Capacity commitment and price volatility in a competitive electricity market

The long lead time required to add new capacity in the electricity generation industry means that daily demands are necessarily served by capacity already installed. However, in a competitive market, even if the installed capacity was designed to serve the projected demands, frequent surpluses and occasional full utilization inevitably lead to price volatility. This paper develops a two-stage model of the generation market in which capacity construction occurs in stage 1, before demand realization, and price determination occurs in stage 2, when the equilibrium price ensures that the realized demand does not exceed the installed capacity. We show that price volatility and price spikes are inevitable, and that while price capping can mitigate high and volatile prices, it causes unmet demands and reduction in system reliability. This paper accentuates the interdependence among generating capacity, price volatility and service reliability, a primary cause of concern in the debate on electricity market reform.     

宝钢烧结用煤的理化性能测定及评述

对宝钢以煤代焦烧结可使用的四种固体燃料：太西煤、宝桥煤、大安山煤及焦粉的理化性能,如挥发性、着火点、反应性及干馏速度进行了测定和比较。为该厂更合理地选择燃料,提高烧结效果提供了依据,并为以煤代焦烧结研究的后续试验奠定了基础。     

N,N-二乙基乙醇胺对水-醋酸体系相对挥发度的影响

以N,N-二乙基乙醇胺作萃取精馏溶剂,研究了溶剂的加入对水-醋酸相对挥发度的影响,试验结果表明该溶剂的加入明显提高了水对醋酸的相对挥发度。运用红外光谱分析了N,N-二乙基乙醇胺与醋酸的作用机理,该溶剂与醋酸形成了离子型络合物。     

Phosphorus volatility of engine oils: Use of the phosphorus emission index

The concept and principles of the phosphorus emission index (PEI) were introduced during 2002. This paper reviews the background of the benefits and concerns regarding phosphorus additives. In particular, the paper focuses on the two factors until recently assumed important in phosphorus volatility and catalyst contamination: oil volatility and initial phosphorus concentration. Studies of Selby—Noack data on 1300 oils collected in 1999 and 2000 by the Institute of Materials showed the invalidity of the two assumptions and this led to the concept of the PEl. Further studies in conjunction with a field taxi study by the Ford Motor Company to determine the correlation of the PEl with catalyst contamination not only showed correlation, but also proved that phosphorus volatility was independent of either oil volatility or fresh oil phosphorus levels. Rather, phosphorus volatility was, as earlier predicted, found to be highly dependent on its chemistry and the chemistry of other additives. Engine oil formulation using the PEl technique should markedly reduce phosphorus volatility and resultant catalyst contamination.     

加盐萃取精馏分离醋酸甲酯-甲醇二元恒沸物

用改进的O thm er汽液平衡釜测定了0.101 3M Pa下醋酸甲酯-甲醇体系在萃取剂和盐存在下的相对挥发度,测定了全浓度范围的汽液平衡数据,并进行了加盐萃取精馏工艺的实验。结果表明,水作为萃取剂,加入醋酸钾,可提高醋酸甲酯-甲醇体系的相对挥发度,加盐萃取精馏比普通的萃取精馏有优势,当溶剂体积比为1∶1时,萃取精馏塔塔顶采出的醋酸甲酯的质量分数可达到99%以上,萃取剂回收率达98%,盐可以全部回收。     

Incorporating the value of changes in price volatility into cost-benefit analysis—an application to oil prices in the transport sector

This paper contains a tentative suggestion of how to take into account the value of changes in price volatility in real world cost-benefit analyses. Price volatility is an important aspect of security of supply which first of all concerns physical availability, but assuming that consumers are risk averse, security of supply can also be viewed as a matter of avoiding oscillations in consumption originating from volatile prices of for instance oil. When the government makes transport-related choices on behalf of the consumers, the effect on oscillations in general consumption should be included in the policy assessment taking into account the most significant correlations between prices of alternative fuels and between fuel prices and consumption in general. In the present paper, a method of valuing changes in price volatility based on portfolio theory is applied to some very simple transport-related examples. They indicate that including the value of changes in price volatility often makes very little difference to the results of cost-benefit analyses, but more work has to be done on quantifying, among other things, consumers’ risk aversion and the background standard deviation in total consumption before firm conclusions can be drawn.     

Initial column profile with composition-dependent relative volatility

When solving the large scale, highly nonlinear, equation systems of steady state multistage distillation processes modelled with theoretical plates, convergence depends on the initial values. The conventionally applied linear initial profiles frequently give rise to divergence when azeotrope is present. The usual practice in such cases is initializing with engineering insight, i.e. anticipating the results. Composition-dependent relative volatility model is developed in the present work, and applied successfully to initialize the composition profiles of distillation columns. The model describes the implicit temperature dependence through composition dependence. Equlibrium plots computed with the new model well approximate the measured data of strongly non-ideal, and even azeotropic, mixtures. The initial column profiles computed with the new model are rather similar to the final solution, and thus accelerate the computation. Processes can be modelled with the new initial profile when the solution algorithms do not converge with the conventional initialization.     

Influence of solvent characteristics in triaxial electrospun fiber formation

Triaxial electrospinning is a novel method for fabrication of multilayered nano and microsize fibers with desirable features for particular applications. Since the effect of solvent volatilities in each layer and relative polymer molecular weights on uniform encapsulation of the core polymer process is not well understood, we evaluated (i) the role of solvent volatilities, and (ii) molecular weights using cellulose acetate (CA, 30 kDa), polycaprolactone (PCL, 45 kDa and 80 kDa), mineral oil, and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA, 30 kDa and 100 kDa). Different solvent mixtures were evaluated based on the boiling points determined using a simulator. Inner mineral oil was selectively removed to form Hollow fibers. Analysis of chemical compositions using FT-IR and DSC revealed the presence of each component. 24-h viability of human umbilical vein endothelial cells indicated the formed fibers were not toxic. Scanning electron micrographs indicated the formation of triaxial structured fiber of outer hydrophobic PCL/CA/Hollow, PCL/PVA/Hollow and outer hydrophilic CA/PCL/Hollow fibers. Tensile tests (both wet and dry) revealed that PCL/CA/Hollow fibers had increased stiffness and load carrying capacity than CA/PCL/Hollow fibers. Successful fiber formation was dependent on ensuring that the outer shell formed first i.e., the relative solvent volatility of encapsulating core polymer to lower than that of the shell polymer.     

Application of headspace analysis to the study of aroma compounds-lipids interactions

Taking into account interactions between aroma compounds and food components is necessary to better manage the flavoring of food products. These interactions occur at a molecular level and reflect changes, at a macroscopic level, in thermodynamic equilibria, such as solubility or volatility. The rate of transfer of an aroma compound from the liquid to the vapor phase can be affected as well. The behavior of aroma compounds in water and lipid solutions was studied in two complementary ways, a thermodynamic and a kinetic approach (head-space analysis). The transfer rate of volatiles at the liquid-water interface does not only depend on the hydrophobicity of the aroma compounds. Vapor-liquid partition and activity coefficients show the presence of solute-solvent interactions. The Gibbs free energy values indicate their physicochemical nature.     

Analytic Convergence Rates and Parameterization Issues for the Gibbs Sampler Applied to State Space Models

In this paper we obtain a closed form expression for the convergence rate of the Gibbs sampler applied to the unobserved states of a first-order autoregression plus noise model. The rate is expressed in terms of the parameters of the model, which are regarded as fixed. For the case where the unconditional mean of the states is a parameter of interest we provide evidence that a 'centred' parameterization of a state space model is preferable for the performance of the Gibbs sampler. These two results provide guidance when the Gaussianity or linearity of the state space form is lost. We illustrate this by examining the performance of a Markov chain Monte Carlo sampler for the stochastic volatility model.