Article III. Impacts of alternative nutrient abatement policies on utilities supplying water and abating nutrients
4 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Eutrophication causes changes in ecosystems, affects the usability of waters and influences the economy. To combat eutrophication in the Baltic Sea, nitrogen and phosphorus loads must be reduced. One of the main sources of nitrogen and phosphorus loads is WWTPs. The objective of this dissertation was to determine the physical potential of reducing nitrogen and phosphorus loads in WWTPs in the Baltic Sea littoral countries and to assess nitrogen and phosphorus abatement costs and build abatement cost functions for WWTPs.
Moreover, the objective was to find a cost-effective solution for reducing nitrogen and phosphorus loads in WWTPs in the Baltic Sea littoral countries.
Furthermore, how the costs are divided among the WWTPs and how the initial allocation of allowances impacts market and costs were assessed. Finally, the objective was to determine how nutrient tax and quantity constraint affect the behaviors of water utilities and thus households.
It is shown in this dissertation that there is a large reduction potential for nutrients in WWTPs in the Baltic Sea littoral countries. Additionally, the abatement costs are relatively low but unevenly distributed among the countries. The analyses show that the nutrient abatement costs are lower in WWTPs than has been reported in most of the previous studies, including those of the COWI (2007), Gren (2008a; 2008b), Hasler et al. (2012), Ahlvik et al. (2014), Wulff et al. (2014). Another finding is that phosphorus abatement costs are much lower for WWTPs than for agriculture (see Ollikainen et al.
2012).
In this dissertation, it is demonstrated that a cost-efficient solution under an NTS can even out the cost burden between WWTPs if designed properly.
Initial allocation can alleviate but not entirely eliminate the uneven distribution of costs between WWTPs. Comparing the abatement costs of the NTS and the uniform quantity constraint shows that the higher the aggregate abatement level in the whole region is, the closer the abatement costs are.
Moreover, taking transaction costs into account, the NTS would still yield lower abatement costs than the uniform quantity constraint approach.
Although the difference in the costs between these approaches is small, there is another advantage of the NTS. The timing of the investments can be optimized under the NTS, while under the uniform quantity constraint the installations are forced to invest immediately in abatement. This feature has also been found in practice (see Downing and White 1986; Milliman and Prince 1989; EPA 2008). Overall, 40% of the BSAP nitrogen reduction target and 20% of the BSAP phosphorus reduction target could be cost-efficiently achieved with an NTS between WWTPs.
It is shown in this dissertation that environmental policies aimed at nutrient reductions may decrease the price of potable water, and the wastewater tariff will correspondingly increase. Nevertheless, the aggregate
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charge to households increases. Environmental policy may also unevenly treat individual water utilities and the households connected to them. Small utilities face higher costs from nutrient reduction policies than do large utilities, which in turn affects the prices households face. To distribute the burden evenly, small water utilities could be compensated to enable prices closer to those of households connected to large utilities. This could be done, for example, by nutrient trading or by side payments collected from nutrient taxes. Although water utilities charge separately for potable water and wastewater, the latter is also based on the consumption of potable water. While measuring the amount of wastewater generated in households, not to speak of its content, would be expensive, the water utilities currently charge for something they do not meter.
Reducing eutrophication in the Baltic Sea requires nutrient reductions from other sources, such as agriculture, and to intervene in the internal nutrient cycle. The means to tackle this issue include not only economic instruments but also innovations in technologies such as extracting phosphorus from wastewater for new products or using abatement process and sludge to produce energy (Ollikainen et al. 2019). The results shown in this dissertation should encourage decision makers to invest in WWTPs, as substantial nutrient reductions could be achieved without spending a large amount of money.
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