Renewable energy, coal as a baseload power source, and greenhouse gas emissions: Evidence from U.S. state-level data

Energy ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 127 ◽  
pp. 479-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay Squalli
Author(s):  
Michael Cary

Analyses of the Environmental Kuznet's Curve (EKC) hypothesis have largely focused on economy level data with occasional analyses exploring sector level data. This paper exploits a new data set which contains sector level data on greenhouse gas emissions from the US energy sector as well as subsector data from six disjoint subsectors which together comprise the entire energy sector. The data contained in this data set is annual data at the state level from 1990 through 2011. A battery of EKC models are tested and some evidence supporting the EKC hypothesis is found for the US energy sector and its subsectors. We find that aggregated subsector level estimates outperform sector level estimate on in-sample accuracy. These estimated models are then used to forecast emissions for the energy sector. We find that EKC estimations for the energy sector as a whole are consistently lower than aggregated subsector EKC estimates. Addressing the title, we find limited evidence at best that US greenhouse gas emissions are at or near a peak.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 1234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hee-Hoon Kim ◽  
Seul-Ye Lim ◽  
Seung-Hoon Yoo

Heat accounts for about one-third of the final energy use and it is mostly produced using fossil fuels in South Korea. Thus, heat production is an important source of greenhouse gas emissions. However, using renewable heat that is directly produced from renewable energy, such as bioenergy, geothermal, or solar heat can save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, rather than transforming conventional fuel into heat. Therefore, an energy policy for renewable heat urgently needs to be established. It is such situations that this paper attempts to assess the consumers’ additional willingness to pay (WTP) or the price premium for renewable heat over heat that is produced from fossil fuels for residential heating. To that end, a nationwide contingent valuation survey of 1000 households was conducted during August 2018. Employing the model allowing for zero WTP values, the mean of the additional WTP or premium for one Gcal of heat produced using renewable energy rather than fossil fuels was estimated to be KRW 3636 (USD 3.2), which is statistically meaningful at the 1% level. This value represents the price premium for renewable heat over heat that is based on fossil fuels. Given that the heat price for residential heating was approximately KRW 73,000 (USD 65.1) per Gcal at the time of the survey, the additional WTP or the price premium corresponds to about 5% of that. When considering that the cost of producing renewable heat is still significantly higher than the cost of producing fossil fuels-based heat, more efforts to lower the production costs of renewable heat as well as financial support of the government for producing and supplying renewable heat are needed to ensure residential consumers’ acceptance of renewable heat.


2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (No. 10) ◽  
pp. 447-457
Author(s):  
Nicoleta Mihaela Florea ◽  
Roxana Maria Badircea ◽  
Ramona Costina Pirvu ◽  
Alina Georgiana Manta ◽  
Marius Dalian Doran ◽  
...  

According to the objectives of the European Union concerning the climate changes, Member States should take all the necessary measures in order to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions. The aim of this study is to identify the causality relations between greenhouse gases emissions, added value from agriculture, renewable energy consumption, and economic growth based on a panel consisting of 11 states from the Central and Eastern Europe (CEECs) in the period between 2000 and 2017. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) method was used to estimate the long-term relationships among the variables. Also a Granger causality test based on the ARDL – Error Correction Model (ECM) and a Pairwise Granger causality test were used to identify the causality relationship and to detect the direction of causality among the variables. The results obtained reveal, in the long term, two bidirectional relationships between agriculture and economic growth and two unidirectional relationships from agriculture to greenhouse gas emissions and renewable energy. In the short term, four unidirectional relationships were found from agriculture to all the variables in the model and one unidirectional relationship from renewable energy to greenhouse gas emissions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 837
Author(s):  
Matteo Prussi

Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are dramatically influencing the environment, and research is strongly committed in proposing alternatives, mainly based on renewable energy sources [...]


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (20) ◽  
pp. 7112
Author(s):  
Valeria Todeschi ◽  
Guglielmina Mutani ◽  
Lucia Baima ◽  
Marianna Nigra ◽  
Matteo Robiglio

Urban rooftops are a potential source of water, energy, and food that contribute to make cities more resilient and sustainable. The use of smart technologies such as solar panels or cool roofs helps to reach energy and climate targets. This work presents a flexible methodology based on the use of geographical information systems that allow evaluating the potential use of roofs in a densely built-up context, estimating the roof areas that can be renovated or used to produce renewable energy. The methodology was applied to the case study of the city of Turin in Italy, a 3D roof model was designed, some scenarios were investigated, and priorities of interventions were established, taking into account the conditions of the urban landscape. The applicability of smart solutions was conducted as a support to the review of the Building Annex Energy Code of Turin, within the project ‘Re-Coding’, which aimed to update the current building code of the city. In addition, environmental, economic, and social impacts were assessed to identify the more effective energy efficiency measures. In the Turin context, using an insulated green roof, there was energy saving in consumption for heating up to 88 kWh/m2/year and for cooling of 10 kWh/m2/year, with a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 193 tCO2eq/MWh/year and 14 tCO2eq/MWh/year, respectively. This approach could be a significant support in the identification and promotion of energy efficiency solutions to exploit also renewable energy resources with low greenhouse gas emissions.


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