Modelling Uncertainties in Assessing Waste Gasification Technology

The inability of existing process design and life-cycle analysis (LCA) methods to account for variability and uncertainty may contribute to misleading estimates of pollution prevention, performance, and cost of potentially promising new environmentally conscious technologies. The objectives of this research are to develop a novel assessment methodology for evaluation of the risks and potential pay-offs of new technologies that avoid pollutant production; and demonstrate the methodology via case study of solid waste gasification technology. A methodology for simultaneous characterization of both variability and uncertainty based upon previous work in emissions estimation, exposure assessment, and risk assessment is developed. To represent uncertainties in any process technology, a probabilistic modeling is applied to the case of solid waste gasification