Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
TABLE 18.7
Qualitative Comparison for Different Speciications of Various Nanotechnologies in Water and
Wastewater Applications
Technology
Level
Technology
Impact Level
Impact Time
EHS Issue
Nanoparticles
High
Long
Moderate
Under debate
Nanoilters (membrane)
High
Short
High
No problem
Nanocatalysts
High
Moderate
Moderate
No problem
Nanodetectors
High
Moderate
High
No problem
18.3.5 Practical Issues
There are various issues that need to be considered for a comprehensive evaluation of the
real potential of nanotechnology for developing countries' environmental economics. We
need to take into account some important aspects like level of impact, ownership of tech-
nology, timeline, and technology adoption. Shedding light on these aspects will enable us
to propose some practical policy prescriptions in Section 18.4.
18.3.6 Level of Impact: Need for Full Life Cycle Economic Assessment
The key question that may arise is whether the impact of nanotechnology application is big
enough to change the game in developing countries' environmental economics. A prerequisite
to answer this question is undertaking a full life cycle economic assessment of the new nano-
technology methods. It will include both technology and product life cycle while considering
important socioeconomic aspects. For any emerging technology, costs incurred in the R&D
stage, commercialization, technology transfer, and technology adoption need to be considered.
We also need a full product life cycle assessment, which means we need to cover the product
life cycle from the extraction of resources, through production, transfer and distribution, use,
and recycling, up to disposal of the remaining waste. We also need to consider installation of
new facilities and maintenance costs, human resource training, and safety-related costs.
Comparing conventional methods costs with new nanotechnology-based methods will
provide the total savings we may expect from the application of the new technologies.
Aggregation of such detailed economic calculations over a range of nanotechnology-based
methods then will provide us with the overall economic impact of adopting the new nano-
technologies. The level of impact may be anticipated on the basis of the scale and number of
environmental problems that will be affected by practical application of the new methods.
The important point is that even moderate reduction of costs by environmentally safe
practices may change the result of an economic cost-beneit analysis. This could be partic-
ularly the case for private sector manufacture. As a result, it may enable the market mecha-
nism in favor of environmentally friendly manufacturing methods. This is an example of
how technological innovation can ease the policy instruments' tasks.
18.3.7 Ownership of Technology
Nanotechnology is an emerging area, and new products are mainly protected by domes-
tic and foreign intellectual property rights mainly owned by large public companies in
developed countries (Woodson and Harsh, 2012). This may cause a barrier for developing
countries to fully beneit from the economic advantages of the emerging technologies in
