The Role of Economic Analysis in Shaping Environmental Policy

The experience of the US in using economic analysis to develop environmental policy is examined. Regulatory actions needed to create environmental benefits often impose substantial costs--both direct costs and indirect effects on other social goals--so it is important to consider all the effects of proposed initiatives Before imposing regulations

Conflicting Goals: Energy Security vs. GHG Reductions under the EISA Cellulosic Ethanol Mandate

Increasing energy security and lowering greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been prominent goals in recent energy and environmental policies. While these goals are often complementary, there may also be cases where they conflict. A case in point is the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA). The goals of EISA are to increase the United States' energy independence and security as well as to increase the production of clean renewable fuels. Title II of EISA establishes mandates for increasing the use of low carbon fuels to replace gasoline. While the Title II mandates will meet the energy security goal of EISA, the mandate for the use of at least 16 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol by 2022 may conflict with efforts to reduce substantially the nation's GHG emissions over the next 20 years. The nation's production capacity for biomass is likely to be limited and the use of biomass to replace coal in generating electricity yields 2 to 3 times the GHG reduction associated with using cellulosic ethanol to displace gasoline. Thus, there is a trade-off between the energy security gains of the biofuels mandate under EISA and the more effective (in terms of GHG emission reductions) use of biomass in the electric utility sector. One means of evaluating this trade-off is to examine the factors that affect the costeffectiveness of diverting biomass from electricity production to cellulosic ethanol production. This paper identifies some of the key factors that affect the cost-effectiveness of the energy security and climate change goals of EISA. The cost-effectiveness of EISA will depend on (1) constraints on biomass production, that is, the extent to which the EISA mandate may crowd out the use of biomass to generate electricity; (2) the world oil price (and the cost of production of cellulosic ethanol); and (3) the social cost of carbon.energy security, cost-effective policy, cellulosic ethanol

Mussolini’s Downfall

Contextual essay on a copy of Mussolini\u27s Diuturna [the Lasting] (Milan: Casa Editrice Imperia, 1924) held in the University of Pennsylvania libraries and annotated in 1945 using phrases from Victor Cousin by way of Cesare Cantù’s Storia Universale

A Rocket Cat? Early Modern Explosives Treatises at Penn

Contextual essay on an early modern explosives and warfare treatise held at Penn and the origin of the so-called rocket ca

Surprise Sketches

Contextual essay about a copy of Francis Grund, Die Aristokratie in Amerika, aus dem Tagebuch eines deutschen Edlemanns (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1839) held by the Penn Libraries which features hand-drawings in the place of engravings of several key figures

More than Formulaic

Contextual essay about an 18th-century American legal formulary created by Jared Ingersoll

Signers Day

Contextual essay on signatures in the Hale Signers Collection at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries

Among the Reels

Essay about Penn\u27s primary source microfilm collection

The Calve’s Head and Early Printing in Jamaica

Contextual essay about The *Calves’s-Head Club; or, a modest apology for Parson Alberoni, governor to King Philip, a minor; and universal curate of the whole Spanish monarchy: the whole being a short, but unanswerable Defence of Priestcraft, and a new confutation of the Bishop of Bangor. Jamaica: printed by R. Baldwin,in Kingston, 1719. [ESTC N67272]. This early printed pamphlet from Jamaica exists only in the Teerink Swift collection at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries

Moment in Time

Contextual essay about an image of librarians cataloging books in 1948 at Penn Libraries