Integrating risk assessment and life cycle assessment: a case study of insulation.

Increasing residential insulation can decrease energy consumption and provide public health benefits, given changes in emissions from fuel combustion, but also has cost implications and ancillary risks and benefits. Risk assessment or life cycle assessment can be used to calculate the net impacts and determine whether more stringent energy codes or other conservation policies would be warranted, but few analyses have combined the critical elements of both methodologies In this article, we present the first portion of a combined analysis, with the goal of estimating the net public health impacts of increasing residential insulation for new housing from current practice to the latest International Energy Conservation Code (IECC 2000). We model state-by-state residential energy savings and evaluate particulate matter less than 2.5 microm in diameter (PM2.5), NOx, and SO2 emission reductions. We use past dispersion modeling results to estimate reductions in exposure, and we apply concentration-response functions for premature mortality and selected morbidity outcomes using current epidemiological knowledge of effects of PM2.5 (primary and secondary). We find that an insulation policy shift would save 3 x 10(14) British thermal units or BTU (3 x 10(17) J) over a 10-year period, resulting in reduced emissions of 1,000 tons of PM2.5, 30,000 tons of NOx, and 40,000 tons of SO2. These emission reductions yield an estimated 60 fewer fatalities during this period, with the geographic distribution of health benefits differing from the distribution of energy savings because of differences in energy sources, population patterns, and meteorology. We discuss the methodology to be used to integrate life cycle calculations, which can ultimately yield estimates that can be compared with costs to determine the influence of external costs on benefit-cost calculations.     

Quantitative Risk Assessment of the New York State Operated West Valley Radioactive Waste Disposal Area

This article is based on a quantitative risk assessment (QRA) that was performed on a radioactive waste disposal area within the Western New York Nuclear Service Center in western New York State. The QRA results were instrumental in the decision by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to support a strategy of in‐place management of the disposal area for another decade. The QRA methodology adopted for this first of a kind application was a scenario‐based approach in the framework of the triplet definition of risk (scenarios, likelihoods, consequences). The measure of risk is the frequency of occurrence of different levels of radiation dose to humans at prescribed locations. The risk from each scenario is determined by (1) the frequency of disruptive events or natural processes that cause a release of radioactive materials from the disposal area; (2) the physical form, quantity, and radionuclide content of the material that is released during each scenario; (3) distribution, dilution, and deposition of the released materials throughout the environment surrounding the disposal area; and (4) public exposure to the distributed material and the accumulated radiation dose from that exposure. The risks of the individual scenarios are assembled into a representation of the risk from the disposal area. In addition to quantifying the total risk to the public, the analysis ranks the importance of each contributing scenario, which facilitates taking corrective actions and implementing effective risk management. Perhaps most importantly, quantification of the uncertainties is an intrinsic part of the risk results. This approach to safety analysis has demonstrated many advantages of applying QRA principles to assessing the risk of facilities involving hazardous materials.     

A strategy to enhance accountability in health care delivery

The New York State Department of Health surprised many in the hospital industry and medical community when, in June 1987, it proposed as regulation that the governing body of each acute care hospital appoint a medical director who would be assigned responsibility for the direction of the organized medical staff. Such a proposal, without modification, has been incorporated in the New York State Hospital Code--Minimum Standards, effective January 1, 1989. While a strong case can be made for this position in hospitals, its value has long been recognized by a wide variety of organizations.     

Interface,Inc.: Taking the lead toward sustainability

Four years ago, CEO Ray Anderson of Interface began to confront his company's impact on the environment. The factories and suppliers of his interior furnishings company used 1.2 billion pounds of raw materials to produce $802 million in products. Of these materials, two thirds were exhaustible fuels. Anderson has set Interface on a mission—to became a sustainable enterprise. However, rather than dictating specific initiatives from the top down, his corporate strategy has been to use a seven-point program to provide guidance for each plant and business to create its own agenda. CES continues its exploration of what defines environmental leadership by exploring how Anderson has implemented this new type of corporate direction, and how Interface measures its progress towards this ambitious mission.     

Re-engineering high risk, high complexity industries through multiple level technological learning A case study of the world nuclear power industry

Applying lessons learned at the national, the utility, and the plant level, from selected segments of the world-wide nuclear power industry, might facilitate an environmentally acceptable renaissance of the U.S. nuclear power industry through re-engineering it. Elements of this learning from experience process can be found: (a) at the national level in Europe, Japan, and the U.S., (b) at the utility level in two New York State nuclear power utilities, Niagara Mohawk and New York Power Authority, the Tenessee Valley Authority, and Duke Power and Light in the U.S., in Ontario Hydro in Canada, and in the Electricité de France (EdF) in France, and (c) at the plant level in several of these utilities. At the core of all the continuous quality improvement and re-engineering programs, lies this twofold mission: (a) to insulate society from foreseeable and unacceptably high environmental risks, and (b) to continuously improve the design and management of nuclear technology (including nuclear waste management and environmental risk management systems) by learning, learning how to learn, and learning to learn-how-to-learn, both explicitly and tacitly, through feedback from individual and organizational experience.     

Energy and the economy— A reply to Smil and Kuz

In the June 1976 edition of this journal Smil and Kuz discussed the case for saying that there are quite firm relationships between energy consumption and GDP. They argued broadly that there was no general relationship, but, instead, the individual countries are locked into individual patterns of energy consumption. The proponents of the ‘there is a relationship’ school of thought include the author of this reply who is employed in the Economics and Programmes Branch of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority.     

An Analysis of the Portfolio of Sites to Characterize for Selecting a Nuclear Repository

The U.S. Department of Energy has selected three sites, from five nominated, to characterize for a nuclear repository to permanently dispose of nuclear waste. This decision was made without the benefit of an analysis of this "portfolio" problem. This paper analyzes different portfolios of three sites for simultaneous characterization and strategies for sequential characterization. Characterization of each site, which involves significant subsurface excavation, is now estimated to cost $1 billion. Mainly because of the high characterization costs, sequential characterization strategies are identified which are the equivalent of $1.7-2.0 billion less expensive than the selected DOE simultaneous characterization of the three sites. If three sites are simultaneously characterized, one portfolio is estimated to be the equivalent of $100-400 million better than the selected DOE portfolio. Because of these potential savings and several other complicating factors that may influence the relative desirability of characterization strategies, a thorough analysis of characterization strategies that addresses the likelihood of finding disqualifying conditions during site characterization, uncertainties, and dependencies in forecast site repository costs, preclosure and postclosure health and safety impacts, potential delays of both sequential and simultaneous characterization strategies, and the environmental, socioeconomic, and health and safety impacts of characterization activities is recommended.     

I was a medi-cop

When I became an inspector for the New York State Health Department, I realized that I would not win any popularity contests, but I believed that I would be improving the quality of care in the 32 hospitals controlled by our area office. I decided to take the job in a desperate move to escape from primary care responsibilities that had been growing more onerous daily. This article tells of my experience as a health care regulator and why I returned to work for a health care provider.     

The Nevada Initiative: A Risk Communication Fiasco

The U.S. Congress has designated Yucca Mountain, Nevada as the only potential site to be studied for the nation's first high-level nuclear waste repository. People in Nevada strongly oppose the program, managed by the U.S. Department of Energy. Survey research shows that the public believes there are great risks from a repository program, in contrast to a majority of scientists who feel the risks are acceptably small. Delays in the repository program resulting in part from public opposition in Nevada have concerned the nuclear power industry, which collects the fees for the federal repository program and believes it needs the repository as a final disposal facility for its high-level nuclear wastes. To assist the repository program, the American Nuclear Energy Council (ANEC), an industry group, sponsored a massive advertising campaign in Nevada. The campaign attempted to assure people that the risks of a repository were small and that the repository studies should proceed. The campaign failed because its managers misunderstood the issues underlying the controversy, attempted a covert manipulation of public opinion that was revealed, and most importantly, lacked the public trust that was necessary to communicate credibly about the risks of a nuclear waste facility.     

Source Credibility in Environmental Health – Risk Controversies: Application of Meyer''s Credibility Index

This article applies an existing five-item index for measuring source credibility in the context of environmental health-risk controversy. Survey data were gathered in five upstate New York communities facing environmental health-risk issues. Analysis of the five case studies and a combined dataset (N = 870) show that the credibility index was consistently reliable across all applications. Use of the resulting index is demonstrated through a comparison of the credibility of the New York State Department of Health (active in each case), the industries associated with each case, and the newspaper providing coverage of each case. The credibility index was used to predict risk judgments in a structural equation model. Overall, the analysis demonstrated that the credibility index performed consistently well across the five cases and illuminated important differences in each. As such, the index should be a useful addition to many environmental health and risk communication studies.     

基于不同补贴主体的新能源汽车制造商定价决策研究

基于政府目前对新能源汽车消费者及制造商实施补贴的现实背景，假设两家技术水平不等的新能源汽车制造商所生产的产品之间存在替代关系，将制造商产品之间的价格和质量差异纳入考虑范围，构建了新能源汽车制造商最优定价模型，求解了在不同补贴方式下的最优定价方式，并在均衡状态下对模型进行了数值模拟和分析。研究结果表明，在不同补贴方式下，制造商将根据市场竞争环境和补贴投入的变化情况采取不同的定价策略。政府针对消费者的补贴可以使技术水平相对落后的制造商获得更高利润，促使更多的制造商进入新能源汽车产业。对制造商的补贴可以使较高技术水平的制造商获得更高利润，从而促进新能源汽车产业的优胜劣汰。政府补贴主体应由消费者逐步转向制造商，通过政策引导制造商和消费者进一步增进其对新能源汽车质量的重视程度，推动新能源汽车产业的良性发展。     

The Role of Risk and Future Land Use in Cleanup Decisions at the Department of Energy

As a result of the legacy of the Cold War, the Departments of Energy and Defense are involved in massive cleanup and remediation projects. While health risk to humans and ecological receptors is perceived to be the basis for remediation, this assumption is rarely examined. In this article, we examine the role of risk and future land-use designations in cleanup decisions, using the Department of Energy's self-assessment of 36 sites. We then discuss the risk-related tools that might be required to address the cleanup challenge. Much of the current cleanup program is driven by compliance with federal and state statutes and regulations, presumably to protect human health and the environment. Compliance, however, is not synonymous with cleanup. Although some of these laws and regulations take risk into account, the lack of site-specific data on exposures and risk scenarios, and the lack of attention to future land use or end states, has often resulted in disconnects between risk and cleanup goals, risk and final end states, and cleanup levels and end state or subsequent land use. Partly, these disconnects result from the need for a range of technical, economic, sociological, and public policy tools to address the issues. A better transfer of information among and within Department of Energy facilities, operations offices, and DOE headquarters is required. Further, linking cleanup decisions and goals with the final end state involves a number of risk tradeoffs, including (1) ecological versus human health, (2) worker versus public health, (3) among competing contaminated areas, (4) among temporal patterns of cleanup, (5) among different ecological receptors (plants vs. animals, one animal vs. another), and (6) among the sites across the DOE complex. For the nation, balancing among risks is essential within sites and among Department of Energy sites, as well as among other remediation sites (such as those of Department of Defense and Superfund sites).     

Everyone Takes the Field: How 3M Encourages Employee Involvement in Promoting Sustainable Development

As with quality and innovation, sustainability must be supported by all employees. Sustainability requires a multi-level, multidisciplinary approach to the development of new products, reviews of existing products and processes, and efforts to help customers address environmental issues. 3M's Environmental, Health and Safety Management System – which follows principles of Life Cycle Management – is the company's primary tool for promoting sustainability. Leadership, communications and adequate resources are also needed if sustainability is to become rooted in a company's activities. 3M's Pollution Prevention Pays (3P) program, founded in 1975, provides an example of how these factors support sustainability. 3P, which seeks to eliminate pollution before it occurs, has spawned more than 4,750 projects worldwide, all of them proposed by employees. These projects have prevented the generation of 1.7 billion pounds of pollution and reduced costs by $850 million in the first year of implementation. 3P works because it encourages employees to use their first-hand knowledge of products and processes and then recognizes their efforts.     

An LP model for assessing congeneration strategies

A linear programming model is described which is designed to assist in the assessment of optimum operational strategies for industrial plants with cogeneration facilities. A concise format is provided for linking together basic elements such as boilers, valves, turbines and processes with steam and electricity demands with steam, fuel and electricity balance equations. The model should prove particularly useful for assessment when electricity tariffs have time-of-use energy or demand charges or when tariffs have conditions which require consideration of strategies over an extended period. The model has been applied to a paper mill which utilises pass-out turbines for cogeneration of electricity and process steam. Results indicate that savings in fuel costs of the order of 400,000 dollars per year could be obtained by implementing optimal strategies for operating the present turbines. Savings of the order of one million dollars per year could be obtained by converting the turbines to give high pressure pass-out steam and then operating optimally.     

Linking fuel cell technology with environmental strategy: The plug power story

The technology of fuel cells—electricity-producing devices that promote energy efficiency and lowered emissions—has been studied and researched for more than a century. Only recently, however, has enough progress been made in fuel cell research to allow for the mass production of home fuel cell units. With recent technological advances, a number of companies have entered the fuel cell industry, both as start-ups and as established corporations interested in diversifying their product line.Among the fuel cell start-ups is New York State-based Plug Power, LLC. Founded to develop a residential fuel cell for mass production, Plug Power has become a major player in the burgeoning fuel cell industry. The company recently formed a joint venture with GE Power Systems, linking the producer to the distributor in order to ensure consumers access to this innovative technology. The success of the company in working with non-profits, government and the private sector shows that great strides can be made through public/private partnerships.     

Utility site revitalization: GPU energy's bayfront centre development

Surplus and outmoded generating stations and manufactured gas plants are increasingly playing a role in the redevelopment of downtown areas. As deregulation spurs the power industry to find new methods to reduce costs and remain competetive, underperforming real estate assets including formerly contaminated sites are being returned to productive new uses.GPU Energy offers an example of a site revitalization program that has reclaimed a valuable bayfront area, focused new attention on a city's place in maritime history, and is serving as a catalyst for economic growth.     

Modeling for insights,not numbers: the experiences of the energy modeling forum

It has often been contended that the primary goal of policy modeling should be the insights quantitative models can provide, not the precise-looking projections—i.e. numbers—they can produce for any given scenario. Students of the energy policy process, in particular, have noted that preoccupation with the plethora of detailed quantitative results produced by large-scale computer models has substantially impeded their influence on key policy decisions. The creation of the Energy Modeling Forum (EMF) at Stanford University in 1976 represents one potential remedy for that situation. The EMF was formed to foster better communication between the builders and users of energy models in energy planning and policy analysis. The EMF operates through ad hoc working groups, composed of national and, more recently, international energy modeling and policy experts. These working groups conduct studies concentrating on a single energy topic. The diversity of backgrounds of the working group members ensures that the language of the EMF studies is English, not computer. Each working group identifies existing models relevant to the study's focus. A series of tests is then designed by the group to illuminate the models' basic structure and behavior. A comparison of results is published in a widely distributed report that identifies the models' strengths and weaknesses in the context of the study's topic. Seven EMF studies have been initiated to date: (1) Energy and the economy, (2) Coal in transition, (3) Electric load forecasting, (4) Aggregate elasticity of energy demand, (5) US oil and gas supply, (6) World oil and (7) Macroeconomic impacts of energy shocks. Each EMF study has broadened the understanding of the nature of the relevant policy issues and the models that have been, are, or could be used to address them. The present paper describes how each study's key insights were developed in the context of a simplified analytical framework that provided the proper perspective for understanding the model results.     

Lower Cost Arrivals for Airlines: Optimal Policies for Managing Runway Operations under Optimized Profile Descent

Optimized profile descent (OPD) is an operating procedure being used by airlines to improve fuel and environmental efficiency during arrival operations at airports. In this study, we develop a stochastic dynamic programming framework to manage the sequencing and separation of flights during OPD operations. We find that simple calculation based measures can be used as optimal decision rules, and that the expected annual savings can be around $29 million if such implementations are adapted by major airports in the United States. Of these savings, $24 million are direct savings for airlines due to reduced fuel usage, corresponding to a potential savings of 10%–15% in fuel consumption over current practice. We also find that most of these savings will be due to the optimal spacing of OPD flights, as opposed to the optimal sequencing policies which contribute only 14% to the total savings. Hence, optimal spacing of OPD flights is much more important than optimal sequencing of these flights. We also conclude that there is not much difference between the environmental costs of fuel‐optimal and sustainably‐optimal spacing policies. Hence, an airline‐centric approach in improving OPD operations is likely to be not in conflict with objectives that might be prioritized by other stakeholders.     

Improve clinical processes in three meetings

Many health care organizations have developed methodologies to improve their processes of care. Most have outputs, such as clinical paths and/or algorithms, that require dozens of meetings over many months to design. Morton Plant Health System has taken a "SWAT team" approach and created a multi-hospital, multi-disciplinary team that develops recommendations and process changes after only three meetings of the entire team over two to three months. The organization has been highly successful, with process changes resulting in improve outcomes and savings in charges (1995 compared to 1994) of more than $22 million. What was the evolution of this process, what is the "SWAT" team approach and how does it work, and why has Morton Plant Health System been so successful in its efforts?     

OR/MS modeling in long range bank planning

For over 10 years, The Bank of New York has conducted formal Long Range Planning, to insure profitable long term growth. The planning system developed by the Bank relies heavily on Financial Planning and OR/MS Modeling has been an important part of this system. This paper describes the approach taken by the Bank to develop their system and the experience gained through managing the system.