The Universal Environmental Burden Index is a New Decision Making Tool

A decision to reduce one pollutant can result in increases in other pollutants.  If one wants to switch from disposable to reusable diapers one must weigh the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the manufacture of the disposable diapers against the additional pollutants released to the water in washing the reusable diapers.

Many decisions involve alternatives with a variety of environmental burdens.  A decision to reduce mercury emissions to the air can result in increased fine particle emissions.  An alternative results in mercury emissions in wastewater.  A third alternative results in additional solid waste material in land fills.

A new tool developed by the McIlvaine Company allows the decision maker to choose between alternatives using a normalized set of emission factors.  Here are some of them:

Pollutant

Environmental Burden Factor (equivalent tons)

Chromium (air)

                                                                 1,000,000

One life lost

                                                                    350,000

Nickel (air)

                                                                    100,000

Chlorine (water)

                                                                      10,000

Ammonia (air)

                                                                        1,000

Total suspended solids (water)

                                                                           100

NOx (air)

                                                                           100

CO2 (air)

                                                                               1

Water resource depletion (deficit location)

                                                                            .01

Coal resource depletion

                                                                          .001

Water resource depletion (surplus location)

                                                                          .001

 

Using this tool it is seen that the environmental burden of one ton of chromium (air) becomes one million equivalent tons.  One ton of NOx becomes 100 equivalent tons.  Many decisions involve different health and safety risks.  EPA utilizes a life value of $7 million.  Based on an anticipated value of CO2 at $20/ton, a life is worth 350,000 tons of CO2.

The development of this tool is complex due to the variation in conditions between countries. The burden of adding waste to landfills in Europe is higher than in the U.S. or Australia.  This is due to the lack of landfill space in Europe.

This tool has been successfully used to evaluate choices in the power industry and in healthcare.  In the power industry an analysis was made relative to old coal-fired power plants. The cost of emission burden reduction was analyzed for each alternative.

 

Alternative

Cost in Dollars (Per Equivalent Ton of Burden  Reduced)

Add best available control technology

                               6

Replace with new coal plants - 15 yr. life

                               5

Replace with new coal plants - 25 yr. life

                               0

Replace with  wind

                             18

 

The conclusions are counter-intuitive and show that immediate replacement of old coal plants with new ones is the best way to reduce the environmental burden even if these new plants are retired in 15 years.

This finding demonstrates the usefulness of the concept. The challenge is to obtain consensus relative to specific values.  In this regard the McIlvaine Company has set up a special website to explain the basis for the burden factor selections and to invite comments from the readers.

To view this site, click on: http://www.mcilvainecompany.com/UEBI/subscriber/Default.htm

 

 

Bob McIlvaine

847-784-0012

rmcilvaine@mcilvainecompany.com