scholarly journals Cost/Performance Tradeoffs for Reflectors Used in Solar Concentrating Dish Systems

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles E. Andraka
Keyword(s):  
Low Cost ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Thermodynamic Cycle ◽  
Heat Absorber ◽  
Receiver System ◽  
Parabolic Dish ◽  
Slope Error ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Normally Distributed

Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) dish systems use a parabolic dish to concentrate sunlight, providing heat for a thermodynamic cycle to generate shaft power and ultimately, electricity. Currently, leading contenders use a Stirling cycle engine with a heat absorber surface at about 800°C. The concentrated light passes through an aperture, which controls the thermal losses of the receiver system. Similar systems may use the concentrated light to heat a thermochemical process. The concentrator system, typically steel and glass, provides a source of fuel over the service life of the system, but this source of fuel manifests as a capital cost up front. Therefore, it is imperative that the cost of the reflector assembly is minimized. However, dish systems typically concentrate light to a peak of as much as 13,000 suns, with an average geometric concentration ratio of over 3000 suns. Several recent dish-Stirling systems have incorporated reflector facets with a normally-distributed surface slope error (local distributed waviness) of 0.8 mrad RMS (1-sigma error). As systems move toward commercialization, the cost of these highly accurate facets must be assessed. However, when considering lower-cost options, any decrease in the performance of the facets must be considered in the evaluation of such facets. In this paper, I investigate the impact of randomly-distributed slope errors on the performance, and therefore the value, of a typical dish-Stirling system. There are many potential sources of error in a concentrating system. When considering facet options, the surface waviness, characterized as a normally-distributed slope error, has the greatest impact on the aperture size and therefore the thermal losses. I develop an optical model and a thermal model for the performance of a baseline system. I then analyze the impact on system performance for a range of mirror quality, and evaluate the impact of such performance changes on the economic value of the system. This approach can be used to guide the evaluation of low-cost facets that differ in performance and cost. The methodology and results are applicable to other point- and line-focus thermal systems including dish-Brayton, dish-Thermochemical, tower systems, and troughs.

scholarly journals Modelling key market impacts and land allocation for biofuel production and forestry

2006 ◽  
Vol 2006 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
A. Korobeinikov ◽  
P. Read ◽  
A. Parshotam ◽  
J. Lermit
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Wood Products ◽  
Biofuel Production ◽  
Fuel Wood ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Levels ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Impact

It has been suggested that the large scale use of biofuel, that is, fuel derived from biological materials, especially in combination with reforestation of large areas, can lead to a low-cost reduction of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. In this paper, a model of three markets: fuel, wood products, and land are considered with the aim of evaluating the impact of large scale biofuel production and forestry on these markets, and to estimate the cost of a policy aimed at the reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is shown that the costs are lower than had been previously expected.

scholarly journals The economics of altruistic punishment and the maintenance of cooperation

2008 ◽  
Vol 275 (1637) ◽  
pp. 871-878 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martijn Egas ◽  
Arno Riedl
Keyword(s):  
Impact Analysis ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Threshold Level ◽  
Altruistic Punishment ◽  
Cost Impact ◽  
The Social ◽  
Subject Pool ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cognitive Cost

Explaining the evolution and maintenance of cooperation among unrelated individuals is one of the fundamental problems in biology and the social sciences. Recent findings suggest that altruistic punishment is an important mechanism maintaining cooperation among humans. We experimentally explore the boundaries of altruistic punishment to maintain cooperation by varying both the cost and the impact of punishment, using an exceptionally extensive subject pool. Our results show that cooperation is only maintained if conditions for altruistic punishment are relatively favourable: low cost for the punisher and high impact on the punished. Our results indicate that punishment is strongly governed by its cost-to-impact ratio and that its effect on cooperation can be pinned down to one single variable: the threshold level of free-riding that goes unpunished. Additionally, actual pay-offs are the lowest when altruistic punishment maintains cooperation, because the pay-off destroyed through punishment exceeds the gains from increased cooperation. Our results are consistent with the interpretation that punishment decisions come from an amalgam of emotional response and cognitive cost–impact analysis and suggest that altruistic punishment alone can hardly maintain cooperation under multi-level natural selection. Uncovering the workings of altruistic punishment as has been done here is important because it helps predicting under which conditions altruistic punishment is expected to maintain cooperation.

What value do mangroves have in reducing the cost of storm surges?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Thomas ◽  
Siddharth Narayan ◽  
Joss Matthewman ◽  
Christine Shepard ◽  
Laura Geselbracht ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Storm Surge ◽  
Insurance Industry ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Storm Surges ◽  
Coastal Flooding ◽  
Economic Losses ◽  
Modelling Framework ◽  
Catastrophe Modelling ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Impact

<p>With coastlines becoming increasingly urbanised worldwide, the economic risk posed by storm surges to coastal communities has never been greater. Given the financial and ecological costs of manmade coastal defences, the past few years have seen growing interest in the effectiveness of natural coastal “defences” in reducing the risk of flooding to coastal properties, but estimating their actual economic value in reducing storm surge risk remains a challenging subject.</p><p>In this study, we estimate the value of mangroves in reducing annual losses to property from storm surges along a large stretch of coastline in Florida (USA), by employing a catastrophe modelling approach widely used in the insurance industry. We use a hydrodynamic coastal flood model coupled to a property loss model and a large property exposure dataset to estimate annual economic losses from hurricane-driven storm surges in Collier County, a hurricane-prone part of Florida. We then estimate the impact that removing mangroves in the region would have on average annual losses (AAL) caused by coastal flooding. We find that mangroves reduce AAL to properties behind them by over 25%, and that these benefits are distributed very heterogeneously along the coastline. Mangrove presence can also act to enhance the storm surge risk in areas where development has occurred seaward of mangroves.</p><p>In addition to looking at annual losses, we also focus on the storm surge caused by a specific severe event in Florida, based on Hurricane Irma (2017), and we estimate that existing mangroves reduced economic property damage by hundreds of millions of USD, and reduced coastal flooding for hundreds of thousands of people.</p><p>Together these studies aim to financially quantify some of the risk reduction services provided by natural defences in terms of reducing the cost of coastal flooding, and show that these services can be included in a catastrophe modelling framework commonly used in the insurance industry.</p>

scholarly journals Economics of an Additive Manufactured Heat Exchanger for Concentrating Solar Power

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracey Ziev ◽  
Erfan Rasouli ◽  
Ines Noelly-Tano ◽  
Ziheng Wu ◽  
Srujana Yarasi Rao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Efficiency ◽  
Solar Power ◽  
Cost Model ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Concentrated Solar Power ◽  
Future Technologies ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Alternative Current ◽  
The Impact

Developing low cost, high efficiency heat exchangers (HX) for application in concentrated solar power (CSP) is critical to reducing CSP costs. However, the extreme operating conditions in CSP systems present a challenge for typical high efficiency HX manufacturing processes. We describe a process-based cost model (PBCM) to estimate the cost of fabricating an HX for this application using additive manufacturing (AM). The PBCM is designed to assess the effectiveness of different designs, processes choices, and manufacturing innovations to reduce HX cost. We describe HX design and AM process modifications that reduce HX cost from a baseline of$780/kW-thto$570/kW-th. We further evaluate the impact of alternative current and potential future technologies on HX cost, and identify a pathway to further reduce HX cost to$270/kW-th.

scholarly journals Incorporating Pharmacometrics into Pharmacoeconomic Models: Applications from Drug Development

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (10) ◽  
pp. 1031-1042 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meenakshi Srinivasan ◽  
Annesha White ◽  
Ayyappa Chaturvedula ◽  
Valvanera Vozmediano ◽  
Stephan Schmidt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cost Effectiveness ◽  
Drug Development ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
New Drugs ◽  
Specific Patient ◽  
Dose Concentration ◽  
Mechanistic Basis ◽  
Pricing And Reimbursement ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Pharmacometrics is the science of quantifying the relationship between the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of drugs in combination with disease models and trial information to aid in drug development and dosing optimization for clinical practice. Considering the variability in the dose–concentration–effect relationship of drugs, an opportunity exists in linking pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic model-based estimates with pharmacoeconomic models. This link may provide early estimates of the cost effectiveness of drug therapies, thus informing late-stage drug development, pricing, and reimbursement decisions. Published case studies have demonstrated how integrated pharmacokinetic–pharmacodynamic–pharmacoeconomic models can complement traditional pharmacoeconomic analyses by identifying the impact of specific patient sub-groups, dose, dosing schedules, and adherence on the cost effectiveness of drugs, thus providing a mechanistic basis to predict the economic value of new drugs. Greater collaboration between the pharmacoeconomics and pharmacometrics community can enable methodological improvements in pharmacokinetic–pharmacodynamic–pharmacoeconomic models to support drug development.

scholarly journals Analysis of Stress Characteristics and the Engineering Application of the Self-Balancing Retaining Wall

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fei Gan ◽  
XiaoMing Ye ◽  
Ke Yin ◽  
Meilin Li ◽  
Jing Bi
Keyword(s):  
Low Cost ◽  
Retaining Wall ◽  
Economic Effect ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Engineering Application ◽  
Calculation Model ◽  
The Self ◽  
New Type ◽  
Scope Of Application ◽  
The Cost

A new type of retaining wall, the self-balance retaining wall, is introduced in this paper. Based on the stress analysis, the calculation model and method are advanced about the retaining wall. A comparative analysis related to traditional retaining wall is carried out on stress and cost combining with an actual project. The results show that the idea of using upper gravity retaining wall as the resistance of lower retaining wall is clever and reasonable that the self-balance retaining wall has a very wide scope of application relying on the anchor tensile conditions rarely and that the self-balance retaining wall has a great economic value with low cost. The cost of the self-balance retaining wall is 50% compared with the cantilever pile retaining wall under the same conditions which has a good economic effect and application prospect.

scholarly journals Numerical Analysis and Fabrication of Battery Holder for Two Wheelers

2020 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
pp. 114-131
Author(s):  
K. N Chethan ◽  
V Sabarinathan ◽  
R Vivek Ram ◽  
G. T Mahesh
Keyword(s):  
Injection Moulding ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Flow Analysis ◽  
Nylon 6 ◽  
Nylon 66 ◽  
Weather Resistance ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Two Wheeler ◽  
The Impact

The high-performance plastics usage is increasing in the automobile field because of its advantages over other metals and alloys. Corrosion resistance, light weight, low cost, flexibility in design are the major advantages of plastics above the conventional metallic materials. In this paper a metal version component converted into plastic version in order to increase efficiency, reduce the overall cost of a two-wheeler and to improve the production rate of component. Different types of material such as PP + 15% TALC, PP + 30% GF, PP + 30% TALC, Nylon 6 + 15% GF, Nylon 66 UF, Nylon 6 UF, Nylon 66 + 30% GF, ASA LI941 and ASA LI913 tested for 10,000km road test, vibration test and fitment test. An injection moulding used to produce the component and ‘Mouldx3D’ software was used for mould flow analysis and other simulation. The different parts of injection moulding tool made up of C45, P20 and D2 materials. Among different materials, ASA LI913 was selected since it has better weather resistance than others and the impact strength matched to metal version component. Finally, it was found that the cost of the component made of Plastic considerably less than same component made of metal.

scholarly journals Techno-economic analysis for manufacturing cross-laminated timber

BioResources ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 7790-7804
Author(s):  
Kristin Brandt ◽  
Alex Wilson ◽  
Donald Bender ◽  
James D. Dolan ◽  
Michael P. Wolcott
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Embodied Energy ◽  
Sensitivity Analyses ◽  
Selling Price ◽  
Energy Prices ◽  
Cross Laminated Timber ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Impact

Cross-laminated timber (CLT) is a bio-based building material that enables rapid construction and buildings with low embodied energy. Despite its comparative maturity in European markets, relatively little information regarding process design and economics for the manufacture of cross-laminated timber is available in the literature. Two techno-economic analyses were conducted to quantify the mill-gate cost of cross-laminated timber. The cross-laminated timber manufacturing process was described, and costs were analyzed for two facility scales. Cross-laminated timber produced at the large-scale facility using lumber priced at an average value for the northwest United States has a minimum selling price of $536/m3. Sensitivity analyses were used to define the impact of plant size, asset utilization, lumber price, plant capital cost, material waste, and other variables on minimum selling price. The cost of cross laminated timber rises quickly when a facility is not fully utilized. The second-ranking cost controlling variable is lumber price, while energy prices have minimal influence. The price of cross laminated timber can be optimized by locating a facility near low-cost lumber. The lowest-price region analyzed was the southeast United States using Southern Pine, which reduced the cost of cross laminated timber to $518/m3.

scholarly journals Impact of learning through credit and value creation on the efficiency of Japanese commercial banks

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Aduba ◽  
Hiroshi Izawa
Keyword(s):  
Learning Curve ◽  
Value Creation ◽  
Commercial Banks ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Learning By Doing ◽  
Efficiency Gain ◽  
Dynamic Learning ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Practical Implications

AbstractThis study investigates the learning curve of commercial banks regarding the efficiency of credit and value creation. However, current empirical methods for accessing the learning curve in organizations are not suitable for use in financial institutions. Considering bank-specific characteristics, we introduce a dynamic learning curve using a cost function adjusted to capture learning-by-doing in banks. Using the model, we test several hypotheses on the impact of bank intermediary experience (learning) on the efficiency of credit and value creation in Japanese commercial banks. The findings show that bank intermediary learning significantly improves the cost efficiency gain in the gross value created, total credit created, and investment. However, bank intermediary experience has no significant effect on the efficiency of the economic value created for all the banks analyzed. These findings have practical implications for evaluating cost dynamics in bank credit and value creation, risk management, lending to the real sector, and shareholder value creation.

scholarly journals Phosphorus recovery by struvite precipitation: a review of the impact of calcium on struvite quality

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isaac Enyemadze ◽  
Francis W. Y. Momade ◽  
Sampson Oduro-Kwarteng ◽  
Helen Essandoh
Keyword(s):  
Crystal Size ◽  
Review Paper ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Phosphorus Recovery ◽  
Struvite Precipitation ◽  
Size And Morphology ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Significant Concentration

Abstract Precipitation of phosphorus (P) as a struvite product from wastewater and local magnesium (Mg) sources is considered as a high economical prudent venture, as it has shown to bring down the cost of producing the product. However, there is a significant concentration of calcium (Ca) in these Mg and most wastewater sources. The presence of Ca in wastewater and Mg sources during struvite precipitation has been shown to negatively affect the quality of the struvite produced. The low struvite quality greatly impedes its use as a fertiliser given the economic value of the product as an alternative P fertiliser. This review paper provides an understanding of how the presence of Ca affects the purity, crystal size, and morphology of the struvite. Different methods that have been used to mitigate the effect of Ca on struvite quality have been reviewed. The factors that affect the recovery of P and the percentage recoveries of P by different Mg sources have also been reviewed. This paper serves as a basis for further research where the possibility of removing Ca from wastewater and Mg sources is explored. When Ca is removed before struvite precipitation is carried out, the quality of the product will be greatly improved.

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