Analysis of Alternative Energy Sources

As we have mentioned several times, VERT-3 and other stochastic networking techniques are especially powerful in the evaluation of alternative concepts and approaches. The example presented in this chapter is a hypothetical situation that illustrates more of VERT-3’s features than any of the previous examples; however, one should keep in mind that this example may still be simpler than an actual application. For instance, the relatively straightforward presentation of the data for this problem tends to under-emphasize the data collection task typically associated with problems modeled by VERT-3; data collection and elicitation usually prove to be the most difficult and time-consuming parts of the analysis. The numerous time, cost, and performance values associated with the various activities in a typical network usually are not known precisely; however, they can be represented by a probability distribution. Procedures useful for eliciting such data have been suggested by Dalkey (1969), Northrop (1970), and Raiffa (1968).