Dirty Sources Research Articles

Clean versus dirty electricity generation and economic growth in South Africa: time–frequency study

The purpose of the study is to contrast the impact of ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’ electricity production on economic growth for South Africa and determine whether a faster transition from fossil fuels to renewables is beneficial for growth. To this end, we use wavelet coherence analysis to examine the time–frequency relationship between electricity and economic growth for aggregated and disaggregated measures of clean and dirty sources over the period 1985–2021 At an aggregated level, the low frequency (long-run) correlations are eventually substituted with high frequency (short-run) co-movements. At disaggregated level, the results are mixed, with dirty energy components (coal, oil, gas) having a weakening effect on economic growth over time whilst clean energy sources (solar and wind, biomass, hydro) show the greatest potential for growth over both low and high frequency relationships. Moreover, the various structural breaks identified in the frequency bands for different electricity sources allow us to evaluate the impact of energy policies and load shedding on the electricity-growth relationship and offer further insights to which clean sources of electricity production have more potential to be growth enhancing.

Dirty versus clean fuel for cooking in Pakistan: regional mapping and correlates.

Based on the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) 2017-18 data, the study intends to present the relative status of a particular fuel (type) in terms of its level of use in different regions of Pakistan. At the same time, the study investigates the determinants of the household type of fuel used for cooking in Pakistan. Socioeconomic characteristics of the households and household heads are taken as determinants of the main type of fuel (clean or dirty) used for cooking by the households. Binary logistic regression is applied as an estimation technique. Over the country, wood stands first as the most widely used type of fuel followed by natural gas followed by LPG. Animal dung and charcoal are respectively ranked as the fourth and fifth most commonly used types of fuel for cooking by households in Pakistan. In comparison amongst the four provinces of Pakistan, the use of wood as well as charcoal as the fuel type for cooking (in relative terms) is the most common in Balochistan province. Likewise, Punjab province is the most frequent user of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), crop residues, and animal dung, while Sindh province is the most frequent user of natural gas. Households possessing agricultural land and livestock and with large household sizes had more probability to use dirty sources of fuel for cooking. Households with better wealth status and residing in urban areas were more likely to use clean sources of fuel for cooking. Household head's higher educational status and male-gender had more likelihood to use clean sources of fuel for cooking.

Novel research methods on the net-zero economy of climate finance in the energy sector

This is a perspective, about the future climate policy of Pakistan, to improve the harvest of Green Climate Funds (GCF). This paper takes upon the calculation of climate financing potential in the context of the energy sector of Pakistan by estimating the potential of becoming a net-zero sector in Pakistan’s Economy. The study has identified several options for the government to reallocate the energy mix and tie the energy demand targets with climate targets for a green future of Pakistan. The study has used basic excel tools to calculate facts from the available data sets in Pakistan. The study found that, if Pakistan chooses to shift from dirty sources of energy production to the use of cleaner inputs for energy production, Pakistan can generate a significant amount of climate finance by reducing the emissions from energy production, which are recordable, traceable, and can be evaluated by any of the third-party evaluating organization. The initial cost for Pakistan will cause some discrepancies in some of the macroeconomic indicators and may also cause budget imbalances it will surely help the economy to achieve the targets of becoming a net-zero economy and be able to harvest Green Climate Funds in long term with much faster rate, which can overpass the investments made or being made in this sector and will create a significant amount jobs in the economy, which will be green jobs, promoting environmental friendly output and sustainable growth.

Economic growth, fiscal imbalance, and environmental sustainability: What is desirable and undesirable for developing economies?

Developing economies are suffering to fulfill the sustainable environment's commitments in fiscal imbalance. This study attempted to highlight the core issue of fiscal imbalance in developing economies and its impact on a sustainable environment. For this purpose, the study utilized generalized least squares (GLS) and quantile autoregressive distributive lag (QARDL) on a 19-year dataset (2000-2018) of the South Asian region. The results of GLS indicate that fiscal imbalance contributing positively to South Asia's environmental degradation process. Here, energy consumption (due to dirty sources of energy) and energy intensity (due to inefficient energy conversion technology) are also sources of environmental degradation in this region. The results of QARDL confirm that economic and political fluctuations can be the long-run source of fiscal imbalance in this region, which ultimately slows down the process of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) theory and contributes positively to environmental degradation. Based on the empirical analysis, this study provides a comprehensive set of policy guidance for developing and developed economies for the smooth transition of sustainable environmental conditions in South Asia.

The Impact of Forest Status on Households’ Fuel Choice in Uganda

Forest firewood is a major source of household energy in Uganda. Firewood availability is strongly linked to forest status: degradation of the forest resource could force households to switch to other energy sources, which may be clean or dirty. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether a change in forest resource status induces a switch to cleaner (e.g., kerosene, LPG, solar and electricity), dirtier (e.g., firewood, animal-dung, crop-residue and charcoal), or a mix of clean and dirty sources. To this end, we combine socio-economic data from the Uganda National Panel Survey with high-resolution satellite data on forest status and model the relationship between energy source choice and forest status using the random-effects multinomial logit model under a Generalized Structural Equation Modeling (GSEM) framework. The results confirm that forest status significantly affects fuel choice. The presence of better forests is associated with a 6-7% lower probability of relying on a basket of dirty fuels that comprise wood fuels (firewood and charcoal) and non-wood fuels (crop-residue and animal-dung) and 6-8% higher likelihood of using mixed energy relative to non-vegetated areas. The magnitudes of the effects are higher on firewood and lower on charcoal separately. Efforts on maximizing forest social benefit through participatory forest conservation interventions taking the fuel stacking behavior into account are important.

Poisoning America: The Trump Administration’s Regulatory Shell Game

This Article, written as part of a conference honoring Professor Richard Stewart on his 50 years as a legal academic, focuses on the inconsistent manner in which the Trump Administration has dealt with three of the most important conceptual issues that are central to the design of environmental policy: cost-benefit analysis, federalism, and the treatment of dirty, old sources of pollution. It has acted in a patently inconsistent way in different proceedings, embracing co-benefits in some cases and decrying their use in others; extolling the virtues of state decision-making in some cases and running roughshod over such decision-making in others; taking extreme actions to protect existing, dirty sources in some cases, and celebrating their replacement in others. The Trump Administration has simply taken whichever side of each of these arguments would advance its deregulatory policies. Though inconsistencies across different regulations — as opposed to inconsistencies within a single regulation — have not been a core concern of the Administrative Procedure Act, its prohibition on “arbitrary and capricious” agency action is sufficiently capacious to embrace egregious actions of this type.

Electric Power Resource 'Shuffling' and Subnational Carbon Regulation: Looking Upstream for a Solution

“Resource shuffling,” a form of carbon leakage, occurs when different subnational approaches to carbon regulation create variations in the costs of production across jurisdictions. This Article addresses the “resource shuffling” problem presented by California’s cap-and-trade program and addresses the merits of its legal and regulatory solutions. The potential for “resource shuffling” — replacing cleaner sources of electric power with dirtier and cheaper sources of energy — is a major threat to California’s environmental goals given that about 30 percent of the electricity consumed in California is imported from other states. This imported electricity tends to come from disproportionately dirty sources (such as coal) and represents more than half of the carbon dioxide emitted as a result of California’s electricity demand. Part I of this Article describes resource shuffling and its significance for subnational efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, such as California’s cap-and-trade program for carbon. Part II discusses the tension that California’s initial regulatory strategy presented with federal regulators who oversee wholesale electric power markets. Part III addresses ways to more effectively regulate resource shuffling. This Article argues that federal energy regulators could improve the efficacy of subnational efforts to address GHG emissions and produce greater certainty for power markets by addressing resource shuffling through a harmonized set of rules or guidelines articulating acceptable least-cost dispatch protocols for the operation of wholesale power markets. Absent this kind of upstream approach, resource shuffling will continue to occur, thwarting the ability of subnational regulation to achieve green house gas reduction goals, and uncertainty about shuffling will continue to plague interstate power markets.

Best-Mix Generation Planning with Battery Energy Storage System Including Carbon-Neutral Requirement

Battery energy storage system (BESS) is attracting attention all over the world. BESS yields two types of benefits, i.e., economical benefit and environmental benefit. Economical benefit is yielded by reducing the cost of power plants that is composed by the operation cost and the construction cost. Recent serious concern against environment will be more important in the near future and it might be treated as penalty and/or constraints. The installation merit of BESS stands out when load factor of demand is low. If base generators composed of inexpensive and clean sources, and if peak generators composed of expensive and dirty sources, the benefit against operation cost becomes more remarkable. Besides, BESS can contribute to developing countries by reducing construction cost of generation plants. In this paper, the numerical analysis of this benefit is presented. The optimal amount of BESS is searched by evaluating CO2-reductions and cost benefits.

Brazilian Electroacoustic Music Concert

made up of complex, jagged, distorted sounds. Its dynamic, almost melodramatic nature is exaggerated by the use of industrial noises and of dirty sources that are granulated beyond recognition. The pieces fit together to make a strong experience of communication, of a message, to use the title of another of Mr. Roads's pieces. The other piece on the program that made heavy use of factory sounds was Fabrica by German composer Michael Obst (winner of several prizes in previous Bourges competitions). In pure Schaeffer musique concrete style, he uses no processing, relying solely on collage and layering techniques to create two contrasting worlds: a realistic one, and another derived from it but with a different, virtual-sounding atmosphere. Fabrica extends the notion of a Klangfarbenmelodie, constructing and developing phrases crafted out of rich and complex machine environments, each of which has its own micro-

Contributions of Synthetic Fuels

The development of synthetic fuels will permit the use of low-quality fossil fuels such as cow and heavy-gravity, high-sulfur crude oils. But development will cost money, and lots of it and it can never go full tilt until there is a national energy policy that recognizes that all fuel costs must be substantially higher than they have ever been in the past. Introduction Any meaningful discussion of the current status of synthetic fuels requires a full understanding of certain facts; namely, that the U. S. was faced with an energy shortage even before the Mid-East embargo, that the shortage is largely one of clean or low-pollution energy sources, and that past concepts of the real cost of energy are largely fallacious. Unfortunately, even dirty sources of energy will be in short supply since recent environmental legislation has militated against the development of such resources. Pricing gas and oil on a cost-of-service basis without recognition of their replacement costs or even their intrinsic value has completely distorted the value that has been placed on these commodities in the past. Similarly, the damage to the environment from the use of dirty fuels or from the operation of dirty sources of energy has never been recognized as a real cost of such supplies. As the public and government have become aware of the seriousness of the energy problem, there has been a proliferation of studies by government, industry groups, and private companies that, taken as a whole, leads to confusion and has limited value. It is interesting to note that the Interior and Insular Committee of the U. S. Senate has specifically reviewed some of the more important studies and has questioned the value of almost all of them. Many of these studies assume the continued, almost unlimited, availability of clean fuels at prices similar to those enjoyed in the past. Many assume the immediate availability of technical developments that in actual fact will require many years to bring to commercial application, and in addition they radically underestimate the cost of implementing such programs. Probably most unfortunate of all, few of them bring into Probably most unfortunate of all, few of them bring into perspective the timing problem in any corrective perspective the timing problem in any corrective action that might be taken. We are hopeful that the government will set forth a plan to develop a national energy policy that will bring some order to the situation and permit a reasonable program to evolve to minimize the impact of the energy crisis. It is generally agreed that synthetic fuels will be an important contributor to our energy needs during the next 2 decades. It should be understood, however, that during this period the directly consumable natural fossil fuels namely, petroleum, natural gas, and coal will continue to be the major source of supply. The early use of synthetic fuels will be largely confined to highly specialized applications. Ultimately, however, we expect that synthetic fuels will be important to permit utilization of low-quality fossil fuels, particularly coal and heavy-gravity, high-sulfur crude particularly coal and heavy-gravity, high-sulfur crude oil and residuums. Unfortunately there has been considerable confusion about the potential contribution of synthetic fuels. The energy industry has indulged in much wishful thinking as to their early availability and cost in its zeal to find a solution to the serious energy shortage and still be responsive to the growing concern for the deterioration of the environment. JPT P. 139