China’s capital-intensive, export-oriented, spectacular economic growth since launching its open-door policy and economic reforms in late 1978 not only has created jobs and has lifted millions of the Chinese people out of poverty, but also has given rise to unprecedented environmental...

China’s unilateral pledge to cut its carbon intensity by 40-45 percent by 2020 relative to its 2005 levels raises both the stringency issue, and given that China’s pledge is in the form of carbon intensity, reliability issues concerning China’s statistics on energy and GDP. Moreover, as...

Using a panel database for 27 programs in 16 U.S. states over 1998-2009, we assess the impact of 12 state-level policies on the cost and deployment of solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies for two sectors defined by system sizes: residential ( 10kW) and commercial (10 − 100kW). We first examine...

We analyze the relationship between the prices of ethanol, agricultural commodities and livestock in Nebraska, the U.S. second largest ethanol producer. The paper focuses on long-run relations and Granger causality linkages between ethanol and the other commodities. The analysis takes possible...

Renewable portfolio standards (RPS) are the most popular U.S. state-level policy tools for promoting deployment of electricity from renewable energy (RES-E). While several econometric studies have estimated the effect of RPS policies on RES-E deployment, results are sometimes contradictory....

Paragraph 31(iii) of the Doha Ministerial Declaration mandates to the liberalization of environmental goods and services. This mandate offers a good opportunity to put climate-friendly goods and services on a fast track to liberalization. Agreement on this paragraph should represent one...

This article explores key market design issues to be addressed in future electricity markets dominated by intermittent renewable generation with near zero private marginal costs for generating electricity. Changing technology mixes will change market outcomes, but they do not change the...

Wind power is an important source of renewable energy. Beyond the environmental dimension, the wind energy may contribute to the local development. Due to its weather conditions, Brazil emerges as one of the leading countries in the generation of wind power. This study estimates the impact of...

Many models in energy economics assess the cost of alternative power generation technologies. As an input, the models require well calibrated assumptions for the cost of capital or discount rates to be used, especially for renewable energy for which the cost of capital differs widely across...

European wholesale electricity prices have dropped by nearly two thirds since their all-time high around 2008. Different factors have been blamed, or praised, for causing the price slump: the expansion of renewable energy; the near-collapse of the European emission trading scheme; over-optimistic...