In the period 2010-2011 we carried out a survey of fifteen leading European experts on the future of advanced (second and third generation) biofuel technologies. The survey focuses on eliciting probabilistic information on the future costs of these technologies and on the potential role of RD&D...

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the determinants of energy efficiency in fossil fuel electricity generation across 28 OECD countries over the period 1981-2006, with particular attention to the role played by technological development and the availability of energy efficient...

This paper applies the Directed Technical Change (DTC) framework to study improvements in the efficiency of energy use. We present a theoretical model which (1) shows that the demand for energy is shifted down by innovations in energy intensive sectors and (2) highlights the drivers of...

The Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project (DDPP), an initiative of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI), aims to demonstrate how countries can transform their energy systems by 2050 in order to...

Proponents of the green growth strategy worldwide hold that reductions of harmful greenhouse gas emissions through environmental policy can be pursued together with increased growth and can result in higher competitiveness. Solid tests of this theory are impaired by the lack of appropriate...

A major concern regarding innovation in clean technologies in the EU is that the fragmentation of its innovation system may hinder knowledge flows and, consequently, spillovers across member countries. A low intensity of knowledge flows across EU states can negatively impact their technological...

Expert elicitation is a process for eliciting subjective probability distributions from experts about items of interest to decision makers. These methods have been increasingly applied in the energy domain to collect information on the future cost and performance of specific energy technologies...

We propose the use of a two level random intercept model to measure the degree of environmental policy performance of di erent countries and to study its determinants. Inspired by the literature on multilevel latent models and Item Response Theory (IRT), this framework treats policy commitment...

This paper represents an empirical investigation of the "weak" and "strong" Porter Hypothesis (PH) focusing on the manufacturing sectors of European countries between 1997 and 2009. By and large, the literature has analyzed the impact of environmental regulation on innovation and on productivity...

This paper aims at improving the application of the learning curve, a popular tool used for forecasting future costs of renewable technologies in integrated assessment models (IAMs). First, we formally discuss under what assumptions the traditional (OLS) estimates of the learning curve can...