Thermoeconomic optimization for an irreversible heat engine model under maximum ecological conditions

Within the context of Finite Time Thermodynamics (FTT) we study a model of an irreversible thermal engine in terms of the costs involved in the plant's performance. Our study is made by the maximization of objective functions defined as the ratio of the power output and the ecological function and the total performing costs respectively. In this work we study the thermoeconomics of an irreversible heat engine with losses due to heat transfer across finite time temperature differences, heat leak and internal irreversibilities in terms of a parameter which comes from the Clausius inequality. We calculate the optimal thermal efficiencies under both the maximum power and the maximum ecological function conditions in terms of a economical parameter which is associated to the fractional fuel cost. We show that under maximum ecological conditions the plant dramatically reduces the amount of heat rejected to the environment, and a lost of profits is translated in to an usage of fuels that dramatically reduces the heat rejected towards the environment respect to that of a maximum power regime.