Search

Byline: Hanne Vuorenmaa, Petri Helo This paper introduces a method for investment decision making in the supply chain environment. After introduction and overview of theories a case study analyses paper supply chain operations. As a result, this paper introduces a method for investment decision making in supply chain level. A method is validated with case of material-handling investment in paper supply chain. The promising results have been achieved. This paper proves that investment may be profitable in supply chain level even if it is not profitable for every individual organisation. Pilot case and the literature review show that over-organisational customer-focused investment calculation applications are needed.

Byline: Nina Davidsson, Bo Edvardsson, Anders Gustafsson, Lars Witell Many companies in the process industries are seeing the advantages of services but are struggling with the changes these require as regards the offering and the organisation. This paper presents an empirical investigation within the pulp and paper industry based on a survey of Swedish manufacturing firms and a multiple case study of three case companies and their customers. To investigate whether the manufacturers active in this industry are product-oriented or are becoming more service-oriented, five themes important to the companies under study are presented and discussed: that is, finding the right mix of physical products and services, the concept of service, business models, technology-based services and organising service delivery.

Byline: Gary Watkins, Mikko Makela, Olli Dahl A more holistic approach to the utilisation of process industry residues is a major theme of current research. The beneficial utilisation of industrial residues, as a logical step towards the goal of sustainability through sustainable development, is crystallised within the concept of industrial symbiosis (IS). The reduction of environmental impacts, including CO.SUB.2 emissions from industrial production by encouraging the utilisation of raw materials and process residues with smaller emission footprints is a current mitigation option. Through the lens of materials flow systems thinking provided by industrial symbiosis, we have arrived at fruitful research opportunities in steel, pulp and paper mill waste, by-product and residues' utilisation that can enhance the development of larger and more diverse industrial symbiosis systems. We present a literature review and rationale for the inter-industry utilisation of residues between the steel, pulp and paper sectors, proposing a spectrum of residue-based product concepts for further research.

Byline: Feng Yang, Yongjun Li, Liang Liang, Dexiang Wu There are a great number of DEA models proposed to deal with ecological efficiency problems with undesirable outputs. However, which model should be used in a specific scenario or how about the discriminability of a given DEA model is hard to decide in practice. This paper uses the ecological Shannon DEA procedure based upon the existing study to obtain an ecological comprehensive efficiency score for each decision units. The procedure is used to appraise the ecological evaluation to 32 paper mills along the Huai River in China. The results seem reasonable since they integrate the results of existing relevant DEA models, and calculate the importance degree of each model. The procedure can also be used to determine the pollutant emission quotas for those paper mills.

Byline: Rupesh Kumar Pati, Prem Vrat, Pradeep Kumar Strict environmental regulations and the ever-increasing shortages in the availability of natural resources are making reverse logistics an area of growing importance. From the manufacturer's point of view, this paper proposes a linear programming optimisation model for the Indian paper industry with two different sources of raw materials (i.e., wood and wastepaper). The objective of the model is to minimise the paper supply chain cost, which includes costs of collection, transportation, segregation and disposal (for recycled paper), inventory, and manufacturing. The inclusions of environmental cost and cost of quality added a new dimension to the said model, which was not explored earlier in the supply chain context. To know the behaviour of the system under different scenarios, sensitivity analysis, shortage analysis and finally, indifference curve analysis have been performed on the model. The model will help the manufacturer make strategic decision under different shortage scenarios of the paper supply chain.

Byline: Christian Nissing, Harro Von Blottnitz The City of Cape Town has recently drafted an energy strategy and an integrated waste management plan. The creative implementation of these strategies requires knowledge of potential sources of energy and flows of waste. Inventories of requisite data are sparse. Wood and paper are interesting cases in point, as they are significant contributors to waste and potential energy carriers. A better knowledge of all related flows is obtained by means of a Material Flow Analysis (MFA). Data have been gathered for the fuel wood sector, the manufacturing, construction and demolition sector, the pulp and paper market, the municipal solid waste sector and the wastewater sector. Analysis shows that ∼70% of the renewable energy target of the City (10% of energy demand to be covered by renewables by 2020) could be met via the redirection of woody material flows within the Cape Metropolitan Area and the utilisation of innovative transformation technology.

Byline: Mijin Park, Dongwoon Kim, Daeho Ko, I. Moon, Yeong-koo Yeo Considering only environmental impact or only profit is not enough to manage chemical processes. This study focuses on the optimal scheduling of cutting papers using the multiobjective optimisation programming. Two independent objective functions are introduced in this paper, the production cost and trim loss with the constraints of satisfying the customer orders. The Goal Constrained Programming (GCP) algorithm is created for the multiobjective optimisation with priority. The proposed algorithm takes the deviation for the weighting factor. The GCP provides various optimal schedule sets satisfying the economic and environmental requirements.

Byline: Zainuddin Abdul Manan, Yin Ling Tan, Dominic Chwan Yee Foo, Swee Yin Tea The Water Cascade Analysis (WCA) technique was used to identify opportunities for reduction in freshwater usage as well as wastewater generation and to assist in the retrofit of an existing paper mill water distribution network. This procedure involves three key steps; i.e., a global analysis of the present water distribution and consumption, setting the baseline minimum water targets using WCA technique and retrofit of water network to achieve the minimum water targets. Notwithstanding the extensive water recycling currently employed in the paper mill, this study identified a potential scope of reducing 13.3% freshwater and 13.3% wastewater. Water reduction represents a total potential annual savings of RM 595,232, taking into account the raw water and wastewater treatment costs, pumping and chemical costs.

Byline: Judith E. Parker Over the last ten years the 3M company has developed a program for the integration of technical development into the career of every technical employee. This program has made use of self-study courses using interactive video disk and computer-based training, as well as more conventional techniques. IVD and CBT have proved particularly suitable for employees with heavy travel schedules and those who dislike conventional classroom situations.

Byline: Janez Grum How to Write and Illustrate Scientific Papers, by Bjorn Gustavii. 2nd ed. Cambridge, etc., Cambridge University Press, 2008. 168pp. ISBN: 978-0521-46086-7 (Hardback), ISBN: 978-0521-71770-0 (Paperback)

Byline: A. Arivalagan, B. Sudhakar Organisations that improve 'value addition' by implementing several initiatives do not verify impact of these initiatives have on environment. The modern sustainability era, demands elimination of environmental impacts, i.e., a positive correlation is expected between value addition and environmental performance on long term basis. Many studies on Corporate Sustainability Management, based on the data at one point of time, did not examine above said relationship. This paper discusses the relationship between value addition and environmental sustainability using ten years data of an Indian Paper Mill. Analysis of the data reveals that there is a negative correlation between value addition and environmental sustainability over the ten-year period.

Byline: Tapio Katko, Antero Luonsi, Petri Juuti This paper discusses and analyses the evolution of the Finnish pulp and paper industries and their water pollution control strategies. The Finnish pulp and paper mills are mainly located along water courses in inland areas. The earliest documents on water pollution date back to the early 1900s. In spite of the remarkably good record during recent decades in water pollution control, it can be found among significant strategic decisions in only very few cases.

Byline: S.M. El Haggar, R.A. Baher Egypt is facing a major crisis due to the 1997's 40% increase in the price of imported newsprint. This price increase not only affected the press and publishers, but also placed a burden on the educational system, because most of the government textbooks depend on this type of imported paper. This crisis can be solved entirely by recycling waste paper and depending on recycled paper instead of imported paper. An experimental test facility for paper recycling was designed, manufactured and tested at the American University in Cairo (AUC). The system consists of a shredder, a beater to produce pulp, a flotation cell to remove the ink mechanically, a hand-sheet machine to produce test paper and a press/dryer to dry the paper. The paper produced was tested for physical (tear and tension) and optical (brightness and opacity) properties at different times and temperatures. The system proved to be very efficient.

Byline: Antonio Ballesteros, Marta Serrano, Milan Brumovsky Nuclear Knowledge Management (NKM) tools continue to be enhanced to support information exchange and knowledge distribution. New tools for supporting NKM were initiated by international organisations, including a web-based knowledge portal, ODIN, developed by the JRC of the European Commission. This portal is dedicated to knowledge preservation and consolidation and includes a nuclear database where papers on WWERs are collected and electronically stored. A collection of around 100 papers selected from the ODIN database on property-property correlations for irradiated reactor pressure vessel steels has been reviewed in order to have a clear picture of the advances achieved so far in this field, and to determine existing gaps and open issues. It allows identifying research activities needed, as described in this paper. The review performed focuses on two main areas, namely non-destructive examination of the embrittlement condition and fracture and Charpy toughness determination, including specimens size and constrain issues.

Byline: Pascale Champagne, Trisha Westman Pulp and paper biosolids from St. Marys Paper were land applied at a five receiving sites and the potential use of the biosolids as an organic amendment was investigated. Pore water analyses indicated that heavy metals were not detected nor significantly different from levels found in samples collected from adjacent undisturbed areas. Landfills previously covered with biosolids revealed that, like composting, natural decomposition in-situ lowered the biosolids C : N ratio yielding a stable organic medium. Hence, the study results indicated that to the biosolids could be stabilised to levels similar to that achieved via composting through prolonged exposure to natural conditions.

In a disease outbreak, medication must be rapidly yet safely distributed to a population. Are there significant differences in efficiency (time) and error rates in drug dissemination to a population using algorithm-driven paper and personal digital assistant (PDA) methodology? In this study, conducted at the University of Hawaii, mock citizens were sent through points of dispensing with volunteer clerks processing them during two sessions (alternating modes for Session 2). No significant differences were found in time or number of errors with PDA vs. paper. However, the mode and order of testing affected time. Clerks doing the paper method second were slower than those doing paper first (significant at p < 0.0001 level). The PDA was consistent in time whether clerks used it first or second. This may indicate the presence of a fatigue factor from using the paper method and may indicate that during an outbreak, when clerks are tired, using an algorithm-driven PDA may help sustain efficiency.

This paper is to correct a mistake in the authors' previous paper (Nakaoka et al., Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, 2008, 8(5), 270-275), which originated in the solution procedure of the population-balance (PB) equation.

Paper making Black Liquor (BL) difficult to treat. Acid-producing White Rot Fungus (AWRF) was used to regulate the pH and convert the lignin in paper making BL into forms more easier to degrade. Then the BL is put into further treatments of anaerobic hydrolysis, contact oxidation and internal electrolysis processes. Average removal rates of COD and colour are up to 98.04% and 97.68% respectively which have been obtained in case the inlet COD was 10,000 mg/L and colour was 6000 C[cedilla]U, at temperature 25~29[degrees]C and retention time 3 days, 4 hours, 24 hours and 30-40 min in sequence of a continuous operation for 20 days.

Despite the importance of the early design phase, designers still lack computer support in rapidly modelling their form concepts in Computer-Aided Design (CAD) systems due to the rigid User-Interface. Owing to its efficacy in instantly capturing ideas, traditional pen-and-paper sketching is still very popular amongst designers to record their concepts not only inside but also outside their office. This paper reports the ongoing research aimed at developing a portable, sketch-based tool allowing designers to obtain and share 3D CAD models on cameraphones directly from paper sketches. More specifically, the focus is on a prescribed sketching alphabet required to create a seamless link between sketching and CAD. Results of semi-structured interviews carried out with various design practitioners contribute important insights into the alphabet suitability. Further, the results and an implemented tool indicate that a sketching language based on this alphabet will be beneficial for designers, especially in a collaborative design environment.

Byline: Maryse M.H. Chappin, Marius T.H. Meeus, Marko P. Hekkert, Walter J.V. Vermeulen The relation between environmental policy and innovation is complex. This paper aims to gain insight into the way accumulation of policy measures, or in other words, the increase of policy pressure, affects research activities and eco-efficiency. Three environmental domains have been researched for the Dutch paper and board industry: wastewater, waste and energy. Three trends (19802003) are identified for these topics: (1) development of environmental policy; (2) number research projects started and (3) eco-efficiency. We argue that if existing solutions and knowledge are not sufficient to reach the objectives, research activities will take place before eco-efficiency is improved. Moreover, we argue that an increase in policy pressure can cause competition between policy instruments. This may result in a smoothed and delayed increase in research activities (if existing knowledge is insufficient) and eco-efficiency improvement. This delayed eco-efficiency improvement was observed for wastewater and waste. It was not observed for energy efficiency.

Byline: Eva M. Lovelady, Mahmoud El-Halwagi, Gopal A. Krishnagopalan This paper is aimed at developing a systematic methodology for the cost-effective reduction of water usage and discharge in pulp and paper plants. As the industry moves towards increased system closure, the build-up of Non-Process Elements (NPEs) leads to serious consequences on the process equipment. In response, this paper achieves the following: a mathematical model to track water and primary NPEs throughout the pulping process; rigorous targeting for water usage and discharge; a systematic framework for water reduction using mass integration strategies including no/low cost techniques as well as capital-based techniques; an optimisation model for the optimisation of allocation, recycle and separation of aqueous streams. A case study for water management in a kraft pulping process has been solved to highlight the usefulness of the devised approach.

Byline: Hong Jiao, Shudong Wang The purpose of this study was to present a multifaceted approach to investigating the equivalence of the computer-based and the paper-and-pencil tests and exemplify it using the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Tests. The multifaceted approach includes construct equivalence evaluation, test-level comparison and item-level comparisons, especially differential functioning of items across the two modes. The results show that less than 1% of items in grades 3 and 4 were flagged with DIF, though about 5% of the items in grade 2 were flagged with DIF. The CBT and the PPT for the same grade test shared similar test characteristics. The mode did not affect the raw score to scale score conversion relationship significantly. The underlying constructs between the two modes of the same grade test satisfied the three levels of construct equivalence, i.e., congeneric, τ-equivalent and parallel equivalent.

Byline: Janez Grum Advances in Ceramic Armour IV, A Collection of Papers Presented at the 32nd International Conference on Advanced Ceramics and Composites, January 27-February 1, 2008, Daytona Beach, Florida, by L.P. Franks, T. Ohji and A. Wereszczak. Hoboken, The American Ceramic Society, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2009. 230pp. ISBN: 978-0-470-34497-2

Byline: Maryam Fani, Aliasghar Mozafari, Bijan Farhanieh 'Three-link-model' Exergoeconomic methodology optimises the design and operability of a system. Contrary to traditional iterative Exergoeconomic optimisation methods, a reversed method is used, since assumptions considered by Tsatsaronis for calculating cost-optimal Exergetic efficiency and relative cost difference, were not applicable, new assumptions have been adopted. In a case study applied to Mazandaran paper industry, iterative reversed optimisation results have been compared with evolutionary programming results. Replacement of Pressure Valve and Direct Cyclone Contact Evaporation is proposed, while by selection of the optimum decision variable, recoverable black liquor is increased by 7% and energy consumption is decreased by 12%.

Byline: Benjamin Armstrong-Haworth We currently rely on fossilised energy to power society. This comes at a cost, not only in financial terms, and not only to us as human beings, but also in non-financial and non-human terms. Among the concerns of green economists are the cost of energy as opposed to its price, high levels of direct and indirect consumption, the need for a redistribution of energy resources, and engendering a greater respect for the power of energy to change the world. To address the issues associated with energy such that an environmentally and socially just economic system can be developed, an action plan is required. The intention of this paper is to reflect on perceptions of and responses to energy issues, and to develop the elements and direction of an action plan for the energy sector in a green economy.

Byline: Donna M. Ehrlich This research investigates recent studies of the concept of social networks. The research in this paper includes the recent studies being conducted on developing an understanding of social networks. The social network theories are being studied through several different areas of interests, including the World Wide Web (WWW), as well as human and biological sciences in the economic arena. The survey paper will begin with the definition of terms used to identify social networks. The terms are not new, but the definitions will include a correlation to the relevance within the social network survey paper. The terms will then be used to identify the concepts of social network in relation to the economics of business. The survey paper will discuss the findings of several research analysts seeking to understand the networks of different cells within the universe.

Byline: Pablo Del Rio Gonzalez, Miguel Angel Tarancon Moran This paper provides an econometric analysis of the factors leading to environmental technology adoption in the pulp and paper industry in Spain. Three sets of interrelated factors influencing the widespread adoption of these technologies are considered: factors external to the firm, characteristics of the environmental technology and internal characteristics and conditions of the potential adopters. A multinomial logit model is applied to the pulp and paper sector in Spain to explain the role of those factors in the adoption of different environmental technology types. It is shown that this adoption does not depend on environmental regulation but rather on market and economic variables (i.e., cost savings and the exploitation of a green image).

The main problem addressed in this paper concerns the lack of computational tools that allow designers to automatically extract three-dimensional (3D) shape models from paper-based form sketches during early design. To address this problem, various Computer-Aided Sketching (CAS) tools have been developed. However, their digital sketching medium replaces the natural, portable and readily available paper. To address these issues, this paper reports the development of a framework, which allows designers to obtain 3D virtual models and related life-cycle knowledge directly from early form paper-based sketches. The evaluation results of the implemented prototype tool, X-SKetch, provide a degree of evidence that this framework is a step towards making 3D geometric modelling software and computer technology available not only to designers but also to other users.

Byline: Pak Tee Ng, Thow Yick Liang Effective communication is a vital characteristic of all learning organisations. Ineffective communication lies at the root of why people are not really working well and learning in teams. These people are poorly connected. Thus, the notion of dialogue is appealing. However, such a free flow of ideas, balancing advocacy and inquiry, is rarely observed in many organisations. The constraint is due to the culture of the people/organisation. When sensitive issues need to be addressed, most of these people display an unwillingness to speak their mind. Many elect to keep silent about their true feelings and prefer to say only the politically correct things. Fear and distrust exist prominently. Thus, dialogue facilitators find it difficult to get people to talk honestly and openly about issues, much less to uncover deeper mental models and constructing real shared vision. This paper examines this crucial problem, and experiments and describes an alternative method, called the paper dialogue, which could be effective in helping real feelings and honest opinions surface more easily, thus improving the collective intelligence of the organisation.

Byline: M.J. Hoogeveen, L. Reijnders Impacts of the application of e-commerce on paper and energy use are analysed in a case study concerning a Dutch electronic retailer (e-tailer) of computers. The estimated use of paper associated with the e-tailer concerned was substantially reduced if compared with physical retailing or traditional mail-order retailing. However, the overall effect of e-tailing on paper use strongly depends on customer behaviour. Some characteristics of e-commerce, as practised by the e-tailer concerned, such as diminished floor space requirements, reduced need for personal transport and simplified logistics, improve energy efficiency compared with physical retailing. Substitution of paper information by online information has an energetic effect that is dependent on the time of online information perusal and the extent to which downloaded information is printed. Increasing distances from producers to consumers, outsourcing, and increased use of computers, associated equipment and electronic networks are characteristics of e-commerce that may have an upward effect on energy use. In this case study, the upward effects thereof on energy use were less than the direct energy efficiency gains. However, the indirect effects associated with increased buying power and the rebound effect on transport following from freefalling travel time, greatly exceeded direct energy efficiency gains.

Byline: Magnus Groth Why is corporate restructuring taking place in the Global Energy Industry in general and in the European one in particular? There should be no other reason than higher satisfaction of customers and employees, translating into sustained earnings growth and as a consequence higher corporate value. It is with this perspective that I would like to comment on Roland's and Srensen's excellent paper. I plan first to comment on the drivers for change suggested in the paper, and then to conclude that an even wider corporate scope will be needed for success.

Byline: Carlo Zaghi, Marcelo Enrique Conti, Gaetano Cecchetti The ever-growing attention to the environmental risk assessment of chemical substances has had considerable repercussions in the recent agreements reached within the European Union and on the international stage. In the conclusions on the European Commission's White Paper Strategy for a Future Chemicals Policy, the Council of the European Union recently referred to the need to include persistent, bio-accumulative and toxic substances (PBT) and very persistent and very bio-accumulative substances (VPVB) among the chemicals which must be subject to authorisation, as soon as the necessary criteria for identifying them have been defined. On 23 May 2001, a few days before the adoption of the Council's conclusions to the White Paper, over 100 national Governments signed the international Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants (POPs), which provides for a common commitment at global level and fixed criteria for identifying new POPs apart from those already known. In this work, the scenarios described by the White Paper are examined, with particular reference to the problems of defining criteria for identifying PBT and VPVB substances, in the light of the criteria already defined for POPs by the Stockholm Convention.

Byline: Ron Flack In this paper, more than a decade of research on automotive torque converters at the University of Virginia and complementary work is reviewed. A torque converter was tested with a diameter of 230 mm. Laser velocimetry was used to map out the average and periodic 3-D velocities in different planes in the pump, turbine and stator. A range of turbine to pump speed ratios was tested as well as different pump speeds. Large jet/wake regions, including separated back flows, were often identified and well as strong secondary flows. In most cases, flow was strongly periodic at the blade pass frequency at the inlets to the pump, turbine and stator and much less so at the component exits. By integration of the velocity fields, overall performance parameters such as mass flow rates, slip factors, vorticities and torque distributions were derived.

Byline: Jay Liebowitz Knowledge management is an emerging area for industry and government. Knowledge management deals with how best to leverage knowledge internally and externally. One of the key components of most knowledge management strategies is to use online communities. These web-based communities should lead to a strong sense of belonging, improved people-to-people connections and, ultimately, innovation and learning. An important question that surfaces at some point in the life of these online communities is how to measure their value to the organisation. This paper will address the work in this area and will suggest a methodology to follow.

Byline: Patrik Soderholm This comment discusses in more detail one of the primary messages in the paper by David Humphreys and Keith Welham, namely the fundamental shift in the steam coal industry away from security of supply concerns and national focuses towards an international and cost-driven perspective. On the supply side, this has meant an increased focus on mining productivity. By consulting recent research, this comment reviews the sources of productivity growth in the coal industry and discusses the prospects for future improvements. The demand side of the steam coal market has also witnessed fundamental change as electric utilities have become more cost focused. In the 1970s and early 1980s, nuclear was the main competitor to coal, but today the fiercest competition comes from gas. While coal benefits from the favourable economics of existing plants, gas use tends to be cheaper on a total cost basis and it is also environmentally more benign. The competition from gas therefore puts new and different competitive pressures on steam coal. Not only does coal procurement need to become more flexible and diverse; the negative perception of coal as a dirty fuel has to weaken as well.

Byline: Michael Klein Dennis Mueller's paper raises a puzzle. Economies of scale and market power do not explain the very large size of firms in the oil and gas industry. At the same time, managers of large cash-rich firms are tempted to invest in substandard projects and firms, e.g. via mergers. This should spell doom for very large firms. But, in reality, large firms seem to have value. In this comment, it is suggested that very large firms may hold the potential to operate an internal market for corporate control better than 'the market'. This would fit with the recent literature on stylised facts about firm size distribution. Still, the value of large size, and mega-mergers, depends on how well it is used.

Byline: Lars Bergman I think that Kevin Lillis has given us an excellent overview of the corporate restructuring that deregulation has induced, and he has shown that (almost) everything has indeed changed. In particular, we have seen the emergence of the multi-scope, multi-national energy company. I have learnt a lot from reading the paper and have little to add. Yet I would like to make one remark on the privatisation of the Swedish electricity industry, and raise a few more general issues.

Byline: Erik S. Sorensen It is difficult to disagree with the two papers presented. In my perception, there is a clear-cut dividing line in Europe, between the North and the South, and there is a complex set of factors behind these differences between the North and the South. Looking beyond Europe, I suspect that a majority of countries share the individualistic features of the South, and that the political patterns characterising the North are an exception rather then a rule in a global perspective.

Byline: G. Campbell Watkins These comments cover key aspects of Smith's paper. They focus on problems of awarding a central role to carbon taxes, and extend the discussion to harnessing the power of property rights via tradable permits.

Byline: Bengt Kristrom This comment focuses on five issues raised by Kalle Maatta's paper. These are: (i) the importance of revenues from environmental taxes; (ii) tax nomenclature; (iii) restructuring of energy taxation systems; (iv) the linkage principle; and (v) the use and impacts of environmental tax exemptions. My basic message is that environmental taxes should be used to combat environmental problems. The fact that the revenues from such taxes can be used to reduce other taxes is of second order importance.

Byline: Per Kageson The topic of this paper is the question of what would be an optimum solution for a country or a greater region that wants to become a forerunner in the abatement of greenhouse gases. Tradeable emission permits are identified as being most beneficial from an environmental efficiency point of view especially in a case where trading takes place between energy companies in countries with reliable trade statistics and stable political institutions. Other options are to include carbon dioxide among the regulated emissions or to introduce a carbon tax where revenues from certain well-targeted energy intensive industries are recycled in a neutral manner.

Byline: Christer Sjolin The liberalisation of the energy industries has lowered prices for consumers. It is important that environmental policies and taxes are harmonised across borders in the energy markets. Grid charges must be transparent and clear to help avoiding cross-subsidisation. The monopoly trends of mergers and acquisitions are countered by newcomers, brokers and financial solutions.

Byline: Dominique Ganiage Globalisation in the power sector is progressing at an accelerating pace. Both markets and companies are afflicted. EDF participates fully in these developments, to become truly global and customer-driven, but at the same time to act as a socially and environmentally responsive company.

Byline: Bo Diczfalusy Competitive conditions in energy markets can develop in a variety of unexpected ways. My note describes four plausible scenarios of the future. Competition and regulatory authorities should take a broad view and maintain preparedness to act innovatively as new circumstances evolve.

Byline: Peter J.W.N. Bird There are limits to the economies of scale in gas and electricity, but substantial synergies can be attained through mergers. It would seem that Roland and Sorensen exaggerate the prospects for branding in electricity and gas. But I concur with the authors that mega-mergers are likely to go on. Market power will increase in consequence and competition authorities will be kept busy.