A Balanced Energy Plan for the Interior West

Describes a Balanced Energy Plan for the Interior West region of Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. Part of the Hewlett Foundation Energy Series

Space benefits: The secondary application of aerospace technology in other sectors of the economy

Benefit cases of aerospace technology utilization are presented for manufacturing, transportation, utilities, and health. General, organization, geographic, and field center indexes are included

Publications of the JPL Solar Thermal Power Systems Project, 1976 to 1983

The bibliographical listings in this publication are documentation products associated with the solar thermal power system project carried out by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 1976 to 1983. Documents listed are categorized as conference and journal papers, JPL external reports, JPL internal reports, or contractor reports. Alphabetical listings by title were used in the bibliography itself to facilitate location of the document by subject. Two indexes are included for ease of reference: one, an author index; the other, a topical index

Carbon Free Boston: Social equity report 2019

OVERVIEW: In January 2019, the Boston Green Ribbon Commission released its Carbon Free Boston: Summary Report, identifying potential options for the City of Boston to meet its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050. The report found that reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 requires three mutually-reinforcing strategies in key sectors: 1) deepen energy efficiency while reducing energy demand, 2) electrify activity to the fullest practical extent, and 3) use fuels and electricity that are 100 percent free of greenhouse gases (GHGs). The Summary Report detailed the ways in which these technical strategies will transform Boston’s physical infrastructure, including its buildings, energy supply, transportation, and waste management systems. The Summary Report also highlighted that it is how these strategies are designed and implemented that matter most in ensuring an effective and equitable transition to carbon neutrality. Equity concerns exist for every option the City has to reduce GHG emissions. The services provided by each sector are not experienced equally across Boston’s communities. Low-income families and families of color are more likely to live in residences that are in poor physical condition, leading to high utility bills, unsafe and unhealthy indoor environments, and high GHG emissions.1 Those same families face greater exposure to harmful outdoor air pollution compared to others. The access and reliability of public transportation is disproportionately worse in neighborhoods with large populations of people of color, and large swaths of vulnerable neighborhoods, from East Boston to Mattapan, do not have ready access to the city’s bike network. Income inequality is a growing national issue and is particularly acute in Boston, which consistently ranks among the highest US cities in regards to income disparities. With the release of Imagine Boston 2030, Mayor Walsh committed to make Boston more equitable, affordable, connected, and resilient. The Summary Report outlined the broad strokes of how action to reach carbon neutrality intersects with equity. A just transition to carbon neutrality improves environmental quality for all Bostonians, prioritizes socially vulnerable populations, seeks to redress current and past injustice, and creates economic and social opportunities for all. This Carbon Free Boston: Social Equity Report provides a deeper equity context for Carbon Free Boston as a whole, and for each strategy area, by demonstrating how inequitable and unjust the playing field is for socially vulnerable Bostonians and why equity must be integrated into policy design and implementation. This report summarizes the current landscape of climate action work for each strategy area and evaluates how it currently impacts inequity. Finally, this report provides guidance to the City and partners on how to do better; it lays out the attributes of an equitable approach to carbon neutrality, framed around three guiding principles: 1) plan carefully to avoid unintended consequences, 2) be intentional in design through a clear equity lens, and 3) practice inclusivity from start to finish

Commercial energy efficiency and the environment

The production and use of energy create serious, extensive environmental affects at every level, in every country, argue the authors. That impact may be more serious in developing than in developed countries as developing countries depend more on natural resources and lack the economic strength to withstand environmental consequences. At the same time, a reliable energy supply is vital to economic growth and development. Energy consumption and economic growth have been somewhat delinked at high income levels, but increased energy consumption (especially of electricity) is inevitable with higher GDP. Greater energy efficiency in developing countries and Eastern Europe is a high-priority way to mitigate the harm to the environment of growing energy consumption, say the authors. They outline four advantages of greater energy efficiency. It requires measures that are in the economic self-interest of those regions. Political obstacles make these measures difficult, but there are well-established techniques for addressing concerns about low-income consumers (such as direct income support or life-line rates). It will help conserve the world supply of nonrenewable (especially fossil) fuels. It will encourage appropriate fuel switching. It addresses every level of concern, up to the global effects of global warming. Any strategy to make energy use and production more efficient must rely more extensively than before on markets that are allowed to function with less government interference. The crucial components of such a straetegy (also crucial to economic development generally) are: more domestic and external competition; the gradual elimination of energy pricing distortions; the reduction of macroeconomic and sectoral distortions (for example, in foreign exchange and credit markets); the reform of energy supply enterprises - reducing state interference, providing more financial autonomy and a greater role for the private sector; consumer incentives to select more efficient lights, space heating, and so on. The authors are not convinced of the need for nonmarket approaches beyond those geared to correct externalities, provide essential information, support basic research and development, and possibly promote pilot projects. They also conclude that a government is far more likely to take action to reduce an environmental externality if it captures benefits within its own national boundaries that exceed the cost of the action. Reducing the large difference between energy prices and economic costs in developing countries and Eastern Europe is a more immediate issue than carbon taxes. The developed countries, say the authors, have an indispensable role to play in improving energy efficiency in the developing countries and Eastern Europe. They can encourage the flow of efficient technology, they can increase conventional aid, and they must accept a greater share of the burden of protecting the global commonalities.Energy and Environment,Environmental Economics&Policies,Energy Demand,Transport and Environment,Power&Energy Conversion

State of Watershed Payments: An Emerging Marketplace

A global research effort conducted by Ecosystem Marketplace identified a total of approximately 288 payments for watershed services (PWS) and water quality trading (WQT) programs in varying stages of activity over the past 30 years. In 2008, the baseline year, about 127 programs were actively receiving payments or transacting credits. The total transaction value from all programs actively engaged in 2008 is estimated at US$9.3 billion. Over the entire time span of recorded activity, total transaction value is estimated at slightly more than US$50 billion, impacting some 3.24 billion hectares

Los Angeles, Mexico City, Cubatao, and Ankara - Efficient environmental regulation : case studies of urban air pollution

The authors review the economic principles that should guide the efficient choice of targeted policies for environmental protection. They recommend policy instruments along three dimensions: (1) whether they use economic incentives; (2) whether they target environmental damage directly; and (3) whether they specify prices, quantities, or technologies. This distinction is helpful in guiding policy choices because many discussions in the economics literature on environmental policies mistakenly claim advantages for incentive-based instruments by showing, for instance, that direct policies of this sort are less costly than indirect non-incentive measures. After analyzing efficient responses to the air pollution problem, the authors come up with somewhat surprising results. For three of the cities (Ankara, Los Angeles, and Mexico City), the efficient instruments selected by this (admittedly limited) exercise are similar: indirect incentive-based policies. Only Cubatao differs in that direct non-incentive regulations are the efficient policy choice. But choosing indirect policy instruments is not without its problems. This category is the broadest one. For instance, while there is only a single direct incentive-based price instrument (emissions taxes), several indirect incentive-based price policies exist including taxes on inputs and on complementary and substitute products. Indirect policies also cannot simultaneously target the incentives to reduce waste generation, production efficiency, and reduce output to reduce pollution. A combination of indirect policies will then be required to control pollution. But if the regulatory costs of controlling additional variables are high they may outweigh the cost of monitoring and enforcing a single direct policy. Finally, indirect regulations may be accompanied by perverse incentives, such as new source bias or reduced marginal costs of polluting. Efforts to offset these perverse incentives by regulating additional variables may be subject to second-best problems: two regulations with opposite results can be costlier than no regulation at all. The main lesson the authors draw from the cases examined: Once decisions are made - whether to concentrate industry, to rely on private vehicles for transportation, to subsidize a particular energy source, or to use a certain environmental policy - they acquire a certain performance. Capital is invested and workers are trained under the prevailing laws, and these are costly to change. Los Angeles cannot reverse its emphasis on the automobile; Brazil cannot easily move its industrial center away from Cubatao; Mexico cannot quickly reduce the concentration in its capital city; and Turkey's development would suffer if energy subsidies were removed abruptly. For this reason, it is important to design policy with an eye toward longer-run concerns. It makes sense, for example, for cities such as Ankara to begin to enact policies to prevent mobile source pollution from worsening over the next decades. The authors also point out the dangers of ignoring intermedia substitution of pollutants. In places such as Cubatao, where air quality has been cleaned up, the improvement may have come at the expense of water quality or the accumulation of hazardous wastes.Environmental Economics&Policies,Energy and Environment,Transport and Environment,Economic Theory&Research,Water and Industry

Atmospheric effects of the emerging mainland Chinese transportation system at and beyond the regional scale

Local surface travel needs in the People's Republic of China (mainland China) have traditionally been met largely by nonpolluting bicycles. A major automobile manufacturing/importing effort has begun in the country over the last decade, and planning documents indicate that the Chinese may strive to acquire more than 100 million vehicles early in the next century. By analogy with large automotive fleets already existing in the western world, both regional and global scale pollution effects are to be expected from the increase. The present work adopts the latest projections of Chinese automobile manufacture and performs some quantitative assessments of the extent of pollution generation. Focus for the investigation is placed upon the oxidant ozone. Emissions of the precursor species nitrogen oxides and volatile organics are constructed based on data for the current automotive sector in the eastern portion of the United States. Ozone production is first estimated from measured values for continental/oceanic scale yields relative to precursor oxidation. The estimates are then corroborated through idealized two dimensional modeling of the photochemistry taking place in springtime air flow off the Asian land mass and toward the Pacific Ocean. The projected fleet sizes could increase coastal and remote oceanic ozone concentrations by tens of parts per billion (ppb) in the lower troposphere. Influences on the tropospheric aerosol system and on the major greenhouse gas carbon dioxide are treated peripherally. Nitrogen oxides created during the vehicular internal combustion process will contribute to nitrate pollution levels measured in the open Pacific. The potential for soot and fugitive dust increases should be considered as the automotive infrastructure develops. Since the emerging Chinese automotive transportation system will represent a substantial addition to the global fleet and all the carbon in gasoline is eventually oxidized completely, a significant rise in global carbon dioxide inputs will ensue as well. Some policy issues are treated preliminary. The assumption is made that alterations to regional oxidant/aerosol systems and to terrestrial climate are conceivable. The likelihood that the Chinese can achieve the latest vehicle fleet goals is discussed, from the points of view of new production, positive pollution feedbacks from a growing automobile industry, and known petroleum reserves. Vehicular fuel and maintenance options lying before the Chinese are outlines and compared. To provide some perspective on the magnitude of the environmental changes associated with an Asian automotive buildup, recent estimates of the effects of future air traffic over the Pacific Rim are described