The green technology considered in this paper is based on nano-structured materials (titanium dioxide based nanocompounds) with photocathalytic effects which, under ultraviolet radiations, are able to decompose a wide variety of atmospheric pollutants as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and nano-powder (PM10), produced by transportation means, industrial production and house heating. A surface of 1 km covered with nanometric photocathalytic titanium may decompose up to 70 ton of pollutant material in one year. Because nowadays more than 200 kind of diseases are to some extent connected to atmospheric pollution, with a very significant impact on the social cost of a community, it can be important to study the effect that plans for using this kind of technology in the treatment of urban areas atmosphere as a whole (in particular public areas as public buildings, train-station, squares, streets..), may have on reducing social and economic costs. In this paper we introduce a method for the economic and social impact assessment of a large scale implementation of this green technology in the field of urban and building construction; an implementation that up to now has been little more than experimental. Data and information has been collected concerning the relationship between the increment of air pollutant concentration and morbidity/mortality due to natural, heart, encephalovascular and respiratory causes; this relationship has been widely documented in national and international scientific literature. The paper assumes that the estimates of economic-social costs of air pollution, can be used as a starting point for a preliminary determination of the savings, which can be realized by employing photocatalytic pigments and mortars on a wide urban scale. Thus, to each event, death or morbid state, a specific cost can be assigned by using various methods available in the literature. The collected data and works have been reorganized and then correlated, in order to develop a method which attempts to evaluate, for each practical decrease of atmospheric pollution that might be obtained by utilizing photocatalytic structures in buildings, what would be the social benefits resulting from the decrease in death/diseases due to air pollution and the corresponding economic advantages in terms of decrease of health expenses and other related factors ( for example: number of days not worked, valued assigned to each year of life not lived). This analysis has been applied to data referred to the town of Turin (located in an industrialized area in north-west of Italy) and has highlighted the possibility of a considerable level of saving in terms of social and economic costs; then it could be extended, with the appropriate variation, to many other towns in industrialized or developing Countries where atmospheric pollution represents, or is beginning to represent, a serious problem in term of social and economic costs
Social and economic impact evaluation in a case of green technology
Monica Cariola;Alessandro Manello
2013-01-01
Abstract
The green technology considered in this paper is based on nano-structured materials (titanium dioxide based nanocompounds) with photocathalytic effects which, under ultraviolet radiations, are able to decompose a wide variety of atmospheric pollutants as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and nano-powder (PM10), produced by transportation means, industrial production and house heating. A surface of 1 km covered with nanometric photocathalytic titanium may decompose up to 70 ton of pollutant material in one year. Because nowadays more than 200 kind of diseases are to some extent connected to atmospheric pollution, with a very significant impact on the social cost of a community, it can be important to study the effect that plans for using this kind of technology in the treatment of urban areas atmosphere as a whole (in particular public areas as public buildings, train-station, squares, streets..), may have on reducing social and economic costs. In this paper we introduce a method for the economic and social impact assessment of a large scale implementation of this green technology in the field of urban and building construction; an implementation that up to now has been little more than experimental. Data and information has been collected concerning the relationship between the increment of air pollutant concentration and morbidity/mortality due to natural, heart, encephalovascular and respiratory causes; this relationship has been widely documented in national and international scientific literature. The paper assumes that the estimates of economic-social costs of air pollution, can be used as a starting point for a preliminary determination of the savings, which can be realized by employing photocatalytic pigments and mortars on a wide urban scale. Thus, to each event, death or morbid state, a specific cost can be assigned by using various methods available in the literature. The collected data and works have been reorganized and then correlated, in order to develop a method which attempts to evaluate, for each practical decrease of atmospheric pollution that might be obtained by utilizing photocatalytic structures in buildings, what would be the social benefits resulting from the decrease in death/diseases due to air pollution and the corresponding economic advantages in terms of decrease of health expenses and other related factors ( for example: number of days not worked, valued assigned to each year of life not lived). This analysis has been applied to data referred to the town of Turin (located in an industrialized area in north-west of Italy) and has highlighted the possibility of a considerable level of saving in terms of social and economic costs; then it could be extended, with the appropriate variation, to many other towns in industrialized or developing Countries where atmospheric pollution represents, or is beginning to represent, a serious problem in term of social and economic costsI documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
