Allocation of CO2 Emissions Allowances in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Cap-and-Trade Program

Cap-and-trade programs for air emissions have become the widely accepted, preferred approach to cost-effective pollution reduction. One of the important design questions in a trading program is how to initially distribute the emissions allowances. Under the Acid Rain program created by Title IV of the Clean Air Act, most emissions allowances were distributed to current emitters on the basis of a historic measure of electricity generation in an approach known as grandfathering. Recent proposals have suggested two alternative approaches: allocation according to a formula that is updated over time according to some performance metric in a recent year (the share of electricity generation or something else) and auctioning allowances to the highest bidders. Prior research has shown that the manner in which allowances for carbon dioxide (CO2) are initially distributed can have substantial effects on the social cost of the policy as well as on who wins and who loses as a result of the policy. Another concern with a regional cap-and-trade program like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is the effect that different approaches to allocating emissions allowances will have on the level of CO2 emissions outside the region, commonly called emissions leakage. In this research we model historic, auction, and updating approaches to allowance allocation that we call bookends, then model various variations on these approaches. We consider changes in measures such as electricity price, the mix of generation technologies, and the emissions of conventional pollutants inside and outside the RGGI region. We examine the social cost of the program, measured as the change in economic surplus, which is the type of measure used in benefit–cost analysis. We also examine the effects of different approaches to distributing allowances on the net present value of generation assets inside and outside the RGGI region. We find that how allowances are allocated has an effect on electricity price, consumption, and the mix of technologies used to generate electricity. Electricity price increases the most with a historic or auction approach. Coal-fired generation in the RGGI region decreases under all approaches but decreases the most under updating. Gas-fired generation decreases under historic and auction approaches but increases substantially under updating. Renewable generation increases under historic and auction approaches but decreases slightly under updating as a consequence of the expanded generation from gas. Consistent with the changes in the composition of generation, the decline in emissions of conventional pollutants including sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and mercury that was expected as a result of the Clean Air Interstate Rule is accelerated substantially as a result of the RGGI policy, particularly under updating. The cost of complying with SO2, NOx, and mercury rules declines similarly. We find that the social costs of the bookend auction and historic approaches are comparable and that the social cost of updating is roughly three times that of the other approaches. At the same time, updating yields greater emissions reductions on a national basis (because it produces less emissions leakage) and greater cumulative reductions in emissions at the national level than historic allocation. Varying the design of the updating approach can reduce its social costs but generally would increase leakage at the same time. An updating approach with allocation to all generators, including all nuclear and renewables has the lowest social cost within the RGGI region of any policy analyzed, although this result comes at the expense of costs imposed outside the region. When the approaches to allocation are mixed, we find the changes in electricity price, generation, and emissions are roughly a combination of the performance of each individual approach. In particular, social costs typically are lower under the scenarios that combine an auction with updating than when updating is the exclusive approach to distributing allowances. Who wins and who loses from the policy varies with the approach to allocation. Under a historic approach, producers in the RGGI region gain substantially and generally are better off than without the program; such is not true under an auction or updating. Producers also gain overall from the policy when a historic allocation is combined with an auction, but the gains are substantially less than in the 100% historic case. Producers outside the region tend to benefit considerably from the higher electricity price in the RGGI region but benefit the least under updating because the effect on electricity price is lowest. Consumers both inside and outside the RGGI region are adversely affected under all allocation approaches but much less so under updating because the change in electricity price is lowest. One exception is when eligibility for allowances under an updating allocation is limited to nonemitters only, in which case the electricity price increases substantially. Different types of generators fare differently under the various allocation approaches. Asset values for all types of generators are highest under a historic approach, although the difference between historic and auction approaches is small for nuclear generators. Compared with the baseline, both nuclear and existing gas-fired generators in the RGGI region gain under an auction. Only gas-fired generators gain under the bookend approach to updating, although nuclear generators benefit as well under updating designs that include them among those eligible for allowances. Coal-fired generators lose the most under updating. Moving from 100% updating to auctioning an increasingly larger share of allowances generally has a positive effect on asset values for all fuel types including coal. The one exception is that moving from 50% auction and 50% updating to 100% auction has a negative effect on the asset values for coal. Finally, we conduct sensitivity analyses with higher natural gas prices and constraints on electricity transmission capability. The social cost of the RGGI program does not appear to be sensitive to these constraints. Higher gas prices or transmission constraints alone impose significant costs that are larger than the effect of adding the RGGI policy. For example, their substantial effect on electricity price is greater than the added effect imposed by the RGGI program. The constraints that are modeled do not appear to have a strong impact on RGGI implementation. We also conduct a sensitivity analysis with renewables portfolio standard policies in place throughout the region. The resulting prices of electricity and CO2 emissions allowances are slightly lower than without the renewables policy.emissions trading, allowance allocations, electricity, air pollution, auction, grandfathering, generation performance standard, output-based allocation, cost-effectiveness, greenhouse gases, climate change, global warming, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, mercury

Help-Seeking Attitudes among Clinicians in Training: The Influence of Psychological Defensiveness

The current study investigated whether psychologically-defensive clinicians-in-training were more resistant to engaging in personal therapy while pursuing a graduate degree in a mental health discipline. Participants were selected from graduate level mental health counseling and clinical psychology programs. Three groups were of interest: ‘manifestly distressed’ (MD), who report high levels of subjective distress; ‘illusory mental health’ (IMH), defined as individuals who report low levels of subjective distress but are identified by the Early Memories Test (EMT) as defensive; and ‘genuine mental health’ (GMH) individuals, rated as non-defensive on the EMT while reporting low subjective distress levels. The following measures were used to assess for the variables of interest: the Early Memory Index, the Trainees’ Attitudes Toward Seeking Psychotherapy Scale, and the Subjective Distress Scale. Findings included equally high ratings on the TATSPS among each of the three mental health groups and a substantial number of treatment hours reported by each of the three groups. Compared to GMH participants, IMH and MD participants attended significantly more hours of personal therapy, and mental health grouping influenced treatment seeking over and above the influence of attitudes measured with the TATSPS

Quiet encroachment and spatial morphologies in Jallah Town, Monrovia, Liberia

textThis paper will build upon the idea that informal settlements communities develop characteristic spatial morphologies as a response to outside forces. By understanding those forces and the resulting use of space, in particular public spaces, we can develop more appropriate urban design and planning interventions based in local realities. I begin by presenting the urban theories of Christopher Alexander and Bill Hillier, which provide analytical tools for understanding public space morphologies and the uses of public space. I then introduce Asef Bayat’s concept of quiet encroachment to more fully theorize the characteristics of public space as a response to the outside forces, in particular as an informal means of claiming space and rights to the city. Finally, I draw on this analytical and theoretical framework to analyze public space in the informal settlement of Jallah Town, in Monrovia, Liberia. I conclude by outlining how these analytical and theoretical tools can be used to further urban theory and international development and planning practice in informal settlements.Architectur

The McKee Treaty of 1790: British-Aboriginal Diplomacy in the Great Lakes

On the 19th of May, 1790, the representatives of four First Nations of Detroit and the British Crown signed, each in their own custom, a document ceding 5,440 square kilometers of Aboriginal land to the Crown that spring for £1200 Quebec Currency in goods. Understandings of this treaty in historical scholarship have focused entirely on the written document and a controversy with the Land Board for the District of Hesse. This limited analysis has neglected Aboriginal accounts of the Treaty, rendering a one-sided perspective that represents only part of the story. This thesis is an attempt to complicate what is now known as the McKee Treaty of 1790 by incorporating the perspectives and actions of the Aboriginal signatories. Specifically, I argue that our understanding of the McKee Treaty must extend beyond the confines of the written treaty text that was signed on the 19th of May, 1790. Although the Treaty fulfilled the needs of the colonial Land Board, it also served to strengthen the alliance between the Crown and the Aboriginal Confederacy. Finally, this thesis also demonstrates that the Treaty was a means for both the Crown and Aboriginal peoples to advance their interests against the shared threat of the United States

Gamma-ray Bursts, Classified Physically

From Galactic binary sources, to extragalactic magnetized neutron stars, to long-duration GRBs without associated supernovae, the types of sources we now believe capable of producing bursts of gamma-rays continues to grow apace. With this emergent diversity comes the recognition that the traditional (and newly formulated) high-energy observables used for identifying sub-classes does not provide an adequate one-to-one mapping to progenitors. The popular classification of some > 100 sec duration GRBs as ``short bursts'' is not only an unpalatable retronym and syntactically oxymoronic but highlights the difficultly of using what was once a purely phenomenological classification to encode our understanding of the physics that gives rise to the events. Here we propose a physically based classification scheme designed to coexist with the phenomenological system already in place and argue for its utility and necessity.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures. Slightly expanded version of solicited paper to be published in the Proceedings of ''Gamma Ray Bursts 2007,'' Santa Fe, New Mexico, November 5-9. Edited by E. E. Fenimore, M. Galassi, D. Palme

INFO2009 - Team 'DROP TABLE groups;

Edshare for INFO2009 coursework 2 - Team 'DROP TABLE groups