The economic costs and benefits of biogas projects in developing countries

Summary Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) consists of five distinct logical steps: (1) to list the alternative courses of action open to the decision-maker; (2) to identify costs and benefits for every alternative; (3) to measure them in monetary terms; (4) to weight them for inter-personal and inter-temporal considerations so a to express them in their present value; and (5) to add up all costs and benefits suitably weighted to obtain the net present value (NPV) of the alternatives. Projects are acceptable if they have a positive NPV. CBA may be used to predict the actual behaviour of economic agents (positive CBA), e.g. to explain the uneven success of agroindustrial biogas installations in developed countries, or to prescribe behaviour (normative CBA), e.g. to tell a government what to do. CBA can be applied on a financial level where the unit under scrutiny is a single economic agent and money is the measuring rod, or on an economical level where the point of view is that of the totality of individuals inhabiting a country. In this last type of analysis fictive prices called accounting or shadow prices are used to capture the economy-wide repercussions associated with the project. Applied to biogas CBA shows the insufficient financial profitability of biogas installations for private decision-makers because external benefits are not taken into account. These are health benefits to the population at large, environmental benefits and agricultural benefits related to avoiding deforestation. Since the economic profitability of biogas exceeds its financial profitability it is the task of the government to choose modes of intervention such as funding research, providing institutional framework, regulation against pollution, financial incentives or convincing economic agents.

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Resumen El análisis de costes y beneficios (CBA) conlleva cinco fases distintas: (1) enumerar las distintas alternativas posibles (2) identificar los costes y beneficios para cada una de las alternativas. (3) medir estos costes y beneficios en términos monetarios. (4) sopersarlos a tenor de consideraciones interpersonales e intertemporales de forma que puedan expresarse en su valor actual. (5) sumar todos los costes y beneficios adecuadamente sopesados para obtener el valor actual neto (NPV) de cada una de las alternativas. Un proyecto tan solo sera factible si tiene un valor de NPV positivo.El CBA puede utilizarse para predecir el comportamiento actual de agentes economicos (CBA postivo) por ejemplo para explicar el éxito variable de instalaciones, de biogas agroindustriales en los países desarrollados, también puede utilizarse para prescribir un determinado comportamiento (CBA normativo) por ejemplo para aconsejar a un gobierno. El CBA puede aplicarse a nivel financiero cuando la unidad escrutada es un único agente económico y el patrón de medida es el dinero, tambien puede aplicarse a nivel económico cuando el punto de vista considerado es el de la totalidad de habitantes de un país. En este último tipo de análisis se utilizan precios ficticios, denominados precios contables o precios en la sombra, para tener en cuenta las repercusiones económicas asociadas al proyecto. Si aplicamos el procedimiento del CBA al biogas observamos un rendimiento insuficiente, en terminos financieros, para los inversores privados, ya que no se consideran los beneficios externos. Dichos beneficios son sanitarios, ambientales y agrícolas, relacionados con la disminución de la deforestación. Al exceder el rendimiento económico del biogas a su rendimiento financiero es deber del estado intervenir utilizando para ello un sistema adecuado como puede ser la financiación de la investigación, la adecuación de un marco institucional, la legislación antipolución, la incentivación financiera o la motivación de agentes económicos.

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Résumé L'analyse des coûts et bénéfices (ACB) consiste en cinq étapes logiques et distinctes: (1) l'énumération des alternatives offertes aux décideurs; (2) l'identification des coûts et bénéfices de chaque alternative; (3) la mesure de ces coûts et bénéfices en termes monétaires; (4) leur correction sur base de considérations interpersonnelles et intertemporelles de façon à les exprimer en leur valeur actuelle; (5) l'addition des coûts et bénéfices ainsi obtenus qui donne la valeur nette actualisée (VNA) des alternatives. On considère qu'un projet est acceptable s'il a une VNA positive. L'ACB peut être utilisée pour expliquer le comportement actuel des agents économiques, par exemple pour expliquer le succès inégal des installations agroindustrielles en PVD; ou pour prédire un comportement, c'est-à-dire par exemple dans le cadre d'une proposition d'action à un gouvernement. L'ACB est appliquée soit au niveau financier où l'unité étudiée est l'agent économique individuel et où l'argent est l'unité de mesure, soit au niveau économique où le point de vue est celui de la totalité des individus d'un pays. Dans ce dernier cas des prix fictifs appelés shadow prices sont utilisés pour prendre en compte les répercussions d'un projet au niveau économique au sens large. L'ACB appliquée à la biométhanisation montre la non-rentabilité financière des installations privées à cause du fait que les bénéfices externes de la technologie ne sont pas pris en compte. Ces bénéfices se situent au niveau de la santé publique, de la protection de l'environnement et de l'agriculture. Puisque la rentabilité économique de biogaz excède sa rentabilité financière, c'est le devoir des gouvernements de choisir des méthodes d'intervention telles que les subsides à la recherche, l'instauration de structures institutionnelles, de lois contre la pollution, d'incitants à l'investissement, etc.

     

Emerging threats and persistent conservation challenges for freshwater biodiversity

In the 12 years since Dudgeon et al. (2006) reviewed major pressures on freshwater ecosystems, the biodiversity crisis in the world's lakes, reservoirs, rivers, streams and wetlands has deepened. While lakes, reservoirs and rivers cover only 2.3% of the Earth's surface, these ecosystems host at least 9.5% of the Earth's described animal species. Furthermore, using the World Wide Fund for Nature's Living Planet Index, freshwater population declines (83% between 1970 and 2014) continue to outpace contemporaneous declines in marine or terrestrial systems. The Anthropocene has brought multiple new and varied threats that disproportionately impact freshwater systems. We document 12 emerging threats to freshwater biodiversity that are either entirely new since 2006 or have since intensified: (i) changing climates; (ii) e‐commerce and invasions; (iii) infectious diseases; (iv) harmful algal blooms; (v) expanding hydropower; (vi) emerging contaminants; (vii) engineered nanomaterials; (viii) microplastic pollution; (ix) light and noise; (x) freshwater salinisation; (xi) declining calcium; and (xii) cumulative stressors. Effects are evidenced for amphibians, fishes, invertebrates, microbes, plants, turtles and waterbirds, with potential for ecosystem‐level changes through bottom‐up and top‐down processes. In our highly uncertain future, the net effects of these threats raise serious concerns for freshwater ecosystems. However, we also highlight opportunities for conservation gains as a result of novel management tools (e.g. environmental flows, environmental DNA) and specific conservation‐oriented actions (e.g. dam removal, habitat protection policies, managed relocation of species) that have been met with varying levels of success. Moving forward, we advocate hybrid approaches that manage fresh waters as crucial ecosystems for human life support as well as essential hotspots of biodiversity and ecological function. Efforts to reverse global trends in freshwater degradation now depend on bridging an immense gap between the aspirations of conservation biologists and the accelerating rate of species endangerment.     

The early bird gets the return: The benefits of publishing your data sooner

The benefits of publishing your data sooner versus later in Ecology and Evolution.     

The textual characteristics of traditional and Open Access scientific journals are similar

Background  

Recent years have seen an increased amount of natural language processing (NLP) work on full text biomedical journal publications. Much of this work is done with Open Access journal articles. Such work assumes that Open Access articles are representative of biomedical publications in general and that methods developed for analysis of Open Access full text publications will generalize to the biomedical literature as a whole. If this assumption is wrong, the cost to the community will be large, including not just wasted resources, but also flawed science. This paper examines that assumption.