ABSTRACT
Economics also plays a role in setting many state and federal air pollution control regulations. Project optimization is covered later in the chapter, where a brief description of a perturbation analysis is presented. Operating costs, like capital costs, may be separated into two categories: direct and indirect costs. Indirect costs are those operating costs associated with, but directly involved in operating the facility; costs such as overhead, administrative fees, local property taxes, and insurance fees fall into this category. The major direct operating costs are usually associated with the labor and materials costs for the project which often involve the cost of the chemicals needed for operation of the process. An understanding of the economics involved in environmental management is important in making decisions at both the engineering and management levels. Every engineer or scientist should be able to execute an economic evaluation of a proposed environmental project.
