Plant Manager: We could greatly reduce the amount of sulfur dioxide our copper-smelting plant releases into the atmos...

Angel92 May 7, 2022

hardest point at issue question by far....

this question was one of the by far the hardest point at issue questions our there because the supervisor isn't clarifying nor revealing any information for what they are in dispute of with the manager. I spent so much time (15 minutes than usual) re-reading this and outlining everything and could not see how the supervisor could disagree with this because the speaker is stating literally "I agree with your overall conclusion" and the overall conclusion is the last sentence, (unless I'm mistaken here? please correct me where the overall conclusion is?) there agreeing that this process will cost MUCH (and I'm assuming it means more than the current process).... Now if this is the answer then what does "MUCH" mean in this sense? or does it just mean that it is just as expensive as the current process?

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Emil-Kunkin May 13, 2022

Hi Angel,

I agree this is a difficult point at issue question, especially because I struggle to visualize a complex industrial process I know nothing about.

To help understand this, I would break down the plant manager's argument a bit. They argue:
Could cut emissions with new process
New process replaces current furnace with closed furnaces and using solid copper
But this is expensive to install and also more expensive to run than current process
So, new process will be costly but not profitable.

The supervisor agrees with the overall conclusion but notes that the closed furnaces are extremely fuel efficient.

We can assume that extremely fuel efficient means that they are cheaper to run than the existing furnaces. This seems to suggest that the new process may not be more expensive than the current process. However, how does this square with the idea that the supervisor agrees with the general conclusion?

I think this is because there are two reasons why the manager thinks adopting the new process will be costly. One is because the new process would be more expensive to run, and the other is because the new equipment is expensive to buy and install. Even if we remove the additional cost of running the new process, switching to the new process will still be expensive. That is, the supervisor is negating one of the two reasons it will be expensive, but still agrees with the other, and thus with the idea that it will be more expensive overall.

Angel92 May 14, 2022

Thank you, your breakdown of the argument makes a lot more sense to me now. I didn't think to recognize that the fuel efficiency was actually an additional benefit to looking into adopting the new process as the plant manager didn't mention fuel efficiency in the stimulus. Thanks for this, makes sense now.