Economic Trade-offs Research Articles

Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage in Saline Aquifers: Subsurface Policies, Development Plans, Well Control Strategies and Optimization Approaches—A Review

To mitigate dangerous climate change effects, the 195 countries that signed the 2015 Paris Agreement agreed to “keep the increase in average global surface temperature below 2 °C and limit the increase to 1.5 °C” by reducing carbon emissions. One promising option for reducing carbon emissions is the deployment of carbon capture, utilization, and storage technologies (CCUS) to achieve climate goals. However, for large-scale deployment of underground carbon storage, it is essential to develop technically sound, safe, and cost-effective CO2 injection and well control strategies. This involves sophisticated balancing of various factors such as subsurface engineering policies, technical constraints, and economic trade-offs. Optimization techniques are the best tools to manage this complexity and ensure that CCUS projects are economically viable while maintaining safety and environmental standards. This work reviews thoroughly and critically carbon storage studies, along with the optimization of CO2 injection and well control strategies in saline aquifers. The result of this review provides the foundation for carbon storage by outlining the key subsurface policies and the application of these policies in carbon storage development plans. It also focusses on examining applied optimization techniques to develop CO2 injection and well control strategies in saline aquifers, providing insights for future work and commercial CCUS applications.

Trading wood for water and carbon in peatland forests? Rewetting is worth more than wood production

While traditional forest management systems aim at maximizing timber production, sustainable forest management focuses on the multiple benefits of entire forest landscapes. The latter is now at the top of policy agendas. This calls for learning through evaluation to support the implementation of policies aiming towards multi-functional forest landscapes. The aim of this study is to quantify the economic trade-offs among natural, current, and re-wetted peatland forests using seven indicators, viz. drainage maintenance, rewetting, water retention, wood production, and three types of carbon sequestration as economic indicators. We discuss ways to adapt to and mitigate effect of forest draining on climate change toward securing multi-functional forest landscapes. The cost benefit analysis showed that in a potential natural state, Lithuania's peatland forests would deliver an economic benefit of ∼€176.1 million annually. In contrast, compared to natural peatland forests, the drainage of peatland forests for wood production has caused a loss of ∼€309 million annually. In comparison, peatland forest rewetting is estimated to increase the economic value by ∼€170 million annually. This study shows that satisfying different ecosystem services is a balancing act, and that a focus on wood production has resulted in net losses when foregone values of water storage and carbon sequestration are considered. Valuation of different sets of ecosystems service benefits and disservices must be assessed, and can be used as a tool towards creating, implementing and monitoring consequences of policies on both sustainability and biodiversity.

Participatory Surveillance for COVID-19 Trend Detection in Brazil: Cross-sectional Study.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the necessity of a well-functioning surveillance system to detect and mitigate disease outbreaks. Traditional surveillance (TS) usually relies on health care providers and generally suffers from reporting lags that prevent immediate response plans. Participatory surveillance (PS), an innovative digital approach whereby individuals voluntarily monitor and report on their own health status via web-based surveys, has emerged in the past decade to complement traditional data collection approaches. This study compared novel PS data on COVID-19 infection rates across 9 Brazilian cities with official TS data to examine the opportunities and challenges of using PS data, and the potential advantages of combining the 2 approaches. The TS data for Brazil are publicly accessible on GitHub. The PS data were collected through the Brazil Sem Corona platform, a Colab platform. To gather information on an individual's health status, each participant was asked to fill out a daily questionnaire on symptoms and exposure in the Colab app. We found that high participation rates are key for PS data to adequately mirror TS infection rates. Where participation was high, we documented a significant trend correlation between lagged PS data and TS infection rates, suggesting that PS data could be used for early detection. In our data, forecasting models integrating both approaches increased accuracy up to 3% relative to a 14-day forecast model based exclusively on TS data. Furthermore, we showed that PS data captured a population that significantly differed from a traditional observation. In the traditional system, the new recorded COVID-19 cases per day are aggregated based on positive laboratory-confirmed tests. In contrast, PS data show a significant share of reports categorized as potential COVID-19 cases that are not laboratory confirmed. Quantifying the economic value of PS system implementation remains difficult. However, scarce public funds and persisting constraints to the TS system provide motivation for a PS system, making it an important avenue for future research. The decision to set up a PS system requires careful evaluation of its expected benefits, relative to the costs of setting up platforms and incentivizing engagement to increase both coverage and consistent reporting over time. The ability to compute such economic tradeoffs might be key to have PS become a more integral part of policy toolkits moving forward. These results corroborate previous studies when it comes to the benefits of an integrated and comprehensive surveillance system, and shed light on its limitations and on the need for additional research to improve future implementations of PS platforms.

Material Flow Analysis of Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling in Europe: Environmental and Economic Implications

This study aimed at a quantitative analysis of the material flows associated with End of Life (EoL) lithium-ion batteries’ (LIBs) materials in Europe. The European electric vehicles fleet in 2020 was taken as a case study, assuming a 10-year lifetime for the batteries and that the related EoL LIBs would be processed by existing recycling plants via pyrometallurgy, hydrometallurgy, or their combination in sequence. The economic implications (recycling operative costs compared to the revenues from the sales of the recycled metals) and the environmental performances (CO2 eq. emitted, energy demand and circularity performances) were assessed. Based on the gathered results, the existing European recycling capacity will overlook over 78% of the forecasted EoL LIBs. The treatment efficiencies of the full-scale recycling processes allow for the recovery of over 90% of copper, cobalt, nickel, and manganese, 87% of aluminum, and only 42% of lithium and 35% of iron entering the recycling facilities. In overall, LIBs recycling in 2030 will involve the emission of 3.7 Mt of CO2 eq. and an energy demand of 33.6 GWh. Hydrometallurgy presents the best economic and environmental trade-off compared to other recycling strategies. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that current European LIBs’ recycling infrastructure will be inadequate in the near future and the direction (i.e., hydrometallurgy) that its strengthening should pursue.

Quantifying the intrinsic value of algal biomass based on a multi-product biorefining strategy

Microalgal biomass is poised to become an important feedstock in the quest to decarbonize the fuels and chemical industries. In this way, it is imperative that researchers prioritize efforts for increased chances of economic viability of the microalgae biomass supply chain. This work applies a sequential techno-economic assessment (TEA) methodology to compare the economic trade-offs between microalgae growth and compositional shift while solving for an alternative economic metric: intrinsic algal biomass value, i.e., the revenue obtained from processing and converting the main components of algae biomass - carbohydrates, lipids, and protein - to a portfolio of products. The framework relies on data derived from small-scale cultivations to initially determine the maximum economic potential of different product portfolios as obtained in multiple biorefining setups. The approach further downselects the number of possible strains to undergo an in-depth TEA in order to quantify the value of transitioning from nutrient-replete to nutrient-deplete cultivations. Among the 13 permutations of strains and cultivation strategies analyzed, this study demonstrated an increase in intrinsic biomass value for four strains after the compositional shift: Chlorella sorokiniana DOE1412, Chlorella sorokiniana DOE1116, Scenedesmus obliquus UTEX393, and Scenedesmus obliquus DOE0152.Z. While product selection is critical in the exploitation of microalgal biomass, the four mentioned strains at least double their intrinsic biomass values, reaching up to $264/ton in net margins above minimum biomass selling prices. This is attainable without considering the production of small market size specialty chemicals, instead targeting markets with scalability potential and/or with currently large sizes. Two other strains, namely Picochlorum celeri WT-CSM/EMRE and Tetraselmis striata LANL1001, should have their biomass productivities increased by around 5 g/m2/day in nutrient-deplete cultivations to achieve economic viability. The concept of implementing an objective comparison between different portfolio configurations detailed herein is an innovative approach towards the economic assessment of microalgae valorization strategies.

Effects of personal carbon trading scheme on consumers' new energy vehicles replacement decision: An economic trade-off analysis

Carbon emissions from private transportation and resident travel are exhibiting a fast upward trend that requires immediate action. Personal carbon trading (PCT) in private transportation sector is considered to be an effective market tool based on the “cap and trade” principle to guide residents to carry out low-carbon travel behaviour. This study proposed a replacement decision model under the PCT scheme and applied the theories of life cycle cost (LCC) to address the issue of new energy vehicles (NEVs) replacement decision. The results of the numerical analysis and mathematical model solution demonstrate that the adoption of a PCT scheme can accelerate the conversion of consumers to adopting new energy vehicles. When the carbon market price fluctuates erratically, consumers are unlikely to decide to replace their fuel vehicles. The process of consumers' decision making to switch to NEVs will accelerate through the increase in gasoline prices. Conversely, the increase in market discount rates will make the replacement decision of consumers more uncertain and discourage them from making early replacement decisions. The gradual withdrawal of financial subsidies will have a certain delaying effect on consumers' decision-making behaviours. Moreover, the results of sensitivity analysis support the robustness of our research findings. Finally, we summarize the conclusions, implications and limitations.

Open Banking: Between Cooperation and Competition

The emergence of financial technology companies (fintechs) has spurred expectations that they will lead to large-scale disintermediation in finance and significantly disrupt the banking industry. Regulators in several jurisdictions have supported their market entry through the adoption of open banking policies, whose purpose is to facilitate third-party access to banking data, subject to customer consent. Data access has been seen as a competitive bottleneck in the banking industry, while customers hold the ultimate ownership over their data. This paper aims to critically assess proclaimed promises of open banking by analysing existing barriers to entry and market-based collaborations between banks and fintechs as identified in the literature. Since the expected effects can vary depending on the regulatory model embraced, the paper also outlines the economic trade-offs of different regulatory solutions. Consequently, the paper may help regulators who are considering introducing or designing open banking policies.

Assessing COVID-19 pandemic policies and behaviours and their economic and educational trade-offs across US states from Jan 1, 2020, to July 31, 2022: an observational analysis

The USA struggled in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, but not all states struggled equally. Identifying the factors associated with cross-state variation in infection and mortality rates could help to improve responses to this and future pandemics. We sought to answer five key policy-relevant questions regarding the following: 1) what roles social, economic, and racial inequities had in interstate variation in COVID-19 outcomes; 2) whether states with greater health-care and public health capacity had better outcomes; 3) how politics influenced the results; 4) whether states that imposed more policy mandates and sustained them longer had better outcomes; and 5) whether there were trade-offs between a state having fewer cumulative SARS-CoV-2 infections and total COVID-19 deaths and its economic and educational outcomes. Data disaggregated by US state were extracted from public databases, including COVID-19 infection and mortality estimates from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation's (IHME) COVID-19 database; Bureau of Economic Analysis data on state gross domestic product (GDP); Federal Reserve economic data on employment rates; National Center for Education Statistics data on student standardised test scores; and US Census Bureau data on race and ethnicity by state. We standardised infection rates for population density and death rates for age and the prevalence of major comorbidities to facilitate comparison of states' successes in mitigating the effects of COVID-19. We regressed these health outcomes on prepandemic state characteristics (such as educational attainment and health spending per capita), policies adopted by states during the pandemic (such as mask mandates and business closures), and population-level behavioural responses (such as vaccine coverage and mobility). We explored potential mechanisms connecting state-level factors to individual-level behaviours using linear regression. We quantified reductions in state GDP, employment, and student test scores during the pandemic to identify policy and behavioural responses associated with these outcomes and to assess trade-offs between these outcomes and COVID-19 outcomes. Significance was defined as p<0·05. Standardised cumulative COVID-19 death rates for the period from Jan 1, 2020, to July 31, 2022 varied across the USA (national rate 372 deaths per 100 000 population [95% uncertainty interval [UI] 364-379]), with the lowest standardised rates in Hawaii (147 deaths per 100 000 [127-196]) and New Hampshire (215 per 100 000 [183-271]) and the highest in Arizona (581 per 100 000 [509-672]) and Washington, DC (526 per 100 000 [425-631]). A lower poverty rate, higher mean number of years of education, and a greater proportion of people expressing interpersonal trust were statistically associated with lower infection and death rates, and states where larger percentages of the population identify as Black (non-Hispanic) or Hispanic were associated with higher cumulative death rates. Access to quality health care (measured by the IHME's Healthcare Access and Quality Index) was associated with fewer total COVID-19 deaths and SARS-CoV-2 infections, but higher public health spending and more public health personnel per capita were not, at the state level. The political affiliation of the state governor was not associated with lower SARS-CoV-2 infection or COVID-19 death rates, but worse COVID-19 outcomes were associated with the proportion of a state's voters who voted for the 2020 Republican presidential candidate. State governments' uses of protective mandates were associated with lower infection rates, as were mask use, lower mobility, and higher vaccination rate, while vaccination rates were associated with lower death rates. State GDP and student reading test scores were not associated with state COVD-19 policy responses, infection rates, or death rates. Employment, however, had a statistically significant relationship with restaurant closures and greater infections and deaths: on average, 1574 (95% UI 884-7107) additional infections per 10 000 population were associated in states with a one percentage point increase in employment rate. Several policy mandates and protective behaviours were associated with lower fourth-grade mathematics test scores, but our study results did not find a link to state-level estimates of school closures. COVID-19 magnified the polarisation and persistent social, economic, and racial inequities that already existed across US society, but the next pandemic threat need not do the same. US states that mitigated those structural inequalities, deployed science-based interventions such as vaccination and targeted vaccine mandates, and promoted their adoption across society were able to match the best-performing nations in minimising COVID-19 death rates. These findings could contribute to the design and targeting of clinical and policy interventions to facilitate better health outcomes in future crises. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, J Stanton, T Gillespie, J and E Nordstrom, and Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Preparing for future pandemics: A multi-national comparison of health and economic trade-offs.

Government investment in preparing for pandemics has never been more relevant. The COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated debate regarding the trade-offs societies are prepared to make between health and economic activity. What is not known is: (1) how much the public in different countries are prepared to pay in forgone GDP to avoid mortality from future pandemics; and (2) which health and economic policies the public in different countries want their government to invest in to prepare for and respond to the next pandemic. Using a future-focused, multi-national discrete choice experiment, we quantify these trade-offs and find that the tax-paying public is prepared to pay $3.92 million USD (Canada), $4.39 million USD (UK), $5.57 million USD (US) and $7.19 million USD (Australia) in forgone GDP per death avoided in the next pandemic. We find the health policies that taxpayers want to invest in before the next pandemic and the economic policies they want activated once the next pandemic hits are relatively consistent across the countries, with some exceptions. Such results can inform economic policy responses and government investment in health policies to reduce the adverse impacts of the next pandemic.

Optimization of multi-objective multi-functional landuse zoning using a vector-based genetic algorithm

Contemporary urban planners optimize economic and ecological tradeoffs from different landuses using raster models and homogeneous functional zones. However, ecosystem services depend on the diversity and connectivity of non-homogeneous ecological functions operating within functional zones. To account for these dependencies, we developed a multi-objective functional zoning optimization (MOFZO) model that considers the heterogeneity of internal ecological and economic functions within zones. Vector is used as optimization units, and blue-green-gray (BGG) composition mixture of water/vegetation/urban, within functional zones was used to describe the internal heterogeneity from mixed landuse in functional zones. Results from an extended NSGA-II model for Shenzhen in China, using three conflicting objectives (maximum GDP, maximum ESV, maximum Connectedness), showed patches around ports and coastal areas only changed BGG, which is consistent with the scarcity of coastal land resources and the need to internally optimize land use. Compared to the conventional NSGA-II case, ESV conservation performance was optimized in 41 % of the total changed patches through BGG changes only. These finding provide a practical functional zoning model for planners with deeper insights on implications of constraints and internal changes in functional zones, that materially improves overall ecosystem services within the limited land resources of coastal regions.

COMPARISON OF STANDARD AND NONSTANDARD GEAR ROOT FILLET CONSIDERING ROOT STRESS AND MANUFACTURING POSSIBILITIES

In this paper, root stress, manufacturing possibilities and limitations of standard and nonstandard tooth root fillet of spur gears are examined. Nowadays, standard trochoidal root fillet is used the most as an economical trade-off between tooth strength and manufacturing complexity. A disadvantage of the trochoidal root fillet, especially in spur gears with less than 17 teeth, is undercutting which minimises strength of tooth root, introduces stress concentration, and deteriorates meshing conditions. This study focuses on different root designs, namely elliptical and novel cycloidal root fillets. Root stress in gears with different root designs is analysed by FEM and compared with analytical equations according to ISO. The possibility of producing nonstandard root fillet gears by hobbing and limitations of surface finishing are considered as well. Analysis reveals stress differences between each of the root fillet shapes and their relative advantages and disadvantages.

Perceptions of environmental problems and solutions in Florida across sectors: A survey of key stakeholders and the public.

We build on environmental attitude research to provide a foundation for considering policies making economic and environmental trade-offs. We conducted a large online survey of Florida public attitudes (n = 829), a state grappling with trade-offs between economic development and environmental quality. Findings provide the first baseline understanding of Floridian perceptions of relationships between key economic drivers and the environment. Environmental problems were generally considered important and pro-environmental policy options are highly supported. The environment was considered more important to Florida's culture and future than key industries, with only tourism considered more important to the economy. Development was considered least important. Individual differences, including gender, political party, and industry affiliation, predicted policy support and attitudes toward trade-offs. Modeled together, attitudes toward government involvement and the importance of the environment to Florida predicted additional variance in policy support. Results highlight the intersection of social identities and ideological attitudes in shaping environmental policy attitudes.

Designing Chill City: An interactive game supporting public learning about urban planning for extreme heat

Climate change and the urban heat island (UHI) effect are increasing extreme heat risk in cities across the world, and have already made extreme heat the top weather-related cause of death in the United States. Despite this, understanding of viable strategies to address extreme heat is still limited, for both decision-makers and the public. Using a design-based research methodology, we developed an interactive educational game, Chill City, which teaches players about possible heat planning strategies and their tradeoffs. We surveyed adult, non-expert players to understand the game’s reception and impacts. Players expressed that they enjoyed the game and that it helped them better understand heat planning strategies and the environmental, social, and economic tradeoffs associated with them. We argue that environmental games offer educational potential for adult learners on issues of extreme heat and climate change that should be further explored to inform effective approaches and designs.

Demand for older workers: What do we know? What do we need to learn?

The employment rate for workers 55 and over has been increasing across the world for the last two decades. This creates opportunities for employers to diversify their workforce and retain valuable knowledge and skills, while at the same time posing the challenges of rising labor costs and blocked opportunities for younger workers. This study summarizes the economic tradeoffs facing organizations as they design their optimal age structure, along with recent research on how older workers fit into organizations. Empirical studies show that whereas wage and benefit costs increase with age, there is no conclusive evidence that productivity increases as well. Studies using macroeconomic data find no evidence that older workers block opportunities for younger workers, whereas recent papers using a more disaggregated approach find mixed results. A key challenge facing older workers is the decline over the last 20 years in the odds of becoming a new hire. Although the turnover rate for older workers is much lower than for other age groups, employers have concerns about accommodating their work environment and work schedule preferences. Resume studies show age discrimination also plays a factor, especially for women. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research, including interindustry and international comparisons of microeconomic data on employment by age group and re-examining matched employee-employer data sets.

Carbon emission and economic development trade-offs for optimizing land-use allocation in the Yangtze River Delta, China

Reconciling carbon emissions and GDP development is a challenge for most Chinese cities in the sustainable development process. Taking the Yangtze River Delta of China as an example, this study calculated carbon-emission inventories for five typical years and assigned anthropogenic carbon emissions to land-use types. A multi-objective particle swarm algorithm was used to consider three functions of land-use allocation: maximizing GDP, minimizing carbon emissions, and maximizing suitability. Thereafter, the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution(TOPSIS) method was combined to find the optimal solution for carbon emission and economic development trade-offs. It is observed that Jiangsu has the largest carbon emissions in the Yangtze River Delta region; energy consumption is the main source of the carbon emissions, and industrial land is the most carbon intensive region. The land-use allocation obtained by multi-objective optimization with the TOPSIS evaluation method increases GDP and reduces carbon emissions, which is worthy of reference for land planners. Land use optimization from the perspective of balancing carbon emissions and economic development can provide a useful reference for the rational use of land resources and socio-economic sustainable development.

Optimization of site utility systems for renewable energy integration

Considerable attention has been paid to the electrified energy supply based on renewable energy for achieving carbon-neutrality. A systematic and integrated approach is required to identify optimal operating strategies for the integration of electrified energy sources with conventional utility systems and to understand the techno-economic impact of using renewable energy on industrial energy management. Renewable-integrated industrial utility systems are modeled, which is optimized to investigate economic trade-off between capital investment, fuel consumption, power generation, and CO2 emission tax. Sensitivity of key design parameters is examined with the optimization framework, which allows to gain conceptual understanding on the economic impact of CO2 emission tax and prices of renewable electricity on site-wide heat and power management. Compared to the utility system based on the combustion of fossil fuels only, the operating cost of renewable-integrated system in the case study can be reduced about 14% in the operating cost and 9% in the capital cost through the strategic import of 20 MWe renewable electricity. The presented case studies fully illustrate economic impacts related to the implementation of renewable electricity to industrial utility systems and demonstrate the benefit of process-integrated optimization for renewable energy integration in practice.

Is There a Demand for Autocracy in Belarusian Society?

Abstract 2020 saw an unprecedented pro-democracy mobilization in Belarus. Indeed, protest actions against the grossly falsified presidential election and the authoritarian rule of Aliaksandr Lukashenka were impressive in many respects: number of participants, durability, frequency, and diversity. However, that year was also remarkable for mobilization of supporters of Lukashenka’s authoritarian rule: car rallies, pickets, and small-group marches in support of the incumbent lasted for months. Though far from being ubiquitous, a demand for autocracy does exist in Belarusian society. It can be explained by four factors: a tendency towards an economic trade-off, axiological Euroscepticism, the activity of pro-autocracy intellectuals, and the global decline in democracy.

The economics of saignée in winemaking

AbstractThe winemaking technique of saignée is common for some varietals, and the ensuing flavor profiles have been carefully analyzed by oenologists. However, we argue that saignée is fundamentally about economic tradeoffs between the quantity of primary wine that is ultimately produced, the quality (and thus, price) of that wine, and the amount of rosé wine that is bled off in the process. We develop the first theoretically-grounded economic model of saignée and analyze the model to shed light on the winemaker's optimal choice of saignée, and on the properties of wine and wine markets that should empirically give rise to more, or less, saignée. The model helps to explain several real-world regularities such as the absence of saignée for most Bordeaux wines, the specialization in rosé for many wines in Provence, and the practice of moderate amounts of saignée for varietals such as grenache and pinot noir.

Traditional crops and climate change adaptation: insights from the Andean agricultural sector

ABSTRACT The growth of traditional crops could be a primary resource for adapting to climate change and strengthening agrosystems’ resilience. However, these crops tend to be replaced by non-traditional crops with higher productivity, higher market values, and higher short-term income. In this context, smallholders face trade-offs between maximizing short-term income and ensuring resilience to face likely future climate adversities. The economic assessment of such trade-offs has been commonly neglected in the literature. Most studies are conducted using agronomic or anthropological frameworks to recognize the value of traditional agriculture to increase adaptive capacity and reduce vulnerability. This study fills this gap by assessing economic and agronomic trade-offs between traditional and non-traditional crops triggered by climate-induced changes in water availability. We also simulate the effectiveness of a water policy. Our results suggest that farmers growing traditional crops may get lower profits, but their portfolio is more resilient to climate change, whereas the water policy proves to be an effective adaptation strategy to climate change. However, the policy implementation could hinder the development of traditional crops. Based on our results, we suggest implementing smart agricultural policies to balance economic, cultural, and adaptation goals.

Climate-Related Disclosures: What Are the Economic Trade-Offs?

Climate-Related Disclosures: What Are the Economic Trade-Offs?