Biomass, a renewable energy source, has been viewed as “carbon neutral”—that is, its use as energy is presumed not to release net carbon dioxide. However, this assumption of carbon neutrality has recently been challenged. In 2010 two letters were sent to the Congress by eminent scientists...

The Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) of the Department of Agriculture has proposed regulations to implement the new Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP). Authorized in the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, BCAP is designed to ensure that a sufficiently large base of new nonfood,...

Biomass energy is expected to play a major role in the substitution of renewable energy sources for fossil fuels over the next several decades. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA 2012) forecasts increases in the share of biomass in US energy production from 8 percent in 2009 to 15...

Using a non cooperative climate policy game applied in the literature, we find that an agreement with international emissions trading leads to increased emissions and reduced efficiency.

Despite serving as the principal basis of U.S. climate policy over the past two decades, corporate voluntary environmental programs have been subject to quite limited evaluation. The self-selection of participants—an essential element of such initiatives—poses particular challenges to...

The regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector within a cap-and-trade system poses significant policy questions about how to allocate tradable emission allowances. Allocation conveys tremendous value and can have efficiency consequences. This research uses simulation...

The U.S. electric power sector is in the midst of two major regulatory changes. One is the change from cost-of-service regulation to competition as a means of disciplining electricity prices, often referred to as “electricity restructuring.” The other is the apparently increasing scope and...

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is an effort by nine Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states to develop a regional, mandatory, market-based cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the electricity sector. The initiative is expected to lead to an increase in the...

Policies to cap emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the U.S. economy could pose significant costs on the electricity sector, which contributes roughly 40 percent of total CO2 emissions in the U.S. Using a detailed simulation model of the electricity sector, we evaluate alternative ways that...

At the present time no widely accepted temporal emissions path for greenhouse gases has been developed and adopted at either a country or a global level. What does exist is a set of nearterm, country-level emissions targets associated with the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol and a...