Heterogeneous preferences and investments in energy saving measures

We investigate whether risk, time, environmental, and social preferences affect single-family homeowners’ investments in the energy efficiency of their house using established experimental measures and questionnaires. We find that homeowners who report to be more risk taking are more likely to have renovated their house. Pro-environmental and future-oriented renovators, i.e. renovators with lower discount factors, live in homes with higher energy efficiency. Pro-social preferences as measured in a dictator game relates positively to the energy quality of renovated houses. Controlling for the energy efficiency of houses, we further find that energy consumption as measured by heating and electricity costs is lower for future-oriented and pro-environmental individuals.     

Cutting costs of catching carbon—Intertemporal effects under imperfect climate policy

We use a two-period model to investigate intertemporal effects of cost reductions in climate change mitigation technologies for the power sector. The effect of cost reductions for CCS depends on how carbon taxes are set. If there is no carbon tax in period 1, but an optimally set carbon tax in period 2, a CCS cost reduction may reduce early emissions. Such an innovation may therefore be more desirable than comparable cost cuts related to renewable energy. The finding rests on the incentives fossil fuel owners face. If future profitability is reduced, they speed up extraction (the ‘green paradox’), and vice versa.     

RENAISSANCE OR REQUIEM: IS NUCLEAR ENERGY COST EFFECTIVE IN A POST‐FUKUSHIMA WORLD?

In the aftermath of Fukushima, decisions to slow or stop the future use of nuclear power have not been based on rational economic analysis. We find that there are cost‐effective technologies that would greatly mitigate future natural disasters. Even if the U.S. nuclear industry adopted new safety technologies and paid the full cost of insurance and borrowing, it is more efficient to continue to use existing nuclear plants than to replace them with new fossil fuel plants. However, new nuclear plant costs can exceed fossil fuel alternatives if the price of carbon emissions is below $118/ton. (JEL Q40, Q48, Q54)     

基于低碳经济的江苏化工企业“节能减排”投资绩效评价指标体系研究

化工行业是"节能减排"的重点行业之一,加强对化工企业"节能减排"投资绩效评价,对于转变经济增长方式、大力发展低碳经济具有十分重要的意义。化工企业"节能减排"投资绩效评价指标体系的构建应坚持科学性、系统性、代表性、可比性、可操作性、综合性等原则。化工企业"节能减排"投资绩效评价指标体系应从节能效果、减排治污效果、"节能减排"经济效益和社会效益四方面设计。节能效果指标可以用能源(资源)循环利用率、单位能耗收入、可再生能源(资源)利用率和投资节能率;减排治污效果指标可以用"三废"回收利用率、"三废"排放达标率、单位"三废"排放收入和投资减排率;"节能减排"经济效益指标可以用"节能减排"投资收益率和"节能减排"成本费用收益率;"节能减排"社会效益指标可以用居民生活环境满意度、环境质量优化度。     

Fuel choices and fuelwood use for residential heating and cooking in urban areas of central-southern Chile: The role of prices,income, and the availability of energy sources and technology

This paper empirically analyzes the determinants of fuel choices and intensity of fuelwood use for residential heating and cooking in central-southern Chile. By using information from a sample of 2761 households in nine urban areas, we first investigate households’ choices of the main fuel used for heating by means of multinomial models. Then we examine the intensity of fuelwood use through fractional probit models. These models allow analyzing the interdependence of fuel use by households, while taking into account households’ individual heterogeneity. Our results indicate that households’ fuel choices are mainly driven by socioeconomic and dwelling characteristics. Moreover, while there is a component of fuelwood use that cannot be influenced by energy policies, such as meteorological conditions across the country, there are a number of characteristics that influence the share of the households’ energy production which is generated by fuelwood. These factors range from socioeconomic characteristics to the households’ perceptions regarding the link between air pollution and use of fuelwood, which presents an opportunity for designing future policy interventions aimed at incentivizing the adoption of cleaner devices.     

关中地区清洁能源供暖方案的经济环境效益研究

使用清洁能源进行供暖,对关中地区治污减霾、改善能源结构具有积极的意义,但关于关中地区清洁能源供暖经济效益的研究鲜有报道。根据关中地区的供暖需求,论文制定了煤改电、煤改气和浅层地热能三种清洁能源供暖方案,构建了办公建筑、商业建筑和居住建筑三类典型模型,计算了这三类模型使用煤改电、煤改气和浅层地热能方案的投资、成本、净现值、内部收益率及投资回收期。浅层地热能方案净现值最大,盈利总量最大,其次为煤改电方案,最后为煤改气方案。煤改电方案内部收益率最高,煤改气方案最低,但对比差额投资内部收益率,浅层地热能供暖方案优于煤改电方案,煤改电方案优于煤改气方案。根据模型参数,评价了不同方案的污染物排放量和节能性,浅层地热能方案节能性最优,煤改电次之,煤改气较差。论文旨在为推动陕西省清洁能源事业的科学、有序发展提供理论依据。     

Economic evaluation of healthcare technology improving the quality of social life: the case of assistive technology for the disabled and elderly

Public investments in healthcare technology for the disabled and elderly to improve the quality of social life have been vigorous, but the economic evaluation of the assistive technology is still lacking. Under this circumstance, the purpose of this study is to analyse the socio-economic value of developing assistive technologies with the potential to improve the quality of social life, especially for disabled and elderly individuals. Based on a survey of 400 respondents, the spike model, a special form of the contingent valuation method (CVM) is applied to assess the value of assistive technologies. In Korea, a household’s willingness-to-pay (WTP) for the development of assistive technologies is US$4.26 per year, on average, in the form of a government-levied tax; although many people express zero WTP for the development of these technologies, people with higher household savings, higher levels of education and higher levels of charity donations have a higher WTP for the development of assistive technology. We conclude that although assistive technologies have considerable economic value many people express zero WTP for the development of these technologies. Therefore, political and social educational efforts are necessary to reach social consensus on the government investment in such technologies.     

Escalation of commitment to fossil fuels

The use of fossil fuels has been a great boon to human civilization. However, given the issue of climate change, it has become clear that this is a time-limited strategy and that we will at some point need to severely curtail, and perhaps ultimately eliminate, this strategy of meeting our energy needs. Given this long-term perspective, the authors argue that continued public investment in fossil fuel industries and infrastructures reflects escalation of commitment, continued investment in a failing strategy. In this context, this paper reviews the research on escalation of commitment and factors that encourage de-escalation, highlighting strategies that citizens can use to encourage politicians and public administrators to protect long-term civic well-being by shifting investments away from fossil fuel industries.     

Financing energy efficiency retrofits in Chilean households: The role of financial instruments,savings and uncertainty in energy transition

High firewood consumption for heating produces high levels of pollution in cities in central and southern Chile, with serious consequences for health and quality of life. Energy efficiency measures (EEMs) have been identified as the best strategy to reduce air pollution and maximize social benefits. However, their adoption has been slow. The objective of this article is to investigate household preferences for financial incentives needed to promote private investments in EEMs in Central-Southern Chilean households and study the role of energy savings and the uncertainty about potential savings in the investment decision, with the aim of finding solutions to increase the adoption of these technologies. We use a choice experiment to explore the trade-off between the investment costs, financial instruments, energy savings, and the uncertainty about achieving the theoretical savings provided by engineering and architectural models. The results show that financial instruments play the most important role in this decision, followed by the savings achieved by the retrofit. Householders prefer to finance their investments with a mix of their personal resources and medium-term credits, trying to avoid long-term commitments. Although uncertainty was found to be a significant variable, it seems to play a small role in the investment decision.     

基于面板数据的中国能源强度演变区域影响因素研究

本文基于我国29个省市自治区1990年到2008年的区域面板数据,对影响我国能源强度变化的主要指标进行了回归分析,在区域层面探究了各个因素对我国能源强度变化的影响机理及结果。研究结果发现燃料价格与能源强度变化呈负相关关系,热度日和冷度日的影响效果只有在南部地区显著,人均收入、投资资本比率等因素在不同阶段对能源强度有着不同的影响。本文更进一步的解释了我国能源强度变化的内在影响因素,有助于系统深入的分析我国能源利用中存在的问题。研究结论对节能减排政策的制订具有一定的实践指导意义。     

低碳经济：未来经济发展的新规则——英国在金融危机下出台低碳产业战略和低碳复苏计划

作为金融危机主要受创国之一，英国一直在寻求经济复苏的途径，以及未来战略产业规划。2009年可看出其调整的一个重要方向，就是将经济复苏与发展低碳产业结合起来。一季度以来，英国政府相继出台了《投资低碳英国》等3项重大低碳战略，把低碳能源、低碳汽车、能效以及低碳基础设施作为未来发展的重要领域，并出台了力度很大的投资计划。计划在2008—2011年3年间累计投资500亿英镑，2009年新年度财政预算将新增14亿英镑，用于支持一些关键性低碳领域等。英国这些措施着意在于布局新一轮世界绿色产业革命的制高点。本文建议：一方面尽快制定我国的低碳经济战略规划；另一方面进一步增强自主创新能力，加强中长期低碳战略技术的储备工作。     

The effect of uncertainty on pollution abatement investments: Measuring hurdle rates for Swedish industry

We estimate hurdle rates for firms’ investments in pollution abatement technology, using ex post data. The method is based on a structural option value model where the future price of polluting fuel is the major source of uncertainty facing the firm. The empirical procedure is illustrated using a panel of firms from the Swedish pulp and paper industry, and the energy and heating sector, and their sulfur dioxide emissions over the period 2000–2003. The results indicate that hurdle rates of investment vary from 2.7 to 3.1 in the pulp and paper industry and from 3.4 to 3.6 in the energy and heating sector depending on econometric specification.     

Elasticity of substitution and technical efficiency: evidence from the US electricity generation

ABSTRACT

The implications of national or regional energy policies for technical efficiency and environmental outcomes in electricity generation depend on fossil fuel input substitution. This study uses state level data to examine fossil fuel (coal and natural gas) substitution in electricity generation under increased availability of natural gas in the United States. We observe that changes in elasticities of substitution from pre-2009 to post-2009 differ across states suggesting that the effects of increased availability of inexpensive natural gas on electricity generation have been spatially heterogeneous. We rely on the observed heterogeneity to assess the effects of fossil fuel input substitution on technical efficiency and CO₂ emissions. The results reveal that state level elasticity of substitution between natural gas and coal has a positive effect on technical efficiency and a negative effect on CO₂ emissions. Therefore, future policy design and analyses should reflect the implications for regional elasticities of fossil fuel substitution and associated environmental outcomes.     

China’s Investments in Skills

This paper discusses the benefits of investment in skills in China. We highlight the achievements China has made over time in human capital investments and the new challenges that have emerged as the country develops. To fuel China’s further economic growth and social developments, it is essential to take a more holistic view on skill investments. We suggest policies that promote both economic efficiency and social mobility.     

The marginal cost of carbon abatement from planting street trees in New York City

Urban trees can store carbon through the growth process and reduce fossil fuel use by lowering cooling and heating energy consumption of buildings through the process of transpiration, shading, and the blocking of wind. However, the planting and maintenance of urban trees come at a cost. We estimate the discounted cost of net carbon reductions associated with planting and caring for street trees in New York City (NYC) over 50- and 100-year horizons. Depending on the species planted, the cost of reducing carbon, averaged across planting locations, ranges from $3133 to $8888 per tonne carbon (tC), which is higher than current cost estimates of forest-based carbon sequestration. The London plane tree is the most cost-effective species because of its long life span and large canopy, and the marginal cost of carbon reduction for the species ranges from $1553 to $7396/tC across planting locations. The boroughs of Staten Island and Queens have planting locations with the lowest average costs of carbon reduction ($2657/tC and $2755/tC, respectively), resulting from greater reductions in energy consumption in nearby buildings, which have fewer stories and more residential use than buildings in the other boroughs.     

Estimating the impact of investing in a resource efficient,resilient global energy-intensive manufacturing industry

To examine the prospects of creating a resource efficient, low-carbon economy, this paper focuses on the impacts of investing in energy, water and waste. The broader industrial sector, as well as six energy-intensive manufacturing industries is studied. A system dynamics model is developed for each selected sub-sector, which is embedded in a broader integrated framework to fully appreciate the linkages within the industries and across the economy, environment and society. This study further simulates and analyzes the key factors affecting the economic performance and environmental impacts of these industries in a resource efficient scenario compared to a business-as-usual (BAU) case. Our analysis indicates that with no additional resource-efficiency and conservation actions taken, these industries – highly exposed to rising fuel prices under BAU – will suffer from declined profitability over time. Under the alternative scenario however, an incremental investment in efficiency will not only substantially curb energy demand and emissions, but will also effectively reduce energy expenditures in all analyzed industries yielding an overall positive return on investment after nine years. Though the extent of cost saving varies across the sub-sectors due to the variation in energy mix, they will all see considerable reduction in unit production costs and increase in operating margins and profits in the medium to longer term.     

Fuel poverty in residential housing: providing financial support versus combatting substandard housing

Between 50 and 125 million Europeans are unable to afford the energy needed for adequate heating, cooking, light and use of appliances in the home. Tackling fuel poverty has thus become a public policy challenge. In this article, we assess the effectiveness of social energy subsidies and social housing to reduce fuel poverty. The literature reports that rising fuel prices, low incomes and energy-inefficient housing are the main causes of fuel poverty. Existing public policies focus mainly on price- and income-based measures to reduce fuel poverty, such as social energy subsidies. This type of policy is palliative as it does not permit to sustainably eradicate fuel poverty. Other policies aim to encourage renovation in order to improve energy efficiency. Those policies are curative as they sustainably reduce one cause of fuel poverty: energy inefficiency. In this article, we focus on another public policy to tackle fuel poverty: social housing. We believe that this policy could be preventive, as the literature reports the better energy efficiency of social housing. We use matching methods and find that living in social housing decreases fuel poverty by 5.4% to 9.1%. On the contrary, social energy subsidies have no effect on fuel poverty.     

The Effect of Risk Characteristics on the Willingness to Pay for Mortality Risk Reductions from Electric Power Generation

The objective of this study is to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) for the reduction of mortality risks caused by fossil fuel (natural gas, coal and oil) versus nuclear electric power generation systems and to examine the influence of risk characteristics involved with electric power generation on WTP. A choice experiment was conducted to achieve these objectives. The attributes for nuclear risks in the experiment included the probability of disasters and the expected losses if a disaster occurs. We find evidence of (i) a baseline effect (where WTP is sensitive to hypothetical versus actual baseline expected mortality); (ii) a ‘labeling effect,’ where, surprisingly, the term ‘nuclear’ has no effect on WTP, but the term ‘fossil-fueled power generation’ results in lower WTP; and (iii) disaster aversion, meaning that people focus on the conditional loss from a nuclear disaster, not the probability. We also find that the WTP for reducing deaths from a nuclear disaster is about 60 times the WTP for routine reducing fossil-fuel generation-related deaths.     

Technological change in energy systems: Learning curves, logistic curves and input-output coefficients

Learning curves have recently been widely adopted in climate-economy models to incorporate endogenous change of energy technologies, replacing the conventional assumption of an autonomous energy efficiency improvement. However, there has been little consideration of the credibility of the learning curve. The current trend that many important energy and climate change policy analyses rely on the learning curve means that it is of great importance to critically examine the basis for learning curves. Here, we analyse the use of learning curves in energy technology, usually implemented as a simple power function. We find that the learning curve cannot separate the effects of price and technological change, cannot reflect continuous and qualitative change of both conventional and emerging energy technologies, cannot help to determine the time paths of technological investment, and misses the central role of R&D activity in driving technological change. We argue that a logistic curve of improving performance modified to include R&D activity as a driving variable can better describe the cost reductions in energy technologies. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the top-down Leontief technology can incorporate the bottom-up technologies that improve along either the learning curve or the logistic curve, through changing input-output coefficients. An application to UK wind power illustrates that the logistic curve fits the observed data better and implies greater potential for cost reduction than the learning curve does.     

Public support for reducing US reliance on fossil fuels: Investigating household willingness-to-pay for energy research and development

In order to reduce future dependence on foreign oil and emissions of CO₂, how much would US households be willing to pay annually to support increased energy research and development (R&D) activities designed to replace fossil fuels? Does it matter whether the R&D includes nuclear energy options? We explore these questions using data from a unique set of national telephone and Internet surveys. Using a national advisory referendum format, the contingent valuation method is applied to estimate annual household willingness-to-pay (WTP) for US household support of a national Energy Research and Development Fund (ERDF) for investments in energy sources not reliant on fossil fuels. While accounting for the level of (un)certainty in voting responses, the WTP modeling includes a comparison of both classic maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) and Bayesian analysis. Evidence indicates that MLE and Bayesian analysis achieve similar statistical inference, while the Bayesian analysis provides a narrower confidence interval around estimated WTP.