Network Representations of Pollution-Generating Technologies

We update developments on modeling technology including unintended outputs and show how these can, at least to a large extent, be incorporated in a network model framework. Recently there have been efforts to specify more detailed models which include multiple functions to separately capture intended and unintended products. Yet another recent strand of the recent literature has also explicitly tried to include a material balance condition in the model. We see this general evolution as beginning with what might be called a black box technology, with inputs entering the box, and good and bad outputs exiting the box. The more sophisticated models can be thought of as filling in the black box with the more detailed processes involved with production, prevention and abatement, with production accompanied by undesirable byproducts subject to legal regulations and laws of nature. This can be modeled as a network within the black box.