Policy Instruments and Incentives for Environmental R&D:A Market-Driven Approach

Environmental policy instruments have an impact on the incentives to invest in environmental R&D and this link should deserve careful consideration when introducing new instruments. Some authors argue that environmental taxes and tradable permits have rather comparable impacts on environmental R&D but we think that only very specific conditions do lead to this kind of conclusion. If we broaden the perspective by integrating elements from the Industrial Organisation literature and depart for Pigouvian settings, a market-driven approach would link the incentive to invest in new technologies to the market potential offered by the policy instruments. If taxes turn out to be very expensive for the polluting or emitting industries, we can assume that these targeted firms would be more interested to invest in new - emission reducing - technologies than in cases where the chosen policy instrument will lead to a very limited cost. We therefore developed a dynamic model that enables to compare the incentives on environmental R&D resulting from taxes, emission trading, voluntary approaches and subsidising environmental R&D. We do not claim to capture all relevant market interactions, but our findings confirm the intuition that environmental taxes have a clearly different impact on environmental R&D compared to emission trading.Research and Development, Environmental policy, Environmental taxes, Emission trading, Voluntary approaches, Market interactions

Prospects of electric vehicles in the developing countries : a literature review

Electric mobility offers a low cost of travel along with energy and harmful emissions savings. Nevertheless, a comprehensive literature review is missing for the prospects of electric vehicles in developing countries. Such an overview would be instrumental for policymakers to understand the barriers and opportunities related to different types of electric vehicles (EVs). Considering the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) guidelines, a systematic review was performed of the electronic databases Google Scholar and Web of Science for the years 2010–2020. The electric four-wheelers, hybrid electric vehicles and electric two-wheeler constituted the electric vehicles searched in the databases. Initially, 35 studies identified in the Web of Science that matched the criteria were studied. Later, 105 other relevant reports and articles related to barriers and opportunities were found by using Google Scholar and studied. Results reveal that electric four-wheelers are not a feasible option in developing countries due to their high purchase price. On the contrary, electric two-wheelers may be beneficial as they come with a lower purchase price

The role of biomass in the renewable energy system

Europe is striving for zero carbon electricity production by 2050 in order to avoid dangerous climate change. To meet this target a large variety of options is being explored. Biomass is such an option and should be given serious consideration. In this paper the potential role of biomass in a NW-European electricity mix is analyzed. The situation in NW-Europe is unique since it is a region which is a fore runner in renewable technology promotion but also an area with little sun, almost no potential for hydro and a lot of wind. This will result in a substantial need for non-intermittent low-carbon options such as biomass. The benefits and issues related to biomass are discussed in detail from both an environmental and an economic perspective. The former will focus on the life cycle of a biomass pellet supply chain, from the growth of the trees down to the burning of the pellets on site. The latter will provide detailed insights on the levelized cost of electricity for biomass and the role of biomass as a grid stabilizer in high intermittent scenarios. During the discussion, biomass will be compared to other competing electricity technologies to have a full understanding of its advantages and drawbacks. We find that biomass can play a very important role in the future low carbon electricity mix, the main bottleneck being the supply of large amounts of sustainably produced feedstock

Nuclear and old fossil phase out scenarios : assessment of shortages, surpluses and the load factor of flexible assets with high renewable generation targets : a Belgian case study

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