The Scope for Increasing Biofuel Crop Production in Japan: An Analysis of Alternative Policies

経済学 / EconomicsIn 2010, concerns regarding Japan’s excessive dependence on imports for food and energy caused the Japanese government to introduce subsidies to stimulate biofuel crop production. In this paper, we study the viability of price subsidies and certain other policies with respect to increasing the production of biofuel crops. First, we estimate the elasticity of the supply of Japanese agriculture with respect to price (inclusive of the subsidy for each unit of production). For this purpose, we use a longitudinal database of 1822 municipalities that covers all 47 prefectures of Japan. This database includes information about the production of 116 crops and their respective revenues, including subsidies. Using panel data regression techniques, we determine that although the long-run supply of certain crops is highly elastic, this supply is highly inelastic if the production of other crops is held constant. Therefore, an increase in the demand for biofuel crops will cause substantial price increases of agricultural products, largely crowding out the demand for food crops. We then discuss the viability of encouraging various agricultural practices, such as multiple cropping and the cultivation of recently abandoned land. Instead of using abandoned land, which produces a lower yield and requires abundant labor, we recommend a multiple cropping system that involves the rotation of rice and wheat. Although these measures will increase biofuel crop production to a certain extent in the short run, full-scale biofuel crop production can only take place after substantial reforms are implemented to increase the production capacity of the Japanese agricultural sector.JEL Classification Codes: Q18, Q42, Q53http://www.grips.ac.jp/list/jp/facultyinfo/leon_gonzalez_roberto

Exploring the Relationships Among Travel Multimodality, Driving Behavior, Use of Ridehailing and Energy Consumption

This report builds on an on-going research effort that investigates emerging mobility patterns and the adoption of new mobility services. In this report, we focus on the environmental impacts of various modality styles and the frequency of ridehailing use among a sample of millennials (i.e., born from 1981 to 1997) and members of the preceding Generation X (i.e., born from 1965 to 1980). The total sample for the analysis included in this report includes 1,785 individuals who participated in a survey administered in Fall 2015 in California. In this study, we focus on the vehicle miles traveled, the energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for transportation purposes of various groups of travelers. We identify four latent classes in the sample based on the respondents\u2019 reported use of various travel modes: drivers, active travelers, transit riders, and car passengers. We further divide each latent class into three groups based on their reported frequency of ridehailing use: non-users, occasional users (who use ridehailing less than once a month), and regular users (who use it at least once a month). The energy consumption and GHG emissions associated with driving a personal vehicle and using ridehailing services are computed for the individuals in each of these groups (12 subgroups), and we discuss sociodemographics and economic characteristics, and travel-related and residential choices, of the individuals in each subgroup

Regionally aggregated, stitched and de‐drifted CMIP‐climate data, processed with netCDF‐SCM v2.0.0

The world's most complex climate models are currently running a range of experiments as part of the Sixth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). Added to the output from the Fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), the total data volume will be in the order of 20PB. Here, we present a dataset of annual, monthly, global, hemispheric and land/ocean means derived from a selection of experiments of key interest to climate data analysts and reduced complexity climate modellers. The derived dataset is a key part of validating, calibrating and developing reduced complexity climate models against the behaviour of more physically complete models. In addition to its use for reduced complexity climate modellers, we aim to make our data accessible to other research communities. We facilitate this in a number of ways. Firstly, given the focus on annual, monthly, global, hemispheric and land/ocean mean quantities, our dataset is orders of magnitude smaller than the source data and hence does not require specialized ‘big data’ expertise. Secondly, again because of its smaller size, we are able to offer our dataset in a text-based format, greatly reducing the computational expertise required to work with CMIP output. Thirdly, we enable data provenance and integrity control by tracking all source metadata and providing tools which check whether a dataset has been retracted, that is identified as erroneous. The resulting dataset is updated as new CMIP6 results become available and we provide a stable access point to allow automated downloads. Along with our accompanying website (cmip6.science.unimelb.edu.au), we believe this dataset provides a unique community resource, as well as allowing non-specialists to access CMIP data in a new, user-friendly way

Improved Energy and Emissions Modeling for Project Evaluation (MOVES-Matrix)

DTRT13-G-UTC29The Motor Vehicle Emission Simulator (MOVES) model was developed by the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) to estimate emissions from on-road and off-road vehicles in the United States. The MOVES model represents a significant improvement over the older MOBILE series of modes, primarily because emission rates are now much more modal in nature, representing emissions as a function of power surrogates, which depend on speed and acceleration. Traffic simulation model outputs and smartphone GPS data can provide second by-second vehicle activity data in time and space, including vehicle speed and acceleration data. Coupling high-resolution vehicle activity data with appropriate MOVES emission rates further advances research efforts designed to assess the environmental impacts of transportation design and operation strategies. However, the MOVES interface is complicated and the structure of input variables and algorithms involved in running MOVES to assess operational improvements makes analyses cumbersome and time consuming. The MOVES interface also makes it difficult to assess complicated transportation networks and to undertake analyses of large scale systems that are dynamic in nature. The MOVES-Matrix system developed by the research team can be used to perform emissions modeling activities in a fraction of the time compared to running MOVES. The approach involves running the MOVES model iteratively, across all potential input variable combination, and using the resulting multidimensional array of pre-run MOVES outputs in emissions modeling

Sustainable Transportation Curricula

The National Center for Sustainable Transportation (NCST) seeks to ensure that transportation professionals have the necessary knowledge and skills to design, operate, and maintain sustainable transportation systems. This report provides a structured review of existing sustainable transportation courses to serve as foundation for the development of NCST model curriculum and to support course development elsewhere. This report provides an inventory of transportation-related courses and course concepts. The report also surveys models and modeling support tools, current research topics, and industry job descriptions to identify room for growth in sustainable transportation curricula

Deciphering the Factors Associated With Adoption of Alternative Fuel Vehicles in California: An Investigation of Latent Attitudes, Socio-Demographics, and Neighborhood Effects

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Please cite this article as:Xiatian Iogansen, Kailai Wang, David Bunch, Grant Matson, Giovanni Circella, Deciphering the factors associated with adoption of alternative fuel vehicles in California: An investigation of latent attitudes, socio-demographics, and neighborhood effects, Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Volume 168, 2023, 103535, ISSN 0965-8564, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2022.10.012.Promoting the use of alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) has become a long-term transportation strategy in California, which can bring a broad range of social, economic, and environmental benefits. Based on a sample of 3260 California residents from the 2018 California Panel Survey, this study explores the impacts of latent attitudes, socio-demographic characteristics, and neighborhood effects on consumers\u2019 current vehicle fuel type choice and their interest in purchasing or leasing an AFV in the future

A global evaluation of the regional spatial variability of column integrated CO 2 distributions

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/95294/1/jgrd14612.pd

IPCC-DDC_CCSRNIES_SRES_A2: 211 YEARS MONTHLY MEANS National Institute for Environmental Studies and Center for Climate System Research Japan

The SRES data sets were published by the IPCC in 2000 and classified into four different scenario families (A1, A2, B1, B2). SRES_A2 storyline describes a very heterogeneous world with the underlying theme of self-reliance and preservation of local identities. It results in this scenario a continous increasing population together with a slower economic growth and technological change. The model developed by the Center for Climate System Resaerch/ National Institute for Enviromental Studies in Tokyo consists of the atmospheric component which has vertical resolution of 20 levels and the triangular truncation at wavenumber 21 (T21). The ocean model has 17 vertical levels and the same resolution. ). . The changes of anthropogenic emissions of CO2, CH4, N2O and sulphur dioxide are prescribed according to the above mentioned scenario

IPCC-DDC_CCSRNIES_SRES_A1FI: 211 YEARS MONTHLY MEANS National Institute for Environmental Studies and Center for Climate System Research Japan

The SRES data sets were published by the IPCC in 2000 and classified into four different scenario families (A1, A2, B1, B2). SRES_A1 storyline describes a future world of very rapid economic growth, global population that peaks in mid-century and declines thereafter and the rapid introduction of new and more efficient technologies. It is distinguished by their technological emphasis: A1FI: fossil intensiv, A1T : non-fossil energy sources and A1B : a balance across all sources. The model developed by the Center for Climate System Resaerch/ National Institute for Enviromental Studies in Tokyo consists of the atmospheric component which has vertical resolution of 20 levels and the triangular truncation at wavenumber 21 (T21). The ocean model has 17 vertical levels and the same resolution. ) The changes of anthropogenic emissions of CO2, CH4, N2O and sulphur dioxide are prescribed according to the above mentioned scenario