· · · Institutional Repository

In the Netherlands a guideline for carrying out a CBA for infrastructure projects (the so-called OEI-manual) was constructed in the year 2000. Since then a CBA in line with the OEI-manual became compulsory in the decision making process for all large infrastructure national projects. The aim of this research is to define the main problems in the current Dutch practice as experienced by three different groups: scientists, consultants, policymakers. Using semi-structured interviews 72 respondents were asked to discuss the five most important substantive problems they experience with CBA. In addition the respondents were asked to elaborate on the main advantages and disadvantages they experience with the use of CBA in the appraisal of spatial-infrastructural projects. Next they were asked to outweigh the advantages and the disadvantages. The main finding of this research is that both the majority of scientists, consultants and policymakers evaluate the use of CBA as an ‘ex ante’ analysis of spatial-infrastructure projects positive. In spite of this positive overall evaluation, the respondents experience 68 different categories of problems. This paper elaborates on the 68 problems. The paper also focuses on the differences between the three groups in relation to the problems they experience. The relation between ‘the number of respondents that mention a problem that can be assigned to a main category of problems’ and ‘group of respondents (consultant / scientist / policymaker)’ is tested. This relation is significant for the categories ‘Problems with welfare economics as fundamental theory of ‘ex ante’ evaluation instrument’ and ‘Problems with presenting conclusions’. Relatively few consultants and relatively many policymakers mention that they experience problems with welfare economics as fundamental theory of an ‘ex ante’ evaluation instrument and the number of consultants that experience problems with presenting conclusions is relatively low compared to policymakers and scientists.

The main focus of this report is to describe the economic appraisal techniques applied to the RCFMS. The majority of the discussions on policies and procedures are specific to England. An overview of the differing funding processes and procedures in the rest of the UK (Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) is provided in Appendix A. In addition, this report presents the following information: (1)summary of the existing economic appraisal best practice; (2)economic appraisal techniques that were developed for the RCFMS; (3)opportunities for further development of these techniques; (4)the key economic opportunities and constraints to the implementation of flood management schemes in the Roach and Crouch Estuaries; (5)the potential estuary-wide economic, flood management and environmental losses and benefits of implementing low Defra Priority Score schemes at constrained estuary channel locations (i.e. pinch- points); (6)how the environmental element for the Defra Priority Score could be increased by improving the methodology for evaluating sites; and (7)how the findings of the PhDs may benefit the scheme implementation process.

In many European countries, the impact of new road and railroad infrastructure is assessed by performing a cost-benefit analysis, monetising as many relevant effects as possible. Considering that noise is a major external effect of traffic, this paper will systematically review the guidelines for monetising noise in different European countries. The study shows, firstly, that there are guidelines for monetising noise in most western and northern European countries and secondly, that not all noise effects are dealt with. Usually only annoyance in a residential context is included. Thirdly, the different prices being attached to noise in various countries are mainly due to different unit values applied to the same impacts. Fourthly, a gap has been shown to exist between the theoretical guidelines and their application in practice.

When making decisions on transport projects, decision makers ought to take into account most (if not all) of the possible consequences of the different possible alternatives. A common way of evaluating transport projects ex ante is by means of Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA). CBA allows for a clear comparison of different consequences, by describing all effects in monetary terms. In the case of long-term effects however, there are two aspects of CBA that do not allow for full consideration: CBAs are usually performed for the length of a few decades and secondly, discounting diminishes the value of long-term effects. As a consequence, long-term effects barely have an effect on the outcome of CBAs in terms of Net Present Value (NPV). This implies that if future generations will value these effects, their voice is not heard in current day choices. The findings of this study are therefor of interest to those who have chosen to represent the interests of future generations: either explicitly (e.g. politicians, civilians or interest groups stating the importance of the rights of future generations) or implicitly (scientists, policy makers or transport CBA practitioners). This thesis focuses on two specific long-term transport effects that are greatly influenced (in terms of quantities) by transport: the depletion of fossil fuel and CO2 emissions. In current Dutch transport CBA practice, the depletion of fossil fuels is completely ignored and, in terms of their long-term intergenerational consequences, CO2 emissions are not properly taken into account. Intergenerational effects being an element of the ethical theory of intergenerational justice, this leads to the first research question: Why are the long-term transport effects of fossil fuel depletion and CO2 emissions considered important from an ethical point of view? Ethical literature states that, by not taking full consideration of these two long-term effects, the current generation possible causes injustice towards future generations. When depleting resources or by causing climate change, current behavior narrows the opportunities of subsequent generations. By narrowing opportunities without creating possible compensation, the current generation causes distributive injustice. Justice being one of the first principles of morality, the long-term effects of fossil fuel depletion and CO2 emissions are not properly taken into account from an ethical point of view. This being a purely analytical argumentation as to why the effects should be taken into account, the next research question posed in this thesis is one of more practical sense: What is the perception of people on the long-term consequences of the depletion of fossil fuel and CO2 emissions? In order to find these perceptions, a so-called Q-analysis is performed. The analysis aims to find the common element in people their opinion on the matter of the long-term (intergenerational) effects of fossil fuel depletion and CO2 emissions. Three perceptions are retrieved, together explaining over half of the difference in people their opinions. The perception (or factor, as it is called) that explains most of the differences between people their viewpoints (i.e. variance) underlines the importance of considering the two long-term effects. The second factor however showed that although people care, they presume that the problems will be solved when they arise. A third factor shows ambiguity, possible being a flaw in the analysis or in the viewpoint of people. The analysis thereby provides reasons as to why (predominantly by means of factor 1) the long-term effects of fossil fuel depletion and CO2 emissions should be incorporated in ex ante transport project evaluations. The next research question answered, aims at the matter of how to incorporate the long-term effects of fossil fuel depletion and CO2 emissions in CBAs: How can the before mentioned long-term transport effects be incorporated into CBAs? Based on literature from the areas of transport, economics and ethics, methods to incorporate long-term effects in CBAs in general were retrieved. These methods are specified for the two specific effects (fossil fuel depletion and CO2 emissions) by asking five experts from the different areas for their opinion on the matter. Five methods are described in detail, which are considered serious possibilities to overcome the hampering effect of discounting on long-term effects: - Using a lower discount rate for the two long-term effects, combined with the use of an infinite time horizon for the project evaluation. - Instead of using one discount rate for the two long-term effects, the project length is divided in two periods: the first lasting several decades, the second starting at the end of the first and having an infinite length. The discount rate used for the two long-term effects is lowered in the second period. - Instead of a fixed discount rate, the rate used for the two effects declines from the start of the project to a set lowered value. - Combining the two previous methods into one leads to a two-step declining discount rate, for which in the first period the discount rate is fixed and declines in the second (again: only for the two long-term effects). - Countering the effect of discounting but not by means of the discount rate itself, this final method increases the value of the price tags of the two long-term effects. By countering the inability of CBA to consider long-term effects due to the current practice of discounting, these methods allow for a full consideration of the long-term intergenerational effects of fossil fuel depletion and CO2 emissions. Now that the how question is answered, the next research question aims at the consequences of implementing the long-term effects of fossil fuel depletion and CO2 emissions: What are the consequences when taking into account the afore mentioned long-term transport effects? By implementing the five methods into a fictitious CBA (based on the actual CBA performed for the extension of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol), quantitative outcomes are calculated. Although the impacts of the different methods differ, the overall conclusion is that, in terms of Net Present Value (NPV), taking the societal costs of fossil fuel depletion and CO2 emissions into account clearly influences the CBA outcome of a project. Sensitivity analyses show that input parameters do however have an important role in the overall outcome (especially for the price tags of the two effects), but the turning point of the CBA (where the NPV goes from positive to negative) is clearly influenced when incorporating the societal costs of both the depletion of fossil fuels and of CO2 emissions. Although having a significant effect on the outcome of the hypothetical CBA, there are several elements to this research that ought to be taken into consideration before the conclusions can be implemented in general practice. Three considerations are discussed, and areas for further research are mentioned: - The performed implementation methods require further attention. More methods ought to be tested in a more elaborated fashion, and some form of ranking should be applied in order to choose one specific method. - The performed analysis into the societal perceptions on the matter ought to be extended: the used statements have to be verified for their completeness and the respondent sample should be checked for representation of all possible viewpoints. - The reasoning behind the used price tags for the societal costs of fossil fuel depletion and CO2 emissions can be made more explicit, showing a more reasoned willingness-to-pay of the public. These recommendations for further research show several steps considered necessary before the conclusions drawn in this thesis can be extrapolated (by for instance transport policy makers) to general conclusions on the inclusion of long-term transport effects in CBAs. However, when these recommendations were to be performed, the conclusions (possibly: depending on the findings of to-be performed research) lead to possibilities to incorporate long-term transport effects in CBAs, providing a standard practice for dealing with long-term transport effects in CBAs.

Directive 2009/73/EC of the European Parliament and Council introduces the obligation for Member States to review the use of smart metering, whose implementation may be subject to the outcome of an economic evaluation of costs and benefits. Consequently in July 2010, by Order ITC 1890/2010, the CNE is responsible for conducting a study on the use of smart meters in the field of supply to domestic and commercial consumers of natural gas. The decision to implement gas smart meters needs to be based on a comprehensive economic analysis that reflects a balance between costs and benefits of all stakeholders in the gas supply chain to calculate whether their implementation is beneficial for the whole society. In order to know the effects resulting from the future implementation of smart meters in Spain, a study was conducted using the cost benefit methodology suggested by EUROGAS. This methodology compares the marginal costs and benefits from the project of smart meters for gas. To carry out this study an investigation of the current state of Spanish metering equipment and current technologies for gas smart metering has been done. Benchmarking have also being conducted from studies in France, UK and a study commissioned by NARUC / ERRA for the Licensing Committee / ERRA competition. Research shows that the status of smart metering technology is still immature and the behaviour of consumers has not been studied deeply. But measures such as awareness campaigns on issues of energy efficiency and use of new technologies to achieve the same appear to be a good support policy. The result of the cost-benefit analysis is negative, in which case supports the no-go decision with the project. The benefits are mainly for distributors. For consumers the benefit is less and is directly related to changes in their behaviour with respect to gas consumption. However, it is considered that the implementation of smart meters will be carried out independently by the distributors, due to the benefits it brings like improvements in the gas network management. This can happen now or in later stages as a result of advancing technology. It is therefore important that the regulator is aware of these developments, which also may be beneficial to them, and intervene to ensure competitiveness in retailers (interoperability), protect the rights of consumers, promote the participation of consumers and encourage distributors to innovate.

New railways? Extra roads? Pricing policies to reduce environmental harmful transport emissions? Politicians face tough choices. What are the costs of these proposals? Will the plan result in the expected impacts? What are the risks of a plan? Who wins, who loses? This thesis is about the Dutch practice of helping public decision-making by answering these kinds of questions. Four cases of policy-related ex ante evaluations are evaluated. Ex ante evaluation refers to forward-looking assessment of the likely future effects of new policies of proposals. The four cases in this thesis show the importance of being clear about choices, assumptions and uncertainties. Without clarity, ex ante evaluations will become unused "black boxes", or they may lead to wrong policy decisions. The cases show a different approach of dealing with future uncertainty. The Dutch government has stated the importance of testing policies and investment plans in different possible futures. Testing evaluates the future robustness of the impacts of a plan, giving policy-makers insight into the uncertainty related to ex ante estimates, instead of giving a false feeling of certainty as may have happened in two of the four cases, in which only one future was used.

This paper aims to discuss a number of questions that are highly important for the ex ante evaluation of the safety impacts of transport policy options, from the perspective of ethical theory: (1) Is it morally OK to express prevention on acceptance of fatalities or risks in monetary terms? (2) How useful is the concept of the value of a statistical life (VOSL) for ex ante evaluations of transport policy options? (3) What are the pros and cons of pricing protection of lives or prevention of risks in ex ante evaluations? (4) Which methods are available for expressing (protection of) human lives in monetary terms, and what are the main related methodological discussions? (5) Are all safety-related costs generally included in ex ante evaluations of the safety impacts of transport policy options, and if not: what is the relevance of excluded costs categories from an ethical perspective? (6) How important is the distribution of safety effects from an ethical perspective? The answer to the first question highly depends on the ethical theory that is used. With respect to question 2 we think that the VOSL is a useful concept, but that its application is not straightforward, for several reasons. Thirdly we think that probably pricing safety improves the quality of decision making, but to the best of our knowledge there is no research to underpin this expectation. The answer to question 4 is that several methods exist to estimate the value of a statistical life (VOSL), willingness-to-pay (WTP) methods being the most common category of methods. However, several methodological issues arise that make estimates of VOSL less straightforward. With respect to question 5 we conclude that behaviour-related avoidance costs are often overlooked and that these costs are relevant from an ethical perspective because the freedom to move and the freedom to participate in activities are challenged. Finally the answer to question 6 is that from an ethical perspective, in terms of the evaluation of policy measures, it might matter which groups of the population are the victims of the transport system, or are at risk.

The Sustainable Highway, consisting of a transparent canopy of cold bendable laminated glass, is a potential solution to negative effects of road traffic. It can be placed over the highway and uses several sub-systems to reduce noise nuisance, local air pollution as well as the emission of CO2. As a consequence of this reduction, spatial development in general and more specifically the construction of houses becomes possible alongside the highway, where this previously was prohibited by environmental regulations. This research project has investigated the technological and socio-economical feasibility of the concept in addition to possible implementation strategies by answering the following research question: To what extent can the concept of The Sustainable Highway provide a technologically and socio-economically feasible solution to the negative side effects of road traffic and how could The Sustainable Highway be successfully implemented given the institutional context? From a technological perspective, The Sustainable Highway is a feasible concept. Technological systems which are applied in the concept are to a large extent proven and an independent second opinion endorses the advantages which Movares claims to offer with this concept. Although several technological uncertainties remain, on the whole the concept provides a technologically feasible alternative to common practices such as a noise barriers or a tunnel. The socio-economic feasibility of the concept depends on the location in which it will be realised. The possibility for spatial development and the revenues from building land form a large component of the benefits the concept can achieve. Therefore, when The Sustainable Highway is realised on a highway running through a densely populated urban area, where local residents experience severe hindrance from noise and air pollution and where building land can be developed in the area, it is a socio economically feasible alternative. From an institutional perspective, there has to be a window of opportunity in order to successfully introduce the concept, and the institutional context should not pose additional limitations to the concept. Gaining the support of local parties and forming a consortium of private parties which is able to realise The Sustainable Highway are the first steps towards implementing the concept into its institutional context.

The RetBus project is a plan of the City Council of Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) and the transit operator TMB aimed at improving the public transport service in the city. The project involves building a new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system called RetBus as well as eliminating or modifying some existing bus lines. The main design objective of the RetBus project is to provide a higher quality bus service to transit users at a lower cost for the operator. TMB and the City Council of Barcelona need to make a decision on whether or not to implement the RetBus project. They would like to make that decision based on the social value and the financial profitability of the project. The thesis contains a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of the RetBus project. Two types of CBA have been carried out: financial cost-benefit analysis (FCBA) and social cost-benefit analysis (SCBA). Based on the results of the FCBA and the SCBA, the thesis also presents some recommendations on what type of changes could be made to the project in order to make it more socially beneficial and/or financially profitable. Two project alternatives have been evaluated. Alternative 1 (TMB plan) corresponds to the RetBus project as it would be implemented according to the plans of TMB: the BRT system is implemented and some changes are made in the bus network in terms of routes and service frequencies. Alternative 2 (Cost-reduction plan) contains all the elements of Alternative 1 plus additional changes to the bus network (21 extra bus lines are eliminated). The project effects included in the CBA are: BRT investment costs, change in fleet replacement costs, change in operating costs, change in operating revenues, transit user benefits, safety effects and environmental effects. Travel demand forecasts are necessary to estimate some of the project effects mentioned above. Those forecasts have been produced by means of a model based on the traditional four-stage transport model. First, a growth factor model has been used to forecast future total trip demand by updating a base year matrix. Second, a multinomial logit mode choice model has been used to perform modal split. Finally, two different models have been used to assign transit and private vehicle travellers to the transit and road networks. The assignment of transit trips is based on a multinomial logit model, while private vehicle trips have been assigned by means of a deterministic user equilibrium (DUE) model. The main conclusions are the following: a) both project alternatives are socially beneficial, although Alternative 2 (Cost-reduction plan) is more beneficial than Alternative 1 (TMB plan); b) Alternative 2 is profitable from a financial perspective, while Alternative 1 is not profitable, the main reason being that operating costs are considerably lower in Alternative 2, while levels of transit ridership and operating revenues are similar in both alternatives, c) the social value of both project alternatives could be improved by increasing the operational speed of the BRT system and/or by speeding up the implementation of the project; d) the financial profitability of both project alternatives could be improved by increasing the operational speed of the RetBus system and/or by raising transit fares. The thesis gives the following recommendations to TMB and the City Council: 1) implement the BRT system; 2) redesign the bus network in order to save operating costs and make it more complementary to the other public transport networks in Barcelona; 3) implement infrastructure measures, traffic management measures or other types of measures aimed at increasing the operational speed of the BRT system; 4) consider the possibility of speeding up the completion of the RetBus project, but study carefully its implications for all parties involved; 5) consider the possibility of increasing transit fares as a means to enhance the financial performance of the RetBus project, but study carefully its implications for all parties involved, since raising fares would reduce the social value of the project.

Introduction The popularity of monitoring dikes with sensor techniques is rising. It is claimed that sensor techniques lead to significant cost savings and can predict an upcoming dike collapse. But a technical foundation to use the sensor monitoring information in flood safety assessment is lacking. This research investigates the contribution of sensor monitoring information to flood safety and the cost-effectiveness of sensor monitoring. Sensor techniques have been tested in full-scale dike failure experiments at the IJkdijk, trying to predict an upcoming dike collapse. The sensor techniques are capable of monitoring deformation, temperature, water pressure, vibrations and moisture. The state of the sensor techniques is doubtful due to subjective analyses, controlled test conditions and a wide variety in failure prediction times: from 1,5 to 102 hours. Implementation of sensor information Water pressure is the only variable that constitutes an input for dike safety assessment models. Monitoring water pressures affects the epistemic uncertainty of the water pressure schematization which is caused by the translation from the hydraulic load to water pressures. One must be aware that sensor monitoring either leads to an increased assessment of flood safety if the prior schematization turns out to be done conservatively or a decrease in flood safety if the prior schematization turns out too optimistic. One would expect an increased assessed flood safety due the intended conservative approach. But prior schematization mistakes imply a decreased assessed flood safety. Moreover, monitoring water pressures has minimum impact on the flood safety assessment if other uncertainty aspects dominate the stability assessment. A case study of the canal of Nauerna denotes that the water pressure has resulted in a higher assessed flood safety, but the uncertainties regarding the soil conditions dominate the stability assessment. However, sensor monitoring on itself does not affect the real flood safety: only physical measures affect the real risk of flooding. Important information is obtained from monitoring high water events such that water pressure models can be calibrated to determine design loading conditions for the periodic safety assessment. Also, an additional application is to identify unforeseen risks. Cost-benefit analysis Conceptual cost-benefit models have been set up to determine the cost-effectiveness of sensor monitoring over the long-term. The monitoring costs consist of installation, maintenance and operational costs. The benefit from permanent dike reinforcements is gained from specifying the long-term optimal investment strategy based on the minimum sum of flood risk and reinforcements costs. The monitoring information from relevant high water events affects the assessed flooding probability. If the sensor monitoring reduces the assessed flooding probability, the assessed flood risk lowers and savings on permanent dike reinforcements. If a higher flooding probability is obtained by sensor monitoring, this financially leads to additional investments and negative benefits. But the value of knowing this higher flood risk is rationally beneficial. The benefit from temporary measures is gained from timely execution of emergency measures based on the early warning of the sensor system. This benefit depends on the prediction time of the sensor monitoring system and the reaction time to execute the emergency measure. Additional costs for executing the emergency measure must be incorporated. The cost-benefit models have been worked out in case studies for dike-ring 48 and 14. Conclusion The conclusion of this research is that sensor monitoring can be implemented in the flood safety, by specifying dike reinforcements in both the periodic safety assessment, as well as the operational situation. However, the investments in sensor monitoring have to be made while a long waiting time is expected before benefits turn out. Then these benefits can financially be disappointing, but do have a certain value of information.

From economic perspective, standards provide information (e.g. increasing market transparency and reducing transaction costs), foster compatibility (e.g. positive network externalities and increased competition) and reduce variety (facilitating economies of scale and building a critical mass). There are growing debates about whether using open standards in public sector will or will not bring the potential benefits as indicated in qualitative literature, while a common methodology for quantification of benefits of standards is not readily available. This paper will explore the possibility to adopt methodologies used in other field in the context of public IT procurement. We outline our main question as following: What methodologies are used to assess the benefit of open standards at micro-level and macro-level, and to what extent can these methodologies be applied in the context of public IT procurement? This report describes three methodologies: ISO Methodology, econometric modeling, and Cost-Benefit Analysis, for economic impact assessment of standards and gives numerous examples of their application. ISO Methodology ISO Methodology is developed to ex-post evaluate the micro impacts of application of open standards in private sector from organizational perspective. Overview of the pilot cases found main impacts for most companies are reduced transaction cost due to easy access to information, and economies of scale due to reduced number of suppliers/ raw material/ mass productions. From the analysis of ISO Methodology and cases, we can say that ISO Methodology indeed provides a set of methods to measure the impacts on organizational value creation; however it has limitations including difficulty to isolate the impacts of standards to other factors and to estimate accurately, which are inherent problem in quantification of impacts. Econometric Modeling Econometric modeling uses statistical methods to empirically test the relationship between macro economic performance, e.g. economic growth and trade, and stock of standards. Studies have found that standards have a positive influence on economic growth; international standards often have a positive relationship to exports and imports; and there is no single answer to relationship between national standards and trade. However, there are limitations conducting the econometric modeling to test the standards’ impact on macro performance. Firstly, patents and standards could turn out to be highly co-linear, which lead to the elasticity estimates of standards be the upper bound on the estimated contribution of standards to the growth. Econometric modeling does not present us a detailed picture of how standards impact on the macro economic performance; and thirdly the number of standards is taken as a legitimate proxy for the quality of standards without considering the importance and functionality of different standards. Cost-Benefit Analysis Cost-Benefit Analysis is initially developed to evaluate the social effects of infrastructure projects. Cost-Benefit Analysis is ‘social’ in nature and includes all types of effects. CBA is mostly used as ex-ante evaluation. The three standard implementation cases studied show that the most quantitative benefit is improved efficiency; some social impacts are not quantified, such as the main goals of implementation of open standards, i.e. to increase interoperability and reduce the supplier-dependence. Additional research presents us a classification of types of consumer switching cost in the IT field and a simple way to estimate the switching cost just using price and market share, which make it possible to investigate the switching costs as indication of vendor lock-in. Redundant transaction costs could be measured as an indication for imperfect interoperability. Ex ante CBA is always disputable. Firstly, it lies in the difficulties to measure the societal impacts, e.g. put price tag to put price tag to non-price effects and leave qualitative effects aside. This requires careful interpretation of result when benefits are not easily quantifiable in monetary terms. Secondly, as in ex ante CBA, results depend largely on assumption made about the future trend, which is highly complicated and subjectively. Thirdly, it arises from the evaluation process being as a ‘black box’, leaving room for strategic manipulations. Comparative overview Comparison of the three methodologies gives a picture of complementarity. The focus level is complementary. Econometric modeling focuses on macro-level, ISO Methodology studies in micro-level; CBA includes both the micro and/or macro-level. Secondly, the three methodologies together cover both private and public sector. Thirdly, the three methodologies measure the benefits of applying standards at different time points. Moreover, the three methodologies are complementary because they measure different dimensions of benefits of standards. By comparing all quantified benefits to potential benefits indicated in literature, we can find that to date the most observed and recognized benefits of using standards in monetary value are reduction of transaction cost and economies of scale. In addition, switching cost can be measured as indication of magnitude of vendor lock-in; redundant transaction costs can be measure as an indication for imperfect interoperability. For perception of stakeholders, such as trust due to improved quality, environment and policy compliance, it is hard to be quantified to monetary value. The three methodologies suffer from some limitations. For example, it is hard to isolate impacts of standards from other factors; and each methodology can only address part of the effects of standards. Moreover, there are also estimation errors. Partially the limitation is caused by cognitive limitations of analysts; partially it is caused by explicitly or implicitly strategic manipulation and misinterpretation, which should be avoided at best. The three methodologies are complementary and they together cover all fields. Theoretically, the combination of the three methodologies could assess benefits of standards in any field. Depending on the scope of the problem, the author of the study can choose a suitable methodology or combined methodologies to conduct in its specific context. Although certain benefits of standards are not easily quantifiable, the three methodologies provide ways to quantify the benefits of using standards in a systematic way. Qualitative methodologies, such as Multi-Criteria Analysis and Value Measuring Methodology, are able to compare all possible effects of projects, which is helpful to get the perception of stakeholders on different alternatives and support the political decision making. But qualitative methodologies bring more political controversial, as MCA and VMM depends on political weights on criteria. In summary, to choose which methodology depends on the aim and scope of the problem, keep in mind that each methodology has its limitations. Recommendation Firstly, current assessment reports have not quantified the most important objectives of using open standards in public sector, such as increased interoperability and vendor independence. Further studies should include quantification of these effects. These cases should try to quantify all impacts, or as many effects as possible, to give an actual picture on whether there are substantial savings due to increased using of open standards in public sector. More complete cases on value of standards implementation should be done. As studies accumulates, it is suggested to reach a standardized guideline including a list of impacts of standards and possible techniques to measure certain impacts. Secondly, to make it clear the position of quantification methodologies in the decision making process. Incomplete and inaccurate results could be interpreted in different ways. Moreover, in order to ensure the process of quantification be transparent (to make the assumptions and the estimation clear), peer review are needed.

Following the industrial revolution started circa 1750, global energy consumption and, consequently, CO2 emissions have been rapidly increasing. The amount of CO2 rose from 280 ppm in 1750 to 388 ppm in 2010. This increasing amount of GHGs gases, specifically CO2, is the underlying cause of global warming. According to the IPCC report, with the current rate of emissions, the average global temperature would increase by between 1.9 to 5.4 oC by the end of the 21st century. There is a consensus that the current growth rate of energy consumption and CO2 emissions cannot endure in the future if the disastrous global warming is to be prevented. It has been predicted that global energy consumption will be doubled by the year 2050 if the present trend continues. Thus, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in line with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in order to take measures for reduction and stabilization of GHG gasses. The most important measure for mitigation of CO2 is implementation of sustainable energy generation, which requires major large-scale changes in our energy infrastructure. In other words, it is until recently that climate change and sustainable development started to become points of concern in the energy-oriented fields. These issues bring many controversies and discussions among politicians, scientist and the public. There is a myriad of different approaches on how to preempt the climate change and leap towards a more sustainable world. Carbon capture and storage technology is one of the alternatives which can be used as a measure to this end. However, CCS is considered as a medium-run “bridging” option for the reduction of CO2, given the still high cost of renewable energy in combination with deceptively sufficient amounts of fossil fuel. Moreover, CCS is one of the most controversial topics in the field of sustainable development with a rich vein of oppositions. The main objective of this research is to investigate the cost effectiveness and benefit of carbon capture and storage technology. Cost – benefit analysis is a tool which the author deploys to assess CCS. The case study of this research is the Netherlands. The calculations are based on the costs for CCS with a special focus on its technological improvements mainly derived from Dutch context. The main research question for this study is: What is the importance of CCS for the mitigation of the greenhouse gas, and consequently climate change from technical and economic point of view? In order to answer that question, the above is decomposed to the following sub-questions: • What is the current local (i.e. the Netherlands) and global state of Carbon Capture and Storage technology? • What is the current and future state of CCS in the Netherlands? • What are the costs of CCS per each stage and in total? • What is the benefit of carbon capture and storage? • Is implementation of CCS profitable? The Netherlands has substantial fossil fuels resources, mainly natural gas. Hence, the Netherlands and Norway, which is another important fossil fuel producer, have an inclination to play important roles in deployment and development of CCS in the Europe. There are many stakeholders in diverse fields which are involved in this technology in the Netherlands. Indeed, there are notable national and international projects such as CATO2 that are aimed to develop CCS technologically and economically. Moreover, the Netherlands has a good potential for implementation of CCS with regards to the transportation and storage. Due to the existence of gas network and several depleted hydrocarbon fields, mainly in northern areas, for CO2 storage in the Netherlands, there are good infrastructures for captured CO2. In this study, I lay emphasis on two major types of power plants: Existing PC power plants and New IGCC power plants; since they are more applicable for the Netherlands. In addition, using results of other studies, different ranges of costs (low, medium and maximum) for both cases are estimated. The challenging part of this study is choosing the benefit for the implementation of carbon capture and storage. Since this technology has not run on a large scale yet, it is not easy to talk about its economic benefits. After substantial investigations and discussions with experts, I concluded to consider social cost of carbon as a benefit of CCS. Afterwards, to enhance the precision of the analysis it was very important to choose proper figures for SCC so that a wider range of studies are covered. I selected four studies among several ones. With regards to four diverse SCC from different studies, with varying assumed discount rates, I perform the cost-benefit analysis for low, medium and high costs of CCS. This analysis leads to 12 sets of scenarios for existing and new power plants. In case of existing power plants, the results shows that with consideration of very low social cost of carbon, CCS implementation will not be beneficial at all even with the minimum cost of CCS. Conversely, according to high social cost of carbon, CCS implementation is notably beneficial even base on the maximum cost of CCS. The story is the same for new IGCC power plants but the benefits base on high social cost of carbon is significant. Moreover, except the analysis based on the lowest social cost of carbon, in most of the scenarios based on other three studies, implementation of carbon capture and storage system would be beneficial economically with regards to climate change. However, it is important to add that there are many studies on SCC base on different discount rates but I tried to choose maximum and minimum figures among the recent studies which are carried out from mid 90s forward. In addition, in this cost-benefit analysis I just considered social cost of carbon as a benefit of carbon capture and storage. Whereas, definitely, there are other benefits in implementation of CCS in terms of economic. This rings true that in the future by decreasing the cost of CCS due to technological development in line with recognition of other benefits of CCS, this technology would be more beneficial and feasible to implement as a measure for hindrance of diverse effect of climate change. Finally, in the future studies it will be needed to cover more elements than SCC in order to perform a more precise analysis. This needs substantial time, budget and a team of researchers. In addition, due to more or less unknown benefit of CCS, recent studies are vastly qualitative rather than quantitative. The lack of further quantitative studies is more palpable since their inherent objectiveness appeals more to policy makers and authorities.