The Strategy of the Commons: Modelling the Annual Cost of Successful ICT Services for European Research

The provision of ICT services for research is increasingly using Cloud services to complement the traditional federation of computing centres. Due to the complex funding structure and differences in the basic business model, comparing the cost-effectiveness of these options requires a new approach to cost assessment. This paper presents a cost assessment method addressing the limitations of the standard methods and some of the initial results of the study. This acts as an illustration of the kind of cost assessment issues high-utilisation rate ICT services should consider when choosing between different infrastructure options. The research is co-funded by the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme through the e-FISCAL project (contract number RI-283449)

Benefit-Cost Assessment of the Port Mackenzie Rail Extension

Costs We assume that the Port MacKenzie rail extension would cost $275 million to construct.1 This is a conservative estimate based on a range of between$200 million and 300 million for different route options. The time horizon runs 50 years from 2012 to 2061. O&M costs are assumed to be 1.5 million per year, with a net present value of $26.1 million. The net present value of all costs using a 5$301.1 million. Benefits The rail extension would provide two distinct types of benefits: 1) It reduces the cost of rail transportation; and 2) It is likely to stimulate significant new mines and other major development. These benefits come from a diverse mix of potential projects – thus a strength of the rail extension is that its economic viability does not depend on any one project. Reduced transportation costs Relative to Seward, using the extension would save 140.7 miles per one-way trip.3 Assuming an average cost savings of 6 cents per ton-mile and a 5.0% real discount rate, we estimate that using the extension would save $572 million in avoided rail costs, avoided port costs, and avoided railroad and road upgrades. These savings are shown in the table and figure on the following page. In addition to the above, we estimate that about 22,000 train crossings of Pittman Road and other roads would be avoided by the extension, saving motorists up to 64,000 vehicle-hours of travel time delay between now and 2061.Matanuska- Susitna BoroughExecutive Summary / Introduction / Benefits from Reduced Transportation Costs / Fiscal benefits to State of Alaska / Community and Regional Economic Impacts / Reference

Risk and Cost Assessment of Nitrate Contamination in Domestic Wells

This study combines empirical predictive and economics models to estimate the cost of remediation for domestic wells exceeding suggested treatment thresholds for nitrates. A multiple logistic regression model predicted the probability of well contamination by nitrate, and a life cycle costing methodology was used to estimate costs of nitrate contamination in groundwater in two areas of Nebraska. In south-central Nebraska, 37% of wells were estimated to be at risk of exceeding a threshold of 7.5 mg/L as N, and 17% were at risk of exceeding 10 mg/L as N, the legal limit for human consumption in the United States. In an area in northeastern Nebraska, 82% of wells were at risk of exceeding the 10 mg/L as N legal threshold. Reverse osmosis Point-of-Use (POU) treatment was the option with the lowest costs for a household (3–4 individuals), with an average of $4–$164 total regional cost per household per year depending on the threshold for treatment. Ion exchange and distillation were the next most cost-effective options. At the community level (~10,000 individuals), a reverse osmosis Point-of-Entry (POE) treatment system was the most expensive option for a community due to high initial costs and ongoing operation and maintenance costs, whereas the biological denitrification system was least expensive due to economies of scale. This study demonstrates integrated modeling methods to assess water treatment costs over time associated with groundwater nitrate contamination, including quantification of at-risk wells, and identifies suitable options for treatment systems for rural households and communities based on their cost

Advanced solar concentrator mass production, operation, and maintenance cost assessment

The object of this assessment was to estimate the costs of the preliminary design at: production rates of 100 to 1,000,000 concentrators per year; concentrators per aperture diameters of 5, 10, 11, and 15 meters; and various receiver/power conversion package weights. The design of the cellular glass substrate Advanced Solar Concentrator is presented. The concentrator is an 11 meter diameter, two axis tracking, parabolic dish solar concentrator. The reflective surface of this design consists of inner and outer groups of mirror glass/cellular glass gores

Direct pollution cost assessment of cruising tourism in the Croatian Adriatic

Cruise tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors of the tourism industry and one that has significant environmental, economic and social impacts on target destinations. Yet, tourism decision makers, developers and managers rarely incorporate or estimate environmental impacts in their tourism development planning. Indeed, the analysis of the resulting resource exploitation is rarely undertaken until carrying capacity is breached and attractiveness diminished. In this article an assessment is offered that determines, quantifies and financially estimates emissions and waste streams so they can be compared with the direct income generated to the local economy by cruising tourism. It is applied to the Croatian part of the Adriatic and financially evaluates environmental impacts, arguing that they are negative externalities due to inappropriate internalization and management. The purpose of the assessment is to give a “snapshot” of the situation, and also to create the groundwork for a model that will assist decision makers and stakeholders, at different levels and of different interests, to prevent and reduce the ecological, health and economic risks associated with dead-end tourism development.valuation of environmental effects, environment and development, tourism, pollution control adoption costs, externalities

MISTRAL

This report outlines the MISTRAL model (Administrative Compliance Cost Assessment Tool), by emphasising the issues of when a model may be applied, why it will be applied, how the model works and why the model should be used. The report concludes by narrating several results obtained on the basis of MISTRAL.

Exergy Cost Assessment in Global Mining

El desarrollo económico, social y tecnológico de la sociedad actual está fuertemente ligado a la extracción de recursos minerales. Una sociedad en constante crecimiento que consume estos recursos rápida e ilimitadamente. El continuo incremento de la demanda mundial de recursos minerales se debe en gran medida al crecimiento económico de China y otros países asiáticos, que demandan una gran cantidad de materias primas en los sectores de la construcción, la infraestructura y la manufactura. El agotamiento de los recursos naturales no renovables es la consecuencia de este progreso y constituye el mayor reto al que se enfrentará la industria minera. De ahí que la disponibilidad futura de los recursos minerales está adquiriendo importancia en los planes estratégicos de los gobiernos. Una vez que los minerales han sido extraídos, una serie de procesos que consumen grandes cantidades de energía son necesarios para producir materias primas utilizables. El requerimiento energético de la extracción de minerales y en su posterior procesamiento depende principalmente de la calidad y composición del mineral. Considerando la disminución en la ley mineral a nivel global, los consumos energéticos y los impactos ambientales se han venido incrementando continuamente. Adicionalmente, es necesario procesar más material para obtener una cantidad equivalente de metal. En este sentido, uno de los factores críticos que la industria minera tendrá que afrontar será la disponibilidad de energía para la extracción y el procesamiento de los minerales. Por lo anterior, es de suma importancia analizar y entender los procesos de la industria minera para determinar las posibles mejoras cuando se tiene en cuenta el factor de escasez de las materias primas. La primera actividad puede realizarse a través de un enfoque termoeconómico. La Termoeconomía ha sido utilizada tradicionalmente para la optimización de plantas termoeléctricas haciendo uso de la exergía como unidad de medida. En esta tesis doctoral, el análisis termoeconómico es adaptado y modificado, teniendo en cuenta la complejidad de los procesos mineros y metalúrgicos, en los cuales se presentan flujos de materias primas y energía. Cuando se considera el factor de escasez de los recursos minerales en este tipo de análisis, es necesario incluir una variable adicional. Esto se lleva a cabo a través del enfoque Exergoecológico propuesto por Valero et al. (2003). Conceptualmente, el metódo Exergoecológico permite realizar una evaluación de los recursos minerales utilizando los costos exergéticos de reposición, los cuales representan la exergía requerida para restituir los minerales que han sido totalmente dispersados en la corteza terrestre una vez que su vida útil ha terminado, al estado inicial de composición y concentración en el que se encuentran en las minas. De ahí que esta tesis tiene como objetivo principal adaptar y aplicar metodologías termoeconómicas que permitan realizar un Análisis de Ciclo de Vida absoluto de los recursos minerales: un análisis convencional de la “cuna” a la puerta de entrada (producción de las materias primas refinadas) y un análisis adicional de la “tumba” a la “cuna”, en el cual se cuantifique el factor de escasez de los minerales. El análisis exergético de los recursos minerales y los procesos metalúrgicos de la industria de la minería realizados en esta tesis, requirió el establecimiento de una serie de objetivos. El primero de ellos fue realizar un estudio detallado de las tecnologías y los consumos energéticos asociados a la industria minera y metalúrgica. Un segundo objetivo fue analizar la influencia del aprendizaje tecnológico y la disminución de la ley mineral en la disponibilidad de los recursos minerales, con el objetivo de conocer si la adquisición de experiencia a través del tiempo, ha sido capaz de evitar el aumento en la demanda de energía que presentan los procesos extractivos y de metalurgia. Los resultados obtenidos de las dos actividades anteriores, permitieron una importante mejora del método Exergoecológico: los costos exergéticos de reposición que tradicionalmente habían sido evaluados de manera estática, pudieron ser actualizados considerando la tendencia del decremento de la ley mineral. Una mejora adicional presentada en esta tesis fue resolver el problema de asignación de costos entre productos, subproductos y residuos que comúnmente aparecen en la industria minera y metalúrgica. Considerando los nuevos costos exergéticos de reposición obtenidos, se propuso un nuevo procedimiento de asignación de costos que será utilizado en el análisis termoeconómico aplicado a los procesos mineros y metalúrgicos. Otro objetivo de esta tesis, consistió en la integración del análisis termoeconómico realizado a través del Costo Termoecológico desarrollado por el grupo del ITC de la Silesian University of Technology, para combinar las ventajas de ambos enfoques para el análisis de la industria minera. Finalmente, cada objetivo descrito anteriormente fue aplicado a diferentes casos de estudio

Reducing GHG Emissions by Abandoning Agricultural Land use on Organic Soils - A Cost Assessment

Roughly 6.5% of the German utilized agricultural area is located on organic soils (fens and bogs). Nevertheless, the drainage of these areas in order to allow their agricultural utilization causes roughly a third of the greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) of the German agricultural sector, being equivalent to 4% of the total German GHG emissions. Obviously, German policies trying to reduce the GHG emissions successfully must tackle this issue. The abandonment of the cultivation of organic soils would be an effective policy to reduce the GHG emissions however the question remains whether it is an efficient measure compared with the other options? In the paper we assess the mitigation costs on the basis of the standard gross margin and tenure of the agriculturally used peatlands and with the results obtained from sector model RAUMIS. Without engineering and transaction costs the mitigation costs are in the magnitude of 10 to 45 € per to of CO2eq. This makes rewetting of peatlands at least in the medium and long run a fairly efficient options for reducing GHG emissions, especially as the implications on the sector due to reallocation affects are fairly small.GHG-Mitigation, Landuse, peatland, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use,

Mapping as risk and cost assessment methodology

Transformers are key assets in a power plant. This article explores the use of mapping transformer populations to quantify the operational and economic costs due to various risk factors, including design, external, and accelerated aging risks. Generation, start-up, and auxiliary transformers are typically designed for specific functions within an operating block in a power plant. The planning, manufacturing, and installation of custom-designed power transformers can take many years to complete. Once in operation, the premature failure of these critical assets before their expected End of Life (EOL) can be devastating to the electric utility or industrial company owner. The mapping process aids in the proactive identification of those transformers that may create the most economical and performance risk. The process helps to identify remediation, conservation, and conditioning actions that ensure that these critical assets function throughout their planned lifetime

Comparative cost assessment of planetary missions

A study to explore the cost differences resulting from implementing a series of representative solar system exploration missions in either ballistic or low-thrust flight modes is presented. Cost comparisons of missions using a solar electric propulsion delivery systems with ballistic equivalent mission designs were made. The mission set, cost elements, and delivery modes are detailed. Objectives for each of the six mission sets including two asteroid missions, a comet mission, a Mercury mission, and two outer planet missions are given