A review of experience curve analyses for energy demand technologies

Transitioning towards a sustainable energy system requires the large-scale introduction of novel energy demand and supply technologies. Such novel technologies are often expensive at the point of their market introduction but eventually become cheaper due to technological learning. In order to quantify potentials for price and cost decline, the experience curve approach has been extensively applied to renewable and non-renewable energy supply technologies. However, its application to energy demand technologies is far less frequent. Here, we provide the first comprehensive review of experience curve analyses for energy demand technologies. We find a widespread trend towards declining prices and costs at an average learning rate of 18 ± 9%. This finding is consistent with the results for energy supply technologies and for manufacturing in general. Learning rates for individual energy demand technologies are symmetrically distributed around the arithmetic mean of the data sample. Absolute variation of learning rates within individual technology clusters of 7 ± 4%-points and between technology clusters of 7 ± 5%-points both contribute to the overall variability of learning rates. Our results show that technological learning is as important for energy demand technologies as it is for energy supply technologies. Applying the experience curve approach to forecast technology costs involves, however, unresolved uncertainties, as we demonstrate in a case study for the micro-cogeneration technology.     

虚拟仪器技术对知识创造的影响研究

仪器作为现代科学研究的核心组成部分，在很大程度上决定了科学知识的产出。虚拟仪器技术对知识创造产生了深远影响。“软件就是仪器”的理念使得传统仪器、测量观念以及仪器作为科技黑箱的内涵和功能发生了质的变化。虚拟仪器在集成大量编码知识的同时更多地集成了主体的隐性知识，虚拟仪器技术通过对主体知识体系的重塑影响了知识创造。主体只有通过长时间、复杂的学习和使用过程才能充分发挥虚拟仪器技术在知识创造中的优势，实现编码知识和隐性知识的共同增长。     

Technological diversity,knowledge flow and capacity,and industrial innovation

ABSTRACT

This article examines the effect of technological diversity, knowledge flow and capacity on industrial innovation performance. We suggest that there is an inverse U-shaped relationship between technological diversity and industrial innovation performance. Moreover, knowledge flow and knowledge capacity are hypothesised as negatively moderating the effect of technological diversity on industrial innovation performance. We use negative binomial regression to test the hypotheses in a panel data of 360 industry-year cases and the findings support our prediction. Managerial implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Innovative Practice——Shipping Magnate CY Tung's Road to Success

CY Tung was the pioneer of innovation and the practioner of innovative theories in modern shipping, regardless of his huge oil tanker building, container transport, institutional management or resource integration. Tung, the shipping industry have called the pioneer of innovation, Tung's road to success is a story and history of continuous innovation. In his shipping career, adhering to the innovative concept, multi-use new shipping technology, and management practice, Tung had built a team with the ability to innovate. Tung's group, by integrating its human resources, contacts and production resources ultimately established himself in the highly competitive international shipping market and achieved his legendary of the world shipping tycoon.     

Public policy targets in EU broadband markets: The role of technological neutrality

The European Commission has recently sought to substantially revise how it regulates the telecommunication industry, with a key goal being to incentivise investment in high-speed broadband networks. Ambitious goals to incentivise investment in high-speed broadband networks have been set across the European Union, initially in the ‘Digital Agenda for Europe’ and more recently in its ‘Gigabit strategy’. These goals reflect the view of many that there are widespread and significant socio-economic benefits associated with broadband. Our analysis explores the consequence of target setting at a European level, in terms of encouraging investment and picking which technology should be adopted within the context of technological neutrality. We demonstrate that while public policy targets might implicitly favour specific technologies, especially when gigabit targets are defined, the technological choices that occur within individual Member States are shaped by the complex and dynamic interaction between a series of path dependencies that may vary significantly across as well as within Member States. Adopting an ecosystem perspective, we propose a conceptual framework that identifies the key factors associated with technological neutrality and informs a rational decision-making process.     

Variable long-term trends in mineral prices: The ongoing tug-of-war between exploration,depletion, and technological change

This paper explores the use of low-frequency band-pass filters for describing long-run trends in real mineral commodity prices. This approach has the advantage of allowing long-run trend rates to evolve gradually over time, rather than assuming that they are constant (perhaps with occasional structural breaks) over time. This is a flexible way of capturing the ongoing ‘tug of war’ between exploration, depletion, and technological change.Over 100 mineral and commodities, stretching back to the late 19th or early 20th century, are considered. The variety of LR trends is astonishing, but very few increase monotonically, contrary to the prediction of the basic Hotelling model. Some decline monotonically (as predicted by Prebisch and Singer); some have the U-shaped pattern predicted by Pindyck (1978), Heal (1981) and Slade (1982). Others have changed direction up to three times in the period since 1900. The tug of war continues with exhaustion nowhere in sight.     

Life after school: How science and technology teachers construe capability

Science and technology teachers create microcosms of the world beyond school as responses to perceived student needs. The focus of these microcosms for both science and technology classrooms was less of a concern for work preparation than for the development of social and intellectual habits. All of the teachers have strong views of the virtues of civil daily life and what it might take for their students to live the good life. The practical capability the teachers want their students to have transcends the instrumental to become moral.     

Embodying Embodiment in a Structural,Macroeconomic Input-Output Model

In this paper, I develop a regression-based system of labour productivity equations that account for capital-embodied technological change and I incorporate this system into IDLIFT, a structural, macroeconomic input-output model of the US economy. Builders of regression-based forecasting models have long had difficulty finding labour productivity equations that exhibit the "Solowian' property that movements in investment should cause accompanying movements in labour productivity. The production theory developed by Solow and others dictates that this causation is driven by the effect of traditional capital deepening as well as technological change embodied in capital. Lack of measurement of the latter has hampered the ability of researchers to estimate properly the productivity-investment relationship. Recent research by Wilson (2001) has alleviated this difficulty by estimating industry-level embodied technological change. In this paper, I utilize those estimates to construct capital stocks adjusted for technological change and then use these adjusted stocks to estimate Solow-type labour productivity equations. It is shown that replacing IDLIFT's former productivity equations, based on changes in output and time trends, with the new equations, results in a convergence between the dynamic behaviour of the model and that predicted by traditional (Solowian) production theory.     

Technological capability, social capital and the launch strategy for innovative products

The Launch strategy for innovative products is a crucial strategic typology adopted by many high tech firms, and which has been identified in prior research focusing on new product introduction to the market. However, the nexus between launch strategies and firm resources has gained little research attention. This article therefore aims to investigate the influence of technological capability and social capital, two key resources for innovation in high tech firms, on the adoption of a launch strategy for innovative products. Furthermore, prior research has revealed that market characteristics play a moderating role on the relationship between firm resources and company strategies; thus, this study also examines the moderating effect of market characteristics. This study takes Taiwan's integrated circuit design firms as the analytical sample. Based on a sample of ninety companies, two interesting findings have been found. First, both technological capability and social capital are associated positively with the launch strategy for innovative products. Second, while the market growth rates increase, the positive relationship between technological capability and the launch strategy for innovative products becomes weaker.     

竞争对手随机进入具有随机寿命创新项目价值评估

在考虑了行业内不完全市场竞争条件下,竞争对手的随机进入及新技术随机出现对项目投资机会的价值影响,假设标的资产服从跳--扩散过程,获得了技术创新成果转化项目的投资机会的价值的模型.研究结果表明,若忽视行业中不完全市场竞争、竞争对手随机进入及新技术随机出现的影响,将会造成投资项目价值的不合理的估计.