Zero Emissions in a Global World

Roberto C. Villas Bôas James R. Kahn

Editores

Technological Assessment and Zero Emissions

in a Global World

Roberto C. Villas Bôas

James R. Kahn Editores

Technological Assessment and Zero Emissions in a Global World

Para cópias extras: Roberto C. Villas Bôas CETEM/IMAAC – www.cetem.gov.br/imaac Rua 4, Quadra D, Cidade Universitária 21941-590, Ilha do Fundão Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil

Fátima Engel Capa

Technological Assessment and Zero Emissions in a Global World. Roberto C. Villas Bôas, James R. Kahn (Eds.). IATAFI/IMAAC-UNIDO/CETEM, e-book, 146 pages, 1998 1. Tecnologias Limpas 2. Meio ambiente 3. Industria mineral

I. Centro de Tecnologia Mineral II. Villas Boas, Roberto C., Ed. III. James Kahn Ed. IV. Título

ISBN 978-85-7227-239-1 CDD 667.1

Roberto C. Villas Bôas

James Kahn Editores

Table of Contents Introduction 1

Chapters New Visions of S&T and TA: a provocative presentation ?, Ivan da C. Marques

6

Management of Technology and Knowledge Flows : a contribution to TA, Maria Christina S. Guimarães

19

The Role of Valuation in Assessing Alternative Technologies and Environmental Change, James R. Kahn

31

Zero Emission and Regulatory Policy, Maria Laura Barreto and Roberto C. Villas Bôas

46

Are Zero Emissions Optimal Pollution Targets ?, Dan Biller 58

Life Cycle Assessment and Zero Emission : how to focus the problem, Adisa Azapagic

66

Water : a Key Resource for Sustainable Development, Ricardo Melamed

77

India Technology Vision 2020 : A Focus on TF and TA towards Zero Emission Technologies, Deepak Bhatnaga and Sunita Wadhwa

100

Decommissioning of Mines and Zero Emission, Mônica Peres Menezes

118

Two Case Studies on the Contribution of New Materials to Zero Emissions Target, Carlos Peiter

127

Iromaking for Amazon, Tito Fernando A. Silveira, Bernardo G. Arnaud, Jeferson L. Cheriegate, Bianca P. Trotta, Karina M. Ribeiro, Patricia Teixeira and Igor ª Lima (Advisor)

131

Do Desenvolvimento Econômico ao Desenvolvimento Sustentável (in Portuguese), Renato Caporali

143

1

Introduction

The 1997 workshop of the International Association of Technology Assessment and Forecasting Institutes, IATAFI, was held in Rio de Janeiro and Buzios, Brazil. The focus of this meeting was “Technological Assessment and Zero Emissions in a Global World.” This book presents the proceedings of this meeting, and contains many papers which examine the role of technology in achieving zero emissions, and the importance of zero emissions for sustainable development, and the ever present question of technological assessment.

The book proceeds towards the accomplishment of its goals by presenting two types of papers. The first set of papers are conceptual papers which look at the practical and conceptual issues associated with assessing technologies to achieve feasible goals. The second set of papers looks at case studies of emission reduction programs. This introduction will present some questions which frame the issues surrounding the achievement of zero emissions and technology assessment, and these questions will also help to introduce the contributions of the authors who have written the chapters of this book. It should be noted that each of the chapters makes many more contributions than are noted in this introduction, but the purpose of it is to relate these chapters to the central questions which are raised in the introduction and not to provide a detailed description of the individual chapters.

The two question which needs to be examined are, “What are assessments?” and “What are emissions?” While in some dimensions these may seem to be very simple questions, in other dimensions they are quite complex. Technology assessments are thorough analysis of how a given, specific, technology will fit the social satisfaction of the particular area in which such technology will be introduced. Thus, in this respect, the inaugurating paper of Costa Marques gives a provocative presentation this matter and Maria Guimarães discusses a knowledge flows perspective into CTA, i.e., Constructive Technology Assessment. In the purest sense of the word, emissions are substances which are transmitted into the environment as a result of anthropogenic activity. According to this definition, any gas naturally emanating from the sub-soil would not be considered an emission. In this purest definition, gases, liquids, solids and radiation which are the wastes associated with human activity would all be considered emissions. In addition, it is possible to extend the definition of emissions to include other forces which degrade the environment including sound, aesthetic (visual) and thermal pollution. Finally, the definition can be broadened to include land use changes such as the conversion of natural habitat to other land uses. Another characteristic which must be present for the transmission of a substance into the environment to be considered an emission is that the substance must have an impact, either directly on humans, or indirectly through an impact on the natural or social environment. For example, if the environment has a natural ability

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to assimilate a harmful substance, the substance would not be considered an emission until that assimilative capacity has been exceeded.1

Indeed, Laura Barreto and Villas Bôas showed, in their presentation, that zero emission, as such, just exists under the focus of legislation, since everything that is bellow some asserted legal value is zero!

The second issue which must be considered is the source or origin of emissions. What forces give rise to both emissions and the impacts associated with emissions? Ricardo Melamed writes about the key role of water resources in this matter, and the importance of impacts on emissions to water on the prospects for sustainable development. Adisa Azapagic shows how life cycle analysis can be used to attribute emissions to their sources, illustrating backward and forward linkages across the stages of a products life cycle. Dan Biller discusses emissions as a problem which is economic in origin, due to market failure, or the inability of the market to consider the social costs of the emissions. James Kahn provides a diagram which shows how these different influences on the origins of emissions influence each other and the activities which lead to emissions.

The third issue which must be considered is the definition of zero emissions. From a physics perspective, the law of mass balance tell us that all activities must generate waste, and the entropy law implies that recycling can never be complete. Therefore, zero emissions are thermodynamically unattainable. Yet, both analysts and policy makers speak of a goal of zero emissions. What is the reconciliation between a policy goal of zero emissions and a physical inability to ever attain zero emissions?

One interpretation of a goal of zero emissions is that it is the ideal which should be pursued, even if never attained. However, as the discussions of the chapters by James Kahn and Dan Biller indicate, this would be a goal which is not necessarily justified by a comparison of social costs and benefits. Another interpretation of zero emissions is provided by Laura Barreto and Roberto Villas Boas in their chapter already mentioned. This interpretation is that zero emissions are the maximum level of emissions which are allowed by the environmental laws of the individual nations. This, of course, leads to an entirely new set of questions related to the determination of what level of emissions should be specified by the environmental code, and what policy instruments should be used to attain these levels of emissions.

All of the conceptual papers address these issues, from their various perspectives. For example, Ricardo Melamed discusses the levels of water quality which are necessary to allow various uses of water, such as drinking and recreation. Laura Barreto and Roberto Villas Bôas focus on relating various principles of international environmental

1 It should be noted that even if there is an assimilative capacity, the first levels of the waste could be considered to have an impact, as the consumption of the assimilative capacity could be considered to be a social impact.

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jurisprudence and public policy (such as the principals of limit, responsibility, balance of forces and sustainability) to the development of emission goals and for the proper structuring of environmental legislation to achieve these goals. Maria Guimarães focuses on the role of technology and information in developing and achieving environmental goals. The papers by James Kahn and Adisa Azapagic focus very directly on the process of setting goals. Azapagic examines the use of life cycle analysis in examining environmental trade-offs involving the full life cycle emissions of alternative technologies, while Kahn looks at the role of environmental valuation in determining the societal impacts of alternative technologies. While these two papers look at very different methodologies, they are actually quite compatible in that life cycle analysis can be used to define a trade-off surface, which determines the trade-offs among both alternative environmental impacts and the economic benefits of the technology. Environmental valuation allows one to pick the point on the trade-off surface which maximizes social welfare.

The relationship between emissions and social welfare is also examined by Dan Biller, who defines and discusses the implications of the optimal (social welfare maximizing) level of emissions. Biller also makes an important contribution by analyzing the alternative policy mechanisms by which one could attempt to achieve the optimal (or other target) level of emissions. In particular, he presents alternative economic incentives, which have the property of correcting the market failure that is responsible for the inefficient level of emissions.

So far, in discussing these issues this introduction has highlighted some of the contributions of the conceptual contributions to this book. The next goal of the introduction is to introduce the case-study papers, which make an equally important contribution by bringing real world experience to the important issue of zero emissions and its implications for the global economies.

Deepal Bhatnagar and Sunita Wadha discuss the Indian experience with technology development and its impact on emissions and environmental quality. They discuss a number of cases in which the development and implementation of new technologies reduce both economic and environmental costs.

Mônica Menezes looks at the decommissioning of mines and zero emissions by comparing the Canadian and Brazilian experiences. She discusses factors which must be considered when comparing the various decommissioning options, and concludes that an essential feature is to consider environmental impacts of mine closing at the very beginning of mining activities.

Carlos Peiter looks at the contribution of new materials to the zero emission target, by focusing on two case studies, the choice between alternative materials for telecommunications cables, and the choice of alternative materials in automobiles. He concludes that the use of innovative materials reduces emissions though lower consumption of raw materials and energy.

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Igor Lima and his students provide a case study of iron making in the Amazon, where emissions are not so much the focus, but land use change is the environmental impact of primary concern. The unsustainable harvesting of trees to provide charcoal for the iron-making process leads to potential permanent loss of ecologically important rainforest, and to an impoverishment of the soil through nutrient loss. The authors suggest a series of steps which can be taken to improve environmental performance and still realize the economic benefits of the rich iron ore deposits.

The following table summarizes the contributions of the various authors to the IATAFI conference and this proceedings book. We thank the authors for their outstanding contributions and are confident that the reader will better understand issues surrounding technology and zero emissions after reading their contributions.

Format of Chapters of this Book

Author(s) Title Methodological Approach

Primary Disciplinary Approach

Ivan da C. Marques New Visions of S&T and T.A.: a provocative presentation?

conceptual Technology Assessment

Maria Christina S. Guimarães

Management of Technology and KnowledgeFlows: a contribution to T.ª

conceptual Technology Assessment

James R. Kahn The Role of Valuation is ssessing Alternative Technologies and Environmental Change

conceptual Economics

Maria Laura Barreto and Roberto C. Villas Boas

Zero Emission and Regulatory Policy conceptual Law and Public Policy

Dan Biller Are Zero Emissions Optimal Pollution Targets

conceptual Economics

Adisa Azapagic Life Cycle Assessment and Zero Emission: how to focus the problem

Conceptual Technology Assessment

Ricardo Melamed Water: A key Resource for Sustainable Development

conceptual Water Resource Management

Mônica Peres Menezes Decommissioning of Mines and Zero Emission

case study Geology

Carlos Peiter Two Case Studies on the Contribution of New Materials to Zero Emissions Target

case study Engineering and Life cycle Analysis

Deepak Bhatnaga and Sunita Wadhwa

A Focus on TF and TA towards Zero Emission Technologies: India technology vision 2020.

case study Engineering and Technology Assessment

Tito Fernando A. Silveira, Benardo G. Arnaud, Jeferson L. Cheriegate, Bianca P. Trotta, KarinaM. Ribeiro, Patiricia Teixeira and Igor A Lima (advisor)

Ironmaking for Amazon case study Engineering and Technology Assessment

5

Renato Caporali Do Desenvolvimento Econômico ao Desenvolvimento Sustentável

Conceptual Sustainable Development

Na appendix, by Renato Caporali, deals with very some provocative thoughts on Economical Sustainability and Sustainable Development; it is written in Portuguese.

Rio de Janeiro, June 22, 1998.

Roberto C. Villas Bôas James Kahn

Editors

6

New Visions of Science & Technology and Technology Assessment: a provocative presentation?

Ivan da Costa Marques Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

First of all my aknowledgements to Professor Villas Bôas for the invitation and the opportunity to participate in the discussion of such an important and urgent subject.

Until not long ago the sole concern of no-nonsense management with technology assessment was its efficacy and effectiveness in a very narrow sense: its cost/performance ratio measured according to accounting rules applied in the firm for locally obtaining the maximum of output of a sellable product for a given set of inputs.

For some decades now there has been more widespread concern in society in general - mainly in the developed countries - with the much expressed environmental impacts of a technology. I believe it is fair to say that in consequence governments, businesses and consumers have been incorporating broader criteria for technology assessment. Firms now have to consider other aspects of a technology in the process of conceiving and adopting it: does it pollute? does it cause illness? does it endanger other species?

So one could say that concerns with conceiving and adopting a technology now span from a completely private cost/performance decision sphere into a broader and more public realm of environmental affairs. So far, however, the majority of these enlarged concerns have somehow avoided certain avenues into the generally admitted issue that technologies of various kinds are deeply interwoven in the conditions of modern politics. It is clear that the physical arrangements of industrial production, warfare, communications, and the like have fundamentally changed the exercise of power and the experience of citizenship. Thus a third aspect seems to have been so far much neglected: the claim that machines, structures, and systems of modern material culture can be accurately judged not only in terms of efficiency and productivity, and their environmental side affects, but also for the ways in which they can embody specific forms of power and authority.

1. ARTIFACTS HAVE POLITICS!

Various praisers and critics of technologies have interpreted technical artifacts in political language: the factory system, electricity, automobile, telephone, radio, television, nuclear power, space program, and even phosphate fertilizers brought to rural America have all, at one time or another, been described as democratizing, liberating forces - to say nothing about of the voiced (or should I say e-mailed?) expectations of the hyperenthusiastic netizens concerning instant global direct (non-representative) democracy, or, more seriously, generalized cheap education for all via the Internet. One can also find a tradition of critics of technology, harking back to the

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last century, associating various technologies to authoritarian or democratic, system-or man-centered preferences.

But to go beyond the fact that technology and politics do have partial connections, and delve into the intricacies of these connections has not been the dominant choice. In particular, to argue that certain technologies in themselves (if one can say that as a meaningful phrase) have political properties seems, at first glance, completely mistaken. Quoting from Langdon Winner’s book “The Whale and the Reactor: a Search for the Limits in an Age of High Technology”, published in 1986 (University of Chicago Press): “We all know that people have politics; things do not. To discover either virtues or evils in aggregates of steel, plastic, transistors, integrated circuits, chemicals, and the like seems just plain wrong, a way of mystifying human artifice and of avoiding the true sources, the human sources of freedom and oppression, justice and injustice. Blaming the hardware appears even more foolish than blaming the victims when it comes to judging conditions of public life.” [Winner 20]

However, as Langdon Winner shows in his seminal work, it is possible to argue that the answer to the question “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” is “Yes”. I would like to refer to Winner to disclose an array of examples of partial connections of increasing complexity between technologies and politics:

1) Robert Moses had two hundred or so low-hanging overpasses built on Long Island, New York, along the road from Manhattan to Jones Beach. The purpose was to limit the access of blacks and poor people who did not own a car and would depend on the bus (which would not fit under the overpasses) to get to his much acclaimed public park. During his life Robert Moses carefully constructed networks that reflected his social class bias and racial prejudices. These networks involved humans and non-humans - mayors, governors, presidents, legislatures, banks, labor unions, the press and public opinion, and also buildings, roads, bridges, and public works. After his death the human alliances he forged soon fell apart. But his non-human allies, his public works, especially the highways and bridges endured, and for much longer accomplished the influence of his bias and prejudices in the shaping of that city. Histories of architecture, city planning, and public works contain many examples of physical arrangements with explicit or implicit political purposes: broad Parisian avenues, buildings and plazas constructed on American university campuses in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Detailed studies of urban planning implying the removal of some slums in Rio remains to be made.

2) A well studied case was that of Cyrus McCormick. The firm spent US $ 500,000 to adopt pneumatic molding machines, a new and largely untested innovation in the 1880s in Chicago. The standard economic interpretation would say that it was a risk taken to achieve higher productivity through mechanization. But a study showed that the new machines were seen as a way to “weed out the bad element among the men,” that is, the skilled workers who had organized the union local in Chicago.[lw 24] The new machines, operated by unskilled laborers, produced inferior casting at a higher cost than the earlier process. Three years later the new machines were in fact abandoned after the destruction of the union. The point here is that the story of conception and adoption of technology at McCormick cannot be adequately understood unless the context is enlarged to bring in such things as the workers’ attempt to organize, police

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repression of the labor movement in Chicago during that period, the events surrounding the bombing at Haymarket Square. Technological history and US political history were at that moment deeply intertwined.

3) Numerical control technology provides another example. Davis Noble’s famous study shows that its development cannot be fully understood if the political motivations of controlling labor are not considered. We will skip the details.

One could rightly say all examples above involved conscious conspiracies or malicious intentions that preceded the adoption of the technologies. Technologies, however, can encompass purposes far beyond those apparent in their immediate adoption. Moreover, the following examples will show that the most important examples of technologies that have political consequences are those that transcend the simple categories “intended” or “unintended” altogether.

4) A mechanical tomato harvester has been developed and perfected by researchers at the University of California since the 1940s. Studies indicate that the use of the machine significantly reduces costs per ton as compared to hand harvesting. It harvests tomatoes in a single pass through a row, cutting the plants from the ground, shaking the fruit loose, and sorts them electronically into large gondolas. To accommodate the rough motion of the harvester, agricultural researchers have bred new varieties of tomatoes that are hardier, sturdier (,and less tasty) than those previously grown. The machines replace the system of hand-picking in which crews of farm workers would pass through the fields three or four times, putting ripe tomatoes in lug boxes and saving immature fruit for later harvest. The adoption of the machine entailed a thorough reshaping of social relationships involved in tomato production in rural California. They cost more US $ 50,000 each, and thus are compatible only with a highly concentrated form of tomato growing. There was a substantial increase in tons of tomatoes produced while the number of tomato growers declined from approximately 4,000 in the early 1960s to about 600 in 1973. By the late 1970s an estimated 32,000 jobs in the tomato industry in California had been eliminated as a direct consequence of mechanization.

The university was suited by attorneys for California Rural Legal Assistance. The suit charged that university officials are spending tax moneys on projects that benefit a handful of private interests to the detriment of farm workers, small farmers, consumers, and rural California generally, and asks for a court injunction to stop the practice. The university denied these charges, arguing that to accept them “would require elimination of all research with any potential practical application.”

There is certainly no plot here. The studies made of the controversy concluded that the original developers of the machine and the hard tomato had no intention to facilitate economic concentration in that industry. As Landgon Winner says, “what we see here instead is an ongoing social process in which scientific knowledge, technological invention, and corporate profit reinforce each other in deeply entrenched patterns, patterns that bear the unmistakable stamp of political and economic power. ... It is in the face of such subtly ingrained patterns that opponents of innovations such as the tomato harvester are made to seem “antitechnology” or

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“antiprogress.” For the harvester is not merely the symbol of a social order that rewards some while punishing others; it is in a true sense an embodiment of that order.”

In all cases cited above, however, the technologies are relatively flexible in design and arrangement and variable in their effects. Although one can recognize a particular result produced in a particular setting, one can also easily imagine how a roughly similar device or system might have been built or situated with very much different political consequences. None of the arguments and examples considered thus far addresses a stronger, more troubling claim, namely, the belief that some technologies are by their very nature political in a specific way.

5) Alfred Chandler in The Visible Hand, a monumental study of modern business enterprise, presents impressive documentation to defend the hypothesis that the construction and day-to-day operation of many systems of production, transportation, and communication in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries require the development of particular social form - a large-scale centralized, hierarchical organization administered by highly skilled managers.

Chandler points to ways in which technologies used in the production and distribution of electricity, chemicals, and a wide range of industrial goods “demanded” or “required” this form of human association. “Hence, the operation requirements of railroads demanded the creation of the first administrative hierarchies in American business” [Winner 35]

6) That “democracy stops at the factory gates” was taken as a fact of life that had nothing to do with the practice of political freedom. But can the internal politics of technology and the politics of the whole community be so easily separated? According to environmentalist Denis Hayes “the increased deployment of nuclear power facilities must lead society toward authoritarianism. Indeed, safe reliance upon nuclear power as the principal source of energy maybe possible only in a totalitarian state”. Russel Ayres’s study of the legal ramifications of plutonium recycling concludes that “with the passage of time and the increase in the quantity of plutonium in existence will come the pressure to eliminate the traditional checks the courts and legislatures place on the activities of the executive and to develop a powerful central authority better able to enforce strict safeguards”.

7) We do not have the time to go into details, but after the publication of Winner’s book feminist studies have been showing other relations between sciences and technologies and politics dominated by males, and WASPs in particular. A well known example is Princeton’s professor of anthropology Emily Martin’s account of how science has constructed a romance based on stereotypical male-female roles to describe and explain the fecundation process, thereby re-enforcing values conducive of specific forms of power and authority.

8) Annemarie Mol in Holland is studying the relations between S&T and politics in the different performances of anemia in that country. Anni Dugdale in Australia is studying the relations between S&T and politics focusing the IUD in different decades: the 1920s/30s and 1960s/70s. And Helen Veran, also in Australia, is studying quantification as a sociotechnical construction, as an ordering (and hence political) enterprise.

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9) In England, University of Keele’s professsor of sociology John Law invented “ontological politics”.

OK. Let us admit that we are through. Let us admit that it makes sense to accurately assess technologies not only for their contribution to productivity and their effects on the environment, but also for specific forms of power and authority that they embody. But how can we act upon that? What specific new approaches would this awareness in practice require?

This is a rather difficult question. But I believe that a good way to start can be sought among those who for not much longer than a decade have been working about what is called ANT or actor-network theory, a field created in the 1980s by a few social researchers like Bruno Latour, Michel Callon and John Law. An attempt to explain permanently evolving actor-network theory on my part here would certainly be in vain. I could not possibly do justice to the subject. Nevertheless, I would like in particular to call attention to the concept of Constructive Technology Assessment - CTA, presented in detail in a book edited in 1995 by Arie Rip, Thomas Misa and Johan Schot titled “Managing Technology in Society - The approach of Constructive Technology Assessment”.

2. CONSTRUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT - CTA

I will draw heavily on Michel Callon’s article on that book. The CTA concept refers both to a principle of democracy and to a particular interpretation of the technological development process. Three hypotheses of the CTA concept can be distinguished:

1) Technological development results from a large number of decisions made by numerous heterogeneous actors;

2) Technological options can never be reduced to their strictly technical dimension;

3) Technological options bring about irreversible situations, resulting from the gradual disappearance of the margins of choice available to the deciders: as time goes on, their choices are inexorably predetermined by decisions taken earlier.

The implementation of a constructive technology assessment, or CTA, must take account of the answer to the following questions:

(a) How can we ensure that all the actors involved, especially the non-specialists and the most resourceless, receive a proper hearing during discussions of the technical options, and it comes to taking decisions?

(b) How can several alternative technological options be kept open at all times, bearing in mind that a variety of these must exist if the very notion of choice is not to disappear, and with it all possibility of political debate?

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(c) How can we avoid the emergence of irreversible situations which exclude certain technological options merely because they did not find support at a particular time?

If CTA is to become a practical option and not to remain a utopian dream, clarification and further articulation of these problems are necessary. An important element is to model the dynamics of the process of technological design and adoption so as to answer three analytical questions:

a) How do we identify the actors who take part in the process of design and of adoption of technologies?

b) How do we explain the disappearance of alternative technological options (or of what is called technological variety)?

c) How do we account for the appearance of irreversible (or lock-in) situations?

In order to get the answers CTA studies of the dynamics of technological development emphasize:

1) the fact that the aggregation of the decisions taken by the actors as of time (t-1) contributes heavily to determining the field of choice as of time (t). “Both the opportunity of participating in the decision process and the intrinsic nature of the options available, are path dependent.” [Callon 308]

2) The concept of network taken not as “an intermediate coordinating mechanism between an organization and the market” but rather “in a more narrow sense to mean the group of unspecified relationships among entities of which the nature itself is undetermined” [Callon 309]. The picture of a network is thus reduced to a simple graph. The simplicity of this analytical tool is its principal advantage. It offers a minimal framework to describe interactions in all their diversity and richness.

This is why it can applied equally well to design and adoption phases.

This allows for the actor-network model to go beyond and integrate the results of both traditional diffusion and the competition diffusion models with the technological conception, design and development process.

- traditional diffusion model

- competition diffusion model

- actor-network model

The traditional diffusion model reconstitutes the paths of diffusion of one given technological product or process Tj by reference to the position of the first adopters and the form of the

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networks of interdependence among the actors. It enables us to follow the transformations undergone by these networks in step with the degree of progression of the adoption process: we can thus observe the emergence of new social structures generated by the aggregation of successive decisions. It is applicable to describing the diffusion of a technologies that do not undergo transformation during adoption.

The competition diffusion model is an extension of the traditional diffusion model placing several substitutable technologies in competition with each other. It introduces a plurality of technologies and a range of possible trajectories. It is more complicated to analyze but it refers to the same variables as the traditional diffusion model.

In the traditional diffusion and competition diffusion models the technologies are considered as given: their design is excluded and deemed to have no influence on the adoption process; transformations (adaptation, differentiation) occurring downstream are also neglected. Similarly, the separation between suppliers and adopters, and that between adopters and non-adopters, which existed ab initio are not reappraised subsequently. The potential adopter population is circumscribed once and for all, while both suppliers and users are disqualified from influencing the technological options. Economics of technical change and sociology of innovation have made significant contributions to demonstrating the unrealistic nature of these assumptions, such as when drawing attention to the collective and adaptive features of the innovation process. The actor-network model is designed to overcome these limitations.

The traditional diffusion and the competition diffusion models have as their weakness the fact that they assume the technological and human entities (suppliers, adopters, etc.) to be exogenous and immutable variables.

The actor-network model integrates the technological design and re-design phases of the development process, with the adopters having in principle the same opportunities for taking part in the elaboration of the technologies as do the suppliers. It stresses the co-evolution of technologies and human beings interacting with them, leaving room for variation in the population of potential adopters. It has a relatively indeterministic approach to saying whether a given entity belongs to the technological (adoptable) or the human (designers and/or adopters) universe. This acknowledges the evolutive nature of the conventions (authorities, rules, customs).

3. BUILDING BLOCKS OF THE ACTOR-NETWORK MODEL 1) Actors and Techniques

A distinction can be made between entities which are called ‘technical objects’ and others which are defined as actors. The first are subject to negotiation concerning their characteristics and production process. The concept of negotiation leads on to that of actor. An actor is any individual or collective entity who takes part in negotiations and contributes to reach a compromise. ‘Technical objects’ are modified over time as a function of the state of the prevailing

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forces and compromises reached among actors. These transformations may be more or less significant. This will depend on the degree of convergence or divergence among the viewpoints of the actors participating in the negotiation.

It is possible to say that the techniques and actors who participate in the conception process evolve together. Take two actors Ai and Aj negotiating technique Tk. They will (sooner or later) compel themselves to find a compromise between their preferred options. This will lead to a redefinition of the Tk whose characteristics will be modified as negotiation progress. But Ai and Aj themselves will also develop because of the simple fact that they are involved in a search for a compromise. Their conceptions, interests, and projects will change as they agree to abandon some of their initial demands to take into consideration those of the other actor. Once agreement is reached, the identities of Ai and Aj are transformed. This is why Michel Callon uses the idea of the co-evolution of techniques and actors.

It would be natural to consider that ‘technical objects’ are of necessity material in nature and the actors are human beings, whether individual or collective. This is indeed often the case, but this rule is subject to exceptions, and increasingly so: techniques are often hybrid encompassing material objects and human beings; population of potential actors is not limited to human beings; in some cases, the separation between what is negotiated and what negotiates, between the intermediaries and the actor, is generally accepted as ambiguous and conventions (laws, rules, customs) are introduced to clarify the distinctions; moreover, nothing may be considered as definitively stable, and ambiguous situations are multiplying under pressure from science and technology (automated factories, nuclear reactors, embryos, clones, artificial intelligent systems, etc.)

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2) Socio-Technical Networks: The Negotiation Stakes

Once the identity of the negotiating actors and the techniques to be developed have been defined, it needs to be determined what is at stake in the negotiations. What is negotiated among actors is not only the characteristics of Tk, but also at the same time the socio-technical network linked to Tk. Negotiations also involve various definitions of complementary techniques Tck but also, and above all, the roles given to users and the ultimate divisions of each of them into distinct sub-populations. The conceivers of techniques become technicians, sociologists, economists, moralists as they traverse the socio-technical network linked to the object being conceived.

3) Recruitment

The drawing up of the list of actors and techniques involved depends not only on the contents of the conventions already indicated, but also on the organizational procedures and structures which determine the direction that negotiations concerning techniques should take. For example, concerning the participants, their batting order, their prerogatives, etc. The participating actors may belong to a single organization, may or may not come from different departments or divisions, or be recruited from different organizations (public laboratories, service firms, lead users, ministries, banks, capital risk companies). The form of relationships and their development over time may range from simple bilateral links, moving relentless forward, to ongoing multi-directional interactions. All these rules, (formal and informal) have been discussed by sociologists and more recently by the economic theory of organizations. The rules contribute forcefully to the definition of the actors, direct their interventions and co-ordinate their actions.

Recruitment goes beyond the entities physically present during negotiation. It involves how each actor positions itself in a representation of a network, implying a definition of each actor’s own identity and of the other entities brought together by the network. This not the place to go into the details (provided by [Calon 314]). It is sufficient to say that such representation/identification is itself the outcome of a process, and need not be agreed upon. Similarities and dissimilarities in such representation/identification will however be important for understanding the dynamics of the network.

4) The Dynamic of Convergence and Divergence

The conception network’s dynamic can be analyzed in terms of increases and reductions in convergence. A network is convergent if the three following conditions hold: (a) there is agreement on the initial distinction between actors and techniques; (b) there is agreement on the list of actors and techniques involved in the negotiations; (c) there is agreement on the description of the techniques being conceived, i.e. on the description of the related socio-technical networks. When these agreements are not reached, the conception network is divergent.

The degree of convergence or divergence is the (always provisional) result of a process which leads to agreement or disagreement on the description of the anticipated network and the

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actors involved (or involvable). To pass from divergence to convergence mutual adaptation occurs. The dynamics of these adaptations depend, to a large extent, on the forms of organization and the co-ordination rules which prevail in the conception networks, i.e. who negotiates with whom in what order and according to what sequences.

The network designs itself, as much as it designs technologies (in the sense of artifact). It is enough to change the list of actors authorized to negotiate, the order of their intervention, the morphology of the interactions and also the means by which “represented” actors may be involved (by exploration of the similarity networks) for other techniques to be developed. The dynamic of the conception network corresponds to what economists call “learning.” It is also clear that there are opportunities for intervention as envisaged by CTA. It should be also emphasized that the achievement of workable agreements represents a cost which is not recoverable before subsequent stages come into action.

4. CONCEPTION-ADOPTION NETWORKS

1) Adoption

The conception process ends when network convergence is achieved. The adoption phase then begins which goes hand-in-hand with manufacture and distribution, etc. When convergence is obtained within the conception network, agreement is reached on technique Tk. As has been stressed, the agreement is not on the technique in the strict sense. It also applies to the networks inscribed in the technique which will often have been subject of long negotiations in the conception phase.

In particular, the reaching of agreement on the definition of adopters (who they are and their requirements) presupposes the involvement of “spokepersons” for the adopters in the conception process (using the full range of means available to make known the potential user’s requirements: market studies, panels, experiments, etc. [Akrich 1992], and, in certain cases these spokespersons will themselves be the first adopters. When Tk is fixed, the first adopter can be identified at the moment the adoption process begins. Thus in this model the identification of the first adopter is not an exogenous ‘small event’ but the endogenous result of the conception process.

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2) The Dynamic of Conception-Adoption Networks

The dynamic of the conception/adoption of a technique is a two-stage process with alternating conception and production phases in the strict sense of these terms.

Technology strategy (the conception of Tj) and the commercial strategy (identification of the first users who by the interplay of their similarity networks set off the adoption process and the ensuing events) are closely implicated.

Another distinction is useful to describe the trajectory. It is based on the respective duration of the conception and adoption phases. Two extreme configurations can be identified: 1) the conception phase lasts a long time and is followed by a short adoption phase: the technique is evolving and probably compatible with small-scale manufacturing; 2) the adoption phase lasts a long time in relation to the re-conception phase. Techniques are stable and standard. This is compatible with mass production.

A conception-adoption sequence is referred to as the succession of these two phases, and is termed ‘s’. The sequence begins with the convergence of the conception network which as a result of multiple negotiations stabilizes Tj and Ai. This implies drawing in the similarity networks of which the various Ai involved in the conception are the representatives, and continues with the progressive creation and articulation of adoption and production networks.

Rs(t), the socio-technical network which is available at the end of the sequence, contains the conception, production and adoption network simultaneously. Rs(t) brings together entities which existed in a different form, or which had weaker and different ties, at the beginning of the sequence.

A conception phase always inherits networks formed in former sequences, and in a later sequence the starting point is Rs(t). This means that the conception feeds off pre-formed networks in which techniques and diverse actors (producers, adopters, financiers, marketing personnel and researchers, etc.) are tied together and links may well be stable.

The last of Ai who compose Rs(t) (which is different from the conception network existing at the beginning of the sequence as it has been enlarged by all the actors and all the techniques recruited during the adoption and production phases) forms a reserve of potential participants for the conception network of the following sequence st+1.

This gives a picture of continuity as well as a transformation principle which rests on the logic of the similarity networks and the permanent space and time disparities involved in them.

The second essential element in the transformation from Rs(t) to Rs(t+1) is linked to the conventions which define access conditions to become an actor or to be a technique. Between t and t+1, it is possible to imagine that these rules change. Variations in conventions are becoming more common with growing concerns about the environment: hence

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chorofluorocarbons were suddenly withdrawn from the list of substances which could be used in the conception of aerosol.

3) Irreversibility and Variety

The first is the case where Rs(t+1) re-injects into the conception process all the techniques and all the actors present in the conception phase of st while adding new actors recruited during the st adoption, which opens up possible new adoption networks. Thus learning is accumulated and networks are extended without loss. The boundaries between the network and its “environment” are reinforced and the network breaks away from its context. Such a situation is usually accompanied by the production of norms and standards which align the behavior of actors and techniques. The various elements of the network are equivalent and each speaks for the others. Such a development corresponds to a trajectory which is becoming irreversible.

The other situation is that which corresponds to a transition of Rs(t) to Rs(t+1) in which actors and techniques recruited for the new phase of conception are different from those of the conception phase of the previous sequence and belong to the population of st’s last recruits. As a consequence they may not be too similar to the actors who were involved in the previous phase. Rs(t+1) will have a composition, both of actors and techniques, which places it at some distance from Rs(t). This may happen again in the transition to Rs(t+2) so that there is no convergence over time and very limited irreversibility.

The fact that a sequence of networks become caught up in one trajectory rather than another depends on numerous factors:

− the morphology o the networks of the adopters;

− the nature and the form of the co-ordination mechanism which play an important role in the recruitment of the conception network’s elements in st+1.

The generation and maintenance of technical variety can now be addressed in a rigorous manner by giving a dynamic interpretation of technological competition.

Situations of technological competition relate to different configurations. For competition to exist, it is sufficient that adoption networks overlap. To analyze competition, it is thus necessary to change the perspective to a focus on conception networks and the interlinkages which make them more or less dependent.

The transition from a competitive to a non-competitive situation occurs when the networks of adopters selected by the conception networks have been (re-)defined in a sufficiently radical manner so as to find themselves without anything in common.

5. CONCLUSIONS

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CTA as described above creates continuity with regular economic analysis, which is essential to overcome the unproductive contrast between so-called economic forces (or technology promotion policy discussions) and societal values (or technology control policy discussions) to be implemented.

In the promotion arena, the predominant academic input to the policy discourse has come from economic analyses of technical change rather than sociological analyses. In the control arena, policy discussions have not been notably by economic arguments. Academic involvement with this arena has been restricted to commentary and analysis rather than direct input to the policy debates (risk analysis is an honorable exception).

CTA as described above made no separate discussion of the value, e.g., having lay actors involved in technological development. The focus was on the appropriateness and viability of interventions as these can be derived from a better understanding of the process of sociotechnical development.

The challenge for “us” is to participate in those networks, most likely within the institution of the business firm, but from standpoints beyond the firm, in a way which harnesses but defends technological variety. If “we” accept this challenge, then an intrinsic part of the bargain is that there can be no confortable certainties about “our” policies or “our” actions. Involvement in such networks produces unintentional consequences as well as (if we are lucky) intentional ones [Coombs in Rip et alli (eds) 336-7].

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Management of Technology and Knowledge Flows: a contribution to technology assessment

Maria Cristina S. Guimarães Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em C&T

ABSTRACT

This paper puts forth an information scientist's perspective on technology assessment. The main aim is to introduce a knowledge flows perspective into the Constructive Technology Assessment (CTA) approach. Recent contributions on technology development processes are presented and used as a guide to understand their whole process as complex and dynamic networks of knowledge. As technology management emerges as a key issue to CTA approach, knowledge flows points as an important complement to them in this context.

1. INTRODUCTION

There is an intrinsic dilemma related to the development of technologies. On one hand, is widely acknowledged the role played by technologies on the 'wealth of nations'. Scientific and technological knowledge have become strategic resources for industry and government in a dynamic perspective: to develop technologies at a rapid pace means gaining competitiveness in the short term. On the other hand, technologies also have become sources of both wide and deep discussion given their impacts on the social: environmental pollution, health issues, invasion of privacy, workplace safety, etc., are representative of our most intractable problems. From society in general and from researchers as citizens some questions have arisen: Have we been compelled to adapt to an inexorable path of technologies? Could technological developments have taken another path (a better one) ?

Obviously answers are not straightforward. Nor are these two contradictory dimensions of technologies convergent to a point that calls for a radical choice between them. This paper adopts the view taken by some researchers for whom technological developments can be 'managed' to an extent that some aspects of their evolution can be shaped. Therefore, management does not mean financial promotion for specific technologies and punishment for other ones. Yet, since economic and social relations can not be apart from technologies (as long as economic pressures and societal demands are inherent aspects in our society) an intentional strategy should be designed to conciliate them.

It is proposed that the integration of different actors involved in the promotion, implementation, diffusion, use and regulation of technologies (whom have different perspectives from, and views of a technology in development) may be strengthened by proper flows of knowledge. We define knowledge in its broadest sense, to encompass expertise, skills,

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knowledge and information2. Moreover, we propose that this knowledge is not a 'self containing one', or a set of meanings already decided by some actors and impinged upon by others. On the contrary, we emphasise the need of building up meanings through interaction of actors. Since technology developments are about uncertainty, their path might be shaped by sharing meanings and responsibilities of all the actors involved. So, this approach involves a social process of learning.

The following topics are developed in this paper. Recent contributions and empirical evidence from research on technology are presented to draw up the nature of the technologies, and the main characteristics of their developments. The increasing impetus to a networked pattern of innovation process is introduced, which opens up room to think of partnership beyond the logic of economic profits. Knowledge flows emerge as a key issue in this context, where competition is deeply linked with co-operation. Next an emergent paradigm in technology assessment, Constructive Technology Assessment approach (CTA) is present. Some final considerations on a possible integration between knowledge flows approach and CTA are discussed in the last section.

2. THE NATURE OF TECHNOLOGIES AND THE MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF THEIR DEVELOPMENTS

Various disciplinary areas have currently contributed to the understanding of the nature of technologies and the dynamics inherent of their development. A huge body of literature on this subject is available mainly focusing on industrial innovation and from a productive firm's perspective. Nonetheless the mass of information and stylised facts have not come to a synthesis yet, in terms of identification of few analytical principles. Moreover, in some of them there is a strong methodological bias. In this paper some of the main points presented by them is summarised, as a 'patchwork'. There is no special concern to affiliate any of the contributions to one or another discipline. Being the partial and private view of the author, the main aim is to explain those aspects of technology development in which knowledge issues emerge as an important ingredient.

Evidence collected in the last 25 years has pointed out some of the key features of innovation process: It is highly differentiate across industrial sectors whereas being firm specific in nature. Averaging across industries, a remarkable feature emerge: Around two-thirds of the knowledge used by companies in the course of innovation comes from their own in-house know-how and expertise, the remaining third, from external sources (users, suppliers, manufacturers, and competitors). Half of personal knowledge is 'personal', in that it is already known to individual R&D staff, while the other half comes from collective R&D activity. Attempts of identifying broad distinctions on the character of knowledge used in innovation converge to some main features:

2 Knowledge and information are slippery terms. This paper uses a common sense distinction between knowledge as holding information, knowledge as understanding information, and knowledge as skill or knowing how to do something with it.

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public-private; specific-generic; tacit-articulated; local-universal; complex-simple; information-understanding-skill (Faulkner, 1994).

Tacit, private, specific or local are the main adjectives used to characterise the knowledge in which organisation mainly relies upon in technological innovation. It is basically obtained through in-house activities ( research, development and design [R&D], testing and production activities), it can hardly be reproduced elsewhere and it is difficult to acquire by transfer of appropriation. Firms can tap into different external sources of knowledge to complement their innovation activities. Knowledge demanded is diverse, 'packed' in various forms; it flows through different channels and varies in degrees of codification. Depending on the pattern of the technology development in different industrial sectors, demands on knowledge sources and types (e.g., related to design practices, to experimental R&D, to final product) are diverse (Pavitt, 1992).

A firm's knowledge base' is mainly made up of tacit knowledge, while being intrinsically related to experience and practice has a high degree of specificity. Together with skills (both technical and organisational ones) and when related to the practice of organising and getting things done, the knowledge base defines 'firm specific competences'. They also define the firm's capability to exploit external sources of knowledge and, ultimately, its ability to innovate. The innovation process, or the acquisition, integration and translation of new knowledge into new products/artefacts is an extremely complex process (in both technical and organisational terms). In this process research, development, design and marketing activities are linked through a continuous feedback loops of knowledge (Kline and Rosenberg, 1986).

Management thus emerges as a key issue. The complexity involved in the process of accessing and integrating knowledge require both technical and managerial orchestration across disciplinary and functional boundaries, within and between organisations. However, although all possible efforts of planning and managing, innovation process (as creation of novelties) are uncertain and unpredictable. Nonetheless, technological accumulation is not random: the past engenders the future. Path dependent trajectories emerge because novelties are selected (both within firms and in the marketplace) as a result of the learning process (Metcalfe, 1995). So, learning is involved both in the creation of novelties (through knowledge integration inside firms) and in the diffusion of technologies (the point from which new technology is launched on the market and the long path of improvements on it get started). In the whole process, learning is intrinsically a social construction process, one that demands practice: 'learning is about becoming a practitioner, not learning about the practice' (Brown and Duguid, 1991, p.48).

This social construction process is explained by a sociotechnical point of view (technologies are both social and technical systems). Technological development is seen as a nondeterminated process where a multidirectional flux of knowledge demands a constant negotiation and renegociation amongst actors. The dynamic is explained through the action of relevant social groups within and outside organisations (researchers, managers, manufacturers, users, governmental agencies, regulatory agencies, organised or unorganised group of individuals, etc.) that play a critical role in defining and solving the problems that arise during the technology development. Social groups give meanings to technology whereas defining problems that emerge within the context of the meaning assigned by them. As they have different

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5207973_Technology_Systems_and_Technology_Policy_in_an_Evolutionary_Framework?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-14e1098b-e9e5-4fcd-87cd-32add7c78a2d&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzI2NTY0MzA2NztBUzoxNDE3NzU4NDcwMzg5NzhAMTQxMDgxMzQwNDkzNA==

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strategies, resources and interests, there is interpretative flexibility: not only do people think of and interpret situations in different ways but also different designs (as conceptions of products or process) can arise. 'There is not just one possible way or one best way of designing an artifact' (Pinch and Bijker, 1987, p.40). Closure takes place when consensus is reached. Researchers have pointed out some historical evidence on this line of reasoning (Bijker and Law, 1992).

The dynamic of this micro perspective is discussed through actors that by interacting build up networks of relations where one actor tries to enroll the other one. So, relations are strategically organised and intentional. Moreover, relations are heterogeneous: partly social, partly technical. Actor's main goal is to agree about meanings while constructing new meanings (Law and Callon, 1992). The process of enrollment goes on with actors redefining themselves through interaction. As long as they can agree about meanings, a variety (as an embryonic form of a new technology) is created. Networks can also be seen as circuits of power (Clegg, 1989). However, it does not mean that actor's power is absolute: since the relations are intentional, there is uncertainty related to the power-effects that might be achieved. The effects (and so the future technologies) of these relationships may turn out to be other than what was expected.

Some authors argue that this network approach ought to be used to explain the whole social process of technology creation, implementation, diffusion and entrenchment in society. Others, jokingly ask: '... would you dare to fly in an airplane that is only a social construction?'3 (Emphasis added). Whereas focusing on knowledge issues, this controversy will not be pursued in this paper. Here the picture above described is taken mainly as representative of variety creation through strategic partnership. Being either formal (e.g., joint R&D agreements) or less formal (e.g., some sorts of technological agreements), these collaborations basically aim to make new experiments with existing knowledge. In other words, the practice of routine exploitation of a firm's knowledge bases in the face of new public (both scientific and technological) knowledge.

The main advantage of these collaborations is that they give rise to a particular category of diffuse externalities, or new public knowledge (Stiglitz, 1991). Technological public knowledge consists of the generic understanding, clues of 'recipes' plus a basis for working out and testing 'recipes'. It is shared by many users and community of professionals and practitioners, and grow up in a systemic way. It consists of generic understanding which also provides the basis for the development of a new specific and private knowledge (Nelson, 1992). Public knowledge generated through co-operation may produce designs or conceptions about future technology. Design can be defined as a process of converting an idea or needs into information from which a new product can be made, initially as solution concepts and then as specific configuration (Walsh, 1986). So, design has a fluid characteristic, and 'the best initial design concepts turn out to be wrong ... simply because not enough is yet known how the job can (and cannot) be done' (Kline and Rosenberg, 1986, p.297).

3 The key point is that there are a lot of 'contingencies' (technical and economic ones) that get quite softer ones in some Social Shaping of Technologies (SST) case studies.

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So, once varieties are created (either in co-operation or in-house), a long-term process of redesigns, developments and improvements take place inside organisations until the best design of the technology is reached. An intense process of learning-by-doing takes place and successful design necessarily reflect economic and institutional variables and preference structures of firms and consumers (Rosenberg, 1994). So, there is a technical and organisational process that renders public knowledge into firm-specific knowledge, or private knowledge. From knowledge perspective, organisations basically consist of private knowledge translated in norms and routines on how to do things. However, they are also a set of social relations and a cultural unit. Firm's private knowledge is action, an expression of practice that synthesise not only technical issues, but also organisational issues, culture and social relationships. It is best realised as an innovation, an artifact.

However it is misleading to think of innovation as a homogenous thing that could be identified as entering the economy at a precise time (as Patent Office encourages one to think). The subsequent developments and improvements in an innovation after it is launched are vastly more important. Moreover, technologies come not as an isolated device but as part of a whole, as a part of a system. Diffusion process is what transform a single innovation to a device of great economic significance in a system linked with other technologies (Kline and Rosenberg, 1986). Here, again, a social process of learning takes place, and involves not only final users but also complementary technologies.

As it spreads throughout the market, this diffusion process requires of organisations proper mechanisms of co-ordination. Pure markets are poor devices for learning and exchanges of knowledge: the costs 'persuading, negotiating with, co-ordination among, and teaching outside are high' (Langlois and Robertson, 1994, p.39)4. In fact, 'It is only because individual human beings are limited on knowledge, foresight, skill, and time that organisations are useful instruments for the achievement of human purpose; and it is only because organised groups of human beings are limited in ability to agree on goals, to communicate, and to cooperate that organising becomes for them a problem' (Simon,1957,p.199). Patterns of communication then play a vital role in the diffusion process.

Moreover, the current increasing uncertainty and complexities of technologies that more and more require access to new and specific types of knowledge; the rapid pace of technological developments; the increasing competition; the high costs involved in R&D efforts; the growing differentiation on users needs, demands and preferences, and the need to go global are some of the factors that are leading organisations to strategically seek new sorts of co-ordination mechanisms. In this dynamically competitive environment they should learn how to deal with the uncertainties; they need to work with regimes of knowledge production, which are based both on competition and collaboration, on a ceaseless reconfiguration of resources and knowledge.

4 The main organisations' inclination in this situation is to go vertically integrated. However, as they may lose flexibility, the key issue turns to be how to properly co-ordinate market's relationship.

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In this macro perspective the metaphor of networks is understood as flexible co-operation around common interests (Callon, 1994) and express the key issues related to interdependence, reciprocity and trust between organisations, which firstly may allow improvements in the communication process. Better communications can facilitate co-ordination of activities whereas enabling the emergence of share values and understandings, and the creation of relations based on trust rather than in self-interest and opportunism. Learning can be strategically influenced by decisions that shape organisations, their boundaries, the specialisation of tasks and co-ordination of specialised skills and knowledge (Lazonick and O'Sullivan, 1996). The exchange of tacit knowledge has been seen as the very advantage of these sorts of collaborations, and informality (or personal contacts) the main channel to allow this knowledge transfer. By personal contacts private knowledge is somehow translated into public knowledge in order to be transferred amongst organisations.

This knowledge perspective on technology creation and development highlights a process of synthesis of diverse and disorganised inputs that require orchestration in order to produce a given set of artifacts. Management then emerges as a key issue, and to a certain extent, an intractable one in terms of formal planning. Some reasons can be pointed out:

The whole process is about uncertainty. A complex and dynamic environment makes some aspects literally unknowable. Technologies and society co-evolve, there is an inherent risk concerning markets, technology and the wider business environment.

Imperfect knowledge essentially means that organisations are bound by their private knowledge. Like human beings, organisations 'see' what they expect to see, what have they capacity to interpret. This is the consequence of the cumulative character of the private knowledge.

Private knowledge is by nature a specialised one. To the extent it is also a 'cultural knowledge' (realised as a specific expertise), it poses organisational, functional or disciplinary barriers to achieve a holistic view of the problems to be solved. Power issues and resistance to change are intrinsic aspects of private knowledge.

To define properly the border of organisations then is a key point. To break down barriers is an essential step to improve patterns of communication in order to improve knowledge exchanges. A clear delimitation between private and public knowledge is required taken into consideration a dynamic environment and an increasing supply of scientific knowledge.

Given the diversity of external sources of knowledge that is accessed, some small inputs haphazard in nature are positively 'invisible' and usually a consequence of personal initiative. This means that there is a part of knowledge acquisition that is not subject to planning.

As pointed out by Faulkner (1994), these are issues that policy makers and managers need to take on board, but also point to the importance to strengthening a research agenda for this field. What types of knowledge are required in any one field; how are different types of knowledge obtained from different sources; what impact does external knowledge have on

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organisations are some of main questions to be addressed. However, it is also claimed that the knowledge flows approach has mainly focused on R&D activities and might be broadened to include knowledge inputs to other phases of technology development. Furthermore, also a focus on non-technical inputs is of vital importance. This is really true for the diffusion process where final users' needs and preferences are more likely to be influential on subsequent developments of technology.

As long as this approach can guide investigations on assessing whether organisations are making the best use of available sources of knowledge to meet their requirements it also can be useful to identify to what extent societal needs and demands are taking into consideration during the process of technology developments. If technologies can be better designed from a societal viewpoint; the concept of better should encompass the agreement of as many users (active and passive ones) of technologies as possible. This leads to a new approach on technology assessment: the constructive technology assessment (CTA).

3. THE CONSTRUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY APPROACH (CTA): A SUMMARY OF THE MAIN POINTS

The roots of the current Constructive Technology Approach (CTA) can be identified in the Netherlands in the early 1980s, where policy makers took up a movement to integrate science and technology in society. The emphasis was on the importance of broadening the aspects of traditional Technology Assessment (TA). This was said to be mainly consisting of a two-track approach: on the one hand, policies to promote technologies, on the other hand, policies to control and regulate technologies. The main point has been that, while there are valid political and administrative reasons to keep them apart, building bridges between them ought to be stimulated to encompass co-production of technology and its effects (Rip, Misa and Schot, 1996).

By the notion of co-production of technologies and its effects is suggested a shared responsibility of promoters and controllers, and shift of the focus from only conflict-resolution mechanism to management of technologies on society. The goal is to construct technologies with desired positive impacts and manageable negative ones. Although public controversy is healthy (Nelkin,1979), 'after-the-fact' assessments are of little help since technologies have already become entrenched on society and a yes/no decision is far more complicated 5.

The focus on management of technology in society aims basically to develop mechanisms to influence technologies while they are undergoing development and has not yet taken its durable form. However, of course this is not a clear-cut enterprise. As already described, technology development is about uncertainty and so is its impacts on society. Even if societal and

5 An excellent example has been that related to the decommissioning of Shell's oil storage platform in the North Sea. However , the "Brent Spar effect' has claimed to have promoted changes in the 'language of business'.

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environmental impacts are taken into account at the early stages of technology development, actors' interests, goals and resources change as the technology gets developed. Moreover, given the systemic nature of technologies (or different technologies are closely related), their impacts cannot be easily circumscribed within specific sectors of the whole society.

In its wholeness, constructive approach on technology assessment claims an ongoing process of social learning, one in which society (or at least some representative sets of it) might participate as a 'present voice' in some key decisions about technology developments. A logical first step has suggested to broaden design activities involved in the process of technology development to include societal and environmental impacts (Rip, Mazi and Shot, 1995). However, it is also recognised that policy instruments might not be enough to influence the adoption of this vision by organisations. The involvement of users and other impacted communities is taken as an essential one in the co-production of technology and its impacts, and in this reside the key role of social learning.

The early experiment in the Netherlands then took up a first step seeking improvements in public understanding of science and technology. From this programme, new experiments were made where broadening of interactions amongst 'producers' and 'users' created new possibilities for technology developments in specific industrial sectors ( Rip, Mazi and Shot, 1995). The OECD report New Technologies in the 1990s: a socio-economic strategy takes on board CTA and recommends experimentation with new institutional structures and arrangements. In this context, 'constructive' means minimising mismatches, wrong investments and possible social conflicts.

CTA is an ambitious programme of technology assessment and should be thought as a paradigm. Many research avenues can be taken from it and a lot of work has to be done to identify the proper methodologies and mechanisms that may allow society participation in a co-construction of technologies. The next section introduces a proposal to take a knowledge flows approach in the CTA context.

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4. KNOWLEDGE FLOWS AND CONSTRUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY APPROACH: A PROPOSAL FOR A RESEARCH AGENDA

In this section are purposed some preliminary points in which knowledge flows perspective and CTA might benefit from each other. The main aim is to stimulate discussions around them in searching for better mechanisms to introduce society needs of, demands on and worries about new technologies.

Drawing upon the distinction between private and public knowledge, and in consonance with CTA, a key point can be addressed. A broader concept of co-operation in R&D should be attempted in order to introduce new actors as users, suppliers, manufactures and regulatory agencies. The most obvious advantage is the cross-fertilisation of ideas that can generate new and better alternatives of design. However the main point here is that once each actor brings about different views of technologies' interdependencies in the whole industrial system, the identification of societal impacts in a more holistic way might turn to be a not so difficult task. An example of this vision is one that has been adopted by organisations involved in the development of deepwater technologies (especially those working in the North Sea). A quick look at the International Petroleum Research Directory, edited by The Petroleum Science Technology Institute, Scotland, can give a good indication of the 'joint industry projects' (JIP) ongoing. They congregate oil industries (that in this stage have been keen on co-operating between themselves), suppliers, manufactures and also governmental agencies like OSO (The oil, gas and petrochemical Supplies Office).

However, some will argue that in relation to some specific technologies, users' participation in this stage is quite problematic mainly because the knowledge involved is esoteric, beyond the users ability to understand. How then can society participate on key decisions in relation to new and more complex technologies?

A new research avenue for knowledge flows approach opens up when getting close to the concept of 'socialisation of information' (Braga and Christovão, 1994). This is neither about 'democratisation of information' (to give free access of information to society or a mere stimulus to knowledge flows improvements) nor only 'translation' of esoteric knowledge in common language. It is also a step beyond public understanding of science and technology. By 'socialisation of information' it is meant a search for methodologies and mechanisms that might translate meanings between 'producers' and 'users' of information. Moreover, it is claimed that this process might also lead to a possibility of the creation of new meanings during exchanges of information. So, it is not about an exchange of a close set of knowledge flows. Yet, it is about exchange of tacit knowledge (but also explicit and codified ones) as mental models, beliefs and perspectives that cannot be easily articulated and shared6. Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) applied 6 About articulate and tacit knowledge, Polanyi (1969, p.144) observes: 'these two are not sharply divided. While tacit knowledge can be possed by itself, explicit knowledge must rely on being tacit understood and applied. Hence all knowledge is either tacit or rooted in tacit knowledge.'

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a similar approach to explain the success of Japanese companies as 'knowledge-creating companies'.

It is suggested that in relation to specific communities of users, these three perspectives, knowledge flows, CTA and socialisation of information can work together. For example, for CTA, the focus is on identifying users that should be taken into account; for knowledge flows, on identifying the types of knowledge these users might supply in the face of requirements of organisation and also the impact of this knowledge on them; for socialisation of information, on searching for methodologies that can help in these knowledge exchanges and on stimulating the creation of new knowledge. In here lays down the very nature of social learning.

In a wider perspective of users, knowledge flows approach is useful not only to map the sources of knowledge required for organisations but also in identifying real and potential sources that should be accessed by them. Moreover, whether organisations are sourcing specific knowledge in a proper source. For example, in matching types of knowledge with sources of knowledge it may be possible to analyse to what extent societal needs and demands have been properly taking in account. In the same way, in matching types of knowledge with channels used to transfer them, whether organisations should not try another approach to transfer external knowledge to them.

In one second moment, the diffusion process of technologies as also being a realm of public knowledge should be more deeply investigate both from knowledge flows and CTA perspective. As already pointed knowledge flows approach has mainly been focused on R&D stage of technology development, and diffusion process is indeed the most important stage on it. The main point to stress is that the major weakness of knowledge flows approach has been its focus on 'technical knowledge' required by organisations. The greatest challenge to both CTA and knowledge flows approach is to design proper researches in which societal knowledge (and not only needs or demands) might reach a special room for discussing technology developments.

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The Role of Valuation In Assessing Alternative Technologies and Environmental Change

James R. Kahn University of Tennessee

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the question of our ability to assess the environmental outcomes associated with new technologies. The paper begins by defining a role for technology policy, and suggests goals against which to assess alternative technologies and technology policy. The paper then examines the question of estimating the societal consequences of environmental change, discussing the capabilities of currently employed valuation methods. Based on this discussion, recommendations are made for research directions to develop more comprehensive methods.

1. INTRODUCTION

The world, and especially developing nations, face many complex problems as they attempt to develop their economies. This complexity is in large part generated by the necessity to compete in a global market and at the same time preserve environmental quality to protect the quality of life of the citizenry and to ensure the sustainability of the economy for future generations. In order to understand the current and future implications of the technologies for social welfare, it is necessary measure the societal impacts of both the economic gain and the environmental change. Conventional technology assessment methods are well-suited for focusing on the economic benefits of new technologies, their cost-efficiency, and physical measures of the environmental impacts of the technology. However, technology assessment measures have generally not been successful in addressing the societal consequences of environmental change, because they stop the assessment process at the point of measuring physical levels of environmental change. This chapter addresses this shortcoming by examining the role of valuation in assessing alternative technologies and environmental change. The chapter assesses the current state of the art in environmental valuation by discussing the strengths and limitations of the alternative technologies and suggesting future directions for research.

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2. COSTS AND BENEFITS OF A NEW TECHNOLOGY

Before beginning the discussion of the efficacy of valuation methods in measuring the social costs and benefits of a new technology, it would be useful to provide a listing and discussion of the costs and benefits associated with a new technology. These costs and benefits can be divided into five categories: costs to firms, benefits to firms, benefits to consumers, and costs and benefits to society as a whole.

2.1 Costs to Firms

Costs to firms include the costs of research and development, the costs of implementing the new technology and the opportunity costs of the new technology. The first two types of costs and straightforward, but the third merits further discussion.

Opportunity costs are defined as the value of the next best (foregone) alternative. Opportunity costs are very different from the costs of research and development and the costs of implementation. The costs of research and development and the costs of implementation consist primarily of the costs of the resources that are devoted to research and development and implementation, such as the labor, capital, and materials which are expended in these processes. However, opportunity costs are the value of foregone alternatives and these are both difficult to measure and potentially of significant magnitude. From the firm’s point of view, it may only have the capacity to pursue one major new technology. For example, an automobile producer may have the capacity to invest in developing alternative liquid fuel motors, or electric motors, but not both. Therefore, the opportunity cost of investing in the development of alternative liquid fuel cars would include the loss of the opportunity to pursue electric motors. Major difficulties in the measurement of these opportunities costs include the determination of the potential alternatives, as well as measuring the potential net benefits associated with these alternatives.

2.2 Benefits to Firms

The benefits to firms of new technologies also tend to be relatively straightforward in their definition and measurement. First, new technology can increase firm revenues by increasing their market share, increasing the price that they can charge for the product, or reducing the cost of producing the products, including reducing the cost of complying with environmental regulations and meeting other environmental goals. In addition, new technology creates benefits by further advancing the path towards even newer and more productive technologies. Of course, these benefits would be more difficult to measure, since there is a probabilistic element to them.

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2.3 Benefits to Consumers

The benefits of new technologies to consumers relates to the greater satisfaction they receive from better products, or the reduction in price which arises from reductions in the cost of producing the product due to improved technology. The increased satisfaction from new products or from better quality of existing products is difficult to measure in an ex ante sense, that is before the change takes place. Several techniques exist with which to measure the value of potential quality increases, including the hedonic price method and conjoint analysis. These techniques will be discussed in more detail in the sections 6 and 7.

3. DOES THE MARKET PROVIDE THE SOCIALLY OPTIMAL LEVEL OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES?

An interesting question is whether the invisible hand of the market, driven by the costs and benefits to producers and consumers, provides the optimal level of new technologies. The answer to this question is very complicated at one level, but extremely simple at another level. The invisible hand of the market chooses the level of output of a good in a fashion which equates the marginal private costs and the marginal private benefits of the good. This also serves to maximize the net private benefits (private benefits minus private costs) of the good. In addition, as long as the private net benefits equal social net benefits, the invisible hand will maximize net social benefits, and the level of the good will be at the socially optimal level. However, if for some reason, there are social benefits which are not a part of private benefits, or private benefits which are not a part of private benefits, then the invisible hand of the market will not maximize socially benefits. When these additional social costs or benefits exist and the market mechanism does not maximize social welfare, a market failure exits. Several market failures may prevent the invisible hand of the market from generating both the socially optimal level of research and development and the socially optimal level of new technologies.

An important market failure is generated by the public good nature of research and development. Public goods have two characteristics which distinguish them from ordinary private goods, non-rivalry in consumption and non-excludibility. Non-rivalry means that one person’s consumption of the benefit does not reduce the amount of the benefit available for others to consume. Non-excludibility means that no one can be excluded from consuming the public goods. National defense is often cited as an example of a public good. One person’s consumption of protection from a foreign invasion does not reduce the amount of protection to everybody else, and if one inhabitant is protected from a foreign invasion, all inhabitants are protected from a foreign invasion.

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FIGURE 1 - PUBLIC GOOD BENEFITS AND THE OPTIMAL LEVEL OF R & D

Research and development activities have public good benefits, since the knowledge that is developed becomes partially or fully available to other firms. This is particularly true, because innovations are relatively easy to copy, even with the existence of patent laws. Therefore, the social benefits of research and development are greater than the private benefits. However, a firm compares marginal private benefit and marginal private cost when choosing a level of research and development. As illustrated in Figure 1, this level is less than the socially optimal level. In this particular example, it is assumed that there is nothing that generates a difference between marginal private cost and marginal social cost.

The above example assumes that there are no differences between the marginal private costs and marginal social costs of research and development. In actuality, there is likely to be a discrepancy between the two because of differences between private and social exposure to risk. Any given investment is much less risky for society as a whole than for the individual term for two important reasons. First, the risk of a particular project or technology is lower because the risk is spread across more individuals. Second, the risk is lower because society has a larger portfolio of investments than does any individual firm. Therefore, these risk factors cause the marginal social cost of research and development to be lower than the marginal private costs, implying the optimal level of research and development is higher than the level which is generated by the market.

Another problem which may generate a lower than socially optimal level of research and development and new technologies has to do with the strategic behavior of firms. If technological innovations are easy to copy, then the benefits to a firm from successfully developing and implementing a new technology will be short-lived, as other firms follow the leading firm along the new path, eventually dissipating the competitive advantage and associated profits which the

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leading firm generated. On the other hand, if the innovating firm makes a bad choice, and chooses to develop and implement a technology which proves to be unsuccessful, no other firms will follow the leading firm down this path. Under these circumstances it always pays a firm to be a follower, not a leader. If firms tend to be followers, rather than leaders, the level of research and development will be much lower than the level which is justified by the actual net benefits of the new technologies.

Finally, the environmental implications of new technologies may imply that the level of research and development is lower than the socially optimal level. If new technologies tend to be cleaner, this creates a social benefit which can not be appropriated by the firm which develops and implements the new technology. This is particularly true for technologies for which the primary benefit is improved environmental performance.

This section of the chapter has discussed several reasons why the level of development and implementation of new technologies is likely to be less than socially optimal. Market failure which generates gaps between public and private benefits and costs implies that the market will not generate the socially optimal level of new technologies. This market failure provides a strong argument for a government policy to increase the level of research and development technologies and the implementation of new technologies.

4. THE GOALS OF A TECHNOLOGY POLICY

The above section of the papers argues that the market alone does not provide the appropriate level of research, development and implementation of new technologies, and that technology policies must be developed to rectify this shortcoming. Before developing a set of policies, it is necessary to articulate a set of goals to be achieved by these policies. These goals should include (but are not necessarily limited to) efficiency, equity and sustainability. A policy is said to be efficient if it maximizes the net benefits to society. Since the benefits and costs which comprise net benefits occur over a period of time, efficiency can be said to occur when the present value of net benefits are maximized. If B represents the benefits, and C represents the costs, and r represents the rate of interest, then the present value of net benefits can be expressed by equation (1).

FIGURE 2 - PVNB = INT FROM 0 TO T [ B(T)~-~C(T) ] E^{-RT}

The present value measure can be used in decision making in two ways. First, it can be used to compare one technology with another to determine which benefits society the most. Second, it can be used to compare alternative policies to determine which policy gives the taxpayers the greatest possible benefits from the use of their tax dollars. From a firm’s point of view, maximizing present value of net benefits assures that the firm’s research, development and implementation decisions maximize the positive long term financial impact on the firm.

From a public policy point of view, efficiency can not be the only goal or decision-making criterion. Of great importance is efficiency, or how the benefits and costs are distributed across

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the members of society. For example, a policy which enriched the people at the top of the income distribution at the expense of the people at the bottom of the distribution, would be considered inequitable. It also would be considered undesirable, even if it was an efficient policy. Of course, an inequitable but efficient policy can be transformed into a policy which is both equitable and efficient by means of the tax system. One can increase taxes for the wealthier people who benefit by the policy, and redistribute the money to the lower income people who are hurt through reducing their taxes or through various programs which increase the provision of services to the lower income groups.

A policy goal which is related to the concept of equity is the idea of sustainability. A standard definition of sustainable development is to increase the opportunities of the present generation without precluding opportunities of future generations. In this context, one can view sustainability as an explicit extension of equity towards future generation. The consideration of intertemporal equity or sustainability becomes very important because efficiency is also a policy goal, and efficiency discriminates against the future. This can be seen in Equation (1), where the discount term (e-rt) makes future values less important than current values. There is an important reason for doing this, since there is a time value associated with money. However, the discounting process makes benefits and costs in the distant future relatively unimportant. For example, when discounted at a 10% discount rate (r), the present value of one dollar of benefits which occurs fifty years in the future is only seven tenths of a cent today. Therefore, many people feel that there is a need to more explicitly consider the future, which has resulted in the current focus on the criterion of sustainability.

Unfortunately, researchers and policy makers are not in the best position possible to inform the decision making process with respect to these goals, because of important gaps in knowledge. Specifically, our ability to measure both the benefits of environmental improvement and the functional relationship between environmental quality and sustainability needs to be strengthened. The measurement of the benefits of environmental improvement are important in determining the progress towards the three goals of efficiency, equity and sustainability. It also goes without saying that understanding the relationship between environmental quality and sustainability is important to determining the progress towards the goal of sustainability. The remainder of this paper provides a discussion the nature of these gaps in knowledge and suggests a research agenda for closing these gaps.

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5. CATEGORIZING THE BENEFITS OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENT

There are many different types of values associated with environmental improvement, and they can generally be categorized into three groups. First, there are direct use values which occur when environmental resources are directly used in production and consumption activities. The use of clean water to produce beer, or high water quality for beach recreation are examples of direct uses of environmental quality. Second, there are indirect use values, where the environmental resources are not directly used in a consumption or production activity, but still provide value. Indirect use values include altruistic values, bequest values and existence values. Altruistic values exist when a person values environmental quality, because they are concerned with the welfare of other people and they believe that increasing environmental quality increases the welfare of these other people. Bequest values arise from a person’s desire to pass on environmental quality to his or her descendants. Finally, existence values arise when a person’s welfare increases simply through the knowledge of the existence of environmental resources. For example, a person may never plan to go “whale watching” but still derive utility from the knowledge that whales still are present in the oceans. The third general category of environmental values is the value of ecological services. Ecological services are the functions that ecosystems preform that provide the basis for all ecological and economic activity, and include carbon sequestration, nitrogen fixation in soil, hydrological cycles, nutrient cycles, biodiversity, production of oxygen, maintenance of global climate, and primary productivity. Although in some circumstances these ecological services fit neatly into either direct use values and indirect use values, this paper breaks them out into a separate category. The reason for this is that even though they are necessary for virtually every human productive and consumptive activity, people do not have to dire so there is not as direct a connection as with other direct uses, such as clean water for swimming or fishing.

6. METHODS FOR MEASURING THE BENEFITS OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENTS

Two different types of approaches are available for measuring the benefits of environmental improvement. The first category of approaches are called revealed preferences approaches and are based on observing actual behavior and inferring the value of environmental quality from this behavior. The second category of approaches are called stated preference approaches and are based on survey techniques which ask people to state their values for potential changes in environmental quality.

6.1 Revealed Preference Approaches

Revealed preference approaches look at people’s decisions to use environmental resources, and from this infer a measure of value. For example, if a person is observed driving to a more distant beach to obtain better water quality, then the travel cost incurred can provide a measure of the person’s willingness to pay to obtain better water quality. The four major methods within the revealed preference approach to measuring the value of environmental resources are

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demand and supply analysis, the travel cost method, the hedonic wage method, and the hedonic housing price method.

Demand and supply analysis is based on estimating demand and supply equations for a market good, in a fashion which relates environmental change to either the demand function, the supply function, or both. The environmental change will therefore generate a new market equilibrium and the change in net social benefits can then be estimated. For example, in Figure 2, the air pollution would generate diminished yields per hectare of soy beans, leading to the leftward shift of the supply curve and a loss in net social benefits equal to the shaded trapezoid (EBCF).7

Obviously, it is only possible to use this technique for a set of market goods for which either the demand curve or supply curve is affected by changes in the level of environmental quality. However, for many non-market goods, it is still possible to estimate value based on observing actual behavior. An example of this is the travel cost model, which can be used to measure the value of environmental resources which are important to outdoor recreational activities. In the travel cost model, surveys of recreationists are conducted and the data is used to estimate a functional relationship with the number of trips as the dependent variable and travel costs and environmental quality (among other variables) as the independent variables 8 In Figure 3, travel cost demand curves are illustrated in travel cost-number of trips space, with improved environmental quality represented by an upward shift of the travel cost demand curve. In Figure 3, if improved environmental quality results in an upward shift of the demand curvefrom demand1 to demand2, then the increase in net social benefits associated with the improvement in environmental quality can be measured by the shaded area in the graph.

An alternative and more general method is the hedonic pricing method which can be applied to either housing prices or wages. The applicability of this technique can best be illustrated by an example. Assume that there is a community of identical homes, with people with identical incomes, who work in their homes. Further assume that the community is a featureless plane with no attractive features (such as parks, beaches or rivers) and no unattractive features (such as power plants or waste sites). Under these conditions, everyone is indifferent across locations in the community and all the houses will have the same price. Now imagine that a waste disposal site is built along the western edge of the community. People will no longer be indifferent about their residential location, because it will be better to live in the more eastern parts of the community, further away from the potential health hazards and the diminished aesthetics

7 The net social benefits of any level of a good can be measured by the area under the demand curve and above the marginal cost curve, from the origin to the market level of the good. For example, for supply1, the market level of the good is Q1 and the net social benefits are area ACF. For supply2, the market level of the good is Q2 and the net social benefits are the area ABE. For the shift from supply 1 to supply2, the change in benefits is area ACF minus area ABE, which is equal to the shaded trapezoid (EBCF). See Kahn (1998) for a further discussion of these measures. 8 See Kahn (1998), Freeman (1993), or Cropper and Oates (1992) for a more detailed discussion of the travel cost model.

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associated with the waste disposal facility. As people try to leave the western part of the community and move to the east, the price of houses will fall in the west and increase in the east. This gap in prices will continue to grow until people are once again indifferent among locations in the community. The gap can be interpreted as the willingness to pay to avoid the disamenities associated with the waste disposal facility.

FIGURE 3 - THE EFFECT OF AIR POLLUTION ON THE SOCIAL BENEFITS FROM SOY

BEANS

FIGURE 4 - MEASURING THE VALUE OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY WITH THE TRAVEL COST METHOD

Of course, the real world does not conform to the assumptions of this example, but other influences on the price of houses can be controlled for in the statistical analysis. For example, the price of houses can be regressed on the characteristics of the houses and the characteristics of the neighborhood, where the characteristics of the neighborhood can include

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environmental quality variables. The price function can then be differentiated with respect to the level of a particular characteristic to yield the marginal willingness to pay for a change in the level of the characteristic. A similar type of analysis can be conducted by -city variation in wages.9

Although revealed preference techniques are generally capable of estimating the direct use values of environmental change, they are generally not well-suited for measuring either indirect use values or the value of ecological services. In particular, it is very difficult for revealed preference approaches to measure the value of indirect uses, since indirect uses are by definition not associated with an activity which can be measured and then statistically analyzed to infer a value.

6.2 Stated Preference Approaches

Stated preference approaches are survey methods based on asking people hypothetical questions about how much they are willing to pay to obtain a more desirable level of environmental quality or to avoid a less desirable level of environmental quality. An example of a contingent valuation question follows below.

Water quality at the beaches in Rio de Janeiro is below that at more distant beaches due to contamination from untreated sewage. This contamination can lead to health problems such as intestinal illnesses and hepatitis among swimmers, and diminishes the presence of aquatic life.

Improving water quality at Rio beaches would require construction of new sewer systems. Would you be willing to pay an additional X R$ (Brazilian reais) per month in property taxes if the money went to build the sewer systems and upgrade the water quality in Rio to the level of the beaches in outlying areas?

In theory, contingent valuation can measure both direct use values and indirect use values. However, the method is quite controversial because of its hypothetical nature, and a series of potential biases have been identified. The hypothetical nature of the technique directly leads to two problems. First, the survey respondents have no experience in making decisions like this in the real world. In the real world, people seldom, if ever confront the problem of deciding how much to pay to improve environmental quality, especially those environmental resources which provide indirect use values. This lack of experience can lead to either over or under statements of true willingness to pay. Another problem created by the hypothetical nature of the decision framework is that people do not actually make real economic commitments. This has been hypothesized to lead to a systematic overstatement of true willingness to pay, although the empirical evidence on the existence of this bias is mixed.10

9 See Freeman, Kahn, Bartik for more comprehensive discussions of hedonic price methods. 10 See Neill et al (1994), Kealy et al (1990), Duffield and Patterson, Siep and Strand (1992), Cummings and Harrison (1992).

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In addition to these problems generated with the hypothetical nature of contingent valuation, there are two other important biases which have been identified. These are part/whole bias and embedding biases. Part/whole biases are used to describe the empirical observation that the willingness to pay for a smaller environmental resource is essentially equal to the willingness to pay for a more encompassing environmental resource. Economic theory suggests that the willingness to pay for the more encompassing good should be larger than the willingness to pay for the good which is encompassed. For example, the willingness to pay for air quality improvements in a system of parks should be larger that the willingness to pay for air quality improvements in one park in the system. However, empirical studies have shown there to be little difference between the two in a variety of applications. Embedding bias occurs when the survey respondent includes in his statement of willingness to pay the value of goods other than those which are the subject of the survey. For example, if a survey is about the willingness to pay for improved visibility associated with air quality improvements, the respondent may include his or her willingness to pay to avoid air pollution impacts to ecosystems or human health.

In summary, contingent valuation is quite controversial and many researches believe it to be subject to systematic biases, especially when applied to the valuation of indirect use values. Contingent valuation models have had a mixed performance when subjected to internal and external validity tests.11 This leads to what can be referred to as the fundamental valuation problem. Revealed preference models tend to pass external and internal validity tests, but by their very nature can not be used to measure indirect use values. Contingent valuation models can be used to measure indirect values, but there are problems with implementation and the techniques are controversial and contentious because of the potential biases associated with contingent valuation and the lack of internal and external validity. In addition, neither revealed preference models nor contingent valuation models have been successfully applied to measure the value of the full range of ecological services. Finally, there may be great difficulty in applying either type of method in the traditional (non-monetary) sector of developing countries. As a result of these shortcomings, indirect use values and the value of ecological services seldom are included in cost-benefit analysis or other forms of assessment.

11 See Bjornstad and Kahn (1996) , Portney(1994), Diamond and Hauseman(1994 ), and Hanneman (1994).

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7. HOW DO WE ADDRESS THE FUNDAMENTAL VALUATION PROBLEM?

The obvious solution to addressing the fundamental valuation problem is to develop better valuation techniques, but this is not an easy task. One difficulty in developing new techniques is that we tend to focus on old methods and look for ways to fine tune the old methods to deal with current valuation needs. However, we probably need to break the confines of the traditional valuation methods in order to solve these problems, as rapid improvements in techniques require evolutionary as well as revolutionary change. In short, we must conduct extensive research on new methods. Progress is being made in encouraging this type of research. For example, the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US National Science Foundation have a joint research program to fund research which furthers our ability to measure the full suite of environmental values.

7.1 Conjoint Analysis

Conjoint analysis is a stated preference technique which has been used in the marketing and transportation literature, which has significant promise for improving our ability to measure the value of environmental resources. Conjoint analysis is a survey method that was developed to evaluate public acceptance of potential new products.12 The basic premise is to give the survey respondent a choice between two products, with different levels of key characteristics, including price. The respondent is asked to evaluate a series of pair-wise choices, and the data is combined with data from other respondents to estimate a probability of choice function using a discrete choice statistical method, such as logit analysis. The probability of choice function is a function of the level of characteristics, and since both the level of characteristics and price levels are arguments in the function, a link can be established to measure the willingness to pay for an increase in the level of the characteristic.

Table 1 contains an example of how conjoint analysis could be used to value environmental improvements associated with a new technology. Conjoint analysis could also be used outside of a technology context to compare two alternative states of the environment. Each state would have different levels of various environmental characteristics, and a tax price associated with each state of the world.

Conjoint analysis has properties which give it significant advantages over contingent valuation and revealed preference approaches. First, it is multi-dimensional so many environmental characteristics can be valued in the same survey exercise. This is very important since a person’s willingness to pay for a change in one environmental characteristic is likely to be a function of the levels of other environmental characteristics. Second, even though conjoint analysis does not ask a willingness to pay question, it yields value estimates. This is particularly

12 See Louviere (1998) for a general discussion of conjoint analysis.

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important because (as mentioned in the discussion of contingent valuation) people are not familiar with the process of assigning a dollar willingness to pay for non-market goods. However, conjoint analysis merely asks people to choose which of alternative states of the world is better. The alternative states of the world can be associated with different levels of market goods, non-market goods and dollar flows. For example, we engage in this decision process when we cast our votes in an election, when we decide whether to accept a job or go to graduate school, or when we decide whether to get married or remain single.

TABLE 1 - EXAMPLE OF CONJOINT ANALYSIS - SHOULD WE FOCUS ON ELECTRIC OR ALTERNATIVE LIQUID FUEL CARS

Liquid Fuel Electric safety characteristics (X1 probability of surviving a certain type of crash)

safety characteristics (X2 probability of surviving a certain type of crash)

range (Y1 kilometers) range (Y2 kilometers)

size (W1 centimeters of leg room) size (W2 centimeters of leg room) operating cost (C1 dollars per kilometer) operating cost (C2 dollars per kilometer) environmental implications (E1 grams of emissions per kilometers)

environmental implications (E2 grams of emissions per kilometer)

purchase price (P1 Dollars) purchase price (P2 Dollars) convenience (R1 Minutes per refueling) convenience (R2 Minutes per refueling) Which car would you rather purchase?

Finally, unlike many contingent valuation studies, conjoint analysis studies have been characterized by strong external validity. In many tests, conjoint analysis has done a good job predicting actual behavior.13

7.2 Augmenting Conjoint Analysis

A distinct advantage of conjoint analysis is that it offers the opportunity to simultaneously assess not only efficiency goals, but also sustainability and equity goals. This can be done by assigning sustainability and equity outcomes to the alternative states of the world among which the survey respondent chooses. The probability of choice function then becomes not only a function of environmental characteristics and monetary (price or tax) variables, but also characteristics related to both equity and sustainability. If a probability of choice function can be successfully estimated, then the derivatives of the probability of choice function can then be used as weights to compare efficiency, equity and sustainability in a common metric. If other policy goals are identified, they can be quantified and incorporated into conjoint analysis.

13 Louviere (1996)

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An additional advantage of conjoint analysis is that the method can be extended to the subsistence or traditional sector of developing societies. Alternative states of the world which are evaluated could include characteristics such as agricultural output, amount of labor expended, health of family and environmental variables such as amount of forested land or exposure to mercury in the water. Non-monetary willingness to pay for environmental quality can then be determined through the probability of choice function in terms of one of the other characteristics such as agricultural output or amount of labor expended.

8. MEASURING THE VALUE OF ECOLOGICAL SERVICES

Although conjoint analysis has the potential to substantially improve our ability to measure the value of environmental change and to help assess new technologies, there remains substantial difficulty with measuring the value of ecological services. The problem is that there is a complex chain of cause and effect relationships between the provision of the ecological services and the impact on an individual’s level of well-being. Because of this complexity, ordinary citizen’s don’t understand the way in which ecological services affect their welfare, so one would not expect survey-based techniques to reveal much insight into the value of ecological services.

In the absence of an ability for stated willingness to pay to approximate value, other attempts have been made to estimate the value of ecosystems and ecological services. For example, Costanza et al focus on replacement cost as a method for valuing ecosystems and ecological services. In addition non-monetary methods, such as the development of ecological indicators, have been employed. However, these ecological indicators are generally unweighted by any measure of the importance to society, so even though they can answer questions concerning the direction of societal consequences, they can not measure the magnitude of societal consequences of environmental change.

9. CONCLUSIONS

The process of technology assessment is limited by our ability to measure the societal consequences of environmental change. Currently employed revealed preference and stated preference techniques are adequate for measuring the value associated with direct uses of environmental resources, but indirect-use values are more difficult to measure. Revealed preference methods are not designed to measure indirect use values, and the use of stated preference techniques such as contingent valuation to measure indirect use values is contentious and controversial. Conjoint analysis has great potential to measure both direct use and indirect use values, and to include other social objectives such as equity and sustainability in the assessment process. Unfortunately, as is the case for other survey approaches, conjoint analysis is unlikely to provide a method to estimate the value of many ecological services. New techniques must be developed to value these important flows from the environment.

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REFERENCES

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Bjornstad, David J.; Kahn, James R., eds. 1996. The contingent valuation of environmental resources: Methodological issues and research needs, New Horizons in Environmental Economics series.Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar.

Cropper, Maureen L. and Wallace E. Oates, 1992. Environmental Economics: A Survey Journal of Economic Literature, 30(2), 675-740.

Cummings, R. G. and G.W. Harrison, 1992, Identifying and Measuring Non-Use Values for Natural and Environmental Resources: A Critical Review, Washington DC: US Environmental Protection Agency.

Diamond, P.A. and J.A. Hauseman, 1994. Contingnent Vlauation: Is some Number Better than No Number, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 8:45-64.

Duffield, J.W. and D.A. Patterson, 1992. Field Testing Existence Values: An Inflow Trust Fund for Montana Rivers, Paper presented at AERE meetings, January 1992.

Freeman, A. Myrick, III. 1993 The measurement of environmental and resource values: Theory and methods, Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future.

Hanemann, W.M., 1994. Valuing the Environment through Contingent Valuation, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 8:19-44.

Kahn, James R. 1998. The Economic Approach to Environmental and Natural Resources, second edition, Fort Worth: Dryden Press.

Kealy, M.J., Mark Montgomery, and J.F. Dovido, 1990. Reliability and Predictive Validity of Contingent Valuation: Does the Nature of the Good Matter? Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 1990:244-63.

Louviere, Jordan J. ,1988. “Conjoint Analysis Modelling of Stated Preferences: A Review of Theory, Methods, Recent Developments and External Validity.” Journal of Transport Economics and Policy: 93–119.

Louviere, Jordan, 1996. Relating Stated Preference Measures and Models to Choices in Real Markets: Calibration of CV Responses in Bjornstad, David J.; Kahn, James R., eds. The contingent valuation of environmental resources: Methodological issues and research needs, New Horizons in Environmental Economics series.Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar.

Neill, Helen R., Ronald Cummings, Phillip Ganderton, Glenn Harrison, and Thomas McGuckin, 1994. Hypothetical Surveys and real Economic Commitments, Land Economics, 70:145-54.

Portney, P.R., 1994. The Contingent Valuation Debate:Why Should Economists Care?, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 8:1-18.

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Zero Emission and the Regulatory Policy Maria Laura Barreto

Roberto C. Villas Bôas Centro de Tecnologia Mineral

1. INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this article is to analyze the concept of zero emission from the point of view of regulation, in particular Brazilian regulatory policy, taking into consideration the current tendencies of international environmental law.

In a simplistic approach, the concept of Zero Emission gives the idea of no pollution. What does not polluting mean? Is it the absolute lack of polluting substances? Or is pollution a concept determined by society, in a certain phase of development, which will undergo modifications throughout time? It seems to us that the latter hypothesis is best accepted by the theory. Kahn says: “Eliminating all pollution means eliminating all production and consumption activities, as all consumption and production activities must produce waste.” 14

Hence, if we are to grasp how environmental law views the concept of zero emission, it would be necessary to understand how, from the legal point of view, the pollution or environmental harm is determined and assessed.

This is, therefore, the challenge of this work.

2. INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE

The serious environmental accidents15 whose catastrophic consequences affected people and the environment in the 50s and 60s, made people aware that it was necessary to have a responsible relationship with the environment.

Those tragic events resulted in the harsh observation that because of its complexity, this relationship would need different treatment to that which traditionally marked the history of humanity, when it was considered that man should dominate the environment. This new outlook began in the 80s, and proposed to integrate mankind to the environment, in a system of synergetic relations, resulting in ecological balance, that is, in a holistic vision, which treats man and nature as part of one and the same reality and balance of forces.

14 “Kahn, James R. The Economic Approach to Environmental and Natural Resources. The Dryden Press, Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1995. 15 Breen, Barry. História dos danos aos Recursos Naturais nos Estados Unidos. In: Dano Ambiental : Prevenção, Reparação e Repressão. Coord. Antonio Herman V. Benjamin. Biblioteca de Direito Ambiental, Vol. 2. São Paulo: Editora Revista dos Tribunais, 1993.

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In a few years, this philosophy won supporters internationally and became a matter of concern for all countries, regardless of their degree of development. This new concept gained support in the realm of the Internal Law of each country of the international community, and also spurred an unequalled growth of environmental law. Nowadays, it may even be considered an independent branch of economic law.16

Internationally, the number of treaties, conventions and declarations is increasing. Among others, we can cite: the United Nations Convention for Protecting Biological Diversity, the Convention on International Trading of Threatened Wild Life Species, the Convention on the Control of Transfrontier Movement of Hazardous Waste, the Convention on the Protection of the Ozone Layer, the Antarctic Treaty, the Convention Situation of Climatic Changes, the Biodiversity Convention, the Stockholm Declaration, the World Charter of Nature, the Declaration of Principles for Forests, the Rio Declaration and Agenda 21.17

In fact, Agenda 21, which consists of four sections, forty chapters and more than a hundred programs, contemplates global commitments that are included in many of the above-mentioned international conventions and declarations. In this respect, Barreto says: “Agenda 21 is the main product of the Rio Conference (1992), a plan of action resulting from the commitments assumed by the States regarding the environment and development. This means that the actions they foresee will have more effective chances of being implemented at the internal level of each State than those that call for specific bilateral or even multilateral cooperation.” 18 She adds: “This international instrument differs from its predecessors because of its broad scope and structure as a program, rather than just announcing generic principles that are so traditional in relationships and in international law itself.” 19

This growth of international environmental law cannot be evaluated solely in terms of quantity, but rather of quality. Hence, we can see three distinct phases of environmental rules, corresponding to different ways of looking at the environmental issue.

In the first, before the 70s, during the 50s and 60s, when environmental law as such was not yet heard of, environmental issues were treated in a fragmented and individual way. Concern was basically centered on the following issues: Water for human consumption, preservation of some species of flora and fauna, sanitary problems and historic property.

In the next decade, when environmental law began to take shape, debates on the environmental policy were based on a clash between economic growth and preservation of the

16 Antunes, Paulo de B. Direito Ambiental. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Lumen Juris, 1996. 17 Oyuela, Raul A. Estrada; Sisto, Maria Cristina Zeballos. Evolución Reciente del Derecho Ambiental Internacional. A.Z. Editora S.A., 1993. 18 Barreto, Maria Laura. Desenvolvimento Sustentável: Uma abordagem conceitual. Dezembro de 1995, Mimeo. 19 Barreto, Maria Laura. Desenvolvimento Sustentável: Uma abordagem conceitual. Op. Cit.

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environment, without any possibility of reconciliation. The ideas of the “good savage”, of a return to the extractive life style based on collecting, hunting and fishing and technical-scientific development as the great villain, are the mainstays of the environmental approach.

In the 80s, when environmental law was already unified as a specific legal universe, there was a new breakthrough closely related to the earlier one: that which sets economic development against growth.

This debate gave rise to the concept of sustainable development. Agenda 21 and the Earth Charter, as legal instruments of international law, already incorporated this new concept of environment.

Due to its nature and function, international environmental law aims principally to create a web of principles that must be applied by the various countries belonging to the international community, so as to provide a basis for each country’s internal law.

These same principles can therefore be considered not only as belonging to international environmental law but to environmental law as a whole.

Consequently, modern international environmental law, based on the concept of Sustainable Development, is governed by the following principles: The principle of fundamental human rights, the democratic principle, the principle of prudence and caution, the principle of limit, the principle of balance and the principle of responsibility.20

The principle of fundamental human rights advocates that the right to the environment belongs to everyone, as a common property. Another right derives from that right, which sees the human being as the primary concern of the development policy. This principle is clearly stipulated in the Rio Declaration which says: “human beings are the center of the preoccupations relating to sustainable development. They have the right to a healthy and productive life in harmony with the environment.”

The democratic principle is conveyed through two rights: The right to participation and to information. The right to participation includes the right to prepare public environmental policies, the right to follow up their implementation and the right to participate in controlling the implementation of those same policies.

The right to information is embodied in the right that any citizen has to obtain information in which he is specifically interested from governmental agencies and in the right to disclosure, a duty inherent in any administrative act.

20 The principles and their titles may vary, although it was decided to following the suggestion of Paulo de Bessa Antunes in his recent book Direito Ambiental, already mentioned, because it seems to be the most complete and appropriate.

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The right of prudence or of caution results from the multidisciplinary characteristic of that right and of the close relationship between environmental law and technical-scientific advances. Hence, this principle dictates that if there is a doubt about the environmental impact of a certain action, then it should not be carried out. The same appears in Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration, which says: “For the purpose of protecting the environment, the States should broadly apply the criterion of precaution, according to their capacities. When there is a danger of serious or irreversible damage, the lack of absolute certainty should not be used to delay the taking of effective measures, because of cost, to prevent degradation of the environment.”

The principle of limit, according to Antunes, is that whereby “the Administration has the duty to establish parameters for emissions of particles, noise and the presence of bodies foreign to the environment, bearing in mind the protection of life and of the environment itself and the environmental quality necessary.” 21

This principle shows the need, for environmental law, to evaluate the environmental effect or harm. Hence, the choice is quantitative assessment, in the form of parameters or technical environmental standards applying to the various substances that are toxic or harmful, in their different forms, to Mankind or to the environment.

The principle of the balance of forces says that any measure or action should have its different repercussions evaluated, that is, from the environmental, economic and social points of view, without favoring any of these topics.

The principle of responsibility says that whoever pollutes pays, thus acclaiming the principle of the polluter-payer. This principle presupposes objective responsibility, that is, without fault, i.e. whoever pollutes has the duty to bear the burden resulting from such damage. Art. 16 of the Rio Declaration says: “National authorities should seek to guarantee the internalization of environmental costs and the use of economic instruments, bearing in mind the criterion that whoever contaminates must, in principle, pay the cost of the contamination, considering the public interest and without distorting international trade and investments.”

These principles show that one of the basic requirements of environmental law, due to the intrinsic peculiarities of this branch of law, is to ascertain the environmental damage and decide how to repair it. Modern environmental law has followed the course of assessing the extent of the environmental damage using parameters and technical standards, and not that of assessing its quality.

3. MEASURING ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE: ENVIRONMENTAL AND OCCUPATIONAL CONTROL PARAMETERS

21 Antunes, Paulo de B. Direito Ambiental. Op. Cit.

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As from the 70s, international bodies [World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labor Organization (ILO)] and national bodies of developed countries such as, for example, the United States, which has a number of agencies [among which are the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH), and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)], began to disclose studies on the risks of certain substances, so as to establish environmental and occupational control parameters.22

According to Barreto and Marinho23: “the technical parameters determining the risks of environmental and occupational exposure were established on the basis of such variables as: time of exposure to the agent, amounts released and type of mercurial compound. It is emphasized that the legislation incorporates them, using them as an aid for establishing control over emissions of agents that are toxic for the environment and for human health, thus making them legal parameters. Those parameters exist for almost all toxic agents”.

As a further example: “In a number of countries, criteria have been established for assessing the quality of the air in the work environment, taking into consideration the daily working hours and the occupational limits of exposure, based on toxicity at the neurological level, so as to guarantee working conditions in the physical environment that prevent effects that are adverse for the health of occupationally exposed individuals”.

These standards reveal an advance of Environmental and Labor Legislation from qualitative to quantitative methods of control, and are defined by countries according to their environmental and labor realities, through specialized agencies. These standards are established by complex measuring and monitoring methodologies, based on the advance of scientific knowledge in research into the behavior of the various substances vis-à-vis the natural environment and Man.

Accordingly, deciding on the parameters or standards is currently one of the main challenges of environmental law. This challenge becomes more complex while there is a tendency to standardize it.24 This tendency stems from varying factors.

The first results from the fact that many countries, particularly underdeveloped or developing countries, use in their laws standards set by foreign agencies of developed countries. The main

22 Barreto, Maria Laura; Marinho, Anna Christiana. Parâmetros de Poluição Mercurial: Vantagens e Desvantagens de sua Padronização. In: Anais da 4a.Jornada Interna do CETEM, Abril de 1996, Rio de Janeiro, Ed. João Alves Sampaio. Rio de Janeiro: CETEM/CNPq, 1996. (Painel 29, p. 211). 23 Barreto, Maria Laura; Marinho, Anna Christiana. POLUIÇÃO MERCURIAL: Parâmetros Técnico-Jurídicos. Rio de Janeiro: CETEM/CNPq, 1995. 42 p. (Série Estudos e Documentos, 27). 24 Barreto, Maria Laura; Marinho, Anna Christiana. Parâmetros de Poluição Mercurial: Vantagens e Desvantagens de sua Padronização. Op. Cit.

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reason for this lies in the technical-scientific impossibility, and even financial, of preparing local studies that produce specific standards for each country.

The second is that the tendency to quantify the damage began in the developed countries, perhaps because environmental concern and the actual development of environmental law chiefly emerged in those countries. Accordingly, the advance of knowledge of the toxic effects of certain substances on man and the environment, is mainly dominated by the developed countries.

The third and last factor derived from the above-mentioned function of international environmental law which, if on the one hand does not aim to decide on concrete rules or standards and parameters, on the other, because of the holistic concept of the environment, should have the task of publishing specific rules that will really safeguard the various ecosystems. This is because: How is it possible to protect a certain specific ecosystem, or even a specific natural resource, if all the countries do not assume and apply that commitment? Hence, the tendency has been noted of international environmental law to shift focus, regulating not only principles, but also substantive rules.

4. BRAZILIAN ENVIRONMENTAL LEGISLATION AND REGULATING ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE

Brazil’s legislation on environment until the 80s was sporadic and basically directed toward preserving the so-called renewable natural resources, such as water, soil and air (at the interface of protecting the worker at his place of work), or to regulating activities based on natural resources, such as hunting, fishing, extracting wood and pulp. Dating from that period and still in effect are, for example: Law No. 4.505 of 1964, referring to the Land Act; Law No. 4.771 of 1965, instituting the new Forestry Code; Law No. 5.197 of 1967 protecting wild life; Decree-Law No. 221 of 1967, safeguarding and fostering fishing. Older legislation dated 1934 is the Waters Code, which has been successively revised and updated. Also, there is Decree No. 50.877 of 1961, on the discharge of toxic wastes in Brazil’s inland and coastal waters, and the Consolidation of Labor Laws dated 1943, as well as a large part of the Complementary Legislation dating from the 60s.

Brazil’s industrialization process, which received its greatest thrust in the 60s, gave rise in the 70s to a series of laws that revealed concern about the problem of industrial pollution. These were: Decree No. 1.413 of 1975, Decree No. 76.389 of 1975, Ordinance No. 053 of 1979 and Law No. 6.803 of 1980.

A new concept of environment emerged in Brazil in the 80s, which views the environment as a system of interdependent relationships and no longer just an aggregate of resources whose value was assessed according to their individual uses, particularly in their interface of utilization by man. Also, it considers disorderly economic growth to be a potential threat to preservation and even to the survival of that system, already destabilized by an environmental liability. This

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new vision resulted in alterations of the environmental regulating policy, from specific to general legislation.

Some examples dating from that period were Law No. 6.938 of 1981, on the National Environment Policy, Law No. 6.902, governing the creation of Ecological Stations and Environmental Protection Areas, Decree No. 89.336 of 1984, governing Ecological Reserves and Areas of Important Ecological Interest; Conama Resolution No. 1 of 1986; Law No. 7.347 of 1985; Decree No. 92.302 of 1986; Decree No. 97.632 of 1989 and Conama Resolution No. 10 of 1987.

The 80s also saw the materialization of the above-mentioned principles at the level of Brazilian legislation acclaiming the current idea of environment and of environmental law, based on the concept of Sustainable Development. Hence, the principle of the fundamental human right is expressed in Art. 225 of the Federal Constitution, which says: “All have the right to an ecologically balanced environment, a property for the people’s common use and essential for a healthy quality of life; the Public Authority and the community have the duty to defend it and preserve it for present and future generations.”

The democratic principle finds support in the Federal Constitution in a number of its articles, where there are means available for citizens to exercise it. At the level of legislative initiatives, there are the plebiscite and the referendum, foreseen in Art. 14, items I and II of the Federal Constitution. At the level of administrative measures, there is the right to information, foreseen in Art. 5 of the FC, which says: “All have the right to receive from government agencies information in which they are specifically interested, or that is of collective or general interest, which shall be provided within the legal time limit, subject to being held liable, except for information whose secrecy is essential for the security of society and the state.

Another right is that of the petition, mentioned in item a), XXIV, of the same Art. 5 of the FC, which allows the citizen to call upon the public authority so that it will, exercising its protective authority, put an end to an illegal situation. Another expedient is the Environmental Impact Study – EIS, defined in paragraph 1, IV, of Art. 225 of the FC, which says: “for every work installation or activity that is a potential cause of significant degradation of the environment”. The EIS must be publicly disclosed and submitted to a public hearing.

This principle also includes legal measures available to the population such as: The class action and the public civil action.

The principles of prudence and of balance of forces are to be found in Art. 170, VI, of the FC, which stipulates that the environment is a principle of economic order, resulting in the need for an Environmental Impact Study – EIS, a preventive measure ensuring that a certain project does not cause environmental harm in the future.

The principle of limit is clearly expressed in Art. 225, V, of the FC, which says: “To ensure the effectiveness of that right (to the environment) it is incumbent on the Public Authority to

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control the production, commercialization and use of techniques, methods and substances that involve a risk for life, the quality of life and the environment.

Lastly, Art. 225, §3, of the FC defines the principle of objective responsibility (without fault) for damage to the environment.

Brazil also uses technical parameters that determine the level of contamination by chemical agents, in different sources of pollution, although they do not cover all the toxic substances. These are to be found in environmental and labor legislation, in specific rules.25

Some parameters Brazil uses were based on parameters dictated by international bodies, such as the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and the ACGIH (American Conference of Governmental and Industrial Hygienists). In some cases, Brazilian legislation states that international parameters should only be used when the local environmental agencies are unable to establish them. In others, this justification does not exist. In these cases, international parameters are simply used and the sources are mentioned.

The same situation occurs for rules used to carry out collection, or for analyzing existing levels of pollution in a certain receiving body. Such technical rules exist for standardizing chemical analysis methods and processes. They differ, therefore, from the parameters discussed until now, although there is a direct connection between them.

Some examples illustrating this matter are given below 26:

Resolution No. 20/8627 establishes allowable limits of certain substances and elements, determining the potability conditions and quality of the waters, so as to guarantee their preponderant uses. This Resolution states that the methods used for collecting and analyzing the waters must be specified in rules approved by the National Institute of Metrology, Standardization and Industrial Quality – INMETRO or, if there are none, by the Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater.

Ordinance No. 36/90 of the Ministry of Health28, and its appendix, approved, for water intended for human consumption, potability standards that must be followed throughout Brazilian territory. This Ordinance says that when verifying the quality of water, preference should be

25 Barreto, Maria Laura; Marinho, Anna Christiana. POLUIÇÃO MERCURIAL: Parâmetros Técnico-Jurídicos. Op. Cit. 26 Examples from: Barreto, Maria Laura; Marinho, Anna Christiana. Parâmetros de Poluição Mercurial: Vantagens e Desvantagens de sua Padronização. Op. Cit. 27 CONAMA Resolution No. 20 of June 18, 1986. Establishes the classification of fresh, brackish and salt waters of Brazilian territory. 28 Ministry of Health Ordinance No. 36 of January 19, 1990. Approves rules and the standard of potability of water intended for human consumption, set out in its appendix.

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given to the water collection and analysis methods in Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater of the American Public Health Association, of the American Water Works Association and of the Water Pollution Control Federation, until local standards are available.

Ordinance No. 003/75 of SEMA29 – Environmental Secretariat determines the maximum concentrations of mercury in seawater and in water sources used for public supply. These limits were established on the basis of scientific criteria suggested by Water Quality Criteria of 1972, of the Environmental Protection Agency.

In labor legislation - Ordinance No. 3.214/7830 - there are rules establishing biological parameters for controlling exposure to a number of chemical agents, and their tolerance limits.

The tolerance limits set by the above-mentioned Ordinance No. 3.214/78, were based on those established by the ACGIH – American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists in 1978, duly adapted to Brazilian weekly working hours which at the time were 48 hours. The Ministry of Labor, when it published Ordinance 3.214/78, did not set limits for all the substances listed by the ACGIH. 31

29 SEMA Ordinance No. 003 of April 11, 1975. Gives instructions on the concentration of mercury per liter of water in water sources used for public supply. 30 MINISTRY OF LABOR Ordinance No. 3214 of June 8, 1978. Approves the Regulating Standards – NR of Chapter V, Title II, of the Consolidation of Labor Laws, referring the Labor Safety and Medicine, NR – 7, Appendix II; NR – 15, Appendix 11. 31 For a more detailed approach to the matter, see: Barreto, Maria Laura; Marinho, Anna Christiana. POLUIÇÃO MERCURIAL: Parâmetros Técnico-Jurídicos. Op. Cit.

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5. CONCLUSION

This article gives a brief account of the changes in and of the evolution of environmental law. There is some correspondence between its evolution and that of the concept of environment.

In spite of all the improvements that have taken place over the years in this branch of law, providing the organized society with valuable legal, legislative and administrative instruments for defending the environment, at present two issues are the subject of intense debate and controversy: the question of how to evaluate pollution and that of its direct consequence, the environmental damage and how to repair it. The purpose of this article was to analyze the first of these questions.

As it may be seen, the legislations evolved both in the direction of understanding what environment is, and also in what way this reality should be regulated. Hence, starting with a fragmented conception of the environment, a holistic idea of it was reached; and, starting with a form of regulation based on generic and qualitative concepts, concrete, specific and quantitative concepts were reached.

In fact, the quantitative transfer of the environmental impact is done on the basis of parameters or technical/legal standards of the emissions. The same parameters correspond to the degree of scientific knowledge of the effects of any type of natural and artificial substance on the health of man and of the environment.

Accordingly, as these parameters or standards are being incorporated to legislation, they become a watershed between what is considered pollution, or even damage, and, therefore, subject to legal penalties, and what is below that criterion and is, consequently, unaffected by the law.

It can be concluded, therefore, that for modern environmental law the Zero Emission is every kind of emission of substance, including toxic, that is below or up to the limit determined by the parameter or technical/legal standard.

The problem of determining the parameter or standard is, likewise, one of the most controversial topics, not only for environmental law32 but also for “environmental science” itself, due to the simple fact that scientific knowledge is a changing reality and, consequently, what today is considered inoffensive for human and environmental health, tomorrow may no longer be so.

This does not consider other more complex aspects, ranging from those referring to the aggression potential of the combination of toxic elements or substances, or even the

32 Antunes, Paulo de B. Direito Ambiental. Op. Cit.

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improvement of evaluation methods and techniques that allow the detection of new effects on human health and the environment.

These conclusions on the parameters and the evolution of environmental law itself have to be considered and understood as a tendency, and not as a reality into which all countries fit. Brazil itself is said to be in a transition phase where a holistic concept of the environment can be found and, also, a qualitative approach for many of the forms and types of pollution. For some substances, only, there are emission parameters and standards; without however the strictness of permanent updating and an endogenous generation of those same values.

These factors are said to be responsible for shortcomings in the application of Brazilian environmental law, leading to a situation in which almost no polluter may be held responsible under civil law and so few have been subject to any penalty.33

In other words, the reason for being of environmental law and of all its structuring, aims principally and primarily to prevent damage to the environment; yet, what is damage?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. ANTUNES, Paulo de B. Direito Ambiental. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Lumen Juris, 1996.

2. BARRETO, Maria Laura. Desenvolvimento Sustentável: Uma abordagem conceitual. Dezembro de 1995. mimeo.

3. BARRETO, Maria Laura; MARINHO, Anna Christiana. Parâmetros de Poluição Mercurial: Vantagens e Desvantagens de sua Padronização. In: Anais da IV Jornada Interna do CETEM, abril de 1996, Rio de Janeiro. Ed. João Alves Sampaio. Rio de Janeiro: CETEM/CNPq, 1996 (Painel 29, pág. 211).

4. BARRETO, Maria Laura; MARINHO, Anna Christiana. POLUIÇÃO MERCURIAL: Parâmetros Técnico-Jurídicos. Rio de Janeiro: CETEM/CNPq, 1995. 42p. (Série Estudos e Documentos, 27).

5. BREEN, Barry. História dos danos aos Recursos Naturais nos Estados Unidos. In: Dano Ambiental : Prevenção, Reparação e Repressão. Coord. Antonio Herman V. Benjamin. Biblioteca de Direito Ambiental. Vol 2. São Paulo: Editora Revista dos Tribunais, 1993.

6. CONAMA. Resolução n. 20 de 18 jun. 1986. Estabelece a classificação das águas doces, salobras e salinas do território nacional.

7. FREITAS, Vladimir Passos de; FREITAS, Gilberto Passos de. Crimes contra a natureza. 4a. ed. atual. e ampl. São Paulo: Editora Revista dos Tribunais,1995.

8. KAHN, James R. The Economic Approach to Environmental and Natural Resources. The Dryden Press. Harcourt Brace College Publishers. 1995

9. MINISTÉRIO DA SAÚDE. Portaria n. 36 de 19 jan. 1990. Aprova normas e padrão de potabilidade da água destinada ao consumo humano, conforme o seu anexo.

33 Freitas, Vladimir Passos de; Freitas, Gilberto Passos de. Crimes contra a natureza. São Paulo: Editora Revista dos Tribunais, 1995.

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10. MINISTÉRIO DO TRABALHO. Portaria n. 3.214 de 8 jun.1978. Aprova as Normas Regulamentadoras - NR - do Capítulo V, Título II, da Consolidação das Leis do Trabalho, relativas à Segurança e Medicina do Trabalho. NR - 7, Anexo II; NR - 15, Anexo 11.

11. OYUELA, Raul A. Estrada ; Sisto, Maria Cristina Zeballos. Evolución Reciente del Derecho Ambiental Internacional. A.Z Editora S.A, 1993.

12. SEMA. Portaria n. 003 de 11 abr. 1975. Dispõe sobre a concentração de mercúrio por litro de água em mananciais de abastecimento público.

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Are Zero Emissions Optimal Pollution Targets?

Dan Biller Fundação Getúlio Vargas

1. INTRODUCTION

Economists as most other professionals view pollution as a “bad” as opposed to a “good”. Yet, from this statement one cannot necessarily infer that no pollution is an optimal pollution target in the view of an economist. Zero emissions have its benefits as well as its costs, and equating the net benefit over time is at least in theory a necessary task to decide which level of emissions is acceptable or even optimal.

Yet, experience shows that equating the “net benefit” of pollution or rather equating the social damage and the total cost of abatement is virtually impossible at least in an accurate way. Pollution is often categorized in economic term as a market failure; therefore, one can only use market signals such as prices in a limited way. Economists must then use alternative ways of valuating “environmental services”. In many instances this can be quite controversial; nonetheless, we are often attaching a value - at times monetary - to the environment. One good example is the use of charismatic species to attract donations for environmental conservation. Implicitly, one considers charismatic species more valuable than other species, even though they may be in less danger of extinction or serve a minor function in ecological terms. On the other hand, people that respond with donations to biodiversity conservation or any other environmental cause also show a less than infinite yet above zero valuation of this service.

This brief paper presents in simple terms the economist’s view of environmental problems particularly emissions. It suggests ways to transform typical physical processes into socio-economic ones. It briefly indicates some instruments available for the mitigation of environmental problems and describes some methods of valuating these processes. Finally, the paper discuss some new trends in environmental policy making.

2. MARKET FAILURES

Most economists recognize at least four sources of possible market failures. The best known is the monopoly, where a single economic agent has the power of greatly influencing the price of a good or service. When a so-called natural monopoly occurs, a market intervention through regulations may be justified to attain a social optimum of production and price. In fact, as natural monopolies are privatized, an adequate regulatory framework is a pre-condition for a social optimum. When the industry is not characterized by a natural monopoly, it is best for the regulator to leave the market to decide the optimal allocation of resources.

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Market failures also have other sources, which are often present in the production and consumption of natural resources and in the existence of man-made pollution. The three other sources of market failures are characterized by externalities, public goods, and information.

Externalities occur when one or more agents take actions that influence other agents, without the latter being able to impact this level of influence. Man-made pollution is often a good example of an externality, but they are not exactly the same. For example, cigarette smoking causes pollution; yet, if all agents involved are fully informed of its danger, only secondary smoking may be considered an externality specially if those who inhale the secondary smoke consider it a “bad”. It should be noted that many externalities are left for future generations. A dramatic example would be radioactive waste.

Pure public goods display two characteristics. They are non-excludable and non-rivalrous in consumption. The first characteristic indicates that no potential consumer can be excluded from consuming the public good, clearly differentiating it from a private good. The second indicates that one unit consumed of the public good does not preclude another consumer from consuming the same unit. Pure public goods are difficult to find, but perhaps a good example is sunlight. Everyone in Rio de Janeiro can enjoy the sun (except perhaps those incarcerated), which makes it non-excludable. One unit of sunshine that I consume does not preclude the reader from enjoying the same unit. Naturally, most public goods are impure, displaying one of the two characteristics.

Finally, information may be a source of market failure in a similar way to externalities. Although these sources are not exclusive of environmental problems, they are often present in environmental issues. If property rights were clearly known, enforceable and tradable, the market would take care of market failures without the need for regulations. There are other characteristics such as open access resources, common property resources, opportunity cost and the discount rate that play a major role in the economist view of environmental problems and market failures. The first two are typical in natural resource management, and often fall in the category of externality or public good. Opportunity cost and the discount rate are fundamental variables in all economic issues, indicating that there is always intra-temporal and inter-temporal trade-offs in the decision making process. Using the words of a famous Brazilian actress: “Any time you make a choice, you have to give up something”.34

34 Vera Fischer, Jornal do Brasil, October 26, 1997.

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3. POLICY OPTIONS35

The menu of instruments available to a regulator when addressing pollution is quite varied. This menu is summarized in Table I and II in the annex, including some examples of where these instruments are being utilized. Table I makes the distinction between direct and indirect instruments, which may be fundamental for addressing some types of industries and their contamination. Table II presents some economic instruments by sector.

3.1 The Direct Approach

A direct approach to pollution reduction implies that the regulator knows a great deal about the contamination caused by the polluting firm. This may be feasible in the case of a monopoly or an oligopolistic industry. Yet, in most instances it is unlikely that the regulator has enough information to establish and enforce an efficient direct instrument. The paragraphs below discuss some of the major direct instruments for pollution control and prevention, highlighting their potential flaws.

Pollution Charges. A pollution charge levied on a polluter attempts to internalize the marginal external cost to society of the contamination. If the charge captures the exact amount of the damage, it is known as an “optimal Pigouvian charge,” and in principle it is the first best in a menu of instruments. In general, however, it is easier for the regulator to know the price effect of a charge than its pollution effect; therefore a process of trial and error may be necessary to attain the desired reduction in contamination.

Tradable Permits. A tradable permit scheme has the same goal as a pollution charge, but attempts to achieve it by setting “quantity” rather than “price.” A regulator may choose an environmental quality level in a given area, and issue (either for free or for an initial fee) tradable pollution permits to the firms active in this area. Some of the advantages of the scheme are clear. For example, the environmental regulator does not have to fiddle with charges to attain a desired quality level. Alternatively, tradable permit schemes may suffer the ills of markets in general; that is, strategic behavior, significant search costs, and market imperfections may hamper the workings of a permit market.

Direct Command and Control. This type of regulation usually entails a source-specific restriction on the amount of pollution. These “licenses” to pollute up to a certain limit cannot be traded, and are strictly enforced on the polluters. For this type of instrument to work, substantial information is needed and the cost of implementation may be much higher than in the case of economic instruments.

35 The discussion in this and the next section is similarly presented in Dan Biller and Juan Quintero; Policy Options to Address Informal Sector Contamination in Urban Latin America: The Case of Leather Tanneries in Bogota, Colombia. The World Bank, 1994.

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3.2 The Indirect Approach

Given the uncertainties of environmental problems, indirect instruments may play an important role in curtailing pollution. Some indirect instruments are discussed below.

Input Taxes. Probably one of the most attractive options to policymakers, input taxes attempt to change pollution levels by affecting factor prices. Like most direct economic instruments, they may be revenue generating. Yet, as in the case of pollution charges, their impact on prices is more easily understood than their impact on contamination.

Output Taxes. Taxing output is also an indirect way of addressing pollution. As in other economic instruments, output taxes may be revenue generating, but once again their impact on prices is easier to assess than their impact on contamination. As in the case of input taxes, variables such as demand elasticities, availability of potentially more contaminating substitutes, and the possibility of firms becoming informal play a major role in the policymaker’s decision to use an output tax to address pollution.

Indirect Command and Control. Regulations on processes, equipment, inputs and outputs are the indirect version of CAC. Like its direct version counterpart, this sort of regulation may require a significant amount of information, and may be extremely inflexible and difficult to enforce.

4. ECONOMIC VALUATION

Total economic value of a natural resource is usually the sum of its direct, indirect, option and existence values. Each of these has a different technique for valuation, since not all can rely on market signals.

Direct Value (DV) usually stems from variables that can be accounted for through a price. For example, in a forest DV come from sustainable timber and non-timber production (such as nuts and fruits), tourism, among others. It can be calculated using market signals.

Indirect Value (IV) refers to environmental services performed by the natural resource. In case of a forest, it would be watershed protection, water recycling, carbon storage, biodiversity conservation, among others. In the case of pollution, one can consider loss of production caused by it or decline in property prices, among others. IV is usually calculated via loss of production / productivity methods, travel costs, and so on.

Option Value (OV) represents an insurance premium people are willing to pay to conserve a certain natural resource or improve pollution. Contingent valuations, willingness to pay (or accept compensation) are common methods for valuating OVs.

Existence Value (EV) represents the amount people are willing to pay to maintain a certain environmental asset without necessary directly using the asset. It is different from OV since it

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does not correspond to an insurance premium. It attempts to capture the people’s willingness to pay to secure species survival and well-being. Contingent valuations are common methods in this area.

5. NEW TRENDS ON ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

Apart from using the policy options discussed above, there are some new options increasingly being used by the environmental policymaker. Under budgetary pressure and the need to promote growth, some Latin American governments have increasingly been streamlining regulations that inhibit private sector activities. Regarding environmental issues, though, governments may keep in many instances their functions as regulators. Yet, rather than an across-the-board reduction of environmental regulations, rationalization of regulatory frameworks may be envisaged. In the section above we suggested ways of approaching this issue. In some approaches, there may even be the additional benefit of alleviating budgetary pressure. There is also scope for public participation and voluntary programs by industries.

Information Gathering and Dissemination. Many problems related to contamination are perpetuated by the general lack of information about pollution. Local communities may be unaware of the potential hazards of an industrial activity. Public awareness campaigns and environmental education may therefore pay off in terms of better and less expensive monitoring and enforcement. Rather than having monitoring and enforcement always undertaken by inspectors, a well educated public may raised flags that are more relevant to environmental conservation.

Voluntary Programs. Polluters themselves are currently seeing less advantages about their contamination. This is a result of a more demanding market both in terms of products as well as the way products are delivered. An example of voluntary programs would be the ISO certificates and other self-regulatory programs.

Technological Development. As a complementary or last-resort measure, governments may invest in appropriate new technologies and cleanup activities when the private sector has no interest in doing so. This approach, however, may be costly, and should be weighed against other policy alternatives.

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6. CONCLUSION

Zero emissions may not be optimal in all cases related to environmental problems. First, nature has a capacity of absorbing certain quantities of pollutants without the need for major pollution / production cut backs. Usually, some organic waste may fall in this category, particularly if loads are low. Secondly, any abatement policy has a cost as well as a benefit. As indicated above, even though valuations techniques do not provide accurate measures, these techniques coupled with the right instruments and some trial and error may provide an “optimal” level of pollution in the society view point. The art here is to find the best feasible alternative rather than the first best.

In some cases, however, strict regulatory enforcement may be needed, and no one can contemplate anything but zero emissions. This is the case for highly toxic and hazardous wastes, for which any level of pollution is unacceptable. An obvious example is radioactive waste in a densely populated area. Not only would this affect the current generation, but also would wipe out any chance of survival of future generations. In such case, zero emissions are a must even if it involves very high costs.

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ANNEX

TABLE 1 - SOME INSTRUMENTS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL POLICYMAKING

Type of Variable affected policy Price Quantity Technology

Incentive Direct − Effluent charges (Netherlands,

China) − Stumpage fees (Canada, United

States) − Deposit-refund schemes (beverage

containers, northern Europe)

− Tradable emissions permits (emissions trading program, United States)

− Tradable fishing permits (New Zealand)

− Technology taxes based on presumed emissions (water pollution control, Germany, France)

Indirect − Fuel taxes (Sweden, Netherlands) − Performance bonds (hazardous

wastes Thailand)

− Tradable input or produc-tion permits (lead trading program, United States)

− Subsidies for R&D and fuel efficiency (catalytic converters, United States, Japan, Western Europe)

Command and Control Direct − Emissions standards

(United States, China) − Logging quotas and

bans (Thailand)

− Mandated technical standards (catalytic converters, United States, Japan, Western Europe)

Indirect − Land zoning (Rondonia, Brazil)

− Bans and quotas on products and inputs (high-sulfur fuel, Sao Paulo, Brazil)

− Efficiency standards for inputs or processes (fuel efficiency standards, United States)

Source: Eskeland, Gunnar, and Emmanuel Jimenez. Choosing Policy Instruments for Pollution Control: A Review. Policy Research Working Paper # 624. The World Bank, 1991.

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Economic Instruments By Sector

Property Rights Market Creation Fiscal Instruments Charge Systems Financial Instruments

Liability Systems

Bonds & Deposit Refund

Schemes

Water Resources

Water Rights Water Shares Capital Gains Tax Water Pricing; Water Protection Charges

Water Pollution Tradable Effluent Permits Effluent Charges Water Treatment Fees

Low Interest Loans

Air Pollution Tradable Emission Permits

Emissions Charges

Technology Subsidies, Low Interest Loans

Solid Waste Property Taxes Collection Charges

Deposit-refund systems

Hazardous Waste

Collection Charges

Joint & Several Liability

Bonds; Deposit-refund

Global Climate Tradable Emission Entitlements; Tradable Forest Protection Obligations

Tradable CO2 permits; Tradable CFC quotas; CFC quota auction; Carbon Offsets

Carbon Taxes; BTU tax

CFC Replacement Incentives; Forest Compacts

Source Panayotou 1994

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Life Cycle Assessment and Zero Emission: how to focus the problem?

Adisa Azapagic University of Surrey

ABSTRACT

There is a growing need to move away from narrow definitions and concepts in environmental system management. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) offers a potential to take on broader, life cycle thinking and incorporate it into corporate strategic planning and policy development. LCA is a technique for assessing the environmental performance of a product, process or activity from "cradle to grave", i.e. from extraction of raw materials to final disposal. This paper discusses the potential for use of LCA in Technology Assessment (TA) in the context of the “zero emission” concept. It is argued that the zero emissions can never be achieved because of the basic thermodynamic constraints. However, it is recognized that the environmental impacts should be reduced to a feasible minimum in a concerted action in which all the implications of a technology are assessed on a global level. A methodology for combining LCA with TA is proposed, with the aim of identifying the main stages in the technology life cycle that impact on the environment and then focusing on these stages to minimise the impact. The discussion in the paper is taken further to recognize that decisions related to a technology choice are not made on the basis of environmental LCA only and that other factors, such as economic and societal, also play an important role. The paper proposes the use of multiobjective optimisation as an aid in identifying the best available technology option with the minimum environmental impact. In conclusion, it is also argued that in order to gain a wider acceptance, the further development of LCA and TA has to be directed towards their meeting the needs and expectations of all stakeholders involved in the decision making process.

1. INTRODUCTION

Since the introduction of the “zero emission” concept, the often repeated question is: Is it possible to achieve it? The answer to this question depends on how this concept is defined and where the system boundary is drawn. If the boundary is defined too narrowly, it is always possible to prove that zero emissions have been achieved. One of the typical examples for this is electric car. Emissions from the car itself are zero; however, if the system boundary is drawn so to include the electricity production to drive this car, then it is obvious that the emissions have only been shifted from one part of the system to another.

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The system boundary definition is therefore crucial in adressing this question. In addition, we also need to understand why we have the emissions in the first place. It is not because we are careless (or not in most cases), but because of the basic thermodynamic laws. Emissions and wastes arise because of the inefficiencies and losses in both material and energy uses. At the present stage of the technological development, we are not able to utilize materials and energy at a 100 percent efficiency. Unless there is a revolutionary change in the way we go about using materials and energy, we will never be able to achieve zero emission, because there will always be some wastes and emissions produced. However, what we can do is strive to reduce these emissions and wastes to a minimum in a concerted action in which all the implications of the technology use are assessed on a global level. This paper discusses some of the approaches that could assist in such an assessment.

2.1 Technology Assessment: need for a life cycle approach

Technology use is normally associated with unanticipated and often seriously adverse environmental consequences. These adverse effects are to a large extent unnecessary and they usually can be anticipated and avoided. However, the question is how to do it in the way that does not discourage the technological development worldwide. It is also important to remember that the further along one moves in the technological development cycle, the more limited the choices are for positive environmental management. Consequently, the focus has to be on the earliest stages: the planning and the pre-development and design. One of the tools that can help planning and design in an environmentally friendly manner as well as widen our choices is Technology Assessment (TA). TA is an analytical tool used to help understand the likely impacts of the use of a new technology by an industry or by society. TA as a standard operation is used to analyse policy options and to select appropriate markets and includes an examination of the costs of the technology, the monetary benefits, and its environmental, social and political impacts (Coates, 1995). Environmental technology assessment specifically analyses a technology’s implications for human health, natural resources and ecosystems.

Technology Assessment is becoming increasingly important in all parts of the world, particularly in the developing countries. One of the main reasons for this is the globalisation of the economies, which are increasingly becoming dependent on more and more other countries. Furthermore, the key to the globalisation is industrialisation which is directed at increasing the wealth of the ever growing population. However, the greater the wealth, the higher the consumption and the greater stress on the environment. In addition, new technologies are emerging every day and it is often difficult to know their possible consequences for the environment.

All technologies, whether they are infrastructural or the development of a new product or process, go through the same generic cycle, as shown in Fig. 1. Firstly, there is identification of a need, problem or opportunity, then the choice of alternatives, the selection of sites and technologies, the design, the acquisition and maintenance, and repair follow up. In the case of manufacturing facilities, there is also delivery of the product. In all cases, it is necessary to deal with wastes. Over time, there must be a monitoring, upgrading, repair, maintenance, and often

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an expansion of facilities. Ultimately, the technology comes to the end of its useful life and is abandoned or disposed of.

1. Identifying-need-problem-opportunity

2. Alternative solutions

3. Choiceamongalternatives

6. Rights and permissions

5. Design andplanning

4. Siteselection

7. Construction 8. Operation 9. Mainten.and repair

10. Waste disposal

12. Deliveryof productsand services

11. Expansion or alteration

14. Disposal(Decommissioning

13. Replacement

FIGURE 1 - TECHNOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT: A LIFE CYCLE APPROACH (COATES, 1995)

This whole cycle must be the basis of the systems approach to technology assessment. Almost all of the negative consequences of technological systems result from thinking too narrowly about the technology. It is therefore particularly important to assess the total technology cycle from initial ideas and concepts to the final disposal and to analyse related environmental consequences. One of the tools that enables us to do this effectively is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Since there are few or no direct environmental impacts associated with the activities 1-6, the direct relevance of LCA in TA lies in activities 7-13, which involve the construction, operation, maintenance, disposal and repair/replacement of the technology. Although the rest of this paper concentrates on the use of LCA and TA for reducing the environmental impacts of manufacturing systems, the same concept can be applied to other systems, such as infrastructure, water management and other.

2.2 Life Cycle Assessment

LCA has been formally defined by SETAC as "a process to evaluate the environmental burdens associated with a product, process, or activity by identifying and quantifying energy and materials used and wastes released to the environment; to assess the impact of those energy and material uses and releases to the environment; and to identify and evaluate opportunities to effect environmental improvements" (Consoli et al., 1993). As illustrated in Fig. 2, the life cycle of a product starts from extraction and refining of raw materials, which are then transported to the manufacturing site to produce a product. The product is then transported to the user and in the

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end of its useful life is either recycled and returned back to re-processing or is disposed of in a landfill. In all of these steps, materials and energy are consumed and wastes and emissions produced.

The life cycle in Fig. 2 goes from “cradle to grave”. The question is, however, whether in the future we will adopt a “cradle to cradle” approach, i.e. whether some materials that we landfill today will become a source of the primary materials in the future (indicated by question mark in Fig. 2). This is already happening with some metals in North America, which are being dug up from landfills, because they are richer in the metal content than the primary repositories.

??MaterialsMaterials

EnergyEnergy

EmissionsEmissions

WasteWaste

FIGURE 2 - STAGES IN THE LIFE CYCLE OF A PRODUCT

The methodological framework for conducting LCA, as defined by both SETAC and International Standards Organisation, comprises four main stages. The two approaches are compared below:

SETAC ISO - 14040 1. Goal Definition and Scoping Goal and Scope Definition (ISO 14041) 2. Inventory Analysis Inventory Analysis (ISO 14041) 3. Impact Assessment Impact Assessment (ISO 14042) 4. Improvement Assessment Interpretation (ISO 14043)

As indicated, the methodological framework proposed by ISO 14040 is similar to that defined by SETAC, the difference is only in the matter of detail. In the first stage, Goal and Scope Definition, the boundaries of the system to be studied are defined. This stage also identifies the functional unit(s) of the system as a measure of the function that the system delivers. For instance, the function of a drink package is to store a certain amount of liquid. If different

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packaging is to be compared, then the comparison should be based on an equivalent function. Therefore, the functional unit can be defined as the quantity of packaging needed to store a certain amount of liquid.

The second, Inventory Analysis stage, is related to carrying out material and energy balances in the system and identifying and quantifying the environmental burdens. The burdens are defined by resource consumption and emissions to air, water and solid waste. These are then aggregated in the Impact Assessment stage into a smaller number of impact categories, such as Global warming potential, Acidification, Ozone depletion, etc. Ultimately, in this stage the impacts can be further aggregated into a single environmental impact function by attaching the weights of importance to them. This is perhaps the most controversial stage of LCA, because it implies subjective value judgments in deciding on the importance of different impacts. The final, Improvement Assessment (Interpretation) stage is aimed at identifying the possibilities for improving the performance of the system.

Because of its holistic approach to system analysis, LCA is becoming an increasingly important decision-making tool in environmental system management. Its main advantage over other, site-specific, methods for environmental analysis, such as Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), lies in broadening the system boundaries to include all burdens and impacts in the life cycle of a product or a process, and not focusing on the emissions and wastes generated by the plant or manufacturing site only.

As an environmental management tool, LCA has the following main objectives:

1. to provide as complete a picture as possible of the interactions of an activity with the environment,

2. to compare impacts of alternative activities on the environment,

3. to contribute to the understanding of the environmental consequences of human activities,

4. to provide decision-makers with information on the environmental effects of these activities and identify opportunities for environmental improvements.

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LCA can be used both internally by a company or externally by industry, policy makers, planners, educators and other stakeholders. If the results of LCA are to be used internally by a company then the following are possible areas where LCA can be useful but are not limited to:

− strategic planning or environmental strategy development,

− problem solving in the system,

− product and process design, innovation, improvement, and optimisation,

− identification of environmental improvement opportunities.

One of the external applications of LCAs most frequently used by companies is for marketing purposes. Others include uses of LCA for technological assessment, environmental reporting, as a support for environmental claims or labelling, for educational or informational purposes or to aid policy decisions. Some of these applications are outlined below, with a particular emphasis on use of LCA for TA.

2.3 LCA and TA: focusing the problem

One of the main question that this paper is trying to address is: How to focus the problem related to the environmental impacts of a technology? This is a very important question in TA because of the complexity of the procedure and a number of environmental impacts that can be associated with a technology.

One of the ways to achieve this is to combine LCA with TA. The approach proposed in this paper is outlined in Fig. 3. Life Cycle Assessment is used throughout the assessment procedure. Firstly, an LCA of the technology is carried out to identify the main stages in the life cycle which contribute to the environmental impacts the most. The “hot spots” in the system are then targeted for improvements. Once the main environmental impacts of the technology have been quantified, the potential for improvement is identified through the selection of materials and process routes for a particular technology so as to minimise the environmental impacts but still to satisfy other parameters, such as technical performance, costs, legislation and the society as a whole. Upon meeting all of these requirements, LCA is performed again to identify and quantify the improvements made. This whole process is iterative with a continuous exchange of information between the stakeholders and yields a number of possibilities for improvements. As shown in Fig. 3, this approach enables trading off a number of important criteria and provides a basis for identification of the best available technological option (BATO).

The same procedure can be used for assessment of an existing or for developing a new technology. Therefore, this approach offers a potential for technological innovation with the improved performance over the whole life cycle. This can be of particular importance if placed in context of EMAS standards of the EU and EMS of ISO 14000 which require companies to have a full knowledge of the environmental consequences of their actions, both on and off site.

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LCA-TALCA-TA

Perfor-Perfor-mancemance

EconomicsEconomics

LegislationLegislation

SocietySociety

ProcessesProcesses

MaterialsMaterials

FIGURE 3 - LIFE CYCLE PRODUCT OR PROCESS DESIGN AS A TOOL FOR INNOVATION

In the procedure outlined above, in many cases there will be a number of different options to choose from and it may not always be obvious which one will provide the best solution for the system. It may also happen that it is not a single option but a combination of several of them that gives the optimum improvements in the system. The problem is further complicated by the number of different emissions and their impacts that need to be considered simultaneously and the fact that improvements in some of them will often mean a deterioration in the others. Therefore, to deal with this and other complexities often encountered in LCA, it is helpful to use system optimisation in LCA as an aid for identifying optimum solutions for improvements. Because of the multiobjective nature of the problem in which optimum solutions are sought for a number of often conflicting objectives, it is necessary to use multiobjective optimisation whereby the system is simultaneously optimised on a number of environmental objective functions subject to the constraints in the system (Azapagic, 1996; Azapagic and Clift, 1995, 1996a, 1996b).

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In LCA terms, the objectives are defined by resource usages and emissions to air, water and solid wastes:

Minimise B j bc j,i xii

= ∑ k=1,2,...,K (1)

where bck,i is burden k from process or activity xi. The objective functions can also be the environmental impacts:

Minimise E ec Bk k, j j

j 1

J=

=∑

l=1,2,...,L (2)

where ecl,k represents the relative contribution of burden Bk to impact El, as for instance defined by the "problem oriented" approach to Impact Assessment (Heijungs, 1992). In this approach, for example, Global Warming Potential (GWP) factors, ecl,k, for different greenhouse gases are expressed relative to the GWP of CO2, which is therefore defined to be unity.

Depending on the goal of the study, the system can be optimised on either the burdens or the impacts. The optimisation problem is then to simultaneously minimise the objective functions defined by eqns. (1) or (2) subject to the constraints in the system:

a x Aji ii=1

I

j∑ ≤ and x 0i ≥ j = 1,2,...,J; i = 1,2,...,I (3)

where aj,i is an input or output coefficient of an activity xi. Therefore, the definition of the optimisation problem in LCA is equivalent to that of the conventional optimisation problem. However, the difference is that in the model formulation in the LCA context, the system boundary is extended to include all activities from extraction of raw materials to the disposal. Furthermore, in the conventional optimisation the objective functions are normally defined as a measure of economic performance, while in the LCA context they are defined as environmental burdens (resource depletion and emissions) or impacts.

The system can be optimised on all the environmental functions simultaneously in order to find a number of environmental optima of the system. It is important to emphasize at this point that objective functions do not have to be aggregated into a single environmental impact function by attaching weights to them to indicate their relative importance. In this way, the controversial issue of evaluating the importance of different environmental impacts is avoided. The obtained environmental optima define the multidimensional non-inferior or Pareto surface. By definition, none of the objective functions at the Pareto optimum can be improved without worsening any other objective function. Therefore, some trade-offs between objective functions are necessary in order to reach the preferred optimum solution in a given situation. For example, if the emissions of NOx and SO2 are optimised simultaneously, the resulting Pareto optimum does not necessarily mean that these functions are at their minima achieved when the system is optimised

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on each of them separately. The Pareto optimum does, however, mean that the set of best possible options has been identified for a system in which both emissions should be reduced.

The value of multiobjective optimisation in LCA therefore lies in offering a range of alternative solutions; they are all optimal, but the choice of the best one will depend on a range of technical, financial, environmental, and social factors. Consequently, system improvements cannot be carried out on the basis of environmental LCA only - these other factors have also to be incorporated into the model. Thus additional objective functions are identified and the system is optimised on all of them, yielding an n-dimensional Pareto surface with optimum solutions. An illustration of this approach is shown in Fig. 4. For a graphical representation, it is assumed that the system is to be optimised on three objective functions, defined as an environmental impact, overall technical performance and total costs in the system. A simultaneous optimisation on these three objectives will result in a three dimensional Pareto surface, which may take the shape of that shown in the figure. By definition, all solutions on the surface are optimum. By moving along the surface, the trade-offs between different objectives can be established in order to find out how much of one objective has to be given up to gain in the other. In this way, acceptable solutions, representing the compromise between conflicting objectives, can be found. This approach thus enables the choice of the best practicable environmental option and therefore ensures that minimum (zero) emissions are achieved.

The advantage of multiobjective over single objective optimisation is that the latter provides one solution only, which may be optimum but not appropriate for a particular situation. The decision makers like to decide, and multiobjective optimisation enables them to do so. It also helps them understand the gains and the losses associated with each option and therefore makes them more likely to compromise in conflicting situations. Thus, coupling TA and LCA with multiobjective system optimisation can simplify the decision making process and so help overcome one of the many obstacles for a wider use of LCA and TA.

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COSTCOST

PERFORMANCE

PERFORMANCE

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

BETTER PERFORMANCE FROM “BETTER PERFORMANCE FROM “CRADLE TO GRAVE”CRADLE TO GRAVE”

FIGURE 4 - LCA FOR REDUCED ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF A TECHNOLOGY

3. CONCLUSIONS

The system boundary definition is of a crucial importance in the “zero emission” concept. If the boundary is defined too narrowly, it can produce a misleading conclusion that the zero emissions have been achieved, while the emissions might have only been shifted to other parts of the system. It is therefore crucial that the system boundary is drawn so to include all the relevant stages of the life cycle of a system. Life Cycle Assessment is a powerful tool which enables this as it provides a full picture of human interactions with the environment from “cradle to grave”. This approach can particularly be powerful if used in Technology Assessment, as it identifies the main stages in the life cycle that impact on the environment and thus enables focusing the efforts to minimise this impact. If combined with multiobjective optimisation, LCA can help satisfy environmental, economic and societal preferences in choosing the best available technology option. However, to become an integral part of decision making process, the further development of LCA and TA has to be directed towards its meeting the needs and expectations of all stakeholders involved in the decision making process.

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REFERENCES

Azapagic, A. & Clift, R. 1995, Life Cycle Assessment and Linear Programming - Environmental Optimisation of Product System. Comp. & Chem. Eng. vol. 19, Suppl., pp229-234.

Azapagic, A. 1996, Environmental System Analysis: The Use of Linear Programming in Life Cycle Assessment, Ph.D. thesis, University of Surrey, UK.

Azapagic, A. & Clift, R. 1996a, Environmental Management of Product System - Application of Multiobjective Linear Programming to Life Cycle Assessment, Proc. of the 1996 ICheme Research Event, vol. 2, pp558-560.

Azapagic, A., & Clift, R. 1996b, Application of Multiobjective Linear Programming to Environmental Process Optimisation, AIChE 1996 Spring National Meeting, 25-29 February, New Orleans.

Coates, J.F., 1995, Anticipating Environmental Effects of Technology: A Primer and Workbook, UNEP Industry and Environment, Paris, November.

Consoli, F. et al. (eds.), 1993, Guidelines for Life-Cycle Assessment: A 'Code of Practice', SETAC, Brussels.

Heijungs, R. ed. 1992, Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Products: Background and Guide, MultiCopy, Leiden.

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Water: a key for sustainable development

Ricardo Melamed Centro de Tecnologia Mineral

ABSTRACT

Water is essential for human life and development. A broad understanding of the hydrologic cycle allows a prediction of the consequences of man’s activities to water supplies. In any circumstance, to preserve our water courses, a rational water use is mandatory. This paper emphasizes the role of water as a major solvent and carrier of contaminants, guidelines for water quality, wastewater reclamation and reuse, water use in mining operations, recycling and zero discharge. Some technologies to preserve water supplies are discussed.

1. INTRODUCTION

All life on earth depends on water. Water has been central to the history of man. Civilizations have persisted or perished as they experienced situations of too little or too much water. Water management is essential for sustainable development. The salinity problem in agriculture of arid or semiarid regions, for instance, is an evidence of the lack of hydrologic principles of water management. It became imperative that we understand hydrology broadly, so that the hydrologic cycle is examined to determine how and to what extent the cycle will be affected by man’s activities. The hydrologic cycle (Figure 1) is a description of the way water is transfered through the various environmental compartments.

The manipulation of the hydrologic cycle maybe carried out directly or indirectly. The use of “conservation tillage systems” as an agricultural practice to control soil erosion, usually associated to a layer of mulch, decreases surface runoff, promotes water infiltration and reduces evaporation, leaving more water available for transpiration and consequently decreasing the need for irrigation water.

Calculations carried out by Garrels and Mackenzie (1971) show that the amount of water discharged from rivers to the sea, each year, is about equal to the total amount present in rivers and lakes. The knowledge of the amount of water in each compartment and the flux among the compartments (Figure 2) allow a calculation of the “residence time” of a water molecule in that compartment, considering steady state, i.e., the amount of water in the reservoir is not changing with time. Thus, the residence time of water in the ocean is calculated to be 3,550 years and in the atmosphere is 11 days.

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FIGURE 1 - THE HYDROLOGIC CYCLE

FIGURE 2 - WATER BUDGET

The budget of water cycle allows a prediction of the consequences of human inputs to natural systems. Humans use water for many purposes: drinking, irrigation, fisheries, recreation,

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industrial processes, transportation and waste disposal. \The two principal sources of water supply to our society are surface waters and groundwater (Table 1). Surface waters include natural and man-made lakes, rivers and streams, while groundwater includes wells and springs.

TABLE 1 - WATER AS A GLOBAL RESOURCE Water Distribution on Earth

(%) Ocean 80 Groundwater 19 Ice and snow 1 Rivers and Lakes 0.002 Atmosphere 0.0008

Source: Garrels and Mackenzie, 1971

As Table 1 shows, the groundwater is the most important source of fresh water to our development. Thus, with groundwater use for agricultural or industrial purposes, it is not uncommon that the water table drops. Deliberate attempts for groundwater recharge are often considered where surface runoff occurs regularly. Groundwater recharge has been used to reduce, stop or reverse declines in groundwater levels, to protect underground freshwater in coastal aquifers against saltwater intrusion, and to store reclaimed wastewater and surface water, including flood or other surplus water for future use.

The behaviour of groundwater systems is controlled by the porosity and permeability of the rocks involved (Figure 3). As water leaves the soil zone and passes through the groundwater system, the concentration of organic matter decreases (through bacterial decay or adsorption), the concentration of elements in the form of organic complexes (Fe and Al) decreases, and the concentration of common major ions increases (as a result of reactions of water with the enclosing rock).

The “natural” changes in the chemistry of a mass of water, as it flows down a river, are small compared to the changes that take place in the sub-surface zone, due to the shorter residence time and less contact between water and solid phases.

However, nowadays, the chemistry of many rivers is influenced by inputs of domestic and industrial wastes, which are often modified by processes such as oxidation-reduction, adsorption and precipitation. Pollution destroys the river’s biota through toxic effects, or through oxygen depletion due to organic matter decomposition.

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FIGURE 3 - GROUNDWATER SYSTEM

The deterioration of water courses and the scarcity of water in some regions demand a rational water use. The principles, discussed in the International Conference on Water and the Environment (Dublin, 1992), to revert the excessive consumption of water are:

a) Fresh water is a finite and vulnerable resource, essential to sustain life, development and the environment. As such, its use requires an integrated focus on the social-economic development and protection of the environment. The relationship between soil use and the use of water in the hole of a hydrological basin or aquifer should be established.

b) The use and management of water should be inspired by the participation of the users, and decision makers at all levels.

c) Water has an economic value at all its various uses and should be recognized as an economic good.

An effective action program to preserve our water supplies should focus on:

1. Conservation and reuse of water - rational use of water resources in all areas such as agriculture, industry and domestic use.

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80% of water consumption in the world goes to irrigated agriculture. In many irrigation systems, 60% of the water are lost during the transportation from its source to its destiny.

Recycling could diminish the consumption by about 50% on the industrial sector and in addition it would diminish contamination. The application of the principle that who contaminates pays and the establishment of costs that would reflect the real value of water will foment conservation and the reutilization of the water resource.

Approximately 36% of the water used in urban services are lost. The observation of basic discharge rules based on new objectives of protection will allow to the successive consumers to reuse water which is extremely polluted after the first use.

2. Sustainable Urban Development

The sustainability of the urban growth is threathened, as a consequence of decrease in abundant water supply, the excessive use of water and discharges without control of urban and industrial tailings. To warrant future supply, an adequate tax and proper control of the discharges should be implemented.

3. Protection to the aquatic ecosystem.

4. The knowledge base

The measurement of the components of the hydrologic cycle (Figure 1) in quantity and in quality and other characteristics of the environment that affect water, constitute an essencial base for a rational and efficient water management. The knowledge base is necessary to understand the climatic system at world level and the effects over water resources, climatic changes and seawater level elevation.

2. The role of water as a major solvent and carrier of contaminants

Computer simulations infrared, Raman and neutron scattering experiments agree that the nearest neighbors of a typical water molecule in the liquid are arranged in a tetrahedral configuration (Figure 4).

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Figure 4 - Tetrahedral configuration of molecules in liquid water

The influence of an ion in an aqueous electrolyte solution on the structure of liquid water is a localized perturbation of the tetrahedral configuration. In the region nearest to the ion, water molecules are dominated by a dense mass refered to as the primary solvation shell. In the next outer region, water molecules interact weakly with the ion and form the secondary solvation shell. Beyond that there is no distinction as in the bulk phase (Figure 5).

FIGURE 5 - ARRANGEMENT OF WATER MOLECULES IN ORIENTED LAYERS OR SHELLS AROUND IONS, WITH OXYGEN ATOMS NEAREST TO CATIONS, AND HYDROGEN ATOMS NEAREST TO ANIONS

The primary solvation shell of a small monovalent cation appears to contain six water molecules if the solution is dilute and about three molecules if the solution is concentrated. In this case, the primary solvation shell is relatively well defined, temporally, because the residence time of water molecules in the primary shell (10 ps) is much larger than the residence time of a water molecule in the tetrahedral coordination (5 ps), but equal to the time required for a diffusive step with a molecule in the bulk liquid. For larger monovalent cations and for monovalent anions, the residence time is comparable with that of the bulk liquid phase. For monovalent cations

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neutron diffraction and incoherent neutron scattering indicate the absence of a secondary solvation shell.

For bivalent cations the residence time of a water molecule in the primary solvation shell has been estimated to be in the range of 10-9 to 10-4 s. This time scale been much longer than that of self-diffusion, implies that the water molecules surrounding the cation move along with it as a single entity. The number of water molecules is always between six and eight, depending on cation size, ion-pair formation and electrolyte concentration.

An important property of adsorbed water on mineral surfaces refers to the acidity of the solvated exchangeable cations as decribed by:

M(H2O)nm+ = MOH(H2O)n-1 (m-1)+ + H+

As the ionic potential increases, the intensity of the positive coulombic field of the cation increases and repulsion of a solvating water proton becomes more likely.

The type of interaction of a chemical with a solid surface is related to the presence or absence of the solvating water, which, by its turn, will determine the rate of transport of a certain contaminant through the soil matrix and its potential for groundwater contamination.

Another important role of water on the determination of chemical movement, at the macro-scale was visualized by Van Genuchten and Wierenga (1976), where they described a model in which the liquid phase in the soil matrix is partitioned into mobile (macroporosity-convection controlled) and immobile (microporosity-diffusion contolled) regions (Figure 6). They suggested that only a certain fraction of sorption sites, i.e., those located around the larger pores participated actively in the adsorption process. This would have the same effect as a reduction in adsorption, leading to a relatively faster movement of the chemical and earlier breakthrough curves (BTC). At the same time, a considerable portion of the chemical must diffuse to remaining sites located inside aggregates. The slow diffusion process would continuosly remove material from the larger saturated pores resulting in extensive tailing.

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FIGURE 6 - SCHEMATIC DIAGRAM OF THE MOBILE-IMMOBILE WATER MODEL

3. WATER QUALITY

The introduction of metal contaminants into the aquatic system has various sources. Polluted water bodies by its turn, lead over many pathways to metal contamination of terrestrial ecosystems. Human activities, such as irrigation and dredging also contribute to the contamination of terrestrial systems. The pathways leading to contamination of aquatic and terrestrial systems are depicted in Figure 7.

The major reason for the particular sensitivity of aquatic systems to pollution lies in the structure of the food chains. Compared with land systems, the relatively small biomass in aquatic environments generally occurs in a great variety of trophic levels, whereby accumulation of xenobiotic and poisonous substances can be enhanced.

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FIGURE 7 - PATHWAYS LEADING TO CHEMICAL CONTAMINATION

3.1 Drinking water quality

Improved analytical methods developed in the last decade have enabled scientists to discover previously undetected chemicals at low levels (<ppt). A survey of 1,300 water wells, commissioned by Agriculture Canada in 91/92, analyzing for nitrate, herbicides, petroleum, and fecal coliform bacteria found that:

− 37% contained one or more of the target contaminants − 13% exceeded the maximum acceptable level for nitrate − 31% exceeded the level for coliform bacteria − 8% had detectable levels of pesticides

The common sources of poor drinking water quality are associated to groundwater contamination due to:

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Poor well design

bacterial and protozoa contamination from barnyards and manure storage, and in pesticide or fertilizer contamination.

Leaking sewers and septic systems

nitrate contamination from human waste if septic system is aerobic, metal ions, organic chemicals, phosphate, bacteria and viruses.

Agricultural practices

pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers can move down into aquifers.

Landfill leachate

landfill sites, municpal and industrial may leak leachate.

Surface water

polluted lakes and rivers may pollute the aquifer.

Air pollution deposition

Natural contaminants

As, U, Th, Ra occuring in the surrounding rock or soil.

Leaking underground fuel storage tanks

benzene, toluene, ethyl-benzene and xylene (BTEX).

Road salt

salination of ground, as well as surface waters.

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3.2 Drinking water safety

Maximum Acceptable Concentrations (MACs) have been established for substances known to cause adverse effects, assuming lifelong consumption.

For non-carcinogenic contaminants, MACs should be 10 to 10,000 times less than the exposure levels at which any adverse health effects have been observed.

For carcinogenic contaminants, the MAC takes into consideration the best available treatment technologies, the pratical limits in laboratory methods used to measure the contaminant, and the estimated lifetime cancer risk.

When not enough is known about the toxicity of a substance to establish a MAC, interim guidelines are recommended. The Interim Maximum Acceptable Concentration (IMAC) takes into account the available health-related data, but uses a larger safety factor to compensate for additional uncertainty.

Table 2 shows the levels of some deleterious substances, established as guidelines by Health Canada, for drinking water.

TABLE 2 - GUIDELINES FOR DRINKING WATER

Substance or Eelement Level Aldrin 0.03-0.7 ug/L Al 0.1 mg/L As 0.01-0.025 mg/L Cd 0.003-0.005 mg/L F 1.5 mg/L Hexachlorobenzene 1 ug/L Pb 0.01 mg/L Hg (total) 0.001 mg/L nitrate+nitrite 10 mg/L Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) 3 ug/L Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) 0.01-0.7 ug/L trihalomethanes (THMs) 0.1 mg/L

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Radionuclides (Bq/L)

Element Half-life Level Proposed Level cesium-137 30 years 50 7 iodine-131 8.5 days 10 6 radium-226 3.8 days 1 0.6 strontium-90 29 years 10 4 tritium 12.5 years 40,000 7,000 uranium 4.5 billion years 5 -

3.3 Municipal water treatment and associated concerns

There are multiple steps in municipal water treatment, such as: screening, oxidation, flocculation sedimentation, filtration, fuoridation, disinfection, ammoniation, ozonation. Following these steps some compounds are introduced or generated. Important concerns are fluorinechlorine, aluminum, trihalomethanes (THMs) like chloroform, bromoform, etc., which are formed during chlorination, as a product of the reaction of Cl with organic materials.

Other concerns originate in the distribution system, such as lead and copper contamination from water supply lines.

3.4 Recreational water

The penetration of contaminants through the skin is measured by the permeability constant and depends on the physical-chemical properties of the chemical (concentration, molecular weight, size and shape, electrostatic charge and solubility in water, oils and fats, and organic materials) and on the total surface area of the exposed skin, time and duration of contact.

Contaminants in recreational water may have natural or human origins: − Urban stormwater runoff contains microorganisms from pet feces and sewage from cross-

conections, fuel, oil and salts, industrial wastes, residuals from boat engines. − Malfunctioning septic systems − Agricultural runoff contribute with nitrate and pesticides. − Sewer overflows caused by heavy rainfall. − Winds and currents affect the turbidity and may resuspend contaminated sediments and

contribute to remobilization.

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4. IRRIGATION WATER

Evapotranspiration places a daily demand upon the soil reservoir. From consideration of the relative magnitude of the potential transpiration in arid regions and the storage capacity of a soil profile, it can be seen that rainfall or irrigation must occur with reasonable frequency throughout the growing season. Optimum application of irrigation water demands an understanding of the principles of water movement in soil.

In surface irrigation the water is applied directly to the soil surface through channels which may vary in size from individual furrows to large basins. The amount of water applied in this system depends upon the infiltration capacity of the soil and the length of time water is ponded upon the soil surface. Uniform irrigation is very difficult to be achieved. Sprinkler systems have the advantage that the application rate can be controlled by the design of the system, as long as it does not exceed the infiltration capacity of the soil.

5. WASTEWATER RECLAMATION AND REUSE

The use of highly treated wastewater from municipal wastewater treatment plants is receiving attention as a reliable source of water. The significance of wastewater reuse in the U.S. can be assessed by a comparison of the reuse potential with the total water use. Water withdrawals during 1985 were estimated to be an average of 399 Bgal/day of fresh and saline waters for off-stream uses (public supply - domestic, public, commercial and industrial; rural - domestic and livestock; irrigation; self-supplied industrial uses including thermoelectric power). Estimates of freshwater withdrawals and wastewater recycling and reuse are depicted in Table 3. The relatively small municipal wastewater reclamation and reuse compared with water recycling and total freshwater withdrawals in 1985 is expected to be the same in the future. However, the actual quantity of wastewater reuse will increase significantly and will become more important for water-short regions (Metcalf and Eddy, 1991).

A comparison of water withdrawals of both surface and groundwater, by states, in 1980, is shown in Figure 8. California accounted for the most water withdrawn for off-stream use with 49.7 Bgal/day. It is estimated that agricultural activities and steam electric plants will continue to use over 75% of all freshwater withdrawn.

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TABLE 3 - ESTIMATES OF FRESHWATER WITHDRAWALS AND WASTEWATER RECYCLING AND REUSE IN THE U.S.

Quantity (Bgal/day) Category 1975 1985* 2000*

Total freshwater withdrawals 362.7 356.3 330.9 Wastewater recycling (industrial) 139.1 386.7 865.5

steam electric 57 - 517.3 manufacturing 61 - 316.2 minerals 21 - 32.0 Wastewater reuse (municipal) 0.7 2.1 4.8

* projected values (U.S. Department of Interior)

FIGURE 8 - COMPARISON OF WATER WITHDRAWALS, IN THE U.S., IN 1980, OF SURFACE WATER AND

GROUNDWATER. (SOLLEY ET AL., 1988)

The principal categories of municipal water reuse are agricultural irrigation, landscape irrigation, industrial recycling and reuse, groundwater recharge, recreational/environmental uses, nonpotable urban uses, potable reuse.

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6. WATER USE IN MINING OPERATIONS

Water plays a key role in all phases of mineral processing, such as: hydraulic dismanteling, preparation and separation, concentration, hydraulic transport.

The release of pollutants in effluents from metal mines is often related to:

− natural characteristics of the ore.

− uncontrollable water flows into the mine, waste rock dumps, or tailings ponds.

The technological basis and associated numerical limits for regulations in metal mining are based on the application of the “Best Practicable Technology”, meaning the control of pollution at the source by applying the technology that is both technically and economically viable.

The metal mining liquid effluent regulations and guidelines limit the concentrations of toxic elements according to Table 4.

TABLE 4 - AUTHORIZED LEVELS OF DELETERIOUS SUBSTANCES PRESCRIBED IN METAL MINING LIQUID EFFLUENT REGULATIONS (ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION SERIES, ENVIRONMENT CANADA).

Element Maximum monthly mean concentration

As 0.5 mg/L Cu 0.3 mg/L Pb 0.2 mg/L Ni 0.5 mg/L Zn 0.5 mg/L TSM 25 mg/L Ra-226 10 pCi/L pH* 6.0

* Minimum authorized monthly arithmetic mean

6.1 Water pollution control technology at mining and milling operations

The complexity of water pollution problems varies considerably among mines. Treatment of wastes, at metal mining and milling operations, to avoid adverse effects on the aquatic environment includes removal of suspended solids and dissolved metals, and neutralization of acidic waters, as well as radionuclides.

The first step in water pollution control is the removal and permanent retention of solids generated in milling. This is accomplished by discharging the tailings slurry into a tailings pond

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where the solids are settled out while the decant water is discharged or reused. Figure 9 is a flow-chart of mine-mill effluent treatment.

Mine water or surface drainage which may contain fine particles often require treatment in the tailings pond or separate settling ponds.

Effluents high in acidity (sulphuric acid) and dissolved metals are usually treated by adding an alkaline reagent, lime, to increase the pH and to precipitate metals as hydroxides. Lime can be added in the mill so that metal hydroxide precipitates form ahead of the tailings pond and are co-deposited with the mill tailings.

The presence of sulphate results in the precipitation of gypsum as well as metal hydroxides and the resulting sludges are often difficult to settle. Thus, acidic mine water may be limed ahead of settling ponds. Precipitation of metal sulphides may be followed by sand filtration.

In uranium mines, most of the dissolved radioactives precipitates when lime is added. However, since the activity of Ra-226 remains relatively high in the tailings pond overflow, barium chloride is additionaly added to produce barium-radium-sulphate precipitate that is settled out or removed by sand filters.

FIGURE 9 - MINE-MILL EFFLUENT TTREATMENT

Cyanide removal has been performed through natural degradation by retaining the water in a tailigs for a considerable length of time. Sometimes a combination of natural degradation with chemical treatment is needed. This is accomplished through oxidation of cyanide with hydrogen peroxide, or a combination of sulphur dioxide with air. Biological oxidation systems may also be used.

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A flowsheet for a mechanical-type treatment plant is shown in Figure 10. The treatment consists of adding alkali in a series of mechanically-agitated reactors, some with aeration to oxidize ferrous iron to ferric iron. The metal hydroxide-gypsum precipitates are separated from the bulk of water by settling in thickeners or clarifiers, and disposed of in tailings ponds. The treated water is then released to the environment.

FIGURE 10 - MECHANICAL TREATMENT PLANT

6.2 Water management

Water management is of primary importance to the mining complex for the successful implementation, operation and decomissioning of the site. Due to its site specific character, orderly water control planning is essential, and should be concerned with the treatment of runoff from within the mine area, runoff from areas around the site and its diversion, and diversion, collection and treatment of runoff from within the mine area.

The water control plan, once formulated, must meet the requirements of the several levels of various regulatory agencies. A diagram of a tailings water balance (Ker, 1974) is shown in Figure 11.

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FIGURE 11 - TAILINGS WATER BALANCE

6.3 Control of water in the impoundment area

The retaining dam must be designed to hold solids, liquid effluents, storm water runoff and precipitation itself. Water leaves the impoundment area as free water, seepage water and evaporation.

The tailings water balance can be controlled by pumping at a high slurry density, such as thickened discharge. Site selection can minimize surface runoff.

Factors relating to the ore, milling operation and site conditions require definition in order to design an effective water control system. These factors include the chemical and physical characteristics of the tailings structure as well as the geology of the site. Particle size, for example, will differ as well as permeability, so that tailings impoundment consisting of coarse material will lose more water than tailings composed with fine materials.

To minimize water discharge to tailings, thickened discharge deposition can be utilized so that:

− the water volume for recycling to the mill is maximized.

− the area of seepage is reduced

− the risk of dam failure is reduced

The control of water impounded decant systems should be implemented. This can be done either through pipelines at the bottom of the structure or at the top.

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6.4 Water cover for control of acid mine drainage

One strategy for the counteraction of Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) must basically address the elimination of the access of oxygen to the material to be weathered, thereby avoiding the oxidation of sulphides. According to a study by Broman and Göransson (1994), there is no better method of eliminating the access of oxygen to the material than using water as a barrier. The material should be permanently immersed in water or sealed by a film of water. Actually, flooding was judged, in the above mentioned study, to be safer, more effective and more cost-effective.

The possibility of permanent flooding of a tailings area is a matter of water balance and is determined largely by the precipitation and evaporation effects on water surface, runoff of surface area from adjoining land, inflow and outflow of groundwater, and seepage through the dikes.

6.5 Water recycling, reuse and zero discharge

Water, the medium for receiving rejected chemicals and thermal energy was usually collected, sent to end-pipe treatment and finally discharged to surface waters. The rising price of water, its scarcity and environmental regulations make, nowadays, water reuse essential.

The rational for water recycling include:

− reagent conservation

− water conservation

− minimization of effluent discharge and requirement for treatment

The water treatment for an end product that can be recycled involve:

− removal of particulate matter

− removal of dissolved inorganic ions

− removal of soluble organic materials and organic phases

Mine waters are also an excellent source of supplemental water in the recycling systems of ore treatment plants. The recycling of mine water is as variable as the recycling of process water and depends upon the ore mineralogy. If the ore contains sulphides, lime neutralization prior to reuse is necessary.

The concept of Zero discharge (meaning: no wastewater discharge to surface water) was concieved by the US National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). The key to the achievement of this goal is the closing up of a plant’s water balance. Some reasons for implementation of zero discharge may be that, the ideal plant location may have a supply of

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groundwater available, but no nearby surface water for waste water discharge, or that the quality of treated waste water approaches that of available raw water.

Caution should be taken when implementing the zero discharge process because the resulting water quality may be incompatible with metallurgical processes. Thus, the required quality of every water usage on the plant site should be identified.The risks involved in the process include:

− reaching of solubility limits, due to increased salt concentration

− build up of trace metals and organic solvents.

Because cyclical operations like filtration, demineralization and batch operations can cause variations in water quality and flow rates, it is important to refine and maintain the flow configuration.

By the same token, water streams and uses should be categorized. For example, according to salt content, total dissolved solids, suspended solids content or total organic carbon, hardness and silica content.

Operating conditions can be adjusted to improve the quality of the water produced which may be more cost-effective then treating the water for discharge.

Water reuse is a continuous process. Raw water quality, discharge limits and plant goals change and affect the dynamics of water reuse. Therefore it is vital that goals are rexammined periodically, new water reuse opportunities should be investigated and the master plan should be updated.

6.6 Water use in the transport of mineral products

Pipeline transport of solid particles together with water (slurry) is a cost-effective mode of transportation. Typical systems operate in pipes with diameters of 0.1-0.5 m with a maximum particle size of 0.2-2 mm, and with a large portion of particles of a size less than 0.04 mm.. The amount of water required in a concentrator is 1-5 m3/ ton of ore, depending on the complexity of the process.

With simple types of concentration, up to 80% of the water requirement can be covered through circulation, and the net water requirement is reduced considerably. Great savings of energy and water can be obtained at concentrators if the tailings slurry is “thickened” effectively and water is reused directly instead of being transported the long way around the disposal area (Figure 12). If the concentrator involves the flotation of complex sulphide ores, water quality problems may restrict the direct circulation of water.

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FIGURE 12 - COMPARISON OF WATER RECYCLE WITHOUT AND WITH THICKENER DISCHARGE

Sellgren (1993) shows the water balance, at a concentrator, in an underground mine in Sweden (Figure 13), in which application of thickening of the tailings slurry would reduce the water content from 4.25 to less than 1.0 m3/ton. Other studies indicate that, if the slurry is thickened at the concentrator for about 10%, results in a reduction up to 30% of the net water requirement, at a copper concentrator.

The water used for slurry transport should be effectively matched to the water requirement in the whole concentrator system. Advances in thickening and deposition technology have influenced the technical-economical feasibility of transporting slurries with a low amount of water.

The slurry pumping method has a great economical potential in an integrated system (Figure 14) where waste rock is transported together with the wet-handled fine-grained tailings. In an integrated system, the extra cost of transporting waste rock will only be a fraction of the wet handling cost of tailings (Sellgren, 1993), because excess water from the fill increases the amount of water which has to be pumped out of the mine.

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FIGURE 13 - WATER BALANCE AT A CONCENTRATOR

FIGURE 14 - SLURRY PUMPING SYSTEMS

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7. CONCLUSIONS

More focus should be given to the importance of water as a resource for sustainable development in the XXI Century. Technologies for water use recycling and reuse are available, but should be practice and emphasized by all levels of our society. Examples of these technologies, specially in relation to the mining industry were highlighted in this paper.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Byers, B. 1995. Zero discharge: A systematic approach to water use. Chemical Engineering. v. 102, n.7, p.96-100.

Culp/Weaner/Culp. 1979. Water reuse and recycling. Office of water research and Technology, U.S Department of the Interior, Washington, DC.

Drever, J. I. 1982. The Geochemistry of Natural Waters. Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

Garrels, R.M. and MacKenzie, F.T. 1971. Evolution of Sedimentary Rocks. W.W. Norton, New York. 397pp.

Health and Environment: A handbook for health professionals. Draft. 1995. The Great Lakes Health Effects Program - Health Protection Branch, Health Canada and The Environmental Health and Toxicology Unit - Public Health Branch, Ontario Ministry of Health.

International Conference on Water and the Environment: The development and perspective of the XXI century.1992. Dublin: january 26-31, Irland.

Ker, W.A. 1974. Water resources of the mining industry in British Columbia, Western Miner, 47(12):33-40.

Metcalff and Eddy, Inc. 1991. Wastewater Engineering.Treatment, Disposal and Reuse. Series in Water Resources and Environmental Engineering. 3rd. edition McGraw-Hill, Inc.

Ritcey, G.M. 1989. Tailings Management. Problems and solutions in the mining industry. Process Metallurgy 6. Elsevier.

Sellgren, A. 1993. Effective water use for mineral products transport and mine waste handling. International conference on Environmentally Sound water resources utilization, Bangkok: november 8-11, Thailand.

Solley, W.B., Merck, L.F. and Pierce, R.R. 1988. Estimated use of water in the United States in 1985. U. S. Geological Survey, Circular 1004. USGS, Federal Center, Denver, CO.

Sposito, G. 1984. Surface Chemistry of Soils.

Status Report on Water Pollution Control in the Canadian Metal Mining Industry (1990 and 1991). Environmental Protection Series. December 1992.

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India Technology Vision 2020: a focus on TF & TA towards zero emission technologies

Deepak Bhatnagar Sunita Wadhwa

Technology Information and Forecasting Assessment Centre - TIFAC

1. INTRODUCTION

Technology Information, Forecasting & Assessment Council (TIFAC) plays a vital role in technology development and promotion in India through it various programmes. Towards its objectives, TIFAC is involved in conducting technology forecasting and assessment studies of critical relevance to the country. Since its inception TIFAC has worked towards formulating preferred options for India on a wide spectrum of technologies for their assessment of suitability considering the factors such as socio-economic impact, resource availability and above all, the impact on the Environment. Outcome from some of TIFAC studies on Sugar, Composites, Fly Ash Utilisation and Leather technologies have resulted in major technology development and demonstration projects on Mission mode with active participation by Industry.

Building upon such successes, TIFAC embarked on a major long-term technology forecasting and assessment exercise -“Technology Vision: 2020” on a national level encompassing various technology areas. The exercise focused on a detailed study of key areas in 17 major sectors under Advanced Technologies (sensors, materials and processing, chemical process industries, life sciences & biotechnology, etc.), Infrastructure (electric power, telecommunications, road & water transport, aviation, etc.) and technologies with Socio-economic Implications (health-care, agriculture, agro-foo processing, etc.). The exercise in the span of two years brought together over 5,000 experts from the industry, government, R&D and academia for a thorough survey of shared opinion in select areas. The very involvement of stakeholders throughout the exercise strengthened the approach. The exercise aimed at formulating concerted action-plans on short, medium and long term -upto 2020. The technology forecasting techniques like brain storming, scenario writing, delphi and nominal group techniques, were adopted for the exercise to bring out the vision.

Based on inputs from such techniques and Technology Monitoring of present status, a dedicated Panel of Experts prepared these reports. The objectives of the Technology Vision : 2020 exercise were:

− Provide directives for national initiative in science and technology to realise vision for India for 2020.

− Provide a strong basis for policy framework and investment for the government and private sector R&D.

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− Contribute to the development of an integrated S&T policy, both at the state and national levels.

The Sectors covered in the Technology Vision exercise are listed in Annexure-I. In this paper an attempt has been made to cover strategies suggested for a better and cleaner environment in two areas of Technology Vision 2020: namely, Chemical Process Industry and Materials & Processing.

A few specific projects taken by TIFAC towards environment management are briefly mentioned at Annexure II.

2. CHEMICAL PROCESS INDUSTRIES

2.1 Indian Chemical Industry: present status

The chemical industry plays a vital role in the progress of country. It gives rise to host of products which influence all walks of life and almost all the industries, including food, agriculture, medicine, housing, textiles, etc. Also chemicals are dream projects of technologists with their unlimited freedom for creativity. The emerging challenges of environmental protection and the need for clean technologies add a new dimension to it. So the continued health and growth of this industry is a must for any economy, and specially for a developing economy like ours. The chemicals industry in India contributes around 10 per cent of the gross national product, while it contributes 40 per cent of India’s industrial output.

Indian chemical industry is fraught with the typical dichotomy of the developing world: in one hand it has highly skilled technical manpower for plant operations and scientists for R&D work, but on the other, lacks in technology transfer and development from research to production, and in absorption and development of imported technology. So the Indian Chemical Industry, except for a few basic chemicals, is primarily dependent on overseas technology vendors though there have been sincere attempts in implementing indigenous technology in recent times. In the competitive world of today it is essential that Indian industries develop core strengths in emerging areas and target world leadership at least in a few areas.

2.2 Indian Chemical Industry: technology vision 2020

Chemical Process Industry by its nature encompasses many sub-sectors. Keeping in view many factors like contribution to national exchequer, role in meeting essential needs, role in technology development, availability of data, etc. the experts have brought out a study in the following areas namely:

1. Petrochemicals 2. Petroleum

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3. Heavy Inorganic Chemicals 4. Fertilizers ( Nitrogenous, Phosphatic) 5. Dyestuff 6. Pesticides 7. Surfactants 8. Surface Coatings 9. Leather Chemicals 10. Speciality Chemicals ( Polymer Additives, Rubber Chemicals)

India is a developing country and is striving hard to achieve improvements in socio-economic standards. While looking into perspective of 25 years, the vision to be projected aimed at achievement of standards comparable to developed countries. The aim however has been , providing basic needs to the total population coupled with certain level of quality of life, which would mean increasing facilities in education, infrastructure, transportation. Therefore the growth of chemical industry (see table-1) for next 25 years is based on trend projection or vision projection/mission statement related to basic parameters like population and other socio- economic indicators. This sort of growth would require tremendous inputs of not only capital and various other resources but also high quality inputs of science and technology management

Technology assessment for the Indian chemical process industry has been based on the current situation, known trends, the factors that are likely to influence the immediate and long term future such as:

− Impact of new technologies on processes, products, economy of scale.

− Managing technological change

− Environmental planning and management of chemical industries

− Globalisation of technology, new economic reform, GATT/impact on the Indian scene.

− Marketing, Trade & Government Policies

− R&D needs and opportunities

While discussing Technological assessment, it has been broadly divided into three phases considering the time frame of forecast.

TABLE 1 - GROWTH INDICATORS FOR CHEMICAL INDUSTRY

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Million Tonnes Growth 1995 2020 of

Petroleum Products 70 240-250 3.5 times Fertilizers 9 >20 2 times Polymers 1.7 >15 8.5 times Fibers 0.8 >5 6 times Organic chemicals 3 20 6 times Dyestuffs & pigments 0.1 0.21 2 times Leather chemicals 0.1 0.5-1.0 5 times Surface active agents 0.3 0.7 2.5 times Surface coatings 0.5 1.5 3 times Speciality Chemicals 0.1 2.0 20 times

Phase-I (Short term)

Combination of a base of imported technology and capabilities build up indigenously, leading initially to product and process improvements coupled with new processes in some cases. Equipment and engineering developments on process technology and engineering to reduce/optimize raw materials and energy consumption, emission by-products, etc. and optimize efficiency.

The second step to innovation is to find new catalysts, better conversion, new operating parameters, to lower temperatures, pressures etc. to reduce energy consumption and improve economics. Catalyst of extraordinary selectivity and combination chemistry will become a major tool in the hands of the chemist for screening libraries of catalyst for specific reaction. Increasing the mixtures, and tailor-made products rather than pure chemicals will be used in large volume processing, with high selectiveness in chemicals conversion leading to separation of accompanying chemical reaction

Phase-II (medium term)

In long term, zero waste processes, atom economy in synthesis, and efficient use of by-products are likely to be the future drivers of technology. Intensive efforts will be made to eliminate the waste at the process design stage rather than finding solution to handle the waste. Total recycling in plant will become necessary. Water will become the universal solvent. The technologies suggested are:

Atom Economy In Synthesis

− Carbonylation of Ehtylene or Methyl Acetylene or Oxidation of Isobutylene

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− Methane or Ethane to PE

Waste Minimisation

− Direct near quantitative oxidation of propylene to propylene oxide using gold on TiO2 catalyst

− Process route to ibuprofen using paraselective acetylation and carbonylation

Development of Cleaner Process Technologies

− Direct coupling of aniline and nitrobenzene without a solvent for synthesis of u-amino diphenylamines ( number of steps cut down from 40 to 12)

− Use of solid acids instead of soluble acids

− Replacement of organic solvents by aqueous systems

Phase - III (Long term)

Biologically catalyzed processes for production of organic chemicals and pharmaceuticals will be a force to reckon with by turn of century. Bio-engineered systems will be used to dispose hazardous systems, generate valuable products while avoiding use and generation of hazardous compounds. Bio-organisms will be utilised to carry out the elaborate sequences of organic reactions that convert simple building blocks into complex natural products in aqueous environment close to room temperature.. Many natural products which have been discarded in the past due to synthetic substitutes, would be re-looked at to increase the yields in nature by genetic engineering and other biotechnology applications for higher efficiency cleaner process conditions.

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Biocatalalyst

− Biologically catalyzed processes for production of fine organic chemicals and pharmaceuticals

− Biotransformation of glycerol to acrylic acid

− Biotransformation of glucose to industrially important compounds replacing benzene as a starting material

− Bioprocess for hydroxylation of aromatics

− Bioprocess to indigo and other aniline derived dyes

− Biotransformation for catalysing dihydroxylation of diphenylacetylene, azobenzene and trans-stilbene

Biomaterials

− Engineering bacteria and other organism to synthesize monomers, polymers, pharmaceuticals and other chemicals

− Synthesis of polyphenylenes using bacteria & benzene

− Synthesis of biodegradable polyhydroxy alkanaosate polyesters

− Synthesis of polymers/copolymers of lactic acid for commodity applications

2.6 A few Selected Technologies in the chemical process industry are as follows: − Petroleum Industry − Environment Protection & Safety − Treatment of Liquid effluent ( to be increased ) − SO Emission − Solid Waste ( oil sludge disposal- biological treatment) − Development of Biodegradable lubricants

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Petrochemicals & Organic Chemicals − Centre for Petrochemical Technology Development − Upgradation of Academic & Training Institutions − Creation of centre of excellence for Petrochemicals R&D − Establish Specialised centre for Performance Plastics − Increase Recycling and usage of reprocesses plastics towards its improved usage in

select products − Development of Intelligence Polymers & biodegradable polymers

Environmentally Benign Processes

− Halogen free process for variety of industrially useful products such as polycarbonates, epoxy, isocyanates, etc.

− Use of Supercritical carbon-di-oxide as reaction solvent in spray paintings and cleaning applications

Biotransformation − Glycerol to acrylic acid with Klebseilla oxytoca − Hydroxylation of aromatics − Indigo & other aniline dyes − Phenol formaldehyde manufacturing without using formaldehyde − Acrylonitrile to acrylamide

Dyestuff Industry

− Efforts for introducing Clean technologies

− (designing new chrompohores e.g new safer dyes in place of azo-dyes)

− Technology upgradation for catalytic hydrogenation, direct amination, diazo/coupling reactions, reverse osmosis, salt reduction, micro-processor based automatic process control systems

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Pesticides Industry

− Technology development for semio chemicals (pheromones and antifeedants) which can interface with insect behaviour.

− Development of Bio-pesticides suitable for Indian climate and soil conditions.

− Computer assisted molecular modelling

Paint Industry/Surface Coating

− Development of cost effective Castor oil based products-Dehydrated Castor Oil (DCO), castor oil based polyols, alkyl, etc.

− Eco-friendly products such as water based high solids and powder coatings

Speciality Chemicals

− Exploration of Guar gum type of agro-products

− Indigenous technology development/promotion for additives finding applications in the following areas:

• Upcoming engineering plastics • Recycled materials • Engineered plastics

Surfactants

Biodegradable detergent intermediate as a substitute for Linear Alkyl Benzene R&D focus on development of Alpha Olefin Sulpfonates (AOS) - non-conventional oleo chemicals sulponation & biosurfactants.

With globalistion, Indian chemical industry, like any other industry, has also been thrust on the world map, and is affected by issues and changes anywhere. We understand that environment, safety and other related issues are to be tackled as a part of global community. With growing thrust on exports, global standards become more important. Therefore, the Indian chemical Industry would need to prepare for 2020 in the areas of:

− Technology adaptation/adaptation for efficiency cost reduction and energy conservation

− Meeting product quality demand

− Meeting environmental demands on zero waste

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− Meeting R&D strategy and demands on new areas like biosynthesis, catalysts and biotechnology

− Meeting the needs of society with sustainable development, as key to economic growth

3. ANEL ON MATERIALS AND PROCESSING

3.1 quitous role of Materials

From communications to commuting!

All along the history of man, milestones of civilisation are related to materials: stone age, bronze age, iron age and today the silicon age with the information technology moving the leaps and bounds. An index for prosperity and economic growth of a nation is the type of new materials that are kept in common use. Modern technologies which are encountered in a wide spectrum of sectors like heavy engineering, transportation, aerospace, power generation, micro electronics and bioengineering, are successful as materials are the enabling parameters for their reliability. The change in the pattern of material usage is very rapid.

The total scenario is quite complex in terms of the large varieties of basic materials, their combinations, the demands made by the advanced systems in different disciplines and related processing and manufacturing technologies. However, the scenario is fascinating because of the potential role of scientific inputs in material development, the revelation of the commonalty of concepts that underlie seemingly diverse materials (leading to substitution for conversation of materials e.g. plastics in place of wood for packaging and synthetics in place of cotton for fabrics, optical fibres for copper cables in communications), the challenge to innovative processing methods and the need to generate new design methodologies.

Materials priorities of a country are determined by its needs and they should get reflected in its materials programmes. However, we should recognise that materials programmes can also be influenced by many other factors such as natural resources, ethnic response (to the adoption of new materials) socio-economic and even geopolitical factors.

The reports on Technology forecast for Materials & Processing has been prepared by a panel of specialists drawn from all over the country and with expertise in different group of materials and their processing. The groups identified are listed in the following :

− Minerals, metals, alloys and surface engineering − Glasses and ceramics − Composite materials − Polymeric materials − Photonic materials

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− Building materials − Biomaterials and devices − Nuclear materials

The panel constituted several subpanels to cover individual material groups and perspective reports were prepared by these subpanels. The reports centred around the following themes: Technology, R&D in Indian and Global context, Material resources, Production and Marketing in Indian and Global context, Applications, Socio-economics Aspects and Human Resources. The Delphi Survey was then carried out; the Delphi questionnaire was prepared based on the perspective reports and in consultation with concerned panel member. Future Scenarios were written based on the responses received to the questionnaire.

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Materials Processing: Focus on Zero Emission and Waste Management Technologies

Development of technologies for extraction of metals as well as processing of materials for down stream products are under going rapid changes. The trends are clear : to achieve higher levels of productivity with eco-friendly technologies on the process side and to develop customised, ‘tailor made’ materials, meeting superior quality standards on the product side. This trend reflects a global situation marked by depletion of non-renewable resources, advances in technology, changes in lifestyles, concern about conservation, substitution and competitiveness among different materials. Materials thus have special significance in any programme for sustainable economic development.

The importance of sustainable development in the entire “Materials cycle” cannot be over emphasized. Mining, extraction as well as processing of materials to produce useful products is perhaps the single largest contributor to environmental degradation. Besides focussing on Zero Emissions, a holistic approach is to be taken to view the entire cycle as an ‘eco-system’ and remove pollutants, whether they are solid, liquid or gaseous (and often, noise as well !).

Strategies suggested by the panel:

The overall concept of having “clean technologies” in the area of materials processing covers three distinct but complimentary purposes viz.

− less pollutant released into the environment

− less waste

− less demand on natural resources

To meet the above objectives the following could be considered:

− changing the production processes in industry to avoid or minimize the production of waste and reduce the demand for water, energy or raw materials.

− recycling the valuable part of wastes whose production cannot be avoided i.e. recycling them into the process, transforming them into a different product, or designing a system for exchange of wastes between producers and prospective users.

− looking for alternative products that perform the same function but require a production process which is kinder to the environment.

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3.2 Case Study on Zero Emission in Foundries - a success story from India

Pollution control, environment protection and waste utilisation from metallurgical industries has been taken as a key area by several National R&D labs, both in the public as well as private sector for industries like Steel, Aluminum, Copper, Zinc as well as Nuclear materials.

One such institute, namely National Metallurgical Laboratory (NML) at Jamshedpur in the eastern part of the India has carried out pioneering work in the area of environment management specially for foundry industry. There are 5000 foundries in India producing castings of iron, steel and a few non-ferrous metals like Aluminum, Magnesium. These foundries have diverse levels of technology and capacity of melting cupolas (from 1 T/hr to 15T/hr).

Melting of cast iron is mostly carried out in cupolas, though a few modern foundries have installed induction furnaces also. The cupolas in India use coke as anenergy carrier (fuel) as well as bedding or separating material and carburising agent. The Indian Foundries Association and Central Pollution Control Board requested NML to install pollution control devices in large number of foundries in eastern India (at Howrah, near Calcutta). Two approaches were adopted by NML for combating pollution in foundries:

Design Modifications based on cyclones and divided blast system:

NML studied pollution levels in 51 units of Howrah and designed a dry system for control of Suspended Particulate Material (SPM) in the emissions from 5T/hr cupola. The system was based on the separation of particulate materials using high pressure cyclone separators since particle size distribution was favourable. The results were very encouraging and prescribed levels of SPM (<150 mg/m3) were achieved. A similar system was installed in the cupolas of Indian Iron and Steel Company (IISCo, Kulti also in eastern India). Kulti foundries are oldest and biggest in the country having 6T, 12T, 14T, 15T & 20T/hr Cupolas with SPM levels or more than 2000 mg/m3 in their emissions. This work was also carried out successfully by NML by using suitable number of high pressure cyclones, ID fans, and other accessories. Such dry systems are available with NML for other units.

Environment friendly melting furnace for foundries:

A large conglomerate of foundries are situated at Agra (in the state of Uttar Pradesh, North India). These foundries are in the vicinity of the famous, ancient monument, the Taj Mahal. Over the years, the while marble was getting a yellowish tint and a high level committee of experts attributed this to the Emissions (Sox and SPM) from the nearby foundries.

In view of the likely damage of an archeological heritage of India, TIFAC took up a project jointly with NML for developing a technology to use natural gas in place of coke in the cupolas. It may be mentioned here that the main cause of SPM in emissions is the fuel coke used in the Cupola furnaces. The ash of coke gives SPM and the sulphur content of the coke gives Sox in emissions. To counter this problem NML has designed and demonstration trials carried out on a

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eco-friendly melting furnace, using low sulphur Light Diesel Oil (LDO) or natural gas. The pollution level from the cupola using these fuels has conformed to the following levels :

SPM ~ 35 mg/M3

Sox ~ 85-90 mg/m3

The technology has been successfully developed by NML and implementation in a few demonstration foundries in Agra and elsewhere in the country on the anvil.

NML is also actively involved in abating Lead and Zinc pollution and has also developed technologies to use steel plant or mining wastes to make industrial tiles. For further details on specific technology, please feel free to write to Prof. P. Ramachandra Rao, Director, National Metallurgical Laboratory (NML), Jamshedpur-831 001, INDIA. (Fax: +91-0657-426527 or 427251)

4. FOLLOW-UP OF TECHNOLOGY VISION: 2020 EXERCISE

The 17 panel reports of the Technology Vision : 2020 were released by the Prime Minister of India in August, 1996. Since then, TIFAC has launched a two pruned approach towards realisation of the Vision i.e.

− dissemination of the findings as well as recommendations for including in the National Plans by different Ministries of the Government of India as well as Industries.

− area-wise interaction with industry leaders to formulate specific, time bound projects for fructifying the actions suggested in the reports.

Through this platform of IATAFI, TIFAC invites concrete proposals from the R&D labs and industries from member-countries for undertaking projects with laboratories/industries in India.

A catalogue of reports prepared by Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC) during the last 5-6 years in the area of TF/TA, Techno Market Surveys and Technology Vision are being circulated to members. IATAFI members may like to procure some of the reports on areas of their interest, which would also facilitate identifying areas and topics of common interest with India. TIFAC also looks forward to know from IATAFI member countries the results of such long term forecasting exercises carried out by them. As we enter the new millennium together, let us strive to share common technological issues likely to confront mankind in the coming 2-3 decades with a few to find optimal solutions in order to make this world a better place to live in.

ANNEXURE I

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Technology Vision 2020

Reports on Socio-economic areas Agro-food & Processing Food & Agriculture Life Science & Biotechnology Health Care Infrastructure Related Reports Civil Aviation Waterways Road Transportation Electric Power Telecommunication Services Industry Related Reports Engineering Industries Chemical Process industries Materials & Processing Electronics & Communication Strategic Areas Strategic Industries Advanced Sensors Driving Forces & Impedances

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ANNEXURE II

A few initiatives by TIFAC towards Environment Management

Indian Leather 2010 : A Technology, Industry and Trade Forecast

The report prepared along with Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI), Chennai

Chemical industries, in general are more polluting than other and leather manufacture is perhaps the most polluting of all chemical industries. The report gives the alternative technologies/Emerging Options in leather chemicals for making the technology greener and environment friendly. It gives in detail the technologies to minimize /control treatment of effluent and solid wastes being generated by the Indian Leather Industry.

Project being carried out under the ‘Home grown Technology’(HGT) programme of TIFAC (Commercialization of indigenous technologies developed by R&D labs in partnership with Industry)

Cobalt Recovery from “~BETA CAKE~’’ generated during Zinc Production

Cobalt is a strategic metal used as an alloying agent in steels for high speed tools, super alloys for industrial and gas turbine engines as well as in magnet. A major R&D thrust has been given by TIFAC along with the leading Zinc producer in India (M/S Hindustan Zinc Ltd.) to recover cobalt from the waste product during Zinc Suplhate purification. Cobalt is associated with zinc and get concentrated as a cobalt alpha nitroso betanapthol chelate complex during zinc sulphate purification. This is commonly known as a Beta Cake and contains about 1 to 2 % of cobalt metal besides 10 to 17% zinc, 2 to 4% iron, 0.1 to 0.4% copper and 0.05 to 0.25% cadmium.

A solvent extraction process route has been optimized at the HZL pilot plant to recover cobalt of 98.8% purity and at over 60% overall yield

Titanium Scrap Recycling

The project aims at recycling of plant scrap as part replacement of titanium sponge and expensive alloying materials for manufacturing commercially pure titanium ingots. The technology includes conversion of scrap into slab/billet for direct rolling. A Vacuum Arc Skull Melting Furnace has been installed at Midhani, Hyderabad.

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An Environment Friendly Product as Substitute for Kerosene for Pigment Printing of Textiles

Traditional technology for pigment printing of textiles is to use Kerosene-Water (80/20 wt./wt) emulsion as thickener. In the printing process all the Kerosene evaporates to the atmosphere. It is an environmental and health hazard. In addition it is a drain on foreign exchange which is used for import of kerosene. Hence, the use of kerosene has already been restricted. ECO-TA-PRINT-a synthetic thickener and PRINTA-BIND-a binder have been developed by Ahmedabad Textile Industry’s Research Association (ATIRA), Ahemdabad.

ECO-TA-PRINT provides technically competing, economical, easy to use and eco-friendly solution. ECO-TA-PRINT does not create any pollution and offers a fully aqueous system for pigment printing.

ECO-TA-PRINT and PRINTA-BIND have been repeatedly prepared at 10kg scale and the reproducibility, reliability and consistency of the technology have been established over batches.

Lab scale as well as shop floor print trials have proved ECO -TA-PRINT and PRINTA-BIND to give high quality prints.

Zero Emission Source for the Future: Hydrogen Energy

Hydrogen is now being considered as a potential clean fuel for the `post-fossil-fuel’ world. Hydrogen represents manifold energy options: as a cooking gas, for space heating and cooling and as electrical energy through fuel cell. However, its use as a clean and efficient fuel in transportation sector has great scope and potential in the immediate future. TIFAC is looking into the following aspects of this technology.

− Production of Hydrogen

− Storage of Hydrogen

− Utilisation of Hydrogen

TIFAC invites partners in ‘spread’ of above technologies through joint ventures

Item for Panel Discussion in the IATAFI/CETEM Seminar on “Zero Emission and Technological Assessment in a Global World” from 27th to 30th October, 1997 at Rio, Brazil

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Initiatives on Pollution Prevention and Control in Indian Foundries

Introductory Remarks

Status of Foundry Industry in India.

− ~ 5000 foundries for cast iron, steel and non-ferrous − diverse levels of technology (tiny, obsolete to high-tech, export oriented) − mostly producing large numbers of castings (sanitary fittings, pipes, engine castings

etc.) − large number of foundries in unorganised sector, − experienced and skilled workers

Pollution from foundries and their impact on human life as well as National monuments such as Taj Mahal

Raw material problems - good quality pig-iron, casting sand and other additives, recycling of sand etc.

Techno-economic implications of modernisation - High cost of switching over to induction furnace, high power tariff etc.

Socio-economic issues in shifting of foundries to new locations

2. Concepts in Achieving Zero Emission in Metallurgical Industries

What does zero emission mean?

− No emission of dust − Collected dust to be recycled − All wastes to be recycled − Minimum water make-up A conceptual flow sheet to make foundries zero emission industries

Techno-economics of zero emissions

An Indian Experience - A case study

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Technology

What are technologies available to reduce emission in foundries to a significantly safe level?

Pollution Control technology for Indian Foundries developed at National Metallurgical Laboratory (CSIR), Jamshedpur

− Design modifications to convert the cupola into a divided blast system − To clean the gas through the use of specially designed cyclones Environment Friendly Melting Furnace for foundries - jointly developed by NML (CSIR),

Jamshedpur & TIFAC, New Delhi

− Use of LDO/LPG in place of coke − Very low emissions

< 50 mg/NM3 SPM as against 1000 - 1500 mg/ NM3 SPM for coke fired furnace

<100 mg/Nm3 SO2 as against 800 mg/NM3 SO2 for typical coke fired furnace

Techno economic aspects of these developments

4. Sustainable Development and Zero Emissions: key issues

− Recycling of SPM in cupola - Pros and Cons

− Reduction of SO2 emission through raw materials control

− Carbon monoxide emission control

− use of pilot burner

− Legislation - How India is Faring ?

• Case study of Indian foundries

• Case study of Merchant coke ovens

Recycling of water and minimization of waste consumption

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Decommissioning of Mines and Zero Emission: zero emission and technological assessment in a global world

Mônica Peres Menezes Université de Laval

ABSTRACT

Mineral activity has been historically recognized as one of the most important to the world economy. Principal stages concerned to this activity are: mineral prospecting, exploitation, milling, processing, tailings and waste rock disposal, environmental restoration and decommissioning. Nowadays, a lot of countries are aiming to adopt sustainable development in the mineral sector, concerning all the stages of this activity. Aiming at the compromise between present generation and the future ones, new environmental policies and mining technologies has been discussed for a lot of countries. Zero emission is a challenge of all these policies and technologies. Some countries such as Canada are more advanced than others in this discussion, resulting from an alliance between governments and mining companies. New policies and technologies for the stage of decommissioning of mines have been playing a very important role during these discussions. Some environmental problems have been considered more serious such as acid mine drainage, which represents an impact for some decades or centuries. Brazil is also a rich mineral resources country. Despite its national environmental policy, there are not so much laws and technologies concerning to this stage of decommissioning of mines. Considering the concept of zero emission, this article presents a reflection about some Canadian initiatives and the contribution of Brazil to this discussion.

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DECOMMISSIONING OF MINES AND ZERO EMISSION

1. INTRODUCTION

Mineral exploitation has been playing a very important role to the development of the world economy. Nowadays the importance of Brazil in this field is increasing due to some factors: i) Brazil is an extremely rich mineral resources country, ii) global demanding for ore is expanding, and iii) the Brazilian government has been implementing new policies aiming to encourage foreign mining companies to explore the Brazilian mineral resources.

As a result, Brazil experiences a rapid expansion of the mining industry. Despite new technologies, the mining exploitation still represents serious hazard and impact to the environment.

The increase of mining activity has been exerting pressure on researchers and policy makers to review our environmental policies and law. Preparation of new projects and policies are necessary to address the issues related to environment impacts and mining projects. Increasing debates in this area can also contribute to include new participants and distribute responsibilities via companies, government, universities, local communities and researchers.

The federal and state government are important players to promote public conscientiousness and awareness, as well as to enrich the debate and create the means to elaborate new environmental policies. This task must lead to changes in environmental technologies proposed to create alternative and feasible projects for both mining companies and government, leading to the reduction of the environmental hazard and impacts in mining projects.

With the advent of the Global Change meeting held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, participants countries commuted to incorporate the concept of sustainable development in their policies, in a similar way as in the Agenda 21. Hence, broad public participation in decision-making and as a feedback provider is extremely important in the early stage of these projects preparation.

According to the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development report “Our Common Future” (1987), the definition of “sustainable development” is:

“Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” (Cotton et all, 1992)

This definition states and contains within it a key concept: the limitations imposed by environmental technology and social organization on the ability to meet present and future generation needs.

The assessment and review of the technologies aiming to zero emission is an important stage of this process as a challenge to the mining companies. Canada is a country where

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government and companies are associated to promote sustainable development in the mining sector. In Brazil, the existing technologies and the Brazilian policies to the mining sector are still far away from this goal.

Mining activity includes a lot of stages as prospecting, exploitation, milling, disposal of the tailings and decommissioning.

The minimization of environmental problems during the decommissioning of mines will be discussed in this article. Zero Emission and Technological Assessment in this stage of the mining activity lead to discussing the policy of sustainable development in mineral sector.

Decommissioning of mines and Zero Emission

Decommissioning of mines is a very important stage in the mining activity, concerning the environmental and economical factors.

All stages of production has to be evaluated, considering the end of the activities and the needs that will allow the installation of another activity in the same place.

Nevertheless according to the concept of sustainable development and the heritage to the future generations, the environmental problem of the decommissioning is related with all the stages of the mining activity, not only with the closure of mines.

If the companies and the governments had considered the environmental hazard since the beginning of the mining activity, the environmental problem faced later would be less complex.

The environmental policy in the mining sector must be directed to the maximum utilization of the mineral extracted and the waste rock, the reuse of the effluents produced and the best technology to the disposal of the tailings and to the treatment of the water.

In the stage of decommissioning of mines, zero emission is concerning specially to zero discharge of wastewater in the environment. Zero emission concerning the known technologies used by mining companies up to now is quite an out of question matter.

In these cases is extremely important to develop a systematic and technology leading to efficient management of water treatment.

The systematic to reach this goal is built by considering all possibilities to solve or minimize the environmental problem.

This goal is directly connected to the reform of the environmental policies and laws, that is directly bind to the concept of sustainable development in the mining activities.

It does mean that the idea of zero emission to the next generation in mining sector, includes the discussion of environmental policies that will possibly help the companies and the

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government to make decisions together. These decisions will really minimize the impact of these activities in the aiming of discharging the minimum of effluents and pollutants in the nature.

3. CANADIAN EXPERIENCE

A lot of companies and governments around the world are trying to pursue zero discharge.

Nowadays the acid mine drainage and others effluents pollutants are the biggest challenges of mining industries. In the regions rich in pyrite or others sulphide minerals, it’s common the contamination of groundwater and surface water near the tailings and mining areas. The control of acid generation process, considering its migration and the collection and treatment of effluents, is recognized as a environmental problem for hundreds of years.

Acid mine generation is produced by the oxidation of sulphide tailings and waste rock in contact with air and water, in addition to the bacteria action (Thiobaccilli spp), contaminating groundwater and surface water.

The control of acid generation process has been done by eliminating one or more of the substances that contribute to the chemical reaction which produces acid, as water, oxygen or iron sulphide.

In Canada, federal and provincial governments associated with some mining companies are developing an environmental policy directed to the solution or minimization of some major environmental problems as the acid mine drainage, radioactivity and heavy metal on the water and soil.

Decommissioning of mines leading up to the minimization of the impacts aiming at the reutilization of the area is one of the most important goals of the Canadian mining industry. A lot of alternatives had been developed and evaluated by mining companies to minimize environmental problems in the decommissioning of the activities.

Some Canadian examples will be presented here, from Abitibi region and Elliot Lake uranium region.

Abitbi is the most important region in Quebec concerning to mining activities. Elliot Lake was a very important uranium mining region in Ontario.

The principal environmental impact in both of these regions is the acid mine drainage.

The goal of the developed alternatives is to control acid generation within the tailings to restrict the release of contaminants in seepage and discharge from WMAs (Waste Management Areas).

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Aiming at the reduction of this environmental impact the principal alternatives available are: wet cover (flooding tailings), disposal of the tailings in a deep lake, dry cover, underground backfilling, recovering with native plants, multi-layer barrier and wet barrier.

Flooding tailings is an option commonly adopted in Canada, however it is not always accessible. The weather and local characteristics, specially precipitation and evaporation rates and the availability of water, have to be extremely evaluated.

Mining companies has to evaluate all the options to decide which one is better to control acid mine drainage in each case. Ten factors must be considered by mining companies for comparing the various decommissioning options (Rio Algom Ltd., 1993):

− Water treatment requirements/surface water quality

− seepage losses

− air emissions

− stability of tailings

− intrusion

− disturbances of areas outside Waste Management Areas

− resource recovery

− employment opportunities

− public/worker exposure

− social impacts Table 1, summarizes the options selected by companies or government for different cases in

Abitibi and Elliot Lake regions, after the consideration of these 10 factors.

Sometimes to the management of a tailings area, the company or the government has to adopt more than one alternative.

For example, in the Quirke tailings, the flooding of the tailings has been done in the same time that organic material has been put over the tailings on the edges of the tailings basin, avoiding erosion caused by wave action.

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TABLE 1 - CONTROL OF ACID MINE PROCESS IN TAILINGS AREAS: ALTERNATIVES ADOPTED BY CANADIAN COMPANIES

Elliot Lake region - Ontario Mine/Company Alternative Stages Characteristics Quirke I and II/ Rio Algom Ltd. (uranium)

Wet cover (water cover)

flooded tailings addition of lime organic material along the edges.

46 million ton 275 ha 14 cells with difference in levels: 14 m difference in elevation between the west and east ends. 8 low permeability dams. 5 settling ponds divided by 4 dykes

Panel/Rio Algom Ltd. (uranium)


flooded tailings addition of lime

16 millions tons 84 ha south basin 39 ha north basin

Nordic/Rio Algom Ltd. (uranium)

Recovering Treatment plant to Rio Algom Ltd.

native plants barium chloride and lime

12 millions tons 10 ha

Lacnor/Rio Algom Ltd. (uranium)

Recovering native plants 3 millions tons artificial lake

Stanleigh/Rio Algom (uranium)


flooding tailings 20 millions tons 220 ha

Denison/Denison Mines Ltd. (uranium)

Wet cover (water cover) Recovering Dry cover

flooding tailings native plants soil natural

Waste Management Area (WMA) 1: 60 millions tons (240 ha) WMA 2: 3,3 millions tons (40 ha)

Abitibi region - Quebec Mine/Company Alternative Stages Characteristics Canadian Malartic/ Ministry of Mineral Resources (golden, silver, nickel, copper)

Sulfurous tailings covering auriferous tailings Recovering

lime and covering native plants

1,3 millions tons 70 ha

Barrick/Barrick Corporation (golden)

Multi-layer recovery Recovering

lower layer: sand and gravel stone; intermediary layer (capillary barrier): fine grained tailings; higher layer: fine sand. Native plants

8,9 millions tons 97 ha

East Sullivan/ Ministry of Natural Resources

Wet barrier ligneous residue to maintain anaerobic conditions and mud of purging plant

layer: 2m thickness

Louvicourt Mine/ Resources Aur (copper, zinc)

Underground backfilling Wet cover (water cover)

50% of tailings 80% of water reused in milling process. flooded tailings all the time avoiding the acide generation

Capacity: 8 millions tons 96 ha

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Nevertheless, if you consider the concept of zero emission, in all these cases there is still an emission of contaminants to the nature. The alternatives adopted have the pretension of minimizing the impact of the mining activity, reducing the discharge of effluents and controlling the acid mine process.

The Canadian experience at this stage of decommissioning of mines, shows that technical solutions are adopted accordingly with political discussion and elaboration of some environmental programs and policies by different sectors of the government and companies.

Nowadays, the mining projects must consider the environmental problems since the beginning of the activities, and their solution have been discussed during the evaluation of the technologies which will be adopted.

4. BRAZILIAN APPROACH

The mining projects in Brazil are not yet considering all the environmental problems of the stage of decommissioning of mines.

Acid mine process is a environmental impact regarded like the others.

Generally, Brazilian environmental policies and laws consider the restoration of the mining area as a final stage.

There is not yet a rigorous environmental policy concerning the decommissioning of mines, disposal of tailings, acid mine drainage and discharge of effluents since the beginning of the activities.

Nowadays there are some Brazilian institutions and mining companies where this discussion can be held, leading to elaboration of environmental policies and development of new technologies.

Zero emission is far away from the adopted technologies and environmental policies.

However, the Brazilian government has an environmental national policy which considers the sustainable development concept. The politics and the community has to discuss together aiming at the development and application of this policy.

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5. CONCLUSION

Zero emission in mining sector is a serious challenge for present generation.

The mining policies have to be revised aiming at the adoption of environmental technologies during all the mining process.

In developed countries like Canada, the actual policies and technologies are going towards a solution to environmental problems caused by the mining industry.

Considering the compromises of our generation concerning the future ones, in the mining sector, the stage of decommissioning of mines has to be considered since the beginning of the activities.

Accordingly to the mining technologies adopted in Brazil, a characterization of all environmental impacts has to be done to help the decision-makers and politics to evaluate and elaborate the environmental policies and laws pursuing sustainable development and zero emission in mining activities.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First of all, I would like to acknowledge the Ministry of Education of Quebec and Laval University in Ste-Foy to support me in the stage of this research realized in Canada.

The contribution of the following individuals, institutions and companies is accredited:

− Dr. Michel Rocheleau, Department of Geology and Engineering Geological, Laval University, Ste-Foy, Quebec, Canada.

− Dr. Paul Painchaud, Department of Political Sciences, Laval University, Ste-Foy, Quebec, Canada.

− Rick Young and Nand Dave, CANMET, Elliot Lake, Canada. − Mr. Robert Tremblay, Ministry of Natural Resources, Quebec, Canada. − Dr. Roberto Villas Boas, Mr. Juliano Barbosa and Mr. Francisco Lapido-Loureiro, CETEM,

CNPq, Brazil.

− Cetem/CNPq, Minsitry of Science and Technology, Brazil.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Byers, Bill - 1995 - Zero discharge: a systematic approach water reuse. Chemical Engineering. Vol. 102. McGraw-Hill Companies, July 1995. p. 96-102.

Comissão Mundial sobre Meio Ambiente e Desenvolvimento - 1991 - Nosso Futuro Comum.

Cotton, R. & Lucas, A. R. - 1992 - Canadian Environmental Law. Second Edition. Butterworths. Toronto and Vancouver.

Rio Algom Ltd. - 1993 - Environmental Impact Statement for the Decommissioning of the Quirke and Panel Waste Management Areas. Elliot Lake, Ontario. August 1993.

Robinson, N. A. - 1992 - Agenda 21 & The UNCED Proceedings.

United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development - 1987 - Our Common future. Oxford University Press.

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New Materials Contributions Towards Zero Emissions Target

Carlos C. Peiter Centro de Tecnologia Mineral

ABSTRACT

New materials embodied the idea of less energy and materials comsumption per unit product, taking into account also its use performance. The objective of this short paper is to show that althuogh new materials were very efficient about emissions reduction per se, this has to be evaluated case by case focusing the particular product, or average size product, since the trend may strongly prevail, as in the case of quartz optical fiber cables, or may go the oposite way , such as in the car industry.

INTRODUCTION

In the late seventies new naterials were defined as those used in technologies related to the fastest growing industrial sectors, for instance: microelectronics/telecom., medical equipment, aerospace, and others. In the mid eighties most of the other sectors received those materials directly or inserted on devices/equipment , such as the motorvehicle industry. Because of this, new materials are almost widespread. Three main consequences, mentioned by many authors (Cohendet, 1988; Cassiolato, 1990; Peiter, 1993), were rendered possible by the development of new materials:

− dematerialization : the reduction of the products weight and materials content ;

− hyperchoice : the availability of several different materials for the same purpose;

− energy saving : new materials save energy in the production and/or in the use of the device/product.

The net result of those three characteristics was expected to be quite positive in terms of reduction of emissions specialy because of the reduction of materials volumes and the lower energy demand per unit product manufacturing and/or use.

To try to validate this assumption let us consider now two different products to analise which was the the net impact of the substitution of traditional materials by the new ones, considering that only primary materials are used on their building parts.

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PERFORMANCE EVALUATION: THE CASE OF QUARTZ OPTICAL FIBER CABLES FOR TELECOM

TABLE 1 - COMPARISON BETWEEN TELECOM: COPPER WIRE AND OPTICAL FIBER CABLES

2,400 copper wire pairs cable 18 optical fiber pairs Total materials weight per cable unit

length (kg/ km)

7,225 kg

117.0 kg % of copper or optical fiber per

cable unit lenght (km) 74,2% copper

(5.360 kg) 0,8 % opt. fiber

( 1,0 kg) Energy consumption per voice

channel(MJ/ channel)

23.0

0.10 Energy consumption for the

production of cable materials in each case (MJ /cable km)

827,390

15,880

Source: made from data available on PINHÃO (1996).p.97-9.

The comparison clearly shows that the new material , i.e. the optical fiber, made from quartz glass, has a direct effect not only on energy savings in the production of materials/fiber manufacturing steps , but also in the use, since there is a huge increase in the amount of information simultaneously transmited at low energy imputs.

The emission reduction in this case can also be seen through the dematerialization of the product (less mass) of raw material needed for manufacturing , which generates less mining and metallurgical waste, tailings and polutants. In conclusion, the net result in this case is vastly positive.

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION: MOTORCARS FOR USA MARKET

In the case of the automobiles the net result seems not be what should be expected, as can be seen on Table 2.

Although significant savings can be presumed because production of the displaced traditional materials spend more energy than the new materials, the decrease on car weight was followed by an increase due to the insertion of new devices and equipment for confort and safety (all electronics, brakes, air bags, extra structural protection, etc). Even with the new fuel saving devices for engines (EFI, more exhaust valves) the car built for north american market, have an average performance in the range of 11 to 12 Km per liter since 1984 (Pinhão, 1990). Also the average car size increased again. The consequence is that the expected emission reduction , specialy as carbon dioxide, did not droped as expected through the benefits of new materials neither due to better engine performance in the motorcars.

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TABLE 2 - MATERIALS AVERAGE CONSUMPTION FOR MOTORCARS PRODUCED IN USA (Kg/vehicle )

Materials 1980 1985 1990 1993 1994 Commom steels 787,9 672,0 565,2 624,1 629,8 Other steels 24,5 24,7 24,0 21,8 19,3 Cast iron 219,5 212,7 180,5 186,7 184,2 Rubber 59,4 61,2 58,1 61,0 60,8 Glass 37,9 38,6 37,4 40,1 40,4 Copper 15,9 20,0 20,9 19,7 19,1 Zinc ‘Die Castings’ 9,1 8,2 8,6 7,3 7,3 Subtotal Traditional Materials 1.154,2 1.037,4 894,7 960,7 960,7 High streght steels 34,0 79,4 105,7 117,5 119,3 Stainless steels 12,5 13,2 14,3 19,7 20,4 Aluminum 59,0 62,6 71,9 80,3 82,6 Magnesium ‘Castings’ 0,7 1,1 1,6 2,0 2,3 Sintered products 7,7 8,6 10,4 11,8 12,2 Plastics and Composites 88,5 95,9 100,7 111,1 111,4 Subtotal New Materals 202,3 260,9 304,6 342,5 348,1 Fluids and Lubricants 80,7 83,5 75,7 85,5 86,0 Other Materials 42,9 44,9 39,9 39,9 42,6 Total 1.480,1 1.426,6 1.315,0 1.428,6 1.437

Source: PINHÃO (1996).

CONCLUSION

Products with high new materials content give, most of times, significant contribution to emissions reduction targets since they spent less raw materials and energy when compared to traditional materials. Nevertheless, the above figures give good contribution to this analysis since the balance made on each product may not be always positive regarding emissions. To provide a more precise evaluation the overall life cycle of those products need to be included for a conclusive balance.

Anyway, what is to be emphasized is that, although most of new technologies search for emissions reduction, several other components, such as economical (low oil price, competitiveness standars, etc) and legal aspects (safety regulations), may change the net results towards zero emission target.

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REFERENCES

CASSIOLATO,J.E.; LASTRES, H.M.(1990). High Technologies and Developing Countries: The Case of Advanced Materials. Materials and Society,v.14.n.1,p.1-9.

COHENDET et alii.(1988) New Advanced Materials: Economic Dynamics nad European Strategy. A Report from the FAST Programme of the CEC. Berlin, Springer-Verlag. 455 p.

PEITER, C.C.(1993). Planejamento em C&T para Novos Materiais: Participação do Estado e a Experiência Brasileira. Dissertação para obtenção do título de M.Sc. em Engenharia de Produção. COPPE-UFRJ. Publicado por INT. 1993. 74 p.

PINHÃO,C.M.(1996). Energia e Novos Materiais: o Caso das Fibras Óticas. Dissertação para obtenção do título de Mestre. Programa de Planejamento Energético, COPPE - UFRJ.( mimeo)

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The Ironmaking for Amazon

Bernardo G. Arnaud; Jeferson L. Cheriegate; Tito Fernando A. Silveira; Karina M. Ribeiro

Bianca P. Trotta; Patrícia M. Teixeira, Marco Borgerth; Igor A. Lima

Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

ABSTRACT

Devastation of native forests sentences primary ironworks in the Amazon to extinction. Contrariwise, the activity is promising with reforesting basis upon evergreen eucalyptus and typical region coco from palm named “babaçu” or Orbygnia martiana. Modernized charcoal blast furnaces might provide the whole production respecting ISO 14000 pertinent series. Together with highest “green pig-iron” quality, the resulting washed and recovered top gas may feed foundries that could be installed to produce cast iron for local industrial and social development. Electrical energy when extended to the region will extinguish blast furnace practices and become the alternative source for charcoal iron produced in bath smelting reduction processes to maintain foundries to be possibly installed as well as to produce electric steel. Recycled labour force and modern management might support industrial and social restructuring in the region.

1. INTRODUCTION

Any practical and objective analysis of the incompetence reigning in the Amazon among ironworks for the production of pig-iron shows that soil exhaustion related to devastation of native forests guides producers to self-extinction. The main reasons are as follows:

− Ironworks are primitive and production processes obsolete;

− Production costs are high for anti-economical use of raw materials and energy;

− Produce for export only is meaningless for regional development;

− Neither labour force is qualified nor hygienic and safety terms were introduced till now. However, immeasurably high quality iron ore reserves and enormous electrical energy

potential in the region incite the activity to be continued. In order to invert the current situation, radical measures must be introduced rapidly:

− Some ironworks must be modernized; others must be closed immediately; − Production capacity and energetic resources associated must be dimensioned;

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− Scenarios based on macroeconomics information to reason viabilities for finished − products and also to accomplish industrial (and social) development must become a

common practice. − Education and specialized training must be started towards:

• Modern and efficient management methods; • Appropriate information about environmental preservation and economic use of raw

materials and energy; • Appropriate instrumentation for process and product analysis and control; • Basic notion of work hygiene and safety.

For the high quality charcoal pig-iron produced and its role in the near future to regional development in the Amazon, these issues must be tackled thoroughly with all enterprises and local instances involved, seeking to formulate questions and to present solutions.

2. PRESENT SITUATION

Situated at the north of Brazil, Figure 1, near the Carajás iron ore region (cities of Marabá in Pará, Açailândia and Rosário in Maranhão), the ironworks produce sole pig-iron in charcoal blast furnaces, the whole production being exported to foundries and steelworks mostly in the USA. Iron ore (not subsidized) is provided by the former state owned company Vale do Rio Doce. Thermo-reducer charcoal consumed is locally produced from nearest native forests, residues from woodmills or, supposedly, from reforested eucalyptus. Recent informs (1996) on pig-iron activities in the region may be condensed as shown in Table 1.

FIGURE 1 - THE IRONMAKING REGION IN THE AMAZON - DETAIL FOR THE CARAJÁS RAILWAY

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TABLE 1 - THE MAIN IRONWORKS (CALLED “INDEPENDENT PRODUCERS”) IN THE AMAZON

Ironwork Local Installed capacity x103ton/yr

Iron ore consumption

Charcoal consumption

Number of workers

x103 ton/yr VIENA Açailândia, MA 260 415 169 415 Simasa/Pindaré Açailândia, MA 210 311 137 420 Simara Marabá, PA 80 132 54 150 Cosipar Marabá, PA 200 300 130 270 Gusa Nordeste Açailândia, MA 120 174 78 98

MA - State of Maranhão; PA - State of Pará

Figure 2 shows a general scheme for the actual production of primary iron in the Amazon ironworks.

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Collectingand

Washing BalloonWaste gases

Clean waste gases

Burden:Granulated Iron OreCharcoalLimestoneRecycled Slat

Recycled Slag

BlastFurnace

Recovered gasCO2 + C + 2CO

AscendingGases

SlagPig-Iron

Export

DescendingSolids

HeaterAir blast

850 oC

FIGURE 2 - SCHEME FOR THE ACTUAL PRODUCTION OF PRIMARY IRON IN THE AMAZON IRONWORKS

Common to all the independent producers, it may be observed:

− Annual production reaches 800000 tons.

− Typical pig-iron and by-products chemical compositions are presented in Table 2.

TABLE 2 - TYPICAL CHEMICAL COMPOSITIONS OF PIG-IRON AND BY-PRODUCTS

Product Pig-iron, % Slag, % Gas, % Chemical composition C = 3,0 - 4,0

Si = 0,3 - 1,2 SiO2 = 30-40 Al2O3 = 5-15

CO = 20,0 CO2 = 26,0

P < 0,05 Mn = 0,4 - 1,3 S < 0,015

CaO = 35-45 MgO = 5-15

H2 = 1,0 H2O = 3,0 N2 = 50,0

− There is no burden preparation with homogenizing or agglomeration processes. Lacks of more accurate analysis and control of the iron ore reduction causes low productivity and high coal-rate, e.g. varying about 650 kg/ton of reduced iron. For the existing carbonizing practice with charcoal with carbon content below 70% only, this represents in turn about 20 trees of the native forest to be cut to produce 1 ton of reduced iron. It also represents

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300 m3 of wood to be converted into 133 m3 of coal, which gives coal in a ratio of 47,5 ton per hectare of native forest to be lost.

− Cut and burn of the forests are fast, getting the ironworks farther from the sources, increasing costs in transport. Furthermore, no structure for any kind of transport exists, but on mules.

− Mostly, the ironworks are conscienceless upon collecting and treating production emissions, effluents or solid residues:

• Atmospheric emissions (the international levels are of 50 mg/Nm3, approximately) • Gases: CO, HC; SO2 and NOx are negligible in charcoal pig-iron production.

− Metallurgy. As it comes out of the furnace, waste gas drags fines in an equivalent rate of 35 kg of fines (65%iron ore +35%coal) per ton of pig-iron produced. When present, a collecting and washing balloon can reduce emissions to below international standards - e.g. as much as to 0,4% of the initial exhausted volume of gas.

− Solid particles (particulates): Result from the reception and handling of the charcoal (screening, weighing and transport) in the yards. With no filters installed it corresponds to about 40 kg/ton of produced pig-iron. A mere confinement at the reception -without packing - can reduce this level to only 15 kg/ton of produced pig-iron.

− Liquid effluents: The high water-rate in the ironworks may be distributed for as follows:

− Blast furnace cooling: 32 m3 of non-contaminated water flows by gravity within a closed circuit from a tank to produce 1 ton of pig-iron.

− Granulation of slag: 0,9 m3 of non-contaminated water are consumed to granulate resulting slags for the production of 1 ton of pig-iron. These waters very alkaline containing great amount of solids in suspension cannot be discard into the rivers without proper treatment. This is not respected, usually.

− Gas washing: 7,2 m3 of water containing phenols, cyanides and other toxic organic compounds are produced in the production of 1 ton of pig-iron. Together with present solids in suspension these are not permitted to be poured into the environment.

− Solid wastes: Charcoal fines generated at the reception by screening and drying-out powders are the most problematic issue, generating fires and problems in storage. In kg/ton of pig-iron produced they represent:

• Reception/packing = 40

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• Dry powder and sludge from collecting balloons = 35 • Charcoal/screening = 40 • Iron ore/screening = 230 • Slag = 200

− Only 40% or 840 Nm3 of recycled gas are used to preheat the air blast.

− As slagmaking burden compound - limestone - 70% is provided from river.

− Unprepared labour force is superexploited with no instructions concerning raw materials and products quality or process efficiency. It is not associated to environmental protection, to work hygiene and safety as well as to business profitability of the enterprise.

3. INTENSIVE CARE UNIT

− To one of the independent pig-iron producers in particular, Cosipar, (Companhia Siderúrgica do Pará), and according to Table 1, it may be added:

• Local: Marabá, State of Pará • Production: 180000 ton/annum • Workers: 270 • Equipment • Two charcoal blast furnaces (240 and 316 tons) • Raw materials stored in internal yards • Heater for air blast • Transport for liquid pig-iron into a casting machine • Collecting balloon for waste gas and sludge • Charge (burden), kg/ton of produced pig-iron • Iron ore: 1500 - 1550 • Charcoal: 650 - 750 • From woodmills residuals: 74% (understandable since there are no forests to be cut

anymore) • From agro-expansion: 26% • Slagmaking materials

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• Limestone: 80 (both in Tocantins State, near by) • From river gravels in the region: 60

Concerned with self-extinction, this company has already initiated programmes for reforesting nearby devastated regions with eucalyptus at a rate of 1000 ha/year. A period of 5 to 10 years is expected for self-sufficiency results, the first matured 1000 ha being already achieved after a 5 years growth.

− As per the low productivity of native forests exploited for ironmaking purposes, cited above, the situation is entirely different when artificial eucalyptus based forests become the main suppliers. In a 22 years cycle it may produce:

• 1st. cut: 240 “estéreos”, st., (local bulk unit equal to about a pile of 1x1x1 m or 1 m3) wood/ha;

• 2nd. cut: 168 st wood/ha; • 3rd. cut: 132 st wood/ha.

A spacing 3x2 m among trees may represent about 2000 trees planted per hectare, which means about 6 trees per cubic metre of charcoal produced. For an actual rate of 3,8 m3/ton pig-iron, a million tons of reduced iron will need:

a) 3,8 m3 x 106 x 2,2 st/m3; b) 30 st/ha = 278666 ha; c) 22 years = 12667 sowed hectares per year. The personnel needed for plantation cares may be estimated as follows:

d) Forest growth = 174,23 men/day (m/d); e) Maturation and regeneration of ripened ovules = 54 m/d; f) Forest rangers = 33 m/d. Total so far: 261,23 m/d. For a 22 years cycle it will then requires:

g) 261,23 ÷ 22 = 11,87 (m/d)/ha per year.

For the production of 1 million ton of pig-iron exploiting 278667 ha of eucalyptus plantation converted in charcoall, it will be required a personnel of 3308913 (m/d)/year. This represents 11000 people directly and fully employed within the forests during 330 days per year.

For cutting and coalmaking it may also be calculated:

h) Cutting = 2,275 m3 coal/(m/d); i) Coalmaking = 4 m3 coal/(m/d);

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j) Total = 6,275 m3 coal/(m/d). Such a production involves 0,154 (m/d)/m3 of produced charcoal. An equivalent of 1 million

tons of pig-iron per year at a controlled rate of 3800000 m3 of coal will demand an effective of 605577 (m/d) per year. For 300 days in a year this results a total of 2019 people directly occupied in the coal production. Added to the previous calculated personnel of 11000 people, more than 13000 will be engaged.

− This independent producer, Cosipar, has also started an experimental programme featuring the usage of charcoal carbonized from a typical region coco of a palm named “babaçu” or Orbygnia martiana. Preliminary tests have shown excelent mecanical and physical-chemical results for the coco as both fuel and reducer for the furnace: physical integrity, carbon content above 70% and ideal shape for gas-solid reaction were the main characteristics observed. A fully economical extraction of high value coco by-products involved might also be expected. A flow-diagram with some by-products of the babaçu coco is shown in Figure 3.

− Practices of analysis and control of the blast furnaces must be immediately introduced to reach 30% reduction in coal-rate and 20% increase in productivity.

− Despite the lower heat content of about 5000 kJ/m3, recycling the waste gas would reduce its volume to be treated and then:

• In sufficient amount of 1900 to 2400 m3 per ton of pig-iron produced would allow generate “synthetic gas” with well-defined CO based composition to be used for purposes such as:

• Burden preparation - e.g. in a tilting pot sinter unit; • Charcoal processing; • Air blast pre-heating at higher temperatures etc. • Mixed with fresh air, the recirculated gas may provide the oxygen required for

combustion by the charcoal breeze to be injected in a PCI similar design; • The CO based gas would be burnt in the flame front. This reduces the consumption of

injected coal fines in the process and in turn minimizes CO2 emissions.

− It is obvious that to endure, the ironworks in the Amazon must devote intense efforts to regional development. The adoption of improvement to the blast furnace practice, before condemning it, gives the opportunity to introduce new products with higher added value than mere pig-iron, exclusive for export. Cast-iron alloys may fulfil local market necessities.

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fibers

starch

animalration

fertilizers

activatedcarbon

coke

primarycombustion

combustible gases

charcoal

combustible gases

volatile condensedmatter

acetates

methanol

grease

acetic acid

acetone

pitch

phenol

creosol

benzolanimal ration

edibleoil

rich pie

heavy oil

margerine

soap

glycerin

ethanol

- Industry alternativesNo.’s - percent of the coco total mass

- ALMONDS7.0

MESOCARP23.0

EPICARP11.0

ENDOCARP59.0

13.8

9.2

11.0

11.0

18.6

11.0

29.3

4.3

0.7

4.9

5.4

9.3

14.7

2.4

4.6

2.2

0.2

4.2

0.5

4.4

FIGURE 3 - SCHEME FOR BY-PRODUCTS EXTRACTED FROM BABAÇU COCO OF THE ORBIGNYA MARTIANA PALM

However, the production needs to be known worldwide and therefore, international partnerships with the pig-iron importers - the american foundries - should be established. Under national and international norms and regulations, transferring entire plants to the region appears to be the most rapid way to guarantee success for both.

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4. PERSPECTIVES

− Waste gases recycled to a CO based “synthetic gas” to be injected with coal powder into the furnace gives the expectation to reach coal-rate indexes lower than 430 kg per ton of pig-iron as usual in modern steelworks e.g. Acesita and Pains in southwest Brazil. The use of eucalyptus and babaçu coco from reforesting programmes also gives chances to the native forests to survive. Externally, the produced gas can become attractive to adjacent industries - like food, ceramics, drying-out and treatment of grains and wood, limestone calcination and so on.

− Foreign foundries tranferred to the Amazon with advanced cast-iron alloys production could make an ideal “green ironmaking” come alive. Their technological, financial and management basis would consolidate a new industrial culture in the region with absorption of part of the production in local markets.

− The arrival of electrical energy from the hydroelectric Tucuruí into the region, distributed along the lines Belem-Pará or São Luís-Marabá, will eventually allow to implement alternative bath smelting reduction processes to produce primary liquid pig-iron, followed by electric arc and induction furnaces for both foundries and eventual steelmaking. Figure 4 shows a modern iron and steelmaking cycle proposal for industrial development in the region.

5. SOME FEW CONCLUSIONS

− The evaluation and analysis of the most current themes on ironmaking and eventual steelmaking activitiy for industrial and social development in the Amazon should involve criteria for technology, economics, management and education decisions. All these criteria should be strictly related to regional ecological aspects to avoid devastation of native forests and other bio-diversity elements involved. However, no results from immediate investments would be tangible before the next century (beyond the year 2005), starting with the acceptance of quality products in both local and external markets. Local market, minimal at first, should grow gradually, sustaining entrepeneurial expectations for such development. The process could be accelerated convincing mills from foreign countries to transfer their activities to the region, specially those actual importers of the produced pig-iron and very well aware of the environmental damage created. Hence, it should be up to them to formulate and settle a new geopolitical structure for production and consumption with gains for both, the regional development and themselves.

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Colleting and

Washing Balloon

Burden:Granulated Iron OneCharcoalLimestoneRecycled Slag

CO based“Synthetic” gas

Waste gases

Ascendinggases

Descendingsolids

BlastFurnace

Slag to berecycled

Air blastO2 enriched

850oC

MixingCO+

Coal fines

Heater

Adjacent industries

FoodRefractories

CeramicsMetal-mechanics

SlagPig-iron Export

Foundry

Cast-irons

Export

RegionalConsumptionElectric

Steelmaking

Electric Steel

ExportRegionalConsumption

Electric energy

DIOSHISMELT (Australia)IRON CARBIDE (USA)AISE-DOE (USA)

Bath-smeltingreducton processes Pig-iron

FIGURE 4 - SCHEME OF A NEAR FUTURE CONCEPTION FOR THE IRONMAKING CYCLE IN THE AMAZON

− The ironworks and local instances should be placed before the negative but real situation to define a strategy for a new panorama with the help of global, unbiased studies carried out by neutral consultants, in which it should be remarked:

• The strength and weakness of the ironworks; • The situation concerning raw materials, energy, transport and labour force;

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• Geopolitics and competitiveness towards foreign trade: • Charcoal pig-iron in the international market; • The buyers; • Role of ironworks for regional industry (compared to other sectors). • The type of company wanted (state owned, private, foreign, mixed).

− It should also be pointed out that:

• The majority of things can be done without a great amount of money; • How much will restructuring cost and how much can be afforded, both in technological

and management specifics and in production and market; • Investment costs are high, risks related to mistakes are even higher, and funds are

limited;

− Economic solutions must be separate from political compromises.

P.S.: We were just about to close this version in English for the ‘Zero emission and technological assessment in a global world” seminar to be published by CETEM, when the International Meeting in Kyoto, Japan, accuses the Amazon burning-off in Brazil as being 75% more intense than last year, estimating a period of 50 years for the forests to be totally extinguished. This transcends any proposals for ironmaking in the region as presented in this work, exposing to discredit any thoughts upon regional industrial and social development. From now on it must be faced perhaps in terms of national security and international consciousness...!

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Do Desenvolvimento Econômico ao Desenvolvimento Sustentável

Renato Caporali Companhia Mineradora de Minas Gerais - COMIG

1. O conceito de desenvolvimento econômico começou a ser utilizado a partir do final da 2ª Guerra Mundial, num contexto de formação de instituições mundiais de harmonização de interesses e de práticas econômicas, bem como de uma teoria econômica que depositava na ação regulatória do Estado a possibilidade de manutenção de taxas de crescimento mais elevadas. O conceito deu fundamento a uma ideologia altamente otimista que previa o crescimento econômico indefinido, visto como um processo de utilização cada vez mais intensivo de capital, de redução do uso de mão de obra, e de utilização extensiva dos recursos naturais. Neste sentido, uma das características centrais nele implícita era a total inconsciência com as repercussões ambientais e de degradação ecológica derivada das atividades econômicas. A atividade econômica era vista como um sistema fechado, sem limites a nível do input (energia e matérias primas) ou do output (poluição). Essa ideologia econômica fundamentou toda a ação dos organismos multilaterais de fomento, como o Banco Mundial (BIRD) e Banco Interamericano (BID).

2. A teoria econômica que constituiu a base da ideologia desenvolvimentista foi o keynesianismo. Sua principal peculiaridade deriva do contexto em que foi forjado: a crise econômica dos anos 30, quando o principal problema enfrentado era o desemprego, tanto de mão de obra, quanto de capital. O desafio, consequentemente, era o de maximizar o uso de mão de obra e de capital. Como a base natural dos recursos parecia ainda extremamente abundante, a energia era barata, não havia limites pelo lado dos insumos necessários ao sistema, pelo que a maximização de seu uso - num contexo de desemprego de fatores de trabalho e capital - parecia racional, adequada e até necessária. Essa teoria econômica ocupou enorme espaço institucional, dominando ideologicamente a cultura econômica e política tanto de setores conservadores como aqueles que se situavam mais à esquerda.

3. Essa situação manteve-se praticamente inalterada do final da 2ª Guerra Mundial até o início dos anos 70. Os desenvolvimentos teóricos realizados no campo da economia concentraram-se nos instrumentos de gerenciamento dos níveis de atividade econômica por parte dos Governo, campo teórico que ficou conhecido como "macroeconomia", ou no campo da matematização dos fluxos econômicos, a “econometria”. Os elementos naturais utilizados e os efluentes gerados ficavam inteiramente à margem da economia. Esse viés teórico era corroborado pela base da teoria econômica gerada durante o século XIX, pela qual a noção de riqueza era identificada com a de preço. Como o preço é determinado por uma conjunção de custos, escassez relativa e demanda, a abundância era tida como não-valor, não-riqueza. O progressivo aumento de custos gerados pelo sistema econômico era então visto como aumento de riqueza. A compreensão do erro lógico inscrito nessa conceituação é essencial para se perceber como a Questão Natural (ecologia e meio ambiente) ficou à margem da Teoria

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Econômica. (Nota: sobre essa questão, ver Walras (1874), Mill (1848, 1965), Caporali Cordeiro (1995) .

4. A crítica à irresponsabilidade com que a teoria econômica enfrentava os problemas de ordem ambiental começou a surgir primeiro entre cientistas da natureza. Em 1969 um grupo de cientistas de alto prestígio assinou um manifesto que fez eclodir o debate. Seu título, Blueprints for survival, chamava a atenção para o fato de que o futuro da humanidade estava em questão. Pouco depois, uma organização não-governamental, o Clube de Roma, contratou uma equipe de cientistas que elaborou uma projeção assentada sobre as tendências então imperantes; o resultado foi uma inequívoca previsão de catástrofe para as primeiras décadas do Século XXI. O tom alarmista do Limites aos Crescimento desencadeou várias avaliações contrárias, mas o impacto foi inequívoco: a questão natural doravante faria parte da teoria econômica, tanto a nível dos insumos, como dos efluentes e rejeitos. Inclusive porque, a nível concreto, já em 1973, durante a crise de uma guerra no Oriente Médio, os preços do petróleo foram quadruplicados. A isso seguiu-se um processo especulativo sobre quase todas as matérias-primas básicas, com elevadas altas de preços. A economia do mundo desenvolvido, altamente dependente desses recursos, sofreu forte impacto.

5. Naquele contexto, a economia mundial passou a conviver com problemas de natureza universal que se manifestavam de formas diferentes nos países capitalistas e nos países socialistas. Nos países de economia de mercado, o principal sintoma de uma profunda anomalia eram as tendências inflacionárias crônicas e uma queda dos níveis de crescimento para patamares muito inferiores aos que tinham prevalecido durante os "30 Gloriosos" anos do pós-Guerra. A cada momento que se tentava acionar mecanismos de estímulo de tipo keynesiano o resultado era o aumento das pressões inflacionárias em vez de crescimento. A lição extraída deste estado de coisas era que o sistema deveria atuar radicalmente sobre seus custos e não sobre a demanda. A redução dos desperdícios - de material, energia e mão de obra - impôs-se como estratégica. Nos países socialistas, a situação era de colapso econômico, ambiental e social. Sem instrumentos de regulação outros que os estatais - e com estes corrompidos por décadas de obscurantismo ideológico e partidário - estes sistemas naufragaram sem possibilidade de acionar mecanismos de auto-correção.

6. Do ponto de vista da sustentabilidade, os problemas decorrentes dessa particular conjunção de base teórica, ideologia de Estado e interesses econômicos (de grandes grupos que detinham a vanguarda tecnológica), foi a exploração irracional de recursos naturais e energia, estagnação da pesquisa tecnológica relativa a poupança de energia, tecnologias apropriadas, intensificação do desperdício de capitais e trabalho através da obsolescência planejada. Conjugadas, deveriam levar à estagnação do crescimento econômico por um processo de dilapidação dos excedentes econômicos e da base natural que é seu pressuposto necessário (poder-se-ia dizer, ontológico). A economia mundial passou, através desse processo, de uma crise econômica com origens na realização do produto (crise "keynesiana") a uma crise com origem na reprodução (crise "ricardiana"), que é a crise que tem origem na elevação dos custos de produção e consequente degradação da riqueza social global. (Meditar sobre as grandes cidades)

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7. O resultado de tal quadro de dilemas foi a emergência de duas concepções concorrentes : uma, que se convencionou chamar de "neoliberalismo", que atuava predominantemente sobre a contenção de custos nas diversas economias, impondo lógicas de austeridade; outra, que ainda busca caminhos práticos, inspirada na tradição institucionalista da teoria econômica, e que ficou conhecida como "desenvolvimento sustentável". Poderíamos definir uma política de desenvolvimento sustentável como aquela que procura minimizar o uso de recursos naturais e de energia enquanto maximiza a satisfação social, tendo como referências as necessidades equidade e segurança social, essenciais para uma sociedade justa.

8. A corrente, como toda escola institucionalista, busca combinar os mecanismos de correção econômica, com medidas de contrôle administrativos e sistemas de decisão pactuada entre os diversos atores da sociedade civil: Estado, empresas e organizações não-governamentais. Uma outra peculiaridade importante do desenvolvimento sustentável é que ele considera inevitável o questionamento da radical desigualdade dos modos de consumo entre as diversas economias nacionais, e sabe que será inevitável tornar essa discussão parte dos projetos de desenvolvimento futuro, já que existe uma impossibilidade - de ordem energética e material - de extensão dos modos de consumo dos países ricos aos países pobres, dadas as atuais estruturas tecnológicas.

9. A partir daí, o conceito de desenvolvimento econômico passou a sofrer um intenso processo de revisão, mais ou menos crítico, mais ou menos cauteloso conforme o ambiente intelectual e profissional. Percebeu-se, sobretudo, a dimensão fortemente política e ética nele inscrita, o que tinha sido totalmente ignorado pela teoria econômica. O que produzir, como produzir, para quem produzir, tornam-se questões-chave que devem fazer parte de todo processo de gestação de projetos econômicos. Deixamos um ambiente gerido pelo conceito estreito de "desenvolvimento econômico" para iniciar a exploração do conceito mais amplo de "desenvolvimento sustentável".

10. Os requisitos formais para a sustentabilidade numa economia de mercado são a internalização dos custos ambientais e o estabelecimento de valor para a riqueza natural de forma a minimizar seu uso, sobretudo no que toca a recursos não renováveis. A sociedade deve, entretanto, estar consciente de que a internalização de custos que eram antes externalizados resultará na redução de níveis de consumo. Nesse momento, a questão econômica cruza com a questão política e social, levando a considerações de justiça que devem interfirir sobre as dimensões técnicas da internalização dos custos. À guisa de conclusão, pode-se dizer que a sustentabilidade é um problema que envolve (i) custos - o que remete ao problema da possibilidade econômica e da justiça social; (ii) tecnologia - que deve buscar a viabilização de soluções as mais adequadas e econômicas; e (iii) de acordos e pactos sociais - que possibilitam a introdução de lógicas extra-mercado nas relações econômicas. REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS

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Caporali Cordeiro, Renato 1995, Da Riqueza das Nações à Ciência das Riquezas, SP, Loyola.

Carter, Charles, 1971, Wealth - an essay on the purposes of economics, Middlessex, Penguin Books.

Daly, Herman, 1987, “The Economic Growth Debate: what some economists have learned and some have not”, in Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, vol 2, pp.83-89.

Georgescu-Roegen, Nicholas, The Entropy Law and the Economic Problem (1970), cap 3 do livro Energy and Economic Myths, Pergamon Press, 1976.

Giarini, Orio, 1980, Dialogue on Wealth and Welfare, NY, Pergamon Press.

Hirsch, Fred, 1976, Social Limits to Growth, Cambridge, Harvard UP.

Kapp, Karl W., 1976, Les Coûts Sociaux dans l’Economie de Marché, Paris Flammarion.

Mishan, Ezra, 1967, The Costs of Economic Growth, Middlesex, Penguin Books.

Osvaldo Sunkel, Biosfera y Desarrollo, in Ecodesarrolo : el pensamiento del decennio, PNUMA, 1983.

Riddel, Robert, Ecodevelopment , Editora Gower, 1981, cap.1.

Stuart Mill, John, 1965, Principles os Political Economy, Toronto, Toronto UP.

Walras, Léon, 1874, Eléments d’économie politique pure ou théorie de la richesse sociale, Paris, LGDJ, 1952.

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