Potential impacts of 316(b) regulatory controls: on economics,electricity reliability,and the environment

Nearly half of the utility-owned steam electric generating capacity in the United States is cooled by once-through cooling systems. These plants withdraw cooling water primarily from surface water bodies. Section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act requires that the location, design, construction, and capacity of cooling water intake structures reflect the best technology available (BTA) for minimizing adverse environmental impacts. At present, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not yet promulgated implementing regulations governing intake structures; however, the agency is required by a Consent Decree to develop such regulations. EPA has introduced several draft tiered regulatory framework approaches that, depending on site-specific factors, may impose various regulatory burdens on affected utilities. Potential new requirements could range from compiling and submitting existing data to demonstrate that existing conditions at each unit represent BTA to retrofitting plants with closed-cycle cooling systems (primarily cooling towers). If the final regulations require installation of cooling towers or implementation of other costly plant modifications, utilities may elect to close some generating units rather than invest the funds necessary to upgrade them to meet the Section 316(b) requirements. Potentially, some regions of the country may then have a higher proportion of closed units than others. This may raise concerns over the reliability of electricity supply in those regions. If a significant number of plants are converted from once-through cooling systems to cooling towers, the environment will face secondary adverse impacts, such as additional fuel usage, air emissions, and water evaporation, and utilities will need to construct additional generating capacity. This paper describes a study that Argonne National Laboratory had proposed to conduct for the US Department of Energy to explore some of the potential outcomes of EPA’s Section 316(b) regulatory process and associated effects on economics, electricity supply reliability, and the environment.     

Fish protection technologies: a status report

Section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act has required that “best technology available” (BTA) be used to minimize adverse environmental impacts resulting from operation of the cooling water intake structure (CWIS). The primary effects of CWIS operations are the entrainment of small aquatic organisms through the cooling water system and the impingement of larger life stages on traveling water screens. Extensive research has been conducted since the early 1970s in attempts to develop technologies that will minimize entrainment and impingement. As a result, a suite of technologies is available that can be considered for application as the BTA at the CWIS. Available technologies include fish collection systems, fish diversion systems, physical barriers and behavioral barriers. The ability of a given technology to meet BTA requirements is influenced by a wide variety of biological, environmental and engineering factors that must be evaluated on a site-specific basis. The status of systems and devices in each category of fish protection alternatives is presented.     

美国水环境质量基准体系

美国依据《清洁水法》建立了一套较完善的水环境质量基准体系,并开展了水生生物基准、人体健康基准、营养物基准、沉积物质量基准、细菌基准、生物学基准、野生生物基准和物理基准等方面的研究. 在重点分析美国水环境质量基准体系、基准制定方法和研究进展的基础上,提出了我国开展水环境质量基准研究的建议,即提高对我国开展水环境质量基准研究的迫切性和重要性的认识,并根据我国的实际情况,建立一套适合我国国情的水环境基准体系和基准制订工作指南,同时做好国外水环境质量基准的采用与验证工作.      

Negotiated environmental and occupational health and safety agreements in the United States: lessons for policy

The interest in so-called voluntary approaches to supplement or replace formal environmental, or occupational health and safety regulation has taken on new importance in both Europe and the United States. These approaches fall into two sharp divisions: (1) industry-initiated codes of good practice focusing on environmental management systems or performance goals, and (2) negotiated agreements between government and individual firms or industry sector trade associations focusing on regulation or compliance. This paper addresses the latter.In the United States, the motivations behind negotiated agreements are manifold and sometimes contradictory including desires (1) to facilitate the achievement of legislated or mandatory environmental goals by introducing flexibility and cost-effective compliance measures, (2) to negotiate levels of compliance (standards) fulfilling legislative mandates, (3) to negotiate legal definitions of Best Available Technology and other technology-based requirements, and (4) to weaken environmental initiatives. Efforts in furtherance of negotiated agreements have thus been greeted with mixed results by the various stakeholders. In the context of an anti-regulatory climate in the United States, the Administrative Procedures Act has been amended to allow “negotiated rulemaking” in achieving regulatory agency mandates. However, even before this legal innovation, regulatory agencies have been negotiating regulations. Independent of this legal avenue, negotiated compliance with industry associations is being fostered through the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) “Commonsense Initiative” and with individual firms through “EPA's Project XL”, again with mixed reception.The proposed paper describes and analyses negotiated agreements in the United States in the context of (1) EPA efforts to ensure environmental protection and (2) the Occupational Safety and Health Administration efforts to ensure worker health and safety. These agreements can be described according to the following taxonomy: (a) Negotiated regulation (either preceding formal regulation or as a substitute for formal regulation); (b) Negotiated compliance (implementing regulation or informal agreements) (i) the means and timetable for coming into compliance with emission, effluent, or concentration requirements (ii) negotiation in the context of an enforcement action in which the firm is out of legal compliance (for example, encouraging cleaner production through the leveraging of penalty reductions).The criteria for evaluation include: environmental or health and safety outcomes, effects on stimulating technological change, time for development (time to completion)/implementation (likelihood of court challenge), stakeholder influence (ability of large firms to dominate outcome, environmentalists–industry, or labour–management balance of power),and administrative features.     

Evaluation of multi-metric bioassessment as an approach for assessing impacts of entrainment and impingement under Section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act

Over the past two decades, biological assessment has been widely adopted as a tool for comprehensive monitoring of ambient water quality, and increasingly it is used for management and regulation. Presently, biocriteria are central to the pre-decisional draft regulatory framework the US Environmental Protection Agency is developing under a consent decree to implement Section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act. With the increasing integration of multi-metric bioassessment and biocriteria into environmental regulation, it becomes important to critically review the performance of the methods to ensure they are robust and reliable tools for determining water body impairment. This paper examines the strengths and weaknesses of current approaches to bioassessment, focusing on issues that derive from recent advances in theoretical and applied ecology. Two critically important insights into the structure and function of ecosystems are: (1) the dynamic character of ecosystems; and (2) the significance of context and scale. Ecological dynamics produce spatio-temporal variability, which presents significant challenges to the development of biological criteria. This challenge is highlighted by the large percentage of sites potentially affected by arbitrary decisions sometimes made in setting biocriteria thresholds. Multi-metric bioassessment has not taken adequate account of the multi-scaled nature of ecological systems. Consideration of spatial scale will be especially important as multi-metric bioassessment methods originally developed in streams are adapted to larger, more open systems such as large rivers, estuaries, and coastal waters, and for regulation of cooling water intake structures.     

Quantification and control of microbial pollution from agriculture: a new policy challenge?

Faecal indicator organisms (FIOs) are commonly used to quantify pollution of public health significance. Health protection, as indexed by FIO control, is a central aim of new ‘catchment-scale’ water quality management required in the USA by the Clean Water Act and in the European Union (EU) by the Water Framework Directive (WFD). Experience of the former, after a decade of implementation, suggests that the most significant reason for water quality ‘impairment’ is elevated FIO concentrations, mainly in recreational and shellfish harvesting waters. This provides an early warning of possible problems which the EU regulatory authorities are likely to face. To date, however, a surprising lack of EU attention has been given to prediction and control of catchment fluxes of this key parameter. This is likely to prove embarrassing if the experience of the US regulatory community is not acted upon with some urgency. There is a growing, though still partial, body of empirical science to form the ‘evidence-base’ for good regulatory practice. However, adoption of ‘best management practices’ (BMPs) to effect remediation of impacted waters will require close integration of water policy with policies on financial support for the farming community. This is likely to require enhanced communication and integration within the discrete policy communities addressing the agricultural sector through the Common Agricultural Policy and water regulation through the Water Framework Directive.     

Sustainable tourism destinations: the importance of cleaner production

“Sustainable tourism destination” is an emerging term used in recognition schemes to promote sustainable development at destinations. This concept, which is still being developed, has the potential to stimulate the implementation of sustainable development through an interdisciplinary, holistic and integrative approach which combines different aspects of existing tools. This article will discuss the following:

• •conceptual definitions for sustainable tourism destinations
• •the need to integrate different approaches and tools for developing sustainable tourism destinations
• •the role which Cleaner Production plays in terms of developing sustainable tourism destinations

Cleaner production has an important role, to ensure that “prevention” is built into the concept of sustainable tourism destinations. It contributes by providing both a general strategy and specific experiences which may enhance other existing tools, concepts and policies. These can be integrated in a synergistic manner to achieve sustainable tourism destinations.     

Disproportionate costs in the EU Water Framework Directive—How to justify less stringent environmental objectives

The ambitious objective pursued by the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) is good status for all European waters. However, “less stringent environmental objectives” are permissible if the costs of achieving good status are disproportionately high. This exemption, if abused, carries the risk of watering down the ambitions of the Directive. Currently, no transparent, well-established, universally applicable method for routinely testing disproportionality exists throughout Europe. In this paper, such a method is developed for surface water bodies. The core idea is to determine a water body-specific disproportionality threshold which is then compared to the projected costs of achieving “good status/potential”. For the sake of practicability, the benchmark for disproportionality is estimated on the basis of prior expenditure on water quality enhancement. The paper argues that the proposed method combines both possible interpretations of (dis-)proportionality—affordability and cost-benefit considerations. Due to the method’s moderate data requirements it can be used readily in most German federal states and is transferable in principle to other EU Member States. The method was tested empirically for a river in the German federal state of Rhineland–Palatinate.     

Tools and concepts for sustainable development,how do they relate to a general framework for sustainable development,and to each other?

We present a general framework to plan for sustainability and then relate it to some well-known tools for sustainable development. This framework follows from principles for how a system is constituted (ecological and social principles), and contains principles for a favorable outcome for the system (sustainability), as well as principles for the process to reach this outcome (sustainable development). The principles for sustainability define the favorable outcome and direct problem-solving upstream towards problemsources. A program of activities is then constructed by backcasting from defined outcomes to the current problems. This is followed by “metrics”, i.e. various concepts for measuring and monitoring the activities. Most concepts and tools for sustainable development function as metrics, for instance life cycle assessment (LCA), ecological footprinting (EF), and Factor X. An environmental management system (EMS), like ISO 14001 or EMAS, is an administrative vehicle that should systematically align a firm's specific outcomes, activities and metrics with a general framework for sustainability. From a strategic point of view, metrics should measure alignment of activities with the principles contained in a framework for sustainability. A framework is not an alternative to concepts and tools for metrics. We need them all, because they represent different interrelated levels of strategic planning.     

Salmon policy: science,society, restoration,and reality

Salmon policy in the Pacific Northwest illustrates a class of contentious, socially wrenching issues that are becoming increasingly common in the western United States as demands increase for limited ecological resources. Many Pacific salmon “stocks” (a term used in fisheries management for a group of interbreeding individuals that is roughly equivalent to “population”) have declined and some have been extirpated. The salmon “problem” is one of the most vexing public policy challenges in natural resource management. Even with complete scientific knowledge — and scientific knowledge is far from complete or certain — it would be a challenging policy problem. The salmon decline issue is often defined simplistically as a watershed management problem, in part because changes in watersheds are highly visible and often occur on public or corporate lands where individuals and organizations often have direct input to decision making. Yet, changes in climate and ocean conditions, for example, occur frequently and such changes have a major influence on salmon abundance. The scientific challenges are great, but the more difficult — and critical — aspect of the debate concerns policies and decisions affecting everyone, including those involved in rural enterprises (especially farming and logging); manufacturing and construction; electricity generation (including hydro, fossil fuel, and nuclear); national defense; urban development; transportation (including road, rail, air, and water). The debate also involves competing personal rights and freedoms; the prerogatives and roles of local, state, and federal government and Indian tribes; policies on human population level, reproduction, emigration, and immigration; and the future of fishing (commercial, recreational, and Indian). The salmon policy conundrum is characterized by: (1) nearly everyone claims to support maintaining wild salmon runs; (2) many competing societal priorities exist, many of which are partially or wholly mutually exclusive; (3) the region’s rapidly growing human population creates increasing pressures on all natural resources (including salmon and their habitats); (4) policy stances in the salmon debate are solidly entrenched; (5) society expects salmon experts to help solve the salmon problem; (6) each of the many sides of the political debate over the future of salmon use salmon experts and scientific “facts” to bolster its argument; (7) it has proved to be nearly impossible for salmon scientists to avoid being categorized as supporting a particular policy position; and (8) many advocates of policy positions couch their positions in scientific terms rather than value-based preferences. Although far from indisputable, I conclude that over the next century and allowing for considerable year-to-year and decade-to-decade variation, many, perhaps most, stocks of wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest likely will remain at their current low levels or continue to decline in spite of costly protection and restoration efforts.     

基于虚拟水的济南市水资源可持续利用研究

水资源问题已成为世界普遍关注的问题,其根本原因就在于它不仅影响、制约现代社会的可持续发展,而且成为本世纪全球资源环境的首要问题,直接威胁人类的生存和发展,水资源可持续利用是当前世界上研究的热门课题之一。济南市是北方严重缺水城市之一,近几年来,随着社会经济的发展,严重影响着城市的发展和人民生活质量的提高。文章将国际上前沿的水资源足迹的计算方法引入到济南市的水资源系统中,利用CROPWAT软件定量测度了济南市主要农贸产品的虚拟水含量。通过济南市水足迹的计算及分析,得出济南市为虚拟水净出口地区,直接危及济南市的水资源安全,建议在济南市水资源有限的情况下,必须在节约用水,提高水资源利用的基础上创新水资源管理思路,实施虚拟水战略,充分利用虚拟水贸易解决水资源短缺问题。     

Reforming the CDM for sustainable development: lessons learned and policy futures

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has successfully demonstrated that market-based mechanisms can achieve some cost effective emissions reductions in developing countries. However the distribution of CDM projects has been extremely uneven across countries and regions, and a few technologies and sectors have dominated the early stages of CDM experience. This has caused some to question whether the CDM has fallen short of its potential in contributing to sustainable development. We review the broad patterns of CDM project approvals and evaluate 10 CDM projects according to their sustainability benefits. The difficulty of defining “sustainable development” and the process of defining criteria by individual non-Annex 1 governments has meant that sustainable development concerns have been marginalized in some countries. Given these observed limitations, we present possible CDM policy futures, focusing on the main proposals for a post-2012 climate regime. Five options for enhancing the sustainable development benefits in the CDM are discussed, including proactive approaches to favour eligibility of emission reduction projects which ensure such co-benefits.     

Sediment quality guidelines and assessment: overview and research needs

Under the Clean Water Act (CWA), the EPA is responsible for protecting the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters. Toxic contaminants in bottom sediments of the nation’s lakes, rivers, wetlands and coastal water create the potential for continued environmental degradation, even where water column contaminant levels comply with established water quality criteria. In response, EPA has developed an Agency-wide Contaminated Sediment Strategy to address the problem of contaminated sediments. One key feature of this strategy is the development of Sediment Quality Guidelines (SQGs). SQGs would be used to assess the extent of sediment contamination, or to implement measures designed to limit or prevent additional contamination. A number of specific technical approaches for the development of SQGs that are based on theoretical and empirical foundations have been proposed, including effects-based correlative approaches, equilibrium partitioning, and consensus using a combination of approaches. While each have their own advantages and limitations, any SQG must consider the bio-availability of contaminants in the sediment and the ecological realism associated with the implementation. Therefore, it is clear that the implementation of any SQG will incorporate biological testing. Based on the current state of the science, EPA will likely proceed with the establishment of formal SQGs which will rely heavily on the equilibrium partitioning (EqP) approach. There are a number of significant research needs that will need to be addressed as the EqP approach is implemented, including sediment quality modeling, sediment toxicity identification evaluations, studies that address bio-availability, studies that address the relative importance of exposure via sediment ingestion or ingestion of contaminated benthos, toxicological demonstrations of applicability of any SQGs, field verification, extension of the non-ionic mixture models to non-PAH compounds, and the establishment of toxicological databases (with benthic organisms) for standard toxicity endpoints.     

Integrated water resource management model for process industry in Lithuania

Water resource management has become an important operational and environmental issue. The increasing costs of dependable water supplies and wastewater disposal have increased the economic incentive for implementing technologies that are more environmentally friendly, and that can ensure efficient use of natural resources. A structured “integrated water resources management,” (IWRM) model for water management is presented as a useful tool for research into complex water using production systems in industrial companies. The step-by-step procedure and the consistent relationships between the diagram types allow straightforward implementation of water saving projects. By performing various case studies, it became clear that the IWRM model is applicable to various types of water using industrial companies. Therefore, wastewater reclamation and reuse are effective procedures for more sustainable industrial development programs.     

EcoDesign: what's happening? An overview of the subject area of EcoDesign and of the papers in this special issue

EcoDesign is a concept including human sustainability priorities together with business interrelations. Its main objective in the improvement of product development methods is to reduce environmental loads. EcoDesign also includes a more open ambition to use inspiration from a wider field of positive examples of smart products and methods, effective system solutions and attractive designs. It is not clear what sustainable product development is; what we can do is to try our best to find better solutions, get going and make sure that we learn from what happens. Our main goal with this issue was to monitor “How to make it happen?” but we ended up with more questions and the lower ambition of, “What's happening”.Life-style elements such as brand label economy, development of new economies in Asia, aging populations in the old economies etc. makes the picture even more complex and we still wonder, “How to make it happen”. However, a few focal points can be observed:The tools in EcoDesign are not as important as specification and goal setting in early product development phases. How to organize product development is crucial in order to reach higher degrees of sustainability. The interrelations between resources and functionality must be enhanced. Environmental affection must be integrated into the human life-style and throughout the entire life-cycle of all products and services. To us it seems impossible to define a sustainable life-style and force everyone to follow. We must engage all stakeholders in envisioning and creating the sustainable societies we hope to achieve.     

Preventing mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants using environmentally preferable coal purchasing practices

Electric utilities in the United States will soon be required under the federal Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Air Mercury Rule to significantly reduce mercury emissions. Coal-fired power plants, including the Lower Colorado River Authority's (LCRA) Fayette Power Project (FPP) have demonstrated that the selective purchasing of coal with low mercury content can result in significant reduction of pollution. This selective activity, commonly known as “green purchasing”, has been applied to the procurement of coal. For example, the use of low-sulfur coal from the Powder River Basin deposits of Wyoming results in the prevention of a significant amount of sulfur dioxide (SO₂) releases to the atmosphere when compared to other sources of coal in the United States. This same philosophy (selective purchasing of coal) can be employed to prevent mercury emissions and substantially reduce mercury removal costs for electric utilities burning coal. Data analysis confirms that low-mercury coal is available and that selective purchasing of low-mercury coal is possible.LCRA has implemented an extensive pollution prevention program and their green purchasing efforts have been expanded to influence coal purchasing choices. Coal purchasing is limited to the Gillette Coal Field from the Powder River Basin (PRB) of Wyoming. Three sets of coal quality data which include LCRA's Coal Quality Database (CQD), a database created from the Information Collection Request (ICR) conducted by the EPA in 1999, and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Coal Quality (COALQUAL) Database were analyzed. Lab accuracy issues were found to have undermined the reliability of certain records in both the CQD and ICR databases, however, both remain valuable resources. The independent sets of coal quality data and technical reports show measurable differences in mercury concentration in coal in the Gillette Coal Field, both geographically (coal mine) and by depth (coal seam). A preliminary cost benefit analysis indicates that substantial cost savings in operating and maintaining mercury control equipment will be realized with low-mercury coal. Currently, low-mercury coal can be purchased without a significant premium.     

Re-considering product design: a practical “road-map” for integration of sustainability issues

The proliferation of sustainability assessment principles, strategies, actions, and tools has created confusion about pathways forward for companies. It is unclear how existing approaches are complementary or distinct. How does a company assess current products and materials? How could designers create more sustainable products? What criteria, principles, approaches, and tools should be applied? Why? Is there a practical “road map” to guide product designers and product development managers in integrating sustainability issues into their decision-making processes?This article builds on previous frameworks for understanding the interconnections between various assessment principles, strategies, actions, and tools related to industrial ecology, human and labor rights, and corporate social responsibility [Waage S, Geiser K, Irwin F, Weissman A, Bertolucci M, Fisk P, et al. Fitting together the building blocks for sustainability: a revised model for integrating ecological, social, and financial factors into business decision-making. Journal of Cleaner Production 2005;13(12):1117–206; Robèrt K-H, Schmidt-Bleek B, Aloisi de Larderel J, Basile G, Jansen JL, Kuehr R, et al. Strategic sustainable development—selection, design and synergies of applied tools. Journal of Cleaner Production 2002;10(3):197–214; Robèrt K-H. Tools and concepts for sustainable development, how do they relate to a framework for sustainable development, and to each other? Journal of Cleaner Production 2000;8(3):243–54]. Expanding on past work, this piece suggests a “road map” for application by product designers and product development managers. A four-phase process is offered for integrating systems and sustainability perspectives into product design, manufacturing, and delivery decisions.     

从经济学角度对比中国与美国的能源消费

分析了中关两国能源消费总量和能源结构的差异,探讨了中关两国能源消费差异的经济学内涵,认为经济指标GDP并不能完全反映人们生活水平的提高,而其带来的环境问题却很可能影响后续的经济发展。因此,在发展经济的同时,应该充分考虑能源需求给环境带来的压力。适当调整能源结构、提高能源效率和发展替代能源是未来能源消费战略的重中之重,也是经济、环境和社会协调发展的重要保障。     

Assessment of estimated 1990 air toxics concentrations in urban areas in the United States

The 188 air contaminants designated as hazardous air pollutants, or air toxics, under the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 are associated with a variety of adverse human health impacts. The US Environmental Protection Agency recently developed estimates of 1990 outdoor concentrations of 148 air toxics for every census tract in the continental United States. This paper compares the results for urban and rural areas, and evaluates the relative contributions of large stationary sources (point sources), small stationary sources (area sources), and mobile sources. The estimated air toxics concentrations in urban areas were typically twice as high as in rural areas. There were more air toxics with modeled ambient concentrations in excess of health benchmarks in urban census tracts than in rural census tracts. Ambient concentrations attributable to area sources alone exceeded health benchmarks in a majority of urban census tracts for several pollutants; similar results were found for mobile sources. For point sources, exceedances of benchmarks generally occurred in fewer census tracts. These results show that reductions in emissions of air toxics from all three types of sources will be necessary to reduce anthropogenic air toxics concentrations to levels below the health benchmark concentrations.     

Multiattribute utility analysis for addressing Section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act

We believe that the fundamental issues associated with implementing Section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act are whether or not it requires a balancing of objectives and if it does, how that balancing should be done. If balancing is required, we recommend the use of multiattribute utility analysis (MUA). MUA is a formal, analytic approach for evaluating and comparing options for decisions with multiple objectives. It differentiates the two types of judgments needed for public policy decisions: (1) value judgments, which indicate what people want to happen as the result of a decision and their willingness to make tradeoffs, and (2) scientific judgments, which indicate what scientists or other technical specialists think is likely to happen based on the option that is chosen. MUA provides an approach for deciding what is an ‘adverse environmental impact’ and what is ‘best technology available’ based on site-specific considerations that can be consistently applied to all cooling water intakes. To illustrate the first step of a collaborative MUA process, we present a preliminary hierarchy of objectives constructed during a 1-day meeting held with regulators, electric utilities, and environmental groups to address the renewal of SPDES permits for four power plants operating on the Hudson River.