中国地区经济增长与能源消费强度差异分析

本文假设我国西部与东部地区的能源消费强度差异是西部与东部地区人均GDP差异的函数,然后同其他回归变量一起检验这两个变量之间的关系,并通过使用面板数据计量经济学模型进行实证估计。本文的研究结论为:第一,总体而言,西部与东部地区的人均GDP差异存在收敛,随着人均GDP的收敛,西部与东部地区的能源消费强度差异也是收敛的,但收敛的速度慢于人均GDP的收敛速度。第二,不同西部省份在经济增长过程中的能源使用效率是收敛还是发散存在差异。本文的政策含义是:政府在制定区域经济发展战略时,要鼓励和引导各地区充分利用能源禀赋以及能源利用效率方面的差异进行合作,走能源节约型的可持续的区域平衡增长道路。     

能源价格市场化改革中政府职能的定位

十八届三中全会提出了对能源价格进行市场化改革的要求。从现有的能源价格形成机制向具有竞争性的市场化方向推进,主要的方式为放松政府对能源各领域、各环节的不当管控,尽可能地减少行政干预,让市场自由地进行价格确认并进行能源配置。给予市场更多的自主权的同时,仍然要注意发挥政府引导和监督的作用。能源市场体系的建立、秩序的维护、基础设施的建设、非竞争性能源市场的维护等众多问题仍是政府公共服务领域的重要职能。     

The effectiveness of home energy audits: A case study of Jackson,Wyoming

This study examines the factors that influence households to adopt modifications recommended by home energy audits and whether these audits lead to significant reductions in electricity use. Household decisions after the audits are recorded along with the corresponding recommended modifications and the offers for co-funding. A discrete choice model of the household decision after the audit is estimated. The results indicate that the potential improvement in heating efficiency from the proposed modifications increase the probability of implementing conservation measures. Co-funding offers also significantly raise the odds of accepting the modifications but are relatively less important than anticipated efficiency improvements. Several approaches are used to determine whether and how much energy is saved after the audits. Electricity demand models are estimated using data two years before and after each household audit. For households who decide to modify their houses after the audit, monthly average electricity use per square foot decreases 7%. While there is an estimated 2% reduction in electricity use attributed to the audit by households who decided not to adopt the proposed modifications, this reduction is not statistically significant, casting doubt on the presence of modifications in behavior from the audit information itself. For all households audited, the results from the electricity demand models suggest that the LVE home energy audit program reduced household electricity use 4.7%. In contrast, a differences-in-differences approach using synthetic control groups based upon a smaller but still sizeable sample of 2000 observations finds that home energy audits reduce household electricity use by more than 10%. Overall, these findings suggest that home audits result in modest but significant reductions in energy use and that co-funding encourages investments that otherwise may not be privately optimal.     

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.     

A new energy model to capture the behavior of energy price processes

Owing to the vague fluctuation of energy prices from time to time, a new energy model, which considers both the mean-reverting behavior and the long memory property, is proposed in this paper. Since the problem of estimating parameters, in discrete time for this model, plays a central role in forecast inference, the problem of estimating the unknown parameters has been dealt with for the fractional Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process observed discretely. The asymptotic properties of these estimates are also provided. The numerical simulation results confirm the theoretical analysis and show that our method is effective. To show how to apply our approach in realistic contexts, an empirical study of energy in China, namely Daqing crude oil, is presented. The empirical results seem reasonable when compared to the real data.     

A new economics approach to modelling policies to achieve global 2020 targets for climate stabilisation

This paper explores a Post Keynesian, ‘new economics’ approach to climate policy, assessing the opportunities for investment in accelerated decarbonisation of the global economy to 2020 following the Great Recession of 2008–2009. The risks associated with business-as-usual growth in greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere suggest that avoiding dangerous climate change will require that the world’s energy-economy system is transformed through switching to low-carbon technologies and lifestyles. Governments have agreed a target to hold the increase in temperatures above pre-industrial levels to at most 2°C and have offered reductions by 2020 in GHG emissions or the carbon-intensity of GDP. The effects of policies proposed to achieve pathways to 2020 towards this target are assessed using E3MG, an Energy-Environment-Economy (E3) Model at the Global level. E3MG is an annual simulation econometric model, estimated for 20 world regions over 1972–2006 adopting a new economics approach. Additional low-GHG investment of some 0.7% of GDP, with carbon pricing and other policies, is sufficient to achieve a pathway consistent with a medium chance of achieving the long-term target. GDP is above reference levels because decarbonisation reduces world oil prices and increases investment. Employment is some 0.9% above reference levels by 2020 and public finances are almost unaffected.     

适应能源新形势 促进节能认证工作新发展

能源问题是全球共同关注的一个战略性问题。中国是能源消费大国,能源需求大,而国内能源贮备不足,节能任务十分迫切。为适应新形势下的节能需要,文章建议应采取节能认证的手段,大力促进节能工作的发展。     

Energy balance climate models and general equilibrium optimal mitigation policies

In a general equilibrium model of the world economy, we develop a two-dimensional energy balance climate model featuring heat diffusion and anthropogenic forcing driven by global fossil fuel use across the sphere of the Earth. This introduces an endogenous location dependent temperature function, driving spatial characteristics, in terms of location dependent damages resulting from local temperature anomalies into the standard climate-economy framework. We solve the social planner's problem and characterize the competitive equilibrium for two polar cases differentiated by the degree of market integration. We define optimal taxes on fossil fuel use and how they may implement the planning solution. Our results suggest that if the implementation of international transfers across latitudes is not possible then optimal taxes are in general spatially non-homogeneous and may be lower at poorer latitudes. The degree of spatial differentiation of optimal taxes depends on heat transportation. By employing the properties of the spatial model, we show by numerical simulations how the impact of thermal transport across latitudes on welfare can be studied.     

Profitability and supply price in the US domestic oil industry: implications for the political economy of oil in the twenty-first century

In May 2001, the US Government's National Energy Policy DevelopmentGroup proposed to increase investment in domestic oil resourcesand to diversify further the sourcing of US oil imports by increasingproduction in new petroleum provinces. The paper argues thatboth strands of this policy are dependent upon a third, unstated,objective—to ensure that OPEC retains sufficient marketpower to prevent the sort of collapse in world oil prices thatoccurred in 1998–99. The consequences of that collapse,when the real price of US oil fell to its lowest level in 53years, are explored. Finally, it is argued that the outcomeof the crisis was a rapprochement between OPEC and the US. Itis suggested that the consensus between the US and OPEC as tothe desired range within which the world oil price should moveis likely to survive any temporary political disturbances.     

Plastic wastes and the market penetration of auto shredders

In recent years the increased interest in the recycling of plastic wastes has lead to the development of numerous technological approaches to utilizing plastic wastes of varying qualities and types. A major problem with these technologies, however, is the unacceptable contamination levels in the available wastes. This paper examines one area from which relatively uncontaminated plastic wastes can be obtained—shredder residue from automotive shredder operations. In addition to reviewing the historical adoption of shredders, this paper uses econometric approaches to investigate the extent to which the shredder technology has penetrated the market for scrap steel. These approaches suggest that the movement toward shredders and away from the more conventional baler operations that have historically been used to process retired autos is slowing.