Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-103). / Coal is widely relied upon as a fuel for electric power generation, and pressure is increasing to limit emissions of the CO2 produced during its combustion because of concerns over climate change. In order to continue the use of coal without emitting CO2, low cost technologies must be developed for capturing CO2 from power plants. Current CO2 capture technology is expensive, both in terms of capital and operating cost, so research and development efforts will be heavily relied upon to improve the economic profile of the technologies. With scarce resources available for R&D, and a number or different technologies competing for these funds, efforts must be prudently prioritized in order for successful advancements to be realized. This thesis assesses the state-of-the-art CO2 capture technologies available today, as well as the leading technology options for improvement. It also examines types of R&D, government and industry roles in R&D efforts, and methods and tools for managing these efforts. From these analyses, qualitative conclusions about how to prioritize CO2 capture technology R&D efforts to ensure advancement are offered. / (cont.) There are three technological pathways for CO2 capture - post-combustion, oxy-fired, and pre-combustion capture - and several technology options for improvement in each pathway. There are currently no clear winners, and there is much uncertainty in which technologies have the most potential to reduce the cost of capture. Government and industry interests should both be involved in advancing R&D, but should play different roles depending on the type of research and the maturity of the technology. Portfolios of potential technologies in various stages of development should maintained by both government and industry researchers and developers, and they should use a variety of portfolio management tools to aid in decision-making. This approach will ensure that the best technologies are advanced and CO2 capture technologies will be capable of helping meet future challenges. / by George Salem Esber, III. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 61-64). / Mass production affords economies of scale only when capital is highly utilized. However, when manufacturing processes are initiated or new products are launched capital in the facilities is underutilized. This phase has been referred to as the ramp-up period which marks the beginning of commercial sales. The huge investments found in assembly plants make this period of particular concern to the automakers. In spite of the importance of managing this ramp-up period analytical methods do not exist which allow the critical issues during a ramp-up to be simultaneously addressed. This thesis describes a methodology which links and quantifies the impact of production rate choice, product quality, manufacturing capability and process performance into an easily measurable metric - 'cost' using the Process Based Cost Modeling framework. The results of the case study for ramp-up in the body plant of a mid-size sedan steel body in white are presented. They reveal that building cumulative volume as fast as possible during this phase is not the cost-optimized solution, but it is also important to follow a certain production schedule for different investment and process strategies. It is also shown how the methodology developed in this thesis is an effective means for aligning the interests of the stakeholders involved in the process with that of the organization. It is also recommended that the accounting practices of automakers be changed to incorporate capacity utilization and rework costs for cost-minimization during assembly ramp-up. / by Siddharth Bammi. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2007. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 68-75). / Designing public policy or industry strategy to bolster the transition to alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) is a formidable challenge as demonstrated by historical failed attempts. The transition to new fuels occurs within a dynamically complex system with many distributed actors, long time delays, several important feedback relationships, and multiple tipping points. A broad-boundary, behavioral, dynamic model with explicit spatial structure was previously developed to represent the most important AFV transition barriers. Using California as an illustrative testing region, the model simulates the spatial diffusion of entrant vehicle/fuel technology pairs individually or in competition with other entrants. In this work, the integrated model is carefully parameterized for various specific alternative vehicle technologies. Structural and parametric sensitivity analyses are used to build understanding of system behavior and to identify policy leverage points or the need for further model calibration. / (cont.) The qualitative impacts of policies are tested individually and then in multi-policy combinations to find synergies. Under plausible assumptions and strong policies, AFVs can achieve successful diffusion but this process requires long time periods. Findings indicate some commonly suggested policies may provide little leverage and be very costly. The analysis reveals the importance of designing policy cognizant of the system structure underlying its dynamic behavior. Several examples demonstrate how policy leverage varies with context such as key attributes of the alternative vehicle technology. Broadly, coordinated portfolios of policy instruments should be designed to simultaneously develop consumer familiarity, well distributed fueling infrastructure, and manufacturer knowledge at similar rates and over long enough duration to surpass thresholds in these complementary assets before alternative fuel and vehicle markets become self-sustaining. Further, policy should dynamically adapt to observed conditions to lessen the transition constraints dominant at the time. Policy and strategy makers must recognize from the outset that incentives must be stable over long durations for AFV transitions to succeed. / by Derek R. Supple. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Technology and Policy Program, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 66-68). / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, trap solar heat in the atmosphere, raising its temperature. While comprising only about 5% of global population, the U.S. is responsible for nearly one fourth of global annual CO2 emissions. Transportation accounts for a third of all carbon dioxide emissions in the country, and about one fourth worldwide. U.S. passenger cars and light trucks accounting for nearly two thirds of the net carbon equivalent emissions from transportation, any successful national strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would need to address transportation sector emissions. Building upon a vehicle technology assessment conducted at MIT ("On the Road in 2020", Weiss et al., 2000), this study assesses the potential for reducing the U.S. light duty vehicle fleet fuel consumption and energy use. The vehicles technologies considered are an evolving gasoline-fueled baseline vehicle with steadily decreasing fuel consumption, and a gasoline internal combustion engine hybrid vehicle with an advanced body design. Using a vehicle fleet turnover model, the impact on the light-duty fleet of various technology penetration scenarios is assessed. The effects of other factors including the light-duty vehicle stock growth, the increasing per-vehicle annual distance traveled and the sales share of light-duty trucks are evaluated as well. The reduction of new vehicle fuel consumption achieved on the evolving baseline and advanced ICE-Hybrids vehicles provides the most significant savings in fleet energy use over all the other considered measures. Actions aiming at reducing the stock and the total distance traveled growth rate appear to have significant effects on fleet fuel consumption as well, while an increasing share of light-duty trucks will have only a modest impact. Finally, various policy options are discussed. Actions will need to be taken by the Federal Government and the other stakeholders if significant petroleum and greenhouse gas emissions reductions are to be achieved. / by Stéphane Bassène. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 137-141). / This thesis analyzes and compares the diffusion of antihypertensive and antidepressant medications in Germany and Japan during the time period of 1992 and 2003. The antihypertensive medications are classified as new, middle and old generations and the antidepressants are classified as new and old generations in this study. The demographic, economic, price, promotional, regulatory, and cultural factors that contributed to the sales level, number of compounds available in the market, and launch time of these medications are also examined using quantitative and qualitative methods at therapeutic class, generation, as well as product levels. The qualitative analysis includes discussions on the general health care systems, health care polices, and country-specific hypertension- and depression-related cultural backgrounds. Econometric tools (descriptive statistics and linear regression models) are used as means of quantitative analysis. The diffusion of different generations of medications is examined. The degree of the use of branded vs. generic medications are also compared. Finally, Chow-tests are conducted for cross-country and cross- therapeutic-class comparisons. This study finds that there are significant branded-v-generic, cross-generation, cross- class, cross-country differences in the diffusion of the selected therapeutic classes in the two countries. The factors examined contributed to the diffusion to various extents. Among which, the cultural factor played an important role in the adoption and sales of new medications of both therapeutic classes in both countries, especially the antidepressants in Japan. The promotional factors appear not to be very significant in the sales volumes, partially due to the regulatory settings of the two national-based health care systems. / y Ling Cui. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-86). / The Grid is a distributed computing infrastructure that facilitates the exchange of expertise and resources. It is somewhat analogous to the electric power grid in that it can potentially provide a universal source of IT resources that can have a huge impact on human capabilities and on the entire society. Currently the Grid is being deployed (in limited ways) in some research and academic institutions. As Grid computing technologies mature further, the commercial sector can also benefit. With Grid technologies enabling utility computing, enterprises will be able to access IT resources on-demand in a utility-like way. This thesis gives a brief introduction on Grids and looks back into the history of power grids for lessons learned. It suggests that the Grid and the power grid are both infrastructures and factors of reliability, standardization, universal access and affordability are necessary to ensure the success of any infrastructure. Once the Grid is successful, it can open up new opportunities in the field of utility computing and impact IT provision in the commercial sector. The new utility computing ecosystem would consist of five major players - the Grid resource supplier, the Grid infrastructure supplier, the utility service provider, the re-seller and the end user. Further industry analysis reveals that there are new roles for current players in the traditional IT provision industry and opportunities for new entrants in this new ecosystem. The thesis attempts to identify the characteristics of each of the five major players to help the IT industry better understand the requirements of these new roles. Current players in the IT provision industry would have to decide which of the above roles to play in this new utility computing ecosystem and to re-define their market strategies accordingly. New entrants to the field would likely be players in the telecommunication sector who want a share of this growing pie and whose existing relationship with bandwidth subscribers can be leveraged upon. This thesis concludes with recommendations on several policy issues: Grid standardization for inter-operability, decentralized Grid governance to encourage optimal resource sharing and mechanisms for transcending cultural/organizational barriers inhibiting the commercial adoption of Grid computing. / by Sze Hwei Ong. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-112). / The commercial and informal sectors contribute with significant amounts of emissions to the atmospheric pollution problem of the Mexico City Metropolitan Area (MCMA). It is more the case for some pollutants than for others, but, in any case, policies tackling the emissions of these sectors have been very few, and of very limited effect. Even the measurement of the emissions is believed to be underestimated, especially for the informal sector, which is mostly unaccounted for in the recent emissions inventories developed in the MCMA. This thesis intends to improve the estimation of commercial and informal emissions in MCMA, through a qualitative assessment of the range of emission sources in these sectors, and an emissions model based on the integrated scenario analysis methodology implemented in the Mexico City Program at MIT. The ultimate goal of this research is to propose and evaluate new policies to reduce commercial emissions, both formal and informal, in MCMA. / by Andres Flores Montalvo. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 90-94). / This thesis considers the problem of the large amount of unwanted email that is being sent and received, which lowers the aggregate value of email as a communication medium from what it would otherwise be. This problem is commonly known as the "spam problem." Solutions to the spam problem involve curbing the adverse affects of existing technology as well as steering technology development in a socially beneficial direction. Unlike some other technology and policy problems, the reasons for the existence of this problem are well known and the desired effects of ideal solutions can be readily articulated. However, attempted solutions to date have not made much progress at solving the problem. I posit that this failure stems from the fact the spam problem is really a complex system, and that solutions to date have not been designed to interact with this system in a useful manner. I show that the spam problem is a complex system, and should be dealt with by developing strategies to holistically interact with it. Such strategies must embrace both technical and legal realities simultaneously in order to be successful. They must also avoid causing negative side effects that negate their purpose. First, I build a model of the system surrounding the spam problem in the form of a Causal Loop Diagram. This diagram shows the causal interactions between the various technical, legal, social, and economic forces that are present in the spam system. Using this diagram, I then identify a number of places that solutions could interact with this system. These places comprise a set of possible levers that could be pulled to alleviate the spam problem. This set of levers is then used to make sense of the attempted and suggested solutions to date. / (cont.) Various solutions are grouped by how they interact with the system. These solution categories are then presented in detail by showing, diagrammatically, how they positively and negatively affect the spam system through their interactions with it. In so doing, I attempt to argue persuasively that much of the current energy expended toward the spam problem is largely unnecessary, and in some cases, counterproductive. I additionally argue that because of the current reality of the spam problem, i.e. particular facts, we are already in a decent position to largely solve this problem by just redirecting current efforts toward more appropriate activity. Such appropriate activity is suggested, which includes steps to increase the identifiability of email in order to enable more successful litigation. Finally, an optimistic conclusion is reached that there are no fundamental reasons why the spam problem can not be dealt with in such a manner to ensure the continued usefulness of email as a communication medium. / by Gabriel R. Weinberg. / S.M.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Technology and Policy Program, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 110-112). / by Tina S. Randall. / M.S.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 79-80). / The Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) is a cornerstone for European efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and in its test phase will operate from 2005-2007. It is a cap-and-trade system where an aggregate cap on emissions is set by the respective government agencies to define the total number of emissions allowances. Each allowance gives the owner the right to emit one unit (usually one ton) of emissions. Covered establishments that exceeded the limits may buy emissions credits from entities with allowances they do not need to use themselves. One key feature of this system is that the amount of emissions is capped whereas the permit prices are uncertain. These permit prices are determined by economic conditions, generally, stronger economic growth means a higher permit price. The objective of this thesis is to understand uncertainty in permit prices under the system, by determining the likelihood that permit prices will fall within a given range. This is accomplished through stochastic analysis simulation of a computable general equilibrium model of the world economy with country-level detail most of the key members of the original 15 member EU plus the 10 accession countries. Economic parameters treated as stochastic in the simulations were labor productivity growth, share of new capital vintaged, the rate of autonomous energy efficiency improvement, the elasticity of substitution between energy and non-energy composites, and oil/gas prices. Information on the likely range of future permit prices will allow operators of covered establishments to decide on the extent to which they should buy permits or invest in emissions reduction technologies possible reducing emissions below their cap, allowing them to sell allowances. / (cont.) While some abatement activities may involve only changes in operation and management of facilities, other may involve longer-term investment. These abatement decisions boil down to basic investment problems. How should entities affected by the ETS plan their investment policies, such that they can minimize costs? To answer this question firms need an estimate of likely future permit prices. Results were that a zero carbon price occurred with a probability of 28-48% across variants of the Monte Carlo simulations. The mean value for the carbon prices was about $0.40 per ton of carbon, and the maximum price across the variants ranged from about $3.50 to somewhat over $6.00 per ton carbon. The implication for firms is that costly abatement investments appear difficult to justify, except to the extent that firm's are looking beyond the ETS period when carbon permit prices would rise further. / by Wee Chiang See (Kelvin) / S.M.