Dirty Technology Research Articles

Renewable Energy Investments, Support Schemes and the Dirty Option

ABSTRACTIn a real options framework, we analyze the behavior of a large energy producer who can invest in a portfolio of Renewable Energy Source (RES) and dirty energy source. Competitive fuel prices challenge the investments in RES. Given a budget constraint, the agent allocates the optimal capacities of both energy instalments and selects the optimal investment time. We use the model to compare the effectiveness of classical support schemes such as Feed‐in Tariffs or Green Certificate with respect to forms of taxation of dirty technology such as Carbon Taxes or Carbon Permits. This paper proposes a conceptual framework and qualitative analysis to understand which support system enhances the attractiveness of renewable energy investments.

Financing green entrepreneurs under limited commitment

Risk-averse entrepreneurs interact with financiers to fund their projects. Projects can be operated under green or dirty technologies. We explore the role of limited commitment in determining the adoption of green technologies when governments enact carbon taxes and/or directed investment subsidies. We show that entrepreneurial (respectively, financier) limited commitment makes it more (less) costly for governments to encourage green technology adoption. Because green technologies are still at an early stage, the cash flows they generate are back-loaded. Entrepreneurial limited commitment forces consumption to increase over time, thereby undermining risk-sharing and making dirty technologies more attractive. By contrast, under financier limited commitment, the possibility that front-loaded dirty technologies become obsolete forces consumption to decrease over time, thereby impairing risk-sharing and making green technologies more attractive. We also show that carbon taxes (directed technology subsidies) are more cost-effective when entrepreneurs (financiers) display limited commitment.

Impact of downstream emissions cap-and-trade policy on electric vehicle and clean utility adoption

In this research, we incorporate emissions cap-and-trade policy into a decision making model for the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs). We consider a fleet environment that includes a taxicab company (TC, a downstream tailpipe emitter) and an infrastructure-service provider (SP, an upstream energy user) that provides fast charging services. Both SP and TC must have allowances to account for their own emissions. We examine several scenarios including (i) an equilibrium case, where the selling and buying prices of carbon are equal, (ii) a “buy-low-sell-high” case with financial derivatives, and (iii) a “transient” case based on market conditions. We combine both analytical and computational approaches to assess the impact of various emission cap values and carbon pricing on TC’s adoption of EVs, SP’s utility provider selection, total emissions, and the profitability of both entities. For instance, in both buy-low-sell-high and transient scenarios, penalizing upstream utility emissions more than tailpipe emissions is preferred if electric vehicles are likely to be adopted; otherwise, tighter tailpipe emissions restrictions should be preferred. In the equilibrium case, we show that policymakers will require additional mandates or market mechanisms to influence TC and SP choices, as both entities prefer dirty technologies. Additionally, we demonstrate that providing intermediate utility options – less expensive, but dirtier or more expensive, but cleaner – did not result in reduced emissions. This indicates that expanding utility options may not be a necessary or high-priority policy.

Auctions for Renewables: Does the Choice of the Remuneration Scheme Matter?

Auctions are increasingly used to support renewable energy sources (RES). The choice of the remuneration scheme is one of the major design challenges policymakers face. This paper analyzes the effects of remuneration schemes on RES auctions’ success in markets with imperfect competition. I develop a game-theoretical auction/operation framework to model the feedback effects between the spot market’s strategic behavior and the auction stage’s bidding behavior. The analysis indicates that policymakers concerned about true-cost bidding, allocative efficiency, spot price, total payments to RES, and non-realization risk may prefer feed-in-tariff (FIT) remuneration. However, feed-in-premium (FIP) remunerations may outperform FIT ones from a social welfare perspective, particularly in markets with dirty technologies at the margin. A machine-learning-based simulation strategy is also presented, indicating that, for an auction for 14 GW of onshore wind in France, FIP auction with a winning incumbent leads to 1.40% higher prices than FIT ones.

Green transition and environmental quality: an evolutionary approach

We propose a model for exploring the feasibility and effectiveness of a green transition from dirty to clean technologies. It relies on an evolutionary framework for the technology selection that accounts for the environmental domain dynamics, in terms of pollution evolution. A regulator charges an environmental tax to the producers, and the agents can choose between the less profitable clean technology and the more profitable dirty one, which, however, is taxed to a greater extent with respect to the clean one. The environmental tax depends endogenously on the level of pollution, which rises because of the producers’ emissions. The pollution stock also naturally decays, and can be abated by involving the resources collected from the taxation. We analytically study the resulting two-dimensional model from both statically and dynamically, to understand under what conditions the green transition can take place and results in an improvement for the environmental quality. We show that excessive over-taxation of the dirty technology may be not beneficial, as steady state pollution level can increase above a certain taxation threshold and multiple steady states can emerge. Moreover, dynamics can result in persistent endogenous oscillations that systematically lead to a significant increase in pollution levels. Finally, we discuss the economic rationale for the results also in the light of possible policy suggestions.

China’s Hydrogen Ambitions: Potential Opportunities for Russia

The development of the hydrogen industry represents one of the main trends in the modern energy policy of the nations all over the world. In the current geopolitical situation, Russia needs to revise its hydrogen policy. In this sense, China is much likely to be a potential significant partner. This paper identifies the prospects of the hydrogen production and consumption in China and estimates Russia’s export opportunities. China is the largest producer and consumer of hydrogen in the world, but the Chinese hydrogen industry is largely based on dirty technologies. Therefore, the Chinese government aims to increase the production of green hydrogen. In comparison with developed countries, China considers nuclear energy as the basis for transforming its energy system. The development of low-emission hydrogen industry will help China to solve the environmental problem, increase its export potential and develop high-tech industries for the production of related equipment. A special focus devotes to the analysis of the Chinese ammonia market, since it represents the greatest interest to Russian exporters. Nowadays one may observe obstacles to the development of the Russian-Chinese cooperation in this field. However, there is also a certain potential for Russian projects to export blue hydrogen to China.

Can corruption encourage clean technology transfer?

AbstractWe study the impact of environmental regulation on the transfer of a clean technology where bureaucrats are needed for government intervention. In the absence of corruption, when environmental taxes are low, a technology transfer always takes place and it increases total outputs, but may lead to higher pollution levels. However, when corruption is possible, a firm with a dirty technology may choose to bribe a corruptible bureaucrat who will underreport the actual level of emissions, thereby hindering the transfer of clean technology. We show that a less strict anticorruption policy may lead to more bribing, but encourage technology transfers. Moreover, an environment‐oriented government would set a deterrent environmental tax to reduce pollution, while an output‐oriented government would set a minimum tax rate to eliminate corruption and induce technology transfers. However, a balanced government would tolerate corruption when the cost of bribing is low and the clean technology is sufficiently efficient.

Economic growth, energy consumption and environmental degradation nexus in heterogeneous countries: does education matter?

BackgroundEnvironmental concerns are growing globally. The world has suffered severe environmental deterioration over the years. Undeniably, the impact of environmental degradation on the earth’s geographical space is alarming, making environmental stakeholders to be worried. Existing literature has examined several factors affecting the environment, but the focus has now shifted to education and the need to maximize its potentials. Although studies have examined the direct impacts of education on the environment, those investigating its moderating role are relatively new and scarce, particularly across income groups. Understanding the channel through which education might affect the environment requires the knowledge of its moderating role. Therefore, this study employs FMOLS, DOLS, ARDL-PMG, CCEMG and heterogeneous panel causality test methodologies to investigate the direct and moderating effects of education in the growth-energy-environment linkages in heterogeneous income groups of 92 countries from 1985 to 2018.ResultsThe findings of this study indicate that economic growth is a long-term solution to environmental deterioration in high and upper-middle-income countries, while the opposite holds for lower-middle-income and low-income countries. In addition, energy consumption is linked with environmental degradation across all income groups. Also, the study finds that education’s direct effects aggravate environmental degradation across all income groups. Moreover, its moderating role ameliorates the adverse effects of energy consumption on environmental degradation in high and upper-middle-income groups but worsens it in the lower-middle-income and low-income groups.ConclusionThis study examines the role of education in economic growth, energy consumption and environmental degradation nexus. The study concludes that education is important for environmental sustainability as it encourages pro-environmental behaviors and attitudes and supports energy-efficient products and investments in green technologies. However, education may also aid energy-intensive activities and dirty technology by supporting lifestyles that are not eco-friendly. It is important, therefore, to provide education that promotes better environmental quality.

Effluent Gases Emission from Brickfields in Bangladesh: Policy Guidance Underpinning Bioethical Grounds Mitigating Emission Levels

Recent years’ rapid urbanization and then rural to urban migration have created increasing demands of bricks usages in Bangladesh. However, brick industry has been largely using inefficient, dirty technology and burns woods-coal. It injects huge volume of effluent gases namely CO2, SO2, NOx, CH4, CO etc., in atmosphere. Governments, particularly developing countries have lost the ability to effectively regulate environmental issues, while at the same time corporations have gained unprecedented influence over many facets of society. On this aspect, Bangladesh is no exception. For policy guidance underpinning ethical grounds on the issue, this study analyzes the basic issues of CO2 emission from brickfields in terms of marginal damage (MD) analysis. Findings show that the marginal social costs are higher than marginal private (producer of bricks) costs where brickfields are benefiting with the expense of Bangladeshi society as a whole. As time passes by, rises of brick-prices have been causing upward trends of welfare losses where producers’ surpluses are dominating in the total surplus. This economic situation has been causing higher deadweight loss year after year. Addressing the issues, national strategies and policy actions underpinning bioethical grounds are needed. Reforestation efforts can be achieved in multi-faucets: brick-fields’ charity, government policies on planting trees and policies on motivational efforts inspiring citizens of Bangladesh. Bioethics responsibility trainings in multi-faucets are needed where government’s roles in designing program(s) can be instrumental. Motivational policy can be: i) inspiring celebration individual’s “Birthday, having 1st child in family and Event of marriage” by planting trees, ii) forcing to utilize green tech in brick kilns and iii) policies conducting academic research where financial supports are in need.

CO2 Emission from Brickfields in Bangladesh: Can Ethical Responsibility by Doing Reduce Level of Emission?

Recent years’ rapid urbanization and then rural to urban migration have created increasing demands of bricks usages in Bangladesh. However, brick industry has been largely using inefficient, dirty technology and burns woods-coal. It injects huge volume of CO2 in atmosphere. For policy guidance on the issue, this study analyzes the basic issues of CO2 emission from brickfields in terms of marginal damage (MD) analysis. Findings show that the marginal social costs are higher than marginal private (producer of bricks) costs where brickfields are benefiting with the expense of Bangladeshi society as a whole. As time passes by, rises of brick-prices have been causing upward trends of welfare losses where producers’ surpluses are dominating in the total surplus. This economic situation has been causing higher deadweight loss year after year. Addressing the issues, national strategies and policy actions are needed. Reforestation efforts can be achieved in multi-faucets: brick-fields’ charity, government policies on planting trees & policies on motivational efforts inspiring citizens of Bangladesh. Motivational policy can be: i) inspiring celebration individual’s “Birthday, Having 1st child in family and Event of marriage” by planting trees, ii) forcing to utilize green tech in brick kilns and iii) conducting academic research where financial supports are in need. Keywords: brickfields, effluent gases emission, causes social costs & deadweight loss, reforestation, motivational efforts of government policies

Knowledge Spillovers between Clean and Dirty Technologies

Knowledge Spillovers between Clean and Dirty Technologies

Black carbon and other pollutants from brickfields country-wise: Impact assessment and policy guidance under welfare analysis

The brick industry in developing world is a vast, coal burning and polluting industry. Nearly 1,500 billion bricks are produced globally each year where 87% are from Asia. China dominates the world in producing bricks using coal combustion and woods as fuels where Australia placed the last. Bangladesh placed the 5th in the world, and it mostly uses woods as fuels. These industries are owned privately. It is a type of industry that is mostly driven with business mentality without emphasizing the hygiene and health aspects where government laws are barely active in practices where rapid urbanization has been increasing demand of bricks. But, in most cases, this industry uses inefficient and dirty technology that causes environmental externalities. Brick-kilns inject huge volume of effluent gases. It causes depletion of atmospheric O2 level. Addressing the issue for policy guidance, this study first analyzes the consequences of these externalities in terms of marginal damage (MD) under neoclassical partial equilibrium demand & supply theory. It further analyzes the reasons of disparity between social-cost and private-cost by conventional marginal damage analysis. Findings show that due to gases emission from brickfields, the marginal social-costs are higher than marginal private-cost. In this economic dilemma, brick-kilns are benefiting with the expense of human-society country-wise. As it has been going on, the rises of brick-prices have been causing upward trends of welfare losses where producer surplus is dominating the total surplus. This consequential economic situation has been causing higher deadweight loss year after year. The reason is that the bricks-customers distribute this expenditure away from now more expensive bricks. Now there is an urgency for national policy actions for ensuring cleaner & sustainable brick production. On this aspect, reforestation efforts can be achieved in multi-faucets including brickfields’ charity and govt. policies on planting trees and for motivational efforts inspiring citizens of this country. These motivational efforts can be in multi-faucets: (a) inspiring “birthday celebration by planting trees”, (b) forcing to use green Tech in brick kilns and (c) conducting research in both phases of govt. and academicians where financial supports can be inspirational.

Izazovi za geologe generacije Z

The emerging generation of geologists is facing some problems which are known to their predecessors, as well as, until now, new and unknown challenges. The fact that many associate geology with dirty technologies in which there will be less job opportunities, at the time when clean water, soil and air are being pursued, as well as considering it as old-fashioned in current time of rapidly advancing technologies, which have led to significant interest drop in geology studies. It is necessary, even in early education phase, to intrigue future geology students by explaining them that geology uses most advanced technologies and has skills which could be efficiently used in environmental protection projects. Energy transition is impossible without active participation of geologists who would implement their knowledge and experience during carbon-oxide storage, geothermal energy use and future wind farm location. The construction of high-quality climate forecast models is impossible without geologists, who study climate changes in the geological history. One of the challenges is the COVID 19 pandemic which will most probably leave a mark in the Anthropocene sedimentary record.

The Impact of Environmental Policy on Innovation in Clean Technologies

This paper studies the effect of climate change mitigating policies on innovation in clean energy technologies. Results suggest that the tightening of environmental policies since the early 1990s have made a statistically and economically significant contribution to the increase in clean innovation. These effects generally materialized quickly, within 2 to 3 years of the policy change, and were driven by individually significant marginal effects of both market-based policies – such as feed-in tariffs and trading schemes – as well as non-market policies, such as R&D subsidies or emission limits. Looking at electricity innovation in particular, the paper finds that the estimated effect on total innovation is positive on net, meaning that increased innovation in clean and grey technologies is not offset by a decrease in innovation in dirty technologies. From a policy point of view, the paper’s results call for strong policy efforts to decisively shift innovation towards clean technologies.

Linking scientific research and energy innovation: A comparison of clean and dirty technologies

Despite the urgent case for bringing new energy technologies to the marketplace, the delivery of these innovations has been frustratingly slow, often taking several decades to develop even the most promising ideas into novel technologies that achieve a significant amount of market penetration. The pathway for delivering new energy technologies is frequently discussed in the literature in a vague and aggregated way, but innovation tends to consist of a series of partially overlapping processes consisting of: (1) the production of scientific and technological knowledge, (2) the translation of that knowledge into working technologies or artifacts, and (3) the introduction of the artifacts into the marketplace, where they are matched with users’ requirements. However, relatively little data is available showing how long each of these processes takes for energy technologies. Here we combine information from patent applications with bibliographic data to shine light on the second process—that is, the translation of scientific knowledge into working prototypes. Our results show that energy technologies take an average of approximately 10 years to pass through this phase. These findings will help policymakers to devise more effective mechanisms and strategies for accelerating the overall rate of technological change in this domain.

УГЛЮ В ЭНЕРГЕТИКЕ БЫТЬ!

The article substantiates the necessity and possibility of preserving coal in the power industry as a fuel of the future, using the appropriate technology, based, to a large extent, on the use of layered combustion technology. The advantages and disadvantages of coal combustion in a layer are analyzed. The need to switch to flaring coal combustion to increase the unit capacity of the boiler is noted. The universality of this method of coal combustion in relation to its thermal properties is indicated. The sources of problems with emissions into the atmosphere during coal flaring are given. Shown is the substitution of the concept of "dirty technology" with the concept of "dirty fuel" in relation to coal fuel. The ways of returning to the layered combustion of coal are indicated, with the provision of the required capacity of the power facility through the installation of an increased number of boilers with lower productivity. It is noted that at the Almaty University of Energy and Communications named after Gumakrbek Daukeev, a coal combustion technology with reduced disadvantages is being developed The possibility of using flammable volatiles contained in coal for kindling a boiler and for stabilizing the ignition of a coal flame is noted. the possibility of supplying residents of a remote village with their own gaseous fuel for cooking was considered. The possibility of using this gaseous substance for the generation of electrical energy with the installation of low-power gas turbine units on a boiler with coal layer combustion is indicated. Based on such a comprehensive analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of coal, a conclusion was made about the long-term preservation of coal in the power industry.

The Impacts of Urban Manufacturing Agglomeration on the Quality of Water Ecological Environment Downstream of the Three Gorges Dam

As an important way to promote economic growth and to improve ecological environment quality, industrial agglomeration strategy has been widely accepted and implemented in various regions of China. In theory, industrial agglomeration is conducive to reducing pollution emissions. However, this needs to be tested in reality. The purpose of this paper is to test the impacts of manufacturing industry agglomeration on the quality of water ecological environment in 17 prefecture-level cities downstream of the Three Gorges Dam. Therefore, a theoretical model was established to test the direct and indirect effects. Empirically, results show that the direct effect of manufacturing agglomeration on the quality of water ecological environment is −0.426, which provides statistical evidence for the important role of manufacturing agglomeration in improving the quality of water ecological environment. The indirect effect of manufacturing agglomeration on ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N) is 0.118% through technological innovation, the indirect effect on NH3-N is 0.114% through economic growth, and the indirect effect on NH3-N is 0.254% through industrial structure. Due to the low overall level of the manufacturing industry and its reliance on dirty technologies, the indirect effects of industrial agglomeration are not conducive to improving the quality of the water ecological environment. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a long-term mechanism to promote the evolution of the regional economy along a path that is conducive to the improvement of the water ecological environment.

Long-term transmission rights and dynamic efficiency

Abstract We compare market designs for access regulation of a bottleneck transmission line, and study their impact on investment decisions by an incumbent firm with an existing dirty technology and entrant with an uncertain future low-carbon technology. Nodal pricing, which allocates network access on a short-term competitive basis, distorts investment decisions, as the incumbent preempts the entrant by investing early. Long-term tradable transmission rights restore investment efficiency: the incumbent's investment timing becomes socially optimal. This is the case for financial and physical transmission rights, but it requires the existence of a secondary market for transmission rights.

Tracing the Linkages between Scientific Research and Energy Innovations: A Comparison of Clean and Dirty Technologies

The challenge of mitigating climate change has focused recent attention on basic scientific research feeding into the development of new energy technologies (Popp, 2017). Energy innovation tends to consist of a series of partially overlapping processes involving: (1) the production of scientific and technological knowledge, (2) the translation of that knowledge into working technologies or artifacts, and (3) the introduction of the artifacts into the marketplace, where they are matched with users’ requirements. However, relatively little data are available showing how long each of these processes takes for energy technologies. Here we combine information from patent applications with bibliographic data to shine light on the second process—that is, the translation of scientific knowledge into working prototypes. Our results show that “clean” energy technologies are more dependent on underlying science than “dirty” technologies, and that the average lag between publication of scientific findings and the incorporation of those findings in clean energy patents has risen from about five to about eight years since the 1980s. These findings will help policymakers to devise more effective mechanisms and strategies for accelerating the overall rate of technological change in this domain. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Čovek kao varvarin

Immoderate, rapid development of humanity demands immoderate exploitation of natural resources and regular environment deterioration. On the other hand, moderate consumption would mean a moderate exploitation of natural resources. Thus, instead of the consumption society should be created a safeguard one which would preserve the nature from exaggerated exploitation and pollution. In the last decades, instead of market economy the advocates of ecological or sustainable economy are appearing, and in order to preserve biosphere the industrial economy would be replaced by the ecological one. By the use of chemical protective or incentive agents, man deteriorated life of Divine creatures, birds, bees and other insects as the native plant pollinators. Man paradoxically polluted the air, poisoned the water, soil and plants by which he feeds himself. Almost all arable lands are poisoned by chemistry (artificial fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides). This process, instead of being slowed down is being accelerated. As the self-proclaimed master of the planet, man is, at the same time, the greatest destroyer. In order not to be the criminal of nature in the future but its fried, man should develop a new ecological consciousness - human ecology, ethical relationship toward nature, give up profit selfish interests, sightless exploitation, dirty and war technology and become the one and the same with nature since the destruction and robbery of nature are one of contemporary civilization inhumanities being made by man at his own harm. Besides being barbarian against nature, man is also barbarian against his fellow-countrymen (dissidents, other believers, poor and rich ones...). None as man is so powerful at other man harm inflict; he causes wars, revolutions, terrorism, and hate against other and own people as the ideal of world peace-making neither exists nor is desirable.