An integrated model for structure optimization and technology screening of urban wastewater systems

The conventional approach to wastewater system design and planning considers each component separately and does not provide the optimum performance of the entire system. However, the growing concern for environmental protection, economic efficiency, and sustainability of urban wastewater systems requires an integrated modeling of subsystems and a synthetic evaluation of multiple objectives. In this study, a multi-objective optimization model of an integrated urban wastewater system was developed. The model encompasses subsystems, such as a sewer system, stormwater management, municipal wastewater treatment, and a wastewater reclamation system. The non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) was used to generate a range of system design possibilities to optimize conflicting environmental and economic objectives. Information from a knowledge base, which included rules for generating treatment trains as well as the performance characteristics of commonly used water pollution control measures, was utilized. The trade-off relationships between the objectives, total water pollution loads to the environment, and life cycle costs (which consist of investment as well as operation and maintenance costs), can be illustrated using Pareto charts. The developed model can be used to assist decision makers in the preliminary planning of system structure. A benchmark city was constructed to illustrate the methods of multi-objective controls, highlight cost-effective water pollution control measures, and identify the main pressures on urban water environment.     

Optimal pollution in the presence of adjustment costs

This paper explores optimal pollution control when pollution is considered a stock and costs of treating pollution are a function both of the level and rate of change of pollution control. It is shown that even if the long run optimum stock of pollution is below the initial level adjustment costs may imply an optimally increasing stock of pollution in the short run. The results obtained are contrasted with those which emerge when adjustment costs are absent and when damages are taken to be a function of the flow of pollution; the appropriate tax rates of polluting discharges are examined.     

Interactive pollutants and joint abatement costs: Achieving water quality standards with effluent charges

This paper extends earlier work on the standards and prices approach to pollution control by considering simultaneously spatial considerations, interactive pollutants, and joint abatement costs. The form of environmental constraints appropriate to water pollution problems is discussed in detail and the implications for the standards and prices approach to water pollution control are assessed. The presence of interactive pollutants and joint abatement costs is shown to have important implications for both the theoretical properties and the implementation of the standards and prices approach.     

Cost sharing to induce efficient techniques of abating wastewater pollution

This paper analyzes existing cost-sharing rules for wastewater pollution grants administered by the Environmental Protection Agency under the 1972 Amendments to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. It identifies and measures biases in the existing cost-sharing rules that encourage nonfederal interests to select particular techniques (e.g., capital-intensive techniques) over others even when the selected techniques are not the least costly to the nation. The paper develops theoretically a cost-sharing condition—that the same percentage cost share be applied to all abatement techniques—that would eliminate the cost-sharing bias. Alternative cost-sharing approaches are evaluated in terms of their biasing effects and their absolute dollar costs for federal and nonfederal project participants.     

Air pollution control costs and consumption pattern effects A regional analysis

The purpose of this study was to ascertain, through the use of an input-output model, the impact of air pollution control costs on income groups in the Philadelphia Region. The range of increases in consumption expenditure was found to be fairly narrow, with the middle-income group bearing the largest increase (2.9%) and the highest and lowest groups slightly lower increases (about 2%). This finding lends support to the proposition that all income groups would probably share the costs of control equally, which leads to a slightly regressive effect on income distribution. The sharing of the region's air quality costs by other areas was also analyzed.     

Transferable discharge permits and economic efficiency: The fox river

Recent emphasis on reforms of environmental regulation has led to suggestions for strategies which maintain environmental standards but allow the needed flexibility and cost effectiveness. The transferable discharge permit (TDP) is one such strategy for water pollution control recently adopted in Wisconsin. In this article, the potential for substantial cost savings from trading TDPs is demonstrated using data on the Fox River in Wisconsin. A simulation model of water quality (Qual-III) and a linear programming model of abatement costs determine the optimum pattern of discharge. Reaching that optimum from proposed pollution abatement orders is shown to be feasible. Varying conditions of flow and temperature can be accommodated using trade coefficients which can be accurately estimated through interpolation. The calculations demonstrate the value and feasibility of flexible regulations governing water pollution abatement.     

Thin versus Thick CO2 Market

The idea that trading is more costly the thinner the market is is common in most studies of market exchange with frictions. Surprisingly, this element is lacking from previous attempts to allow for frictions in pollution permit markets. This paper considers a CO₂ cap-and-trade model where trading costs develop endogenously as a function of the market size. The pre-trade allocation of permits determines whether the market size can be strongly influenced by expectations that have a role because of adjustment costs. The pre-trade allocation also sets preconditions for endogenously vanishing trading costs and thus has nonstandard effects on long-run trading levels and market allocations.     

The optimality and feasibility of uniform air pollution controls

An optimal control problem is developed which minimizes both the social damages of pollution concentrations and the private costs of emission abatement subject to a differential equation relating emissions and concentrations. A specific use of the model is to analyze the optimality and feasibility of uniform controls on emissions and concentrations across an air shed.     

Trade''s Dynamic Solutions to Transboundary Pollution

This study develops a differential game to examine the effects of trade liberalization on transboundary water pollution. Water pollution is due to wastewater emissions from countries in a shared waterway along the U.S.–Mexico border with available data of pollution abatement costs, public health damages, and trade benefits. Noncooperative and cooperative games are examined with changes in trade policy and public health damages. Results show trade liberalization leads Mexico to curtail pollution in both games. Cooperation and trade liberalization limit emissions from both countries and curtail strategic behavior of the United States from Mexico's pollution control efforts in the noncooperative game.     

Externalities and the urban rent and population density functions: The case of air pollution

In this paper, we introduce external diseconomies into the standard model of urban land rent via the case of air pollution, exploring the implications of law making on the urban structure. Three alternative legal arrangements of air pollution damage costs are analyzed: first, the recipient bears the cost; second, the producer bears the cost; and third, the compulsory use of emission control systems in the car.     

An anatomy of a groundwater contamination episode

Using the contamination episode at Price Landfill, New Jersey, as a case study, major analytical and informational issues characterizing groundwater pollution, with special emphasis on uncertainty associated with the environmental medium, especially solute-transport processes, and the valuation of health risks, principally dose-response relationships, are addressed. Alternative approaches to modeling the physical-chemical processes are described and subsequently coupled with mortality risk predictions to derive estimates of expected pollution costs: reduced longevity (pollution damage costs) and cost of control and remedial measures (damage reduction costs).     

Plant vintage, technology, and environmental regulation

We use data on productivity and pollution abatement costs at individual pulp and paper mills to test whether the impact of environmental regulation on productivity differs by plant vintage and technology. Plants with higher pollution abatement costs have significantly lower productivity levels. This relationship differs greatly based on a plant's technology, with productivity at integrated mills being greatly affected by abatement costs, while the impact at non-integrated mills is negligible. Plant vintage does not seem to matter, with older and newer plants showing similar impacts. Reported abatement costs appear to substantially understate the true costs of abatement. Accounting for the impact of technology differences makes some difference in the estimated overall impact of environmental regulation.     

Pollution Taxes and Pollution Abatement in an Oligopoly Supergame

This paper investigates the effects of an emissions tax on the incentives for oligopolists to acquire alternative pollution abatement technologies. The analysis is conducted in terms of a repeated game and it is demonstrated that there are circumstances in which the firms may reject the option of acquiring the pollution abatement equipment, even when this lowers their production costs.     

Carbon trading across sources and periods constrained by the Marrakesh Accords

We examine the potential effects on permit prices and abatement costs of four compliance rules governing emissions trade across sources and periods in the Kyoto Protocol: The banking rule that allows excess permits to be used later; the restoration rate rule that penalizes borrowing; the commitment period reserve rule that limits sales; and finally, the suspension rule that restricts borrowing and sales. Our framework is a two-period model where parties may be out of compliance in the Kyoto period, but are assumed to comply at a later time. Under varying assumptions about market power and US participation, we find that the rules may have pronounced effects on individual costs, but overall efficiency is not severely affected.     

Enforcement costs and the incentive to evade controls on production

Economists have long favored emission taxes as a method of controlling pollution. One reason for the widespread support of emission taxes has been the assumption that emission taxes would be easier to enforce than other policies. However, recent developments in the discussion of pollution control allow more specific comparisons of enforcement costs and yield the conclusion that there may exist at least one alternate regulatory scheme that would be easier to enforce than emission taxes.     

固体废弃物渗滤液组分动态变化预测

渗滤液(Leachate)是城市固体废物填埋场(MSWLF)污染环境的主要来源之一，因此掌握其水质变化规律是研究填埋场对环境污染的首要问题。渗滤液的主要来源是大气降水，使用垃圾淋滤的方法模拟大气降水，利用实验结果建立模拟模型，揭示了渗滤液组分随降水的变化规律。可以预测垃圾填埋后渗滤液污染组分的浓度变化。为研究填埋场渗滤液组分变化及确定其处理对策提供了理论依据。     

Cost-sharing approach for air quality control implementation A case study

The objective of the study was to investigate and develop new alternative approaches to effectively meeting the federal SOx and particulate ambient air quality standards at cost savings. Since air pollution control costs would very likely be passed along to the consumer, it is in the best interests of the consumer and industry to find the least-cost alternative policies. Cost-sharing possesses advantages not shared by other control schemes, such as emissions taxes, auctioning of “pollution certificates,” or other methods. The results of this paper indicate that the cost-sharing approach is useful for particulates control in order to minimize the burden of plants already performing substantial control who may require significant added capital investment beyond their initial amount. For SO_ξ emissions control the cost-sharing analysis calculations show significant savings in nearly all situations, whether or not stack gas treatment methods were assumed available. Furthermore, the cost-sharing approach may allow further savings when the particular cost requirements of an individual firm differ substantially from the average engineering cost estimates. A cost-sharing option should thus be included in implementation plans as an option to be used by industries at their own initiative. The spatial characteristics of emissions resulting from a particular application of the cost-sharing approach are considered. A spatial airshed emissions allocation model is discussed as a useful method of evaluating cost sharing.     

A decision framework for estimating the cost of marine plastic pollution interventions

Marine plastic pollution has emerged as one of the most pressing environmental challenges of our time. Although there has been a surge in global investment for implementing interventions to mitigate plastic pollution, there has been little attention given to the cost of these interventions. We developed a decision support framework to identify the economic, social, and ecological costs and benefits of plastic pollution interventions for different sectors and stakeholders. We calculated net cost as a function of six cost and benefit categories with the following equation: cost of implementing an intervention (direct, indirect, and nonmonetary costs) minus recovered costs and benefits (monetary and nonmonetary) produced by the interventions. We applied our framework to two quantitative case studies (a solid waste management plan and a trash interceptor) and four comparative case studies, evaluating the costs of beach cleanups and waste-to-energy plants in various contexts, to identify factors that influence the costs of plastic pollution interventions. The socioeconomic context of implementation, the spatial scale of implementation, and the time scale of evaluation all influence costs and the distribution of costs across stakeholders. Our framework provides an approach to estimate and compare the costs of a range of interventions across sociopolitical and economic contexts.     

The optimal pricing of pollution when enforcement is costly

We consider the pricing of a uniformly mixed pollutant with a model of optimal, possibly firm-specific, emissions taxes and their enforcement under incomplete information about firms’ abatement costs, enforcement costs, and pollution damage. We argue that optimality requires an enforcement strategy that induces full compliance by every firm, except possibly when a regulator can base the probabilities of detecting individual violations on observable correlates of violators’ actual emissions. Moreover, optimality requires discriminatory taxes, except when a regulator is unable to use observable firm-level characteristics to gain some information about the variation in firms’ abatement costs or monitoring costs.     

Estimation of the cost of air pollution control regulation

Estimates of hydrocarbon pollution control costs under the alternative regulatory approaches of individual source or process standards, plant standards, and regionally marketable permits are presented. The estimates are obtained from data supplied by the DuPont Company based on a 1976 in-house engineering study. The estimation procedure is unique in that the data are based on uniform percentage control across sources while the estimated cost equations allow variable control at each source. The cost simulations show that considerable cost savings are available from allowing firms more flexibility in meeting a given environmental standard. The effect of plant relocation and monopoly in the pollution permit market are also investigated.