Three Essays on U.S. Renewable Energy Policies
Three Essays on U.S. Renewable Energy Policies

Author: Shen Liu

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13:

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This study investigates three issues on U.S. renewable energy markets. The primary objective is to describe how U.S. renewable energy policies affect solar photovoltaic (PV) and biodiesel industries. The first essay develops and estimates an analytical framework for assessing the optimal solar energy subsidy, which takes into account the environment, health, employment, and electricity accessibility benefits. Results indicate that an optimal subsidy is positively affected by the marginal external benefit. Calibrating the model, using published elasticities, yields estimates of the optimal solar energy subsidy equaling to approximately $0.02 per kilowatt hour when employment effects are omitted. The estimated optimal subsidy is in line with many current state feed-in-tariff rates, giving support to these initiatives aimed at fostering solar energy production. The second essay examines price volatility spillovers among U.S. crude oil, diesel, biodiesel, and soybeans based on weekly prices from 2007 to 2014. A univariate EGARCH model along with a DCC-MGARCH model are employed. The univariate EGARCH model provides evidence of double-directional price-volatility spillovers between biodiesel and soybean markets and between crude oil and biodiesel markets. Further there exists unidirectional price-volatility spillovers from the crude oil market to the soybean market and from the diesel market to the biodiesel market. The DCC-MGARCH model indicates time-varying conditional correlations among markets and the pairwise conditional correlations fluctuated from 2008 to 2009. The third essay investigates the effect of Poisson type policy jumps on biodiesel investment through the theory of investment under uncertainty. The analysis considers the probability of a policy being implemented if it is not in effect and the probability of it being withdrawn if it is in effect. As an application, the policy switching regime of the discontinuous federal tax credit of $1.00 per gallon on biodiesel is modeled as a Poisson jump process. Results support that time inconsistent government policies do lead to market uncertainty. The analysis reveals a pronounced negative impact on the decisions to invest in a biodiesel refinery.

Renewable Energy Deployment in the Electricity Sector
Renewable Energy Deployment in the Electricity Sector

Author: Miriam Lydia Fischlein

Publisher:

Published: 2011-10-01

Total Pages: 138

ISBN-13: 9781244786233

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Due to the large environmental impact of the electric energy sector, evaluating the policy instruments employed in this arena is a particularly pressing issue. In the United States, state policy is a major driver of sustainable energy development and provides a unique opportunity to conduct comparative policy research. Thirty-two states have implemented a renewable portfolio standard (RPS), a policy instrument that mandates renewable resource use. Although similar on the surface, these policies present staggering variation in the design elements they incorporate.This dissertation investigates patterns of policy design, scope and outcomes of RPS, contributing to the literature on policy design and effectiveness, and expanding the empirical knowledge of state sustainable energy policies. The first essay presents an in-depth state-by-state analysis of RPS design elements, complemented by the development of a policy classification scheme. Examining RPS design under the angle of stringency of goals, discretion in means, and strength of the enforcement regime introduces a measure of comparability. It highlights that a rigid focus on singular measures of policy strength and broad policy types detracts from understanding the impact of individual design features.The second essay underlines this argument, relating RPS design characteristics quantitatively to policy response. The results show that both more stringent goals and, to some extent, increased discretion in means are associated with higher policy response. The research design used is innovative, in that it accounts for the full complexity of RPS, while measuring outcomes at the level the policy targets (retail sales).The final essay concentrates on a single design attribute, policy scope. Focusing on a sector currently excluded from most state sustainable energy policies - consumer-owned utilities - it assesses future policy scenarios for their inclusion. To remediate the complete lack of emissions data on consumer-owned utilities, it develops for the first time a method to estimate the carbon intensity of electricity sales from this sector. Based on these estimates, future carbon management scenarios are developed for the inclusion of consumer-owned utilities in renewable policies, including interaction with energy efficiency policies

Sustainable Energy and the States
Sustainable Energy and the States

Author: Dianne Rahm

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2014-11-18

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 1476610398

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With America's dependence on fossil fuels painfully apparent due to world events and the resultant sharply rising gas prices, the search for renewable energy sources has never been more important. Still, the quest for sustainable energy is far from new. Since passage of the National Energy Act of 1978, states and the federal government have encouraged technological advances designed to make the United States self-sufficient when it comes to energy production. Government incentives and global-minded policymakers encourage development of alternative energy sources. While addressing the national issues of global climate change and energy security, the idea of sustainable energy must also find a way to appeal to an increasingly competitive market. Through nine case studies, this volume explores the roles which politics, market forces and leadership play as barriers or facilitators in the development of sustainable energy sources. Beginning with an overview of energy-related programs and legislation including the National Energy Act of 1978 and the Energy Policy acts of 1992 and 2005, the book discusses the various financial programs and policy mechanisms used by the states. Each of the nine essays examines sustainable energy development within a particular state or region. The importance of the political climate, the impact of free markets and the value of effective leadership with regard to this particular technological development remains a common thread. Topics such as the perceived effectiveness of state and federal governmental efforts and prevalent attitudes regarding renewable energy are also discussed. Each essay includes an in-depth bibliography with many website resources to encourage further research. Statistical tables are also provided. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Three Essays on Energy Economics and Policy
Three Essays on Energy Economics and Policy

Author: Zhi Li

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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Many changes are needed to shift the economy from business as usual to a sustainable track in both developed and developing countries. Technology innovation, especially related to clean energy and energy efficient, is needed to meet the requirement of such economy shift, and is receiving considerable and increasing attention. Governments have applied large numbers of energy and environmental policies to stimulate the clean energy innovations and support the development of related industries. Hence, it is important and necessary to better understand and assess the impact of policy instruments and key factors in the clean energy sector.My dissertation include three studies related to the clean energy technologies and the industry development. Several conclusions are drawn. First, by investigating the effect of "innovating-by-implementing" in the context of the US LEED building program, I find that implementation experience of utilizing energy efficient technologies in building construction and renovation makes important contribution to innovations in energy efficient building technologies. The second study examines the impact of a specific industry policy -- export restriction on raw materials -- on rare earth downstream industries, which is related to a lot of clean energy products. The result suggests that China's REEs export restriction policies have worked effectively as an industrial policy to induce FDIs and technology transfer by foreign downstream firms and promote domestic downstream industries. The third study analyzes the US innovation related to REEs technologies in the context of innovation system, and it shows that the US has lost its leadership in downstream innovation in REEs, in response to the removal of upstream producers in the innovation system.

Three Essays on the Diffusion of Clean Energy Technologies
Three Essays on the Diffusion of Clean Energy Technologies

Author: Yueming Qiu

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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Due to the pressing challenges from climate change and energy security, clean energy technologies have been widely regarded as providing important channels to reduce carbon emissions and to alleviate the reliance on fossil fuels. It is imperative to analyze the underlying dynamics and mechanisms of the diffusion of clean energy technologies, to identify key factors influencing the diffusion and to evaluate the impacts from the diffusion process. This dissertation empirically analyzes the diffusion of wind energy and energy efficient building technologies, using China and U.S. as examples. Chapter 1 introduces clean energy technologies as well as the key mechanisms, entities and issues involved in the diffusion of these technologies. Chapter 2 quantifies the effect of technology acquisition mechanisms -- purchasing production licenses from foreign manufacturers, joint design with foreign design firms, joint ventures and domestic R & D -- on wind turbine manufacturers 's technology levels (as measured by turbine size, in MW). It also examines the impacts of government policies and manufacturers' business diversification on technology levels. The results from econometric modeling studies indicate that technology acquisition mechanisms are statistically significant factors in influencing both technology upgrading and catch-up. In Chapter 3, learning by doing and learning by searching rates of wind energy in China are quantified. The two types of learning investigated are associated with about 4% price reduction per doubling of installed capacity, providing an estimate of the evolution of the price of wind power, a technology widely used in other markets, which in China has benefited from technology leapfrogging, established supply chains, and operational experience in other countries. This chapter also identifies that wind turbine manufacturing localization and wind farm economies of scale are significantly associated with reductions in the price of wind power in China. Chapter 4 discusses the rebound effects of energy efficiency. A key ongoing debate on energy efficiency is about the extent of the rebound effects: does greater efficiency lead to higher or lower energy use than there would have been without those improvements? Chapter 4 analyzes the rebound effects of energy efficiency in the commercial building sector. Chapter 4 builds a structural model of a building's decision to adopt an energy efficient building technology and subsequent energy demand. The results show that energy efficient technologies save energy after rebound effects. This gives quantitative argument for government to promote the diffusion of energy efficient technologies.

Three Essays on the Links Between Agriculture and Energy Policies in the U.S..
Three Essays on the Links Between Agriculture and Energy Policies in the U.S..

Author: Jarrett Whistance

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 126

ISBN-13:

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The first essay develops and applies a structural, partial equilibrium model of United States biomass supply and demand. The aim is to examine the biomass price and expenditure effects of domestic biofuel policies. The results indicate that the cellulosic biofuel sub-mandate alone could increase biomass prices by an average of 50% to 100% over the baseline values. Biomass expenditures by sectors competing with biofuel producers increase by an average of 26% relative to the baseline suggesting those sectors cannot fully shift away from biomass energy sources. A sensitivity analysis focusing on supply response indicates that the results are not very sensitive to the supply elasticity. This study contributes to the literature by providing policymakers and other energy policy stakeholders with a forward looking analysis of potential policy effects on the U.S. biomass market. The second essay develops a similar type of model applied toward the domestic and international petroleum and petroleum products markets as well as the domestic biofuel market and the domestic light-duty vehicle sector. The goal is to investigate the impact of CAFE standards and alternative-fuel vehicle production incentives on the biofuel market and RFS compliance, in particular. The results suggest that holding CAFE standards at the 2010 level could significantly reduce the blendwall problem in the U.S. ethanol market. Furthermore, the alternative fuel production incentives appear to have only minimal effects. However, there is much uncertainty surrounding the appropriate level of automaker response to those incentives, and a sensitivity analysis indicates the model is fairly sensitive to the assumed level of response. The third essay highlights a few of the theories put forth regarding the expected price behavior of Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs). The theories are tested both observationally and empirically with a dataset containing daily RIN price observations going back to January 2009. The behavior does not always match expectations, although the exact causes remain uncertain. In addition, the information provided by RIN prices is used to test the implications of a binding renewable fuel standard (RFS) versus a non-binding RFS on the ethanol-gasoline price relationship. Cointegration tests provide some evidence that the relationship between conventional ethanol and gasoline prices at the wholesale level is weaker in the presence of a binding RFS.

An Econometric Study of Public Policy Applied to Renewable Energy, Economic Growth and Taxation
An Econometric Study of Public Policy Applied to Renewable Energy, Economic Growth and Taxation

Author: Jehu A. Mette

Publisher:

Published: 2021

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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This dissertation consists of three essays on public policy related to renewable energy, economic growth and tax policy. Each chapter is implemented with a different econometric method to investigate the policy question of interest. The first chapter studies the effect of renewable energy utilization on many food price categories in relation to the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The second chapter investigates the link between public education expenditures and long term economic growth in the context of countries' institutional quality, while the third chapter focuses on the impact of the 2012 Kansas tax reform on state employment across industries. The first essay, co-authored with Dr. Bebonchu Atems, examines the link between renewable energy consumption and consumer food prices in recent years. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 increased the amount of biofuel that must be mixed with commercial gasoline sold in the U.S. to 7.5 billion gallons by 2012. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 further increased this requirement to 36 billion gallons by 2022. This increase in the production and consumption of biofuels, in particular, and renewable energy sources, in general, may compel farmers to divert significant quantities of cropland away from food and feed crops, which, in turn may lead to a rise in crop prices, feed prices, meat and poultry prices, and hence, overall food prices. Employing structural vector autoregression (SVAR) models and monthly U.S. data for the period 1974:01 to 2019:12, this paper examines, empirically, the impact of renewable energy consumption on food prices. We find, in general, that renewable energy shocks have no significant impact on food prices. For the period since the passage of the Energy Policy Act, however, shocks to biomass and wind energy consumption raise food prices significantly and persistently. In the second econometric essay, co-authored with Dr. William Blankenau, we utilize panel and cross-sectional data to explore the link between education spending and long run growth among countries with different institutional quality. The economics literature suggests that education spending and strong institutions both positively affect economic growth. However, their combined effect has received considerably less attention. To explore this, we derive a growth regression from an endogenous growth model constructed to map the link between education spending, institutional quality and growth outcomes. It would be natural to expect that the marginal effect of education spending increases with strong institutions. Our results suggest that education spending and strong institutions instead operate as substitutes in generating growth, especially in rich and developing countries. The explanation could be that growth can arise from better skills due to higher education spending or from enhanced economic activity due to stronger institutions. This relationship could suggest a certain redundancy, especially when countries with high institutional quality also invest substantially in education spending. We emphasize that the implication is not that one is less important or has a negative effect on growth. In the third essay, which is co-authored with Dr. Ross Milton, we revisit the impact of one of the largest state tax reforms in history. In 2012, the state of Kansas eliminated taxation for business income and lowered marginal tax rates on other personal income sources. Contrary to predictions of the new legislation's proponents, prior work has established that the tax reform had no significant impact on the aggregate state employment or real economic activity. In this study, we ask whether the effect was the same for high pass-through industries and other sub-samples of interest to policymakers. Overall, we find no aggregate employment increase, but rather, job losses in a few industry groups. We find that even after excluding the aircraft manufacturing, the oil and energy industries as well as the agricultural sector, the aggregate state employment did not increase. We further test whether industries with a high concentration of pass-through employment experienced more job gains. We fi nd that while a positive link exists between high pass-through concentration and job gains, the link is never significant regardless of time horizons or specifications while income re-characterization cannot be ruled out.

Multilevel Governmental Efforts for Energy Efficiency
Multilevel Governmental Efforts for Energy Efficiency

Author: Taekyoung Lim

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 149

ISBN-13:

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This dissertation consists of three essays studying the impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in the energy policy field. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of ARRA funds, spent as temporary funding, on the change of energy efficiency policies, jobs, and technologies. The first essay examined variation in local level energy-efficiency grants and corresponding initiatives from American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) in the United States. The analysis was based upon a hurdle model of counts of energy-efficiency grants received by 348 local governments that received these grants from 2009 to 2013, as well as 348 matched local governments that did not receive such funds. City-level characteristics including amount of federal financial support, per capita income, signaling of preferences for sustainability policies, manufacturing and political influences were shown to be empirically important determinants of variation in local energy-efficiency initiatives. The evidence suggested that all else held equal, the $21.8 billion in ARRA funds expended with the intent of promoting the diffusion of local energy-efficiency programs and policies successfully led to this end. The second essay examined the impact of the ARRA funds allocated through an intergovernmental grant provision under the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) of the Department of Energy. The purpose of the second essay was to evaluate the effectiveness of the large-scale federal ARRA grant provision implemented under the EERE on job creation related to energy efficiency and renewable energy at the sub-national level. In doing so, it focuses on whether federal ARRA investments, designed to spur the U.S. economy through establishing an innovative energy technologies in intergovernmental grant programs for state and local government, effectively achieved their stated objectives of increasing job. Using the first difference regression model with instrumental variables, the second essay examined the effects of federal ARRA expenditures on job creation in the energy efficiency and renewable energy sectors from 2005 to 2015. The evidence suggests that all else held equal, the ARRA funds, implemented through the intergovernmental grant programs, successfully led to job creation in the energy efficiency and renewable energy sectors . The evidence suggested that ARRA funds led to a productive cumulative return on job creation in energy efficiency and renewable energy sectors during the period of ARRA. The third essay analyzed whether federal ARRA investments, designed to spur new energy technologies in grant programs for state and local government, effectively achieved their stated objectives. The analysis was based upon a first difference regression model with instrumental variables. This essay examined the effects of federal ARRA expenditures on innovation activities in energy technologies from 2005 to 2015. The evidence suggests that all else held equal, the ARRA funds, implemented under the decentralized networks, successfully stimulated innovative activities in energy technologies. Results also showed that ARRA funds led to productive cumulative return on innovation activities toward alternative energy technologies and energy conservation technologies during the ARRA period.