Natural Resource Economics Commons^™

Potential Economic Impacts Of Allocating More Land For Bioenergy Biomass Production In Virginia, Thomas O. Ochuodho, Janaki R. R. Alavalapati, Pankaj Lal, Domena A. Agyeman, Bernabas Wolde, Pralhad Burli

Pankaj Lal

The growing attention to renewable energy and rural development has created greater demand for production of biomass feedstock for bioenergy. However, forest growth rates and the amount of land in most existing forests may not be sufficient to sustainably supply the forest biomass required to support existing forest products industries and the expanding bioenergy industry. Additionally, concerns about agricultural land use competition have dampened expansion of biomass production on agricultural land base. One of the ways to meet the growing forest biomass feedstock demand for bioenergy production is by allocating currently marginal non-forested land for growing bioenergy feedstocks. In Virginia, …

Introduction: Social-Ecological Resilience And Law, Ahjond S. Garmestani, Craig R. Allen, Craig Anthony Arnold, Lance H. Gunderson

Craig Anthony (Tony) Arnold

Environmental law is intimately connected to ecological concepts and understanding. The legal instruments, institutions, and administration of law in the United States are predicated on assumptions that nature is globally stable and that the inherent variability in ecological systems is bounded. This current legal framework is based upon an understanding of ecological systems operating near an equilibrium, or if disturbed, moving back toward an equilibrium. Such assumptions make much current environmental law ill-suited for many pressing environmental issues (Ruhl 1999; Garmestani et al. 2009; Craig 2010; Verchick 2010; Benson and Garmestani 2011). Emerging environmental challenges, such as cross-boundary water governance …

Quantifying Uncertainty And Trade-Offs In Resilience Assessments, Craig R. Allen, Hannah E. Birgé, David G. Angeler, Craig A. Arnold, Brian C. Chaffin, Daniel A. Decaro, Ahjond S. Garmestani, Lance Gunderson

Craig Anthony (Tony) Arnold

Several frameworks have been developed to assess the resilience of social-ecological systems, but most require substantial data inputs, time, and technical expertise. Stakeholders and practitioners often lack the resources for such intensive efforts. Furthermore, most end with problem framing and fail to explicitly address trade-offs and uncertainty. To remedy this gap, we developed a rapid survey assessment that compares the relative resilience of social-ecological systems with respect to a number of resilience properties. This approach generates large amounts of information relative to stakeholder inputs. We targeted four stakeholder categories: government (policy, regulation, management), end users (farmers, ranchers, landowners, industry), agency/public …

Barriers And Bridges To The Integration Of Social–Ecological Resilience And Law, Olivia Odom Green, Ahjond S. Garmestani, Craig R. Allen, Lance H. Gunderson, J.B. Ruhl, Craig A. Arnold, Nicholas A.J. Graham, Barbara Cosens, David G. Angeler, Brian C. Chaffin, C.S. Holling

Craig Anthony (Tony) Arnold

There is a fundamental difference between the ways in which ecologists and lawyers view uncertainty: in the study of ecology, uncertainty provides a catalyst for exploration, whereas uncertainty is antithetical to the rule of law. This issue is particularly troubling in environmental management, where the tensions between law and ecology become apparent. Rather than acknowledge uncertainties in management actions, legal frameworks often force a false sense of certainty in linking cause and effect. While adaptive management has been developed to deal with uncertainty, laws and legal wrangling can be obstacles to implementation. In this article, we recommend resilience-based governance – …

The Impact Of Trees On Passive Survivability During Extreme Heat Events In Warm And Humid Regions, Ulrike Passe, Janette R. Thompson, Baskar Ganapathysubramanian, Boshun Gao, Breanna L. Marmur

Breanna L. Marmur

Communities are increasingly affected by excessive heat. The likelihood of extreme heat events is predicted to increase in the Midwest region of the United States. By mid-century (2036–2065), one year out of 10 is projected to have a 5-day period that is 13°F warmer than a comparable earlier period (1976–2005). The frequency of high humidity/dew point days (“extra moist tropical air mass days,” MT++ synoptic climate classification system) has also increased significantly during a similar period (1975–2010) and between 2010 and 2014 included 8 of 26 heat events. This impact is exacerbated by the fact that many residences in low-income …

Call For Abstracts - Resrb 2019, July 8-9, Wrocław, Poland, Wojciech M. Budzianowski

Wojciech Budzianowski

No abstract provided.

C.V. - Wojciech Budzianowski, Wojciech M. Budzianowski

Wojciech Budzianowski

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Renewable Energy And Sustainable Development (Resd) Group, Wojciech M. Budzianowski

Wojciech Budzianowski

No abstract provided.

Potential State-Level Carbon Revenue Under The Clean Power Plan, Daniel H. Karney

Daniel H Karney

Prioritizing Investment In Residential Energy Efficiency And Renewable Energy: A Case Study For The U.S. Midwest, Robert J. Brecha, Austin Mitchell, Kevin P. Hallinan, J. Kelly Kissock

J. Kissock

Residential building energy use is an important contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and in the United States represents about 20% of total energy consumption. A number of previous macro-scale studies of residential energy consumption and energy-efficiency improvements are mainly concerned with national or international aggregate potential savings. In this paper we look into the details of how a collection of specific homes in one region might reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions, with particular attention given to some practical limits to what can be achieved by upgrading the existing residential building stock. Using a simple model of residential, single-family home …

Water, Growth And The Endangered Species Act, Holly Doremus

Holly Doremus

24 pages.

Water, Growth And The Endangered Species Act, Holly Doremus

Holly Doremus

24 pages.

Water, Growth And The Endangered Species Act, Holly Doremus

Holly Doremus

24 pages.

Prioritizing Investment In Residential Energy Efficiency And Renewable Energy: A Case Study For The U.S. Midwest, Robert J. Brecha, Austin Mitchell, Kevin P. Hallinan, J. Kelly Kissock

Kevin Hallinan

Residential building energy use is an important contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and in the United States represents about 20% of total energy consumption. A number of previous macro-scale studies of residential energy consumption and energy-efficiency improvements are mainly concerned with national or international aggregate potential savings. In this paper we look into the details of how a collection of specific homes in one region might reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions, with particular attention given to some practical limits to what can be achieved by upgrading the existing residential building stock. Using a simple model of residential, single-family home …

Cost-Availability Curves For Hierarchical Implementation Of Residential Energy-Efficiency Measures, Roman Villoria-Siegert, Philip Brodrick, Kevin P. Hallinan, Robert J. Brecha

Kevin Hallinan

Historical residential electricity data and natural gas consumption data were collected for, respectively, 1,200 and 178 residences in a small town in the USA. These data were merged with local building and weather databases, and energy consumption models were developed for each residence, revealing substantial variation in heating and cooling intensity. After estimating approximate physical building characteristics, energy profiles for each residence were calculated, and savings from adoption of the most cost-effective energy-efficiency measures for each residence were estimated. Effectively, we wish to leverage commonly available data sets to infer characteristics of building envelopes and equipment, without the need for …

Emissions Scenarios In The Face Of Fossil-Fuel Peaking, Robert Brecha

Robert J. Brecha

Emissions scenarios used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are based on detailed energy system models in which demographics, technology and economics are used to generate projections of future world energy consumption, and therefore, of greenhouse gas emissions. We propose in this paper that it is useful to look at a qualitative model of the energy system, backed by data from short- and medium-term trends, to gain a sense of carbon emission bounds. Here we look at what may be considered a lower bound for 21st century emissions given two assumptions: first, that extractable fossil-fuel resources follow the …

The Carbon Rent Economics Of Climate Policy, Matthias Kalkuhl, Robert Brecha

Robert J. Brecha

By reducing the demand for fossil fuels, climate policy can reduce scarcity rents for fossil resource owners. As mitigation policies ultimately aim to limit emissions, a new scarcity for “space” in the atmosphere to deposit emissions is created. The associated scarcity rent, or climate rent (that is, for example, directly visible in permit prices under an emission trading scheme) can be higher or lower than the original fossil resource rent. In this paper, we analyze analytically and numerically the impact of mitigation targets, resource availability, backstop costs, discount rates and demand parameters on fossil resource rents and the climate rent. …

Global Fossil Energy Markets And Climate Change Mitigation: An Analysis With Remind, Nico Bauer, Ioanna Mouratiadou, Gunnar Luderer, Lavinia Baumstark, Robert Brecha, Ottmar Edenhofer, Elmar Kriegler

Robert J. Brecha

We analyze the dynamics of global fossil resource markets under different assumptions for the supply of fossil fuel resources, development pathways for energy demand, and climate policy settings. Resource markets, in particular the oil market, are characterized by a large discrepancy between costs of resource extraction and commodity prices on international markets. We explain this observation in terms of (a) the intertemporal scarcity rent, (b) regional price differentials arising from trade and transport costs, (c) heterogeneity and inertia in the extraction sector. These effects are captured by the REMIND model. We use the model to explore economic effects of changes …

Logistic Curves, Extraction Costs And Peak Oil, Robert Brecha

Robert J. Brecha

Debates about the possibility of a near-term maximum in world oil production have become increasingly prominent over the past decade, with the focus often being on the quantification of geologically available and technologically recoverable amounts of oil in the ground. Economically, the important parameter is not a physical limit to resources in the ground, but whether market price signals and costs of extraction will indicate the efficiency of extracting conventional or nonconventional resources as opposed to making substitutions over time for other fuels and technologies. We present a hybrid approach to the peak-oil question with two models in which the …

Cost-Availability Curves For Hierarchical Implementation Of Residential Energy-Efficiency Measures, Roman Villoria-Siegert, Philip Brodrick, Kevin Hallinan, Robert Brecha

Robert J. Brecha

Historical residential electricity data and natural gas consumption data were collected for, respectively, 1,200 and 178 residences in a small town in the USA. These data were merged with local building and weather databases, and energy consumption models were developed for each residence, revealing substantial variation in heating and cooling intensity. After estimating approximate physical building characteristics, energy profiles for each residence were calculated, and savings from adoption of the most cost-effective energy-efficiency measures for each residence were estimated. Effectively, we wish to leverage commonly available data sets to infer characteristics of building envelopes and equipment, without the need for …

Development Without Energy? Assessing Future Scenarios Of Energy Consumption In Developing Countries, Jan Steckel, Robert Brecha, Michael Jakob, Jessica Strefler, Gunnar Luderer

Robert J. Brecha

We analyze the relationship between economic development and energy consumption in the context of greenhouse gas mitigation. The main contribution of this work is to compare estimates of energy thresholds in the form of minimum energy requirements to reach high levels of development with output projections of per capita final energy supply from a group of integrated assessment models (IAMs). Scenarios project that reductions of carbon emissions in developing countries will be achieved not only by means of decreasing the carbon intensity, but also by making a significant break with the historically observed relationship between energy use and economic growth. …

Boom Or Bust? Mapping Out The Known Unknowns Of Global Shale Gas Production Potential, Jérôme Hilaire, Nico Bauer, Robert Brecha

Robert J. Brecha

To assess the global production costs of shale gas, we combine global top-down data with detailed bottom-up information. Studies solely based on top-down approaches do not adequately account for the heterogeneity of shale gas deposits and hence, are unlikely to appropriately capture the extraction costs of shale gas. We design and provide an expedient bottom-up method based on publicly available US data to compute the levelized costs of shale gas extraction. Our results indicate the existence of economically attractive areas but also reveal a dramatic cost increase as lower-quality reservoirs are exploited. At the global level, our best estimate suggests …

Procesy Cieplne I Aparaty (Lab), Wojciech M. Budzianowski

Wojciech Budzianowski

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Inżynieria Chemiczna Lab., Wojciech M. Budzianowski

Wojciech Budzianowski

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Day 1: Wednesday, 17 August 2005: Biodiversity And Critical Habitat, Charles Bedford, Federico Cheever, Tim Sullivan

Tim Sullivan

6 pages (includes color illustration). Contains references.

Variable Renewable Energy In Modeling Climate Change Mitigation Scenarios, Falko Ueckerdt, Robert J. Brecha, Gunnar Luderer, Patrick Sullivan, Eva Schmid, Nico Bauer, Diana Böttger

Robert J. Brecha

This paper addresses the issue of how to account for short‐term temporal variability of renewable energy sources and power demand in long‐term climate change mitigation scenarios in energy‐economic models. An approach that captures in a stylized way the major challenges to the integration of variable renewable energy sources into power systems has been developed. As a first application this approach has been introduced to REMIND‐D, a hybrid energy‐economy model of Germany. An approximation of the residual load duration curve is implemented. The approximating function endogenously changes depending on the penetration and mix of variable renewable power. The approach can thus …

Establishing Building Recommissioning Priorities And Potential Energy Savings From Utility Energy Data, Kevin P. Hallinan, Philip Brodrick, Jessica Northridge, J. Kelly Kissock, Robert J. Brecha

Robert J. Brecha

An energy reduction program for commercial buildings is implemented for a SW Ohio natural gas utility. The aim of this study is to demonstrate that historical utility data for individual building customers, along with knowledge of pertinent building information (square footage, year built, number of floors, height of floors, wall construction type, and use type) available in county auditor databases, could be used to identify the best candidate buildings for recommissioning in terms of energy savings and simple payback. A study is completed for all natural gas customers of a utility in Montgomery and Clinton counties in Ohio. A total …

Rose: Roadmaps Towards Sustainable Energy Futures And Climate Protection: A Synthesis Of Results From The Rose Project, Elmar Kriegler, Ioanna Mouratiadou, Gunnar Luderer, Nico Bauer, Katherine Calvin, Enrica Decian, Robert J. Brecha, Wenying Chen, Aleh Cherp, Jae Edmonds, Kejun Jiang, Shonali Pachauri, Fabio Sferra, Massimo Tavoni, Ottmar Edenhofer

Robert J. Brecha

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Exploring energy demand and supply uncertainty: An exploration of uncertainty on drivers of energy demand and supply is indispensable for better understanding the prospects of long-tern climate stabilization. The RoSE study is the first of its kind to systematically explore the impact of economic growth, population and fossil fuel scarcity, in scenarios with and without climate policy, using a model ensemble. A feature of RoSE is the participation of five established integrated assessment modelling teams from three important regions in international climate policy negotiations: the EU, the USA and China. Economic growth: Neither slow nor rapid economic growth …

Economics Of Nuclear Power And Climate Change Mitigation Policies, Nico Bauer, Robert Brecha, Gunnar Luderer

Robert J. Brecha

The events of March 2011 at the nuclear power complex in Fukushima, Japan, raised questions about the safe operation of nuclear power plants, with early retirement of existing nuclear power plants being debated in the policy arena and considered by regulators. Also, the future of building new nuclear power plants is highly uncertain. Should nuclear power policies become more restrictive, one potential option for climate change mitigation will be less available. However, a systematic analysis of nuclear power policies, including early retirement, has been missing in the climate change mitigation literature. We apply an energy economy model framework to derive …

Renewable Energy In The Context Of Sustainable Development, Jayant Sathaye, Oswaldo Lucon, Atiq Rahman, John Christensen, Fatima Denton, Junichi Fujino, Garvin Heath, Monirul Mirza, Hugh Rudnick, August Schlaepfer, Andrey Shmakin, Gerhard Angerer, Christian Bauer, Morgan Bazilian, Robert J. Brecha, Peter Burgherr, Leon Clarke, Felix Creutzig, James Edmonds, Christian Hagelüken, Gerrit Hansen, Nathan Hultman, Michael Jakob, Susanne Kadner, Manfred Lenzen, Jordan Macknick, Eric Masanet, Yu Nagai, Anne Olhoff, Karen Olsen, Michael Pahle, Ari Rabl, Richard Richels, Joyashree Roy, Tormod Schei, Christoph Von Stechow, Jan Christoph Steckel, Ethan Warner, Tom Wilbanks, Yimin Zhang

Robert J. Brecha

Historically, economic development has been strongly correlated with increasing energy use and growth of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Renewable energy (RE) can help decouple that correlation, contributing to sustainable development (SD). In addition, RE offers the opportunity to improve access to modern energy services for the poorest members of society, which is crucial for the achievement of any single of the eight Millennium Development Goals. Theoretical concepts of SD can provide useful frameworks to assess the interactions between SD and RE. SD addresses concerns about relationships between human society and nature. Traditionally, SD has been framed in the three-pillar model—Economy, …