Deposits and repositories: Electricity wastes in the UK and West Germany
Abstract Nuclear power and coal, the most important present alternatives for electricity generation, have a wide range of environmental impacts. This paper examines policies for radwastes and acid rain abatement in the UK and West Germany, seeking to explain differences in approach in the two countries and the extent of interactions between the two issues. While many of the national differences can be traced to historical and cultural factors, political structures and institutional arrangements in the UK and Germany have been important in determining responses to environmental pressures within the context of wider energy policy objectives.
Sectoral dimensions of sustainable development: Energy and transport
inexorably linked to fossil energy consumption, and that individually selfish countries see little benefit in reducing fossil energy intensity. Economic pessimists are prepared to accept that pollution could be reduced by intelligent tax policies, but that governments invariably choose very much less efficient policies that are likely to cost considerably more than the benefits. Thus Nordhaus and Boyer (1999) argue that the costs of the Kyoto Protocol are seven times the benefits, and almost eight times as high as a cost-effective strategy. The high and unjustified level of cost in turn will lead to the policies being abandoned, rather than being replaced by more efficient alternatives. Optimists take up from where the pessimistic economists leave off. They accept that policies are frequently poorly designed, but take encouragement from a number of positive trends. They accept that tax or price-guided solutions to addressing the external costs of environmental pollution are normally superior to quantity controls or standards, and that policy makers have a preference for controls and standards. They note that predictions of the costs of imposing standards often turn out to be too high, as unforeseen innovations allow these standards to be met at modest and acceptable cost. Faced with a challenging quantitative target, rather than a tax that can be passed on to final consumers, technologists redirect and concentrate their creative efforts to deliver surprising improvements, while managers make cost-effective investments or change production practices. A second defence of a more optimistic assessment is that where current solutions appear inefficient and poorly directed, there is an incentive first to improve the estimates of costs and benefits, and then to encourage benefit-cost tests of proposed remedies. In the UK, measures to address emissions have shifted from a requirement to install BAT (best available technology) to
Rotating dialysis cell as in vitro release method for oily parenteral depot solutions.
The purpose of the study was to investigate an in vitro release method based on a rotating dialysis cell for parenteral oil depot formulations using different model conditions and test formulations. The total amount of drug released from the rotating dialysis cell was in accordance with the theoretical values calculated from the partition coefficients. The release rates were shown to depend on the total amount of drug available for the release process and to follow first order kinetics. The rotating dialysis cell has a potential as in vitro release method for characterization of oily depot formulations for parenteral administration.