward. By detailed numerical evaluations, using real data for atmospheric dispersion and geographic receptor distribution, we have demonstrated that this simple formula is an excellent representation of typical damages. Results are shown for the principal air pollutants emitted by smoke stacks of industrial installations or by road transport.
consequences may leave future generations worse off (i.e., not be Pareto-optimal) if costs and be... more consequences may leave future generations worse off (i.e., not be Pareto-optimal) if costs and benefits are not discounted correctly. We point out that this happens if the conventional social discount rate is applied to intergenerational costs: with that rate the justification of intergenerational costs (benefits of a project are invested and the proceeds can cover future costs) leads to an inconsistency over the long term (eventually the supposed benefits of any project become larger than the entire GNP). The conventional approach commits an error by treating the time preference component of the discount rate as if it represented creation of wealth while it really involves only redistribution. The time horizon of the redistribution is limited by the duration of market transactions, especially loans. Thus we recommend a two-step discounting procedure, with the conventional social discount rate for the short term (about 30 years) and the growth rate of the economy for the long term. Data for GNP per capita growth in the US, the UK, France, Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union since the industrial revolution, combined with data for net economic welfare per capita suggest an intergenerational discount rate in the range of 1 to 2%. For practical application the rate at which costs and benefits will grow over time is just as important as the discount rate; only the difference between these two rates matters. For many environmental costs these rates may be close to each other during the next few generations; this implies that some of the uncertainty in the prediction of rates cancels and one can treat the problem as if the effective rate were close to zero. The consequence for costs such as global warming or nuclear power can be very significant: the valuation can increase by more than an order of magnitude compared to values based on conventional discounting.
The differential equation is derived that describes the reflector of an ideal two-dimensional rad... more The differential equation is derived that describes the reflector of an ideal two-dimensional radiation concentrator with an absorber of arbitrary convex shape. For the special case of an absorber with circular cross section, the equation can be solved in closed form if suitable coordinates are used. The effect of absorption at the reflector is considered, and formulas are presented for determining the attenuation of radiation on its passage from aperture to absorber.
A simple formalism is developed for analyzing the optical performance of point focus parabolic ra... more A simple formalism is developed for analyzing the optical performance of point focus parabolic radiation concentrators. To account for off-axis aberrations of the parabola, an angular acceptance function is defined as that fraction of a beam of parallel radiation incident on the aperture that would reach the receiver if the optics were perfect. The radiation intercepted by the receiver of a real concentrator is obtained as a convolution of angular acceptance function, of optical error distribution, and of angular brightness distribution of the radiation source. For numerical calculations this method is more accurate and less time-consuming than the ray-tracing method.
Environmental health : a global access science source, 2010
Presently, health costs associated with nitrate in drinking water are uncertain and not quantifie... more Presently, health costs associated with nitrate in drinking water are uncertain and not quantified. This limits proper evaluation of current policies and measures for solving or preventing nitrate pollution of drinking water resources. The cost for society associated with nitrate is also relevant for integrated assessment of EU nitrogen policies taking a perspective of welfare optimization. The overarching question is at which nitrogen mitigation level the social cost of measures, including their consequence for availability of food and energy, matches the social benefit of these measures for human health and biodiversity. Epidemiological studies suggest colon cancer to be possibly associated with nitrate in drinking water. In this study risk increase for colon cancer is based on a case-control study for Iowa, which is extrapolated to assess the social cost for 11 EU member states by using data on cancer incidence, nitrogen leaching and drinking water supply in the EU. Health costs ...
We present an analysis of the costs of reducing CO2 emissions in the US in the near-term (the nex... more We present an analysis of the costs of reducing CO2 emissions in the US in the near-term (the next ten years), by taking a bottom-up engineering-economic approach and covering a broad spectrum of technology-based abatement measures. In this meta-study technology cost-performance data are extracted from publicly available literature and "normalized" to a standard set of economic parameters and assumptions to assure consistency. Although the normalization is most complete for electric power and vehicles, the work covers buildings and industry as well. Costs of CO2 transport and sequestration are also discussed, but we have not considered emission reductions achievable by changes in the management of forest and agricultural land. Abatement costs are calculated with respect to a baseline, for which we have chosen the EIA forecast of the Annual Energy Outlook 2005. The emissions data are expressed as equivalent CO2, including CH4 and N2O; they also include upstream emissions, e.g. for fuel production. We also estimate the potential near-term emission reductions, as well as the uncertainties in abatement cost and reduction potential. The results are used to derive a supply curve, along with confidence intervals.
We present an analysis of the costs of reducing CO 2 emissions in the US in the near-term (the ne... more We present an analysis of the costs of reducing CO 2 emissions in the US in the near-term (the next ten years), by taking a bottom-up engineering-economic approach and covering a broad spectrum of technology-based abatement measures. Technology cost-performance data are extracted from publicly available literature and " normalized " to a standard set of economic parameters and assumptions to assure consistency. Although the normalization is most complete for electric power and vehicles, the work covers buildings and industry as well. Costs of CO 2 transport and sequestration are also discussed, but we have not considered emission reductions achievable by changes in the management of forest and agricultural land. Abatement costs are calculated with respect to a baseline, for which we have chosen the EIA forecast of the Annual Energy Outlook 2005. The emissions data are expressed as equivalent CO 2 , including CH 4 and N 2 O; they also include upstream emissions, e.g. for fuel production. We also estimate the potential near-term emission reductions, as well as the uncertainties in abatement cost and reduction potential. The results are used to derive a supply curve, along with confidence intervals. The major findings are that i) the measures we have evaluated span a wide range of abatement costs, from around-$50 to over $400 per tonne of avoided CO 2 ; ii) measures with negative cost are found especially in power generation, but also in buildings, whereas the options in the vehicle sector are much more expensive; iii) modernizing electric power generation is a win-win proposition, with by far the largest reduction potential of the options we have considered; it may even make sense to retire some of the existing plants and substitute no-or low-CO 2 emission generation.
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Papers by Ari Rabl