Fundamentals of Exergy Cost

A. Valero
Accounting and
L. Serra Thermoeconomics. Part II:
J. Uche1
e-mail: javiuche@unizar.es
Applications
CIRCE Foundation Part II of this paper develops the mathematical formulations of three applications of the
(Centre of Research for Energy Resources thermoeconomic analysis methodology described in Part I of the paper: the operation
and Consumptions)/University of Zaragoza, diagnosis study, including new concepts that helps to separate different contributions to
c/Mara de Luna 3, those inefficiencies; the local optimization process in case of special conditions for the
50018 Zaragoza, Spain whole plant, and the benefit maximization (a direct application of the exergy costs ac-
counting analysis). The operation diagnosis, which is the most complex and sophisticated
application, is presented with the help of an example: the co-generation plant, as it was
described in Part I. DOI: 10.1115/1.2134731

Introduction
Exergy Cost Accounting and Thermoeconomics finds out how
energy and resources degrade, which systems work better, how to
improve designs to reduce consumption and prevent residues from
damaging the environment. Assessing the cost of the various
streams and processes in a plant helps to understand the process of
cost formation, from the input resources to the final products.
Despite of their importance and the valuable and useful infor-
mation they provide, the exergy and/or thermoeconomic costs of a
complex system are only the tip of the iceberg in Thermoeconom-
ics. They are the starting point for further thermoeconomic appli-
cations. In this Part II are presented the fundamentals of thermo-
economic diagnosis and optimization of complex energy systems,
including local optimization and benefit maximization. Special at-
tention is focused to the inefficiency diagnosis because it requires
the introduction of new concepts: induced and intrinsic malfunc-
tions, and dysfunctions.
Operation Diagnosis
Diagnosis is the art of discovering and understanding signs of
malfunction and quantifying their effects. In the case of Exergy
Cost Accounting and Thermoeconomics, the effect of a malfunc-
tion is quantified in terms of additional resources consumed to
obtain the same production, both in quality and in quantity. To do
that, it is needed:
A procedure that accurately determines the state of the plant
a simulator or Data Acquisition System could provide
enough data to perform the mass, energy, entropy and ex-
ergy plant balances.
A theory to provide the concepts and tools to understand and
explain the causes of this state.
The methodology presented here is based on the Structural
Theory formalism presented in Part I to provide the tools to in-
vestigate the causes of the irreversibilities and the cost formation
process. The basis of the inefficiency diagnosis is focused on the
marginal cost k* when production is modified: applying the
chain rule of mathematical derivatives, we can get to the equation
1 j=1
m
E0 * g j
xi
= k x
i=1
j
i
1
which expresses the effect on additional resource consumption
when an internal parameter xi is modified.
In order to clarify the explanation of the proposed method we
use the simple example a more complex one applied to a real
power plant can be found in Valero et al. 1 presented in Part I,
the co-generation plant depicted in Fig. 1 of Part I, whose design
and operational exergy flow values are shown in Table 1. The
plant has two products: process steam in the Heat Steam Recovery
Generator HRSG, flow 7 together with the electric energy pro-
duced in the turbo-generator flow 6.
Technical Exergy Saving. Once the exergy flows have been
supplied by an appropriate performance test or a model simulator,
the irreversibilities in each productive unit can be obtained from
the exergy balance. But not all exergy losses can be saved in
practice. In fact, the potential exergy saving is limited by technical
and/or economic constraints. It also depends on the decision level
that limits the actions to be undertaken. In contrast to conven-
tional thermodynamic analysis, Exergy Cost Accounting and
Thermoeconomics assume a reference situation of the plant oper-
ating under optimized design conditions. From this perspective, in
the co-generation plant Fig. 1 of Part I only 133 kW e.g.,
11914-11781 of the 7.06 MW of total irreversibilities e.g.,
11914-2500-2355 can be saved with respect to design optimized
conditions.
Therefore, the additional fuel consumption can be expressed as
the difference between the resource consumption of the operating
plant and the resource consumption for a reference or design op-
timized condition with the same production objectives:
FT = FT FT0 2
and it can be broken up into the sum of the irreversibilities of each
process unit:
n n
FT = IT = I I = I
j
0
j j 3
j=1

However, even though the methods based on Second Law Analy-

Contributed by the Petroleum Division of ASME for publication in the JOURNAL OF
sis 2 and Technical Exergy Saving are useful to quantify the
ENERGY RESOURCES TECHNOLOGY. Manuscript received February 28, 2005; final additional fuel consumption, they fail when trying to identify the
manuscript received July 8, 2005. Review conducted by Andrew K. Wojtanowicz. real causes of the additional resources consumption.

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 Table 1 Design and operation exergy flow values of the co-generation plant Fig. 1, part I

Flow kW 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Design 11 781 2704 9614 3831 2977 2500 2355 388

Operation 11 914 2758 9753 3887 3056 2500 2355 424

Impact on Resources Consumption. The fuel/product diagram calculated following Eq. 4, as is written in Table 4.
is the source point to start up the diagnosis of a complex system. Equation 18 in Part I is used to obtain the increment of the
Once it is built for the design and operating conditions, Eqs. 14 total resources of an operating plant with respect to the reference
and 15 of Part I are automatically solved and then the diagnosis conditions:
can be studied. Table 2 shows the F/P diagram corresponding to
the cogeneration plant of our example. For the sake of simplicity FT = teP0 + teP 5
we did not consider thermal and mechanical exergies as separate The increase of the process unit production from Eq. 15, Part I,
entities. Flow 8, produced in part in the combustor and in the may be expressed in terms of the unit exergy consumption as:
compressor, also leaves the system as a residue. Following the
productive structure depicted in Fig. 2 of Part I, the way to com- P = Ps + KPP0 + KPP 6
plete this table is the following.
hence, applying Eq. 16 from Part I, we obtain:
1st row P0: The only fuel coming from the environment
P0 = E1 is fuel of the combustor F1. P = PPS + KPP0 7
2nd row P1: The product of the combustor P1 = E3 E2 is If we want to analyze the fuel impact due to an increment of the
fuel of the turbine F3 = E3 E4 and the HRSG F4 = E4 exergy unit consumption of the process units, Eq. 5 could be
E8. The auxiliary variable r1 = E3 E2 / E3 corresponds to written as:
the part of the fuel of the turbine coming from the combus-
tor. So the final quantity to put in column F3 is r1 E3 FT = teP0 + t*PKPP0 + t*PPs 8
E4. Similarly, the final value in column F4 is r1 E4 If no change in the total production of the plant is assumed, then
E8. the last term could be neglected:
3rd row P2: The product of the compressor P2 = E2 is also
fuel of the HRSG and the turbine. In this case, the exergy FT = te + tk*PKPP0 9
ratio r2 for multiplying the F3 and F4 columns in row P2 is
or in scalar format showing the ij elements:
r 2 = E 2 / E 3.
4th row P3: The products of the turbine are the net work
leaving the plant F0 = E6 and the work delivered to the
compressor, which is the fuel of the compressor F2 = E5. Table 3 KP matrix for design conditions in the cogeneration
5th row P4: The HRSGs product leaves the cogeneration plant
plant and it is therefore an external output F0 = E7
e 1,7769 0,0000 0,0000 0,0000
In order to bring together the problem of the impact of re-
sources consumption with inefficiency diagnosis we need to know KP 0,0000 0,0000 0,7588 1,0505
the increase of the unit exergy consumption of each process unit 0,0000 0,0000 0,2971 0,4110
0,0000 1,1472 0,0000 0,0000
of the plant j. A performance test or a simulator can provide 0,0000 0,0000 0,0000 0,0000
the actual values of the unit consumptions, which can be com- k 1,7769 1,1472 1,0559 1,4616
pared with the design values or different plant states.
The values of the unit exergetic consumption increase are found
as:
ij = ijx ijx0 4
To do that, the KP matrices in the operating and design condi-
tions are firstly needed, starting from the F/P table see Table 2 for
the design conditions. Table 3 shows the KP matrix for the
design conditions.
The ij values obtained in this table are calculated by dividing
each component of the jth column of the F/P table by the product
P j. Then the ij values for the plant in Fig. 1 can be easily

Table 2 Fuel and energy flows kW in design conditions for Fig. 1 Fuel impact and technical saving
the co-generation plant shown in Fig. 1 part I
Table 4 Increase of unit exergetic consumption 100ij
F0 F1 F2 F3 F4 Total
e 0.4006 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000
P0 0 11,781 0 0 0 11,781
P1 0 0 0 4,156 2,474 6,631
KP 0.0000 0.0000 0.1667 0.3857
P2 0 0 0 1,627 968 2,595 0.0000 0.0000 0.1593 0.4636
P3 2,500 0 2,977 0 0 5,477 0.0000 1.1147 0.0000 0.0000
P4 2,355 0 0 0 0 2,355 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000
Total 4,855 11,781 2,977 5,783 3,443 k 0.4006 1.1147 0.0074 0.8493

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 n

MFi = Pi0ki = P
j=0
0
i ji 12

Exogenous irreversibility or dysfunction induced DF in the

Fig. 2 Malfunction and fuel impact
process unit by the malfunction of other subsystems, which forces
it to consume more local resources to obtain the additional pro-
duction required by the other process units:
DFi = ki 1Pi 13
The malfunction only affects the behavior of the process units; the
dysfunction is a result of how the process units adapt themselves
to maintain the total production. The dysfunction generated DI

FT =
n

k
i=1
n

j=0
P,j ji
*
Pi0
Using the above equation, the additional resource consumption
FT also called Fuel Impact 3 can be expressed as the sum of
the contributions of each process unit. The KP matrix is the
key to predict the impact on fuel of a physical variation of a
parameter in the system, because their coefficients ij represent
in some extent the efficiency deviation of each plant component
with respect to the operating performance of the plant under de-
sign conditions. The total deviation must therefore be multiplied
by the total product of that component, e.g. ji P0i which is called
malfunction. As this product has an exergy cost that depends on
the position of the component in the system, the malfunction im-
plies an additional fuel consumption or fuel impact due to ineffi-
ciencies in a system see Eq. 10.
The proposed method provides the exact values of the addi-
tional resource consumption of each process unit malfunction for
any operational state. Other methods, such as the Theory of Per-
turbations 4, only provide an approximate predictive value,
based on marginal costs Lagrange multipliers which is valid for
an operating state close to the reference conditions.
Figure 1 compares the fuel impact and the increase of irrevers-
ibilities or the technical exergy saving of each process unit and
also compares first column the malfunction and the fuel impact
for each process unit. Three malfunctions in the plant are shown
in the combustor, the compressor and the Heat Recovery Steam
Generator HRSG. The largest irreversibilities increase is in the
combustor, but the largest fuel impact is in the compressor. The
question that arises is, what causes the irreversibilities increase
and the fuel impact, and how are they related?
Malfunction and Dysfunction Analysis. The degradation of a
process unit forces other process units to adapt their behavior in
order to maintain their production conditions and modify their
irreversibilities. Figure 2 shows how an increase of the unit con-
sumption of a process unit will not only increases the irreversibili-
ties on it but also the irreversibilities of the previous process unit.
The irreversibility increase of a generic systems process unit is
given by:
I = KDP + KD UDP
0
From the above expression, we can distinguish two types of in-
creased irreversibilities:
10
by a process unit is defined as:
DIi = Fi MFi 14
Table 5 shows the malfunctions, dysfunctions, impact on fuel and
increase of irreversibility of the example analyzed here. In this
case is not included matrix notation, but using similar equations
than the previous 5, it should be calculated the dysfunction DFij
representing the part of the ith component dysfunction generated
by component j. Note that the total DI and DF must be equal, and
also the total fuel impact and irreversibility generated in the
system.
Intrinsic and Induced Malfunctions. From results in Table 5,
we find out three malfunctions in the gas turbine cycle: one each
in the combustor, compressor and HRSG. But, in fact, the actual
operation values shown in Table 1 only correspond to a 1% de-
crease in compressor isoentropic efficiency. This means that
HRSG and combustor efficiencies can be changed by varying
compressor efficiency; in general there is an operating parameter
xr affecting the efficiency of the ith process unit of the plant and
thus, in most cases, also indirectly affecting the efficiencies of the
other plant process units.
According to their effect on the process units efficiency in a
system, plant operating parameters could be classified as:
Local variables: They mainly affect the behavior of the process
unit related to the variable, e.g, the isentropic efficiency of a tur-
bine. From a practical point of view, a variable is considered local
and therefore related to a subsystem when the total fuel impact
due to its perturbation is basically located in this process unit.
Global and/or zonal variables: This is the case when an oper-
ating parameter cannot be associated with a specific process unit.
We must identify them as operating set points, environmental pa-
rameters and the production load or fuel quality.
The key of the malfunction analysis is the calculation of the
ij components representing the unit exergy consumption in-
crease of each process unit, due to the variation of an operating
parameter xr, is:
ijr = ijx0 + xr ijx0 15
Therefore, it will be possible to approximate the malfunction of a
11 process unit as the sum of the contributions of each operating
parameter:
n

Endogenous irreversibility or malfunction produced by an in-

crease of the unit consumption of the process unit itself:
MFi P
r j=1
r 0
ji i 16

Table 5 Malfunction and dysfunction table in kW

kW Combustor Compressor Turbine HRSG Total

DI 0.000 30.699 4.979 22.243 57.921

DF 46.664 6.849 4.408 0.000 57.921
MF 26.562 28.925 0.408 20.000 75.079
F 26.562 59.624 4.571 42.243 133.000
I 73.226 35.774 4.000 20.000 133.000

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 According to the classification of operating parameters, the intrin-
sic malfunction is that part of the process unit malfunction due to
the degradation/improvement of the process unit itself, which is,
in turn, due to variation of local operating parameters:
MFiL
n
rLi j=1
rji Pi0 17
Thus the difference between total process unit malfunction and
intrinsic malfunction is called induced malfunction. It is due to the
degradation of other plant process units, which provoke a varia-
tion in the unit consumption of that process unit:
MFiG = MFi MFiL 18
It is important to note that intrinsic malfunctions can provoke not
only dysfunctions but also induced malfunctions. In general, it is
understandable that the consequences are noted downstream, but
if the system has one or several recirculations those could be also
provoked upstream of the malfunctioning component or device.
For instance, using the throttle valve in a power plant can destroy
a small additional amount of exergy but the downstream effects
on turbine efficiencies can be quite serious.
Thermoeconomic Optimization
In this section are presented two different applications of ther-
moeconomic costs to the optimization. The first case local opti-
mization is oriented to the design of complex systems. The sec-
ond one benefit maximization is oriented to a cost effective plant
operation and management.
Local Optimization. The knowledge of the costs of a system,
which in the final instance give an economic meaning to the struc-
tural interactions between subsystems, allows us to formulate
problems related to their optimization and also to solve the opti-
mization of complex systems under certain conditions, in a very
simple way. The main advantage obtained is that the global opti-
mization problem of a plant could be reduced to a sequence of
subsystem to subsystem optimization. Here we describe strategies
for optimizing complex systems as proposed by Lozano et al. 4,
they are based on sequential optimization from process unit to
process unit exploiting the information from the thermoeconomic
costs of internal flows previously calculated by using the produc-
tive structure. In this section, we see how the cost of the resources
consumed by the system varies when the unit of the cost of the
resources consumed, the technical production coefficients of the
productive structure and/or external demand of products vary.
Once we know the relationship between the technical production
coefficients and the design free variables the chain rule of deriva-
tion can be applied to distinguish the effect of a design free vari-
able on the internal economy of subsystems.
Local optimization can be applied only if the optimum solution
obtained for the unit coincides with the optimum solution for the
whole system. Of course, this is a condition that cannot be
achieved in most real systems: the unit cost of the input resources
k*P,i and the production P j of the subsystem j should be known and
constant, but really P j and k*P,i change when design variables of
other process units change. But the more constant P j and k*P,i are,
the fewer iteration loops are needed to achieve the optimal solu-
tion for the whole system. This condition is similar in some extent
to the thermoeconomic isolation principle 6. Thus, the goal is
not to achieve fully the condition previously referred to, but to
approach it as closely as possible in order to obtain the maximum
advantages, which include:
1 Improvements and optimal design of individual units in
highly interdependent complex systems.
2 The design and optimization of highly complex systems are
greatly facilitated.
The objective function to perform the individual optimization is
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the cost of product of the process unit, j, e.g. the consumed
resources to produce it, and it could be defined as:
min
k
n
i=0
kijk*P,i P j 19
where the unit cost of the input resources k*P,i and the production
P j are known and constant. In real world optimization problems,
the design free variables do not necessarily coincide with the tech-
nical production coefficients. In practice there will be a function
of the actual design free variables which can be named, x.
We say that a free variable x is a local variable of a subsystem,
j, when the production coefficients ij of this subsystem only
depend on x. If a design variable is attached to several sub-
systems, the previous expression must be extended to all con-
cerned subsystems.
To determine whether a design free variable is local or not and
which process units are involved, the cost resource impact of the
design variables to each process unit can be computed
n
ij z P,i
C0,i
x
= k*P,i + Px 20
x x
i=0
and the ratio calculated:
Co,j
x
ix = 21
n
Co,i
x
i=1
If this ratio is equal or close to 1, the design variable is local for
process unit, j, if it is equal or close to zero, the design variable
is independent of the referred j process unit. In other cases the
design variable involves several process units. Some other meth-
ods can be successfully applied if diagnosis has been performed
previously 5.
These ideas could be used to design a strategy for global opti-
mization problems:
0 Determine which variables are local and which are zonal
involve several process units.
1 Determine a sequence for local optimization of each pro-
cess unit.
2 Take an initial value of the design variables.
3 Calculate technical production coefficients and unit product
cost.
4 Find optimum values for local variables.
5 Find optimum values for global variables.
Iteration from 3 is maintained until the unit product cost does
not vary. The decrease of the unit cost of total product must be
verified.
Benefit Maximization. Another approach of optimization can
be done when thermodynamics is joined with the economic con-
cept of investment benefit. Price and cost concepts have different
nature. The price imposed on a product usually depends on the
market or political decisions. The cost clearly depends on the
physical process and the thermodynamic efficiency of its forma-
tion process cost is the amount of resources used to produce a
unit of product.
Economists aim for maximum benefit. In general, the equation
expressing the benefit is:
Transactions of the ASME
 Benefitx,y,t = Pricex,t Costy,t 22
The temporary factor t could be neglected of the formula in the
two terms of equation, because seasonal demand usually affects
product and production cost. Product cost is the variable that plant
managers control with operation plans. The y factors are only
dependent on operating conditions and make up the unit exergy
consumption k of each component.
The price of a product also involves external factors x that are
independent of the formation cost. The price of a product can be
fixed by environmental, local or political reasons. Cost and price
are often confused since real process costs are unknown in many
systems and product cost is associated with its price. The cost of
the product depends on how easily it sells marketing, more than
its capacity or quality.
These assumptions imply that the benefit of production can be
increased even if the real cost of the products is not the lowest 7.
When the price imposed on a product is variable or there are
bonuses for different production methods, it is usually useless to
find the lowest process cost. The managing strategy must control
the two terms in Equation 22 to maximize the benefit function,
taking into account the demand of the plant products electricity
and steam in the case of the cogeneration plant of our example.
In this type of problems it is usually obtained that the operating
mode providing maximum benefit depends on price policy, even
when plant production demand electricity and steam remain un-
changed, that is depending on the price policy it is interesting to
operate the plant in a different way even when the total plant
demand remain unchanged 7.
For an accurate benefit maximization it is very important to
have available the real operation costs, particularly when prices of
plant products e.g. electricity vary depending on the hour of the
day.
Closure
Thermoeconomics is a promising tool of energy analysis. It is
very powerful, because it contains the concept of energy quality
degradation and it provides a lot of information that conventional
energy analysis techniques do not. Obviously, the validity of
whatever engineering technique it is not the amount of informa-
tion providing, but its ability to solve problems in real plants. In
this context, as shown in these introductory papers, Thermoeco-
nomics is able nowadays of answering some questions that con-
ventional energy analysis techniques do not, but it remains a lot of
theoretical and practical work to do.
In our opinion the state of the art of thermoeconomic analysis
applications is the next:
Exergy cost analysis: Exergy cost accounting provides the
costs of all mass and energy flows of a plant in energy and
monetary units. These costs are the fundamental tool of
whatever thermoeconomic analysis technique. Some appli-
cations, such as those presented in this paper, thermoeco-
nomic diagnosis, local optimization and benefit maximiza-
tion, require costs with physical significance. Further
theoretical research is needed in the field of searching the
procedure for building a productive structure providing
costs with physical significance.
Thermoeconomic diagnosis: Some significant and important
advances have been made, and a lot of information, such as
presented in this paper, can be obtained applying the ther-
moeconomic diagnosis technique. The obtained information
is very useful to understand the interactions among the plant
components and to know deeply the plant behavior. How-
ever, thermoeconomic diagnosis needs further development.
The state of the art now allows an accurate explanation
about the reasons that degrade the behavior of the plant
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components, but once the causes provoking the inefficien-
cies are known the inverse problem of diagnosis. It re-
mains unsolved the problem when detecting the real causes
provoking the inefficiencies in a plant from direct plant
measurements which is the diagnosis problem, properly,
but new contributions are being introduced 8,9.
Thermoeconomic optimization: During the eighties several
thermoeconomic optimization techniques have been devel-
oped 1012. The problem of these techniques is that they
were based on the Lagrange Multipliers method, which re-
quires strong computing effort when applied to real plants.
Lozano et al. 4 proposed an optimization method, based on
local optimization that can be applied to the optimization of
real plants in a simpler way because it optimizes separately
the different plant components. Unfortunately, the plant con-
figuration not always permits local optimization, and global
optimization methods are needed. Another optimization ap-
proach is the method proposed by Uche et al. 7, oriented to
the optimization of the plant operation by maximizing the
economical benefit in plants with several products, as for
instance a cogeneration plant once the cost of those prod-
ucts are really known.
Thermoeconomic synthesis and design: Probably it is the
less-developed application of thermoeconomics because
synthesis and design of complex systems becomes much
more difficult than operation and design optimization. It is
closely related with optimization, and in this case it requires
costing equations for the different plant components. In this
field El Sayed 13,14 has made very interesting contribu-
tions. When applied to real problems the costing equations
should be customized for the specific case to be analyzed.
Some authors 1316 have devoted efforts to the applica-
tion of thermoeconomics to the design and synthesis of
complex energy systems, but there is not developed yet a
systematic procedure. Thus, thermoeconomic design is a
field that also needs further research.
Summarizing, thermoeconomics is not closed at all. It is now a
very useful and powerful tool for the analysis of complex energy
systems. However, a lot of work has to be done for completing the
unsolved problems and probably new applications will be discov-
ered in future.
Nomenclature
C total economic cost $/s
DF dysfunction generated in a component kW
DI dysfunction generated by a component kW
E exergy flow kW
F fuel kW
I irreversibility kW
k unit exergy consumption
k* exergy unit cost
MF malfunction irreversibility increase due to a
inefficiency, kW
P product kW
r exergy ratio
t time
x, y variables
Greek
increment
isolation ratio
technical production coefficient
exergy efficiency =F / P
MARCH 2006, Vol. 128 / 13
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References Madrid Spain, pp. 149166.
1 Valero, A., Torres, C., Lerch, F., Royo, F. J., and Serra, L., 2002, Structural 15 Bejan, A., Tsatsaronis, G., and Moran, M., 1997, Thermal Design and Opti-
Theory and Thermoeconomic Diagnosis. Part I: On Malfunction and Dysfunc- mization, John Wiley and Sons Inc., New York.
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3 Reini, M., 1994, Analisi e sviluppo dei metodi termoeconomi per lo studio 17 Erlach, B., Serra, L., and Valero, A., 1999, Structural Theory as Standard for
degli impianti di conversione dellenergia, Ph.D. thesis, Universit di Padova. Thermoeconomics, Energy Convers. Manage., 40, 16271649.

Luis M. Serra is permanent associate professor of the Mechanical Engineering Department at the Univer-
sity of Zaragoza since 1997. He has participated and led several research and development projects on
energy systems and energy saving in general and particularly on thermoeconomic analysis, process inte-
gration (polygeneration) and environmental assessment. Serra has been the co-recipient of the best paper
award on Advanced Energy Systems from ASME (Edward F. Obert Award 2003). He is author and co-author
of more than 70 papers and books and reviewer for several international journals, e.g., ASME Journal of
Energy Resources Technology, Solar Energy and International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment.

Dr. Javier Uche Marcuello. Ph. D. Industrial Engineer since June 2000. Assistant professor of the Uni-
versity of Zaragoza (Department of Mechanical Engineering) since October 2000. More than 40 papers in
international journals, book articles and international conferences (mainly in Desalination and integration
of water and energy issues). Two books about desalination and economic aspects of irrigation. Consultant
of the Government of Aragon in water issues.

14 / Vol. 128, MARCH 2006 Transactions of the ASME

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 Antonio Valero is Full Professor at the University of Zaragoza since 1986. Director of CIRCE, Center for
Research of Energy Resources and Consumptions, a research Foundation currently composed of sixty
researchers. Founder scientist of the sciences of Thermoeconomics and Exergoecology. ASME James H.
Potter Gold Medal96 Award, also awarded four times (86, 87, 88 and 03) with the Edward F. Obert for
its contributions to the science of Thermoeconomics and Energy Systems. Author of more than 200 papers
on energy, and Associate Technical Editor of many important Journals of Thermodynamics and Energy
Saving Systems. ASME Member since 1986 and other associations.

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