More references: reverse logistics, waste flow, CO2 emissions, …

Here are some more references loosely organized by topic (reverse logistics, waste flow, CO2 emissions tax/trading), plus mention of an old special issue (a 2001 OR Spectrum). The plan is to ultimately get the References page organized by topic.

• Reverse logistics
  • Reverse Logistics: Quantitative Models for Closed-Loop Supply Chains
    Dekker, Rommert, Moritz Fleischmann, Karl Inderfurth, Luk N. Van Wassenhove, eds.
    2004. Springer-Verlag, New York. 436 pp. $109.00.
    Notes There is a review of this book in Interfaces, looks like it might be useful.
  • The Impact of Product Recovery on Logistics Network Design
    M Fleischmann, P Beullens, JM Bloemhof-Ruwaard in Production and Operations Management, 2001
    Notes: Looks good, about facility location problem, has a large formulation then runs the model on a real example of copier recovery. Mine its references. 67 citations. Found the Jenkins (see below) in it.
• Waste Flow (classic)
  • Parametric Mixed Integer Programming: An Application to Solid Waste Management
    Larry Jenkins in Management Science Vol. 28, No. 11, Nov., 1982, pp. 1270-1284
    Notes: Referred to in Fleishmann paper above, it’s old (classic?), has some good references of its own within, and does mention alternate streams for some waste (such as using as a “substitute for coal in cement plants and thermal electric generating stations. It is called refuse-derived-fuel (RDF).”). The main slant of the paper, though, is methodological - a method for sensitivity analysis in MILPs. I listed 2 refs from within below, could look through the others as well.
  • An Analysis of Solid Waste Transportation and Disposal Alternatives
    by HARVEY, D. J. AND O’FLAHERTY, T. G. in INFOR, Vol. 11 (1973), pp. 187-200.
    Notes: Referred to in Jenkins paper above, looks interesting but am having trouble finding it (cga lib doesn’t have the journal).
  • Mathematical Analysis of Solid Waste Collection
    by MARKS, D. H. AND LIEBMAN, J. C., Bureau of Solid Waste Management, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Washington, D.C., 1970.
    Notes: Referred to in Jenkins
• CO2 emissions tax/trading (see this previous post on carbon and RGGI)
  • Profit-maximizing R&D in response to a random carbon tax
    by E Baker, E Shittu in Resource and Energy Economics,, 2006
    Notes: There was a corresponding talk in the INFORMS 2007 program.
  • Analyzing the Long-run Impact of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative on the Maryland Power Sector: Oligopoly Analysis
    by Chen, Yihsu; Burtraw, Dallas; Hobbs, Benjamin F.; Kim, Soora; Palmer, Karen; Paul, Anthony; Gabriel, Steve (UMd.);
    Power Engineering Society General Meeting, 24-28 June 2007 Page(s):1 - 8
    Notes: Abstract available here, also presented at INFORMS 2007. This search yields even more related papers. Co-author Hobbs has a large number of papers that could probably be added to the overall references as well.
• The February 2001 issue of OR Spectrum covered environmental management. See table of contents. Here a few of the paper titles/authors:
  • Environment-oriented project scheduling for the dismantling of buildings
    by Frank Schultmann and Otto Rentz
  • OLAF – A general modeling system to evaluate and optimize the location of an air polluting facility
    by Jörg Fliege
  • Life cycle activity analysis: logistics and environmental policies for bottled water in Portugal Life Cycle Activity Analysis
    by Fausto Freire, Sten Thore and Paulo Ferrao

Carbon Dioxide Auctions

Starting in 2011, power plants in several northeast US states participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) will have to account for their CO2 emissions. To do so they will be able to purchase carbon emission “allowances” in a series of auctions, the first of which will be on September 10. Initially, the auction format will be single-round, uniform-price, sealed-bid though this may change in the future. A description of the uniform-price auction can be found here. Auctions are a popular area of study in operations research. A post on knowledgeproblem.com goes into some depth on issues surrounding the auction format used in these CO2 auctions. It references a piece by economist Peter Cramton written on behalf of the New England and New York electricity market operators advocating another type of auction (ascending clock).

How much will these allowances cost? The first auction will have a reserve price of $1.86 per ton. One way to find out how many tons of CO2 your local power plant emits is through the carma website. For example, according to carma, the largest CO2 emitter in eastern Connecticut (US) is the AES Thames plant at 1.7 million tons of CO2 per year. Those emissions will cost upwards of $4 million starting in 2011.

This adds another layer to the power companies’ portfolio optimization problems. Do they try to stock up on allowances in the first auction or take a wait-and-see approach?

Some are concerned these costs will be passed on to electric rate-payers. But the hope is that with deregulation, and so customer choice, there will be more incentive for the development of clean energy.

For more information, see the links above and:
- Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative website
- Carbon dioxide up for sale, Hartford Courant
- RGGI auction rules fire starting pistol on allowance price run-up, Carbon Finance

Update: - more references listed in this post (scroll down)