Ordinal benefits vs economic benefits as a reference guide for policy decision making. The case of hydrogen technologies

The paper presents an Investment Evaluation Method in Energetic–Economic–Environmental field which is particularly indicated for Hydrogen Technologies because it enables us to account not only for the traditional economic return and the possible negative externalities (damages), but also for: i) the induced economic benefits at a social level; ii) those positive (and negative) externalities usually considered as being estimable in economic terms as “proxies”; iii) and, finally, Ordinal Benefits. That is those Benefits which are never ever reducible to a simple monetary value, nonetheless they can always be object of a possible estimation, still in economic terms, by means of values understood as a “cipher”.The advantages of a Decision Making Process based on Ordinal Benefits (vs traditional economic benefits) will be shown with reference to the evaluation of well-calibrated Incentives concerning Hydrogen Fuel Cells, both under static and dynamic conditions. Such an evaluation criterion, which is preferentially based on the estimated external Benefits to be “remunerated” rather than on possible damages to be internalized, represents a valid reference guide for a Policy Maker. This precisely because it is always orientated toward the genesis of the Maximum Ordinality Excess.