The challenge for the development community is to exploit the links between energy and poverty to combat global poverty. The human scale of this challenge is huge. Today, 1.6 billion people lack access to electricity and 2.4 billion rely on traditional biomass for cooking and heating. Indoor air...

Society's transition toward more sustainable energy sources is well underway. But substantially reducing the use of fossil fuels to generate electricity, to power vehicles, and to manufacture the stuff of everyday life will profoundly disrupt the communities that currently dedicate themselves to...

This paper develops a number of approaches to power sector planning that respond to the uncertainties that Afghanistan faces. It aims to provide an alternative to the "predict then act" approach to planning, which will allow more robust decision making. The paper is divided into two parts: the...

Addressing climate change requires transitioning away from coal-based energy. Recent structural change models demonstrate that temporary interventions could induce permanent fuel switching when transitional dynamics exhibit strong path dependence. Exploiting changes in local coal supply driven...

The targeted increase of renewable energy sources in the European energy mix to 20% by 2020, and the goal of an 80-95% CO2 emissions reduction by 2050, will require changes to and extensions of the electricity grid. The integration of increasing shares of fluctuating renewable electricity,...

Our new analytical general equilibrium model is used to study effects of tightening state Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) on electricity price, CO2 emissions, fossil fuel electricity generation, and two kinds of renewable generation. We show how those outcomes depend on key state...

This paper examines the effect of environmental policies on technological innovation in the specific case of renewable energy. The analysis is conducted using patent data on a panel of 25 countries over the period 1978-2003. It is found that public policy plays a significant role in determining...

On Aug. 8, 2005, President Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (PL 109-58). This was the first major piece of energy legislation enacted since 1992 following five years of Congressional efforts to pass energy legislation. Among other things, the law contains tax incentives worth over $14...