Cost-benefit analysis

Cost-benefIt analysis is intended to identify all the costs of a proposed project such as financial, environmental, cultural, political, health, etc. It also attempts to identify all the benefits: financial, political, health, etc.. it then attempts to weigh all the costs compared to all the benefits to see if the benefits are worth all the costs. Although futurists take cost-benefit into account, they may also take time to take impact into account as well. For example, the cost-effect of creating a coal power plant with carbon sequestration and hydrogen production may be positive. However, if the key benefit is stopping coal power pants from producing greenhouse gasses, then the time-to-impact may not be acceptable. It may take ten years to build the demonstration plant, another ten years to get construction capacity ready to massively produce production plants, and another fifty years to complete enough to duplicate the production of previous coal plants. Seventy years make the decision less attractive. . Businesses tend to add up production and marketing costs compared to expected sales. Futurists looking at the larger picture might bring in externalities (e.g., environmental cleanup costs) to help the business to a more thorough analysis. They may also help include risk factors; alternative futures to the future the business expects; technological research could make that businesses' product obsolete.