Energy Policy Commons^™

Federalism As A Double-Edged Sword: The Slow Energy Transition In The United States, Roger Karapin

Publications and Research

Much literature on federalism and multi-level governance argues that federalist institutional arrangements promote renewable-energy policies. However, the U.S. case supports a different view, that federalism has ambivalent effects. Policy innovation has occurred at the state level and to some extent has led to policy adoption by other states and the federal government, but the extent is limited by the veto power of fossil-fuel interests that are rooted in many state governments and in Congress, buttressed by increasing Republican Party hostility to environmental and climate policy. This argument is supported by a detailed analysis of five periods of federal and state …

The Political Viability Of Carbon Pricing: Policy Design And Framing In British Columbia And California, Roger Karapin

Publications and Research

The adoption of climate policies with visible, substantial costs for households is uncommon because of expected political backlash, but British Columbia's carbon tax and California's cap-and-trade program imposed such costs and still survived vigorous opposition. To explain these outcomes, this paper tests hypotheses concerning policy design, framing, energy prices, and elections. It conducts universalizing and variation-finding comparisons across three subcases in the two jurisdictions and uses primary sources to carry out process tracing involving mechanisms of public opinion and elite position taking. The paper finds strong support for the timing of independent energy price changes, exogenous causes of election results, …

A Case Study: The Role Of Compassionate Cities, Healthy Cities, And Un Sustainable Development Goals In City Leadership And Planning, Lisa A. Berkley

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This research is a case study examining the relevance of three holistic city frameworks—Compassionate Cities, Healthy Cities, and UN Sustainable Development Goals—to the intentional or tacit thinking of city leaders, community leaders, and activists of Marina, California. Beginning with a discussion of the origin and development of the three frameworks, the study occurred in three phases: Phase I involved interviewing the five elected leaders, city manager, community development leaders, and two planners; Phase II consisted of a survey of appointed city leaders and community organizers and activists; and Phase III was an analysis of relevant public discourse, drawing from local …

Linking Energy Efficiency And Public Health: A Case Study Of Illinois, Azat Turegeldin

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

A growing body of research has established the connection between emissions from fossil fuels and severe impacts on human health, such as asthma attacks in children and adults and chronic cardiovascular problems. This work evaluates in monetary terms the implementation of two energy-saving scenarios. Illinois, as a state with high coal electricity generating content, has been chosen as a case study to quantify the impacts brought up by air pollution on public health. The potential benefits of improved air quality and health are the considered results of implemented energy efficiency technologies. This report is a culmination of a summer internship …

The Cognition Of Controversy: Examining Policy Elites’ Narrative Cognition And Communication Around Hydraulic Fracturing Practices In The U.S., Rachael M. Moyer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The use of hydraulic fracturing (HF) technologies to extract oil and gas in the United States has sparked contentious policy debates, producing inconsistent and inefficient policies that have done little to address the impacts of HF in any comprehensive way. Debates are accompanied by competing policy narratives that position HF as either an environmental threat or an economic opportunity, but little is known about how policy narratives around HF are used by individuals. This dissertation systematically examines how individuals cognitively internalize elements of competing HF policy narratives. Organized into three empirical chapters, this dissertation analyzes narrative cognition (Jones, Shanahan, and …

An Evaluation Of California’S Continuously Appropriated Programs Funded Through Cap-And-Trade, Domingo Candelas

Master's Projects

In 2006, the State of California passed AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act. Through this legislation, the state sought to reduce its carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) was tasked with doing so and thus instituted the Cap-and-Trade program, a market-based mechanism to reduce emissions. Additionally, legislation has further directed funding on an annual basis for various continuously appropriated programs. This paper will examine the efficacy of those continuously appropriated programs and their legislative intent.

Imo 2020 Sulfur Cap : Green Investment In Shipping Industry, Nishank Sharma

World Maritime University Dissertations

Winner of the 2019 Schlüter Foundation Dissertation Prize

Can The Us And Europe Contain Russian Power In The European Energy Market? A Game Theoretic Approach, Jesse Richman, Nurullah Ayyilmaz

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

The Russian history of politicization of natural gas supplies led Europe to seek alternatives. US LNG is considered to be a viable alternative for Europe, which positioned the US as a strong competitor against Russia. In a game theoretic approach, we model this strategic decision-making process in simultaneous-move and sequential games. Our findings indicate a mixed strategy equilibrium: Europe cannot commit to diversify in the face of Russian advantages, and Russia cannot fully resist the temptation to politicize its supplies to Europe. The US might attempt to intervene in the European commitment problem through implementing sanctions on Russian gas sales. …

Blue Biotechnology, Renewable Energy, Unconventional Resources And Products As Emerging Frontiers At Sea, Sheikh Aftab Uddin, Mohammad Mahmudul Islam

Journal of Ocean and Coastal Economics

Blue biotechnology, renewable energy and unconventional marine living resources are considered as emerging frontiers for enhancing ocean-based blue economy in Bangladesh. Blue biotechnology can help both fisheries and aquaculture industry by producing fish varieties that can become quicker, more beneficial, and greater with tastier flesh, by developing gene transfer technology to be used to develop the growth of fish or by using of monoclonal antibodies and DNA probes to new diagnostic strategies for pathogens. Transformation of marine bioresources (main, co-product and by-products) into food, medicine, animal feed and related bio-based items i.e. cosmetics, nutritional supplements, enzymes, agrichemicals etc could help …

Assessing The Implications Of A Tidal Barrage Power Plant In Hvalfjörður, Iceland, Olive M. Colangelo

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As climate change continues to threaten the future state of our world, we are searching for measures to take for mitigation. Among these measures, the most talked about method is the development of renewable energies. Great amounts of attention is paid to solar and wind power, but relatively little effort is given to researching the possibilities of ocean energy, particularly tidal barrage energy. This study assesses the possibility of a tidal barrage plant in Hvalfjörður, Iceland. This hypothetical power plant in Hvalfjörður would have an installed capacity of 840MWh and could produce 613GWh per year. This is less than 0.01% …

Humboldt County Public Electric Vehicle Charging Station Service Area And Gap Analysis, Chih-Wei Hsu

IdeaFest: Interdisciplinary Journal of Creative Works and Research from Cal Poly Humboldt

No abstract provided.

More Buildings Make More Generalizable Models—Benchmarking Prediction Methods On Open Electrical Meter Data, Clayton Miller

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Prediction is a common machine learning (ML) technique used on building energy consumption data. This process is valuable for anomaly detection, load profile-based building control and measurement and verification procedures. Hundreds of building energy prediction techniques have been developed over the last three decades, yet there is still no consensus on which techniques are the most effective for various building types. In addition, many of the techniques developed are not publicly available to the general research community. This paper outlines a library of open-source regression techniques from the Scikit-Learn Python library and describes the process of applying them to open …

Applicability Of Lean Production Principles To Performance Analysis Across The Life Cycle Phases Of Buildings, Clayton Miller, Clayton Miller

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

The Lean Production framework was pioneered by the Toyota Motor Corporation as a method for improving process and product quality and it has proven effective within multiple domains such as manufacturing, management, healthcare, and government. Numerous studies have shown that quality control and performance evaluation in the building industry could be significantly improved as many facilities fail to deliver the anticipated performance that designers and owners expect. This paper qualitatively investigates a Lean-focused framework in the context of building performance analysis and verification. Ideally this approach could empower building designers and operators with the ability to practice “kaizen”, or quality …

Foundation For Measuring Community Sustainability, Pamela A. Mischen, George C. Homsy, Carl P. Lipo, Robert Holahan, Valerie Imbruce, Andreas Pape, Joe Graney, Ziang Zhang, Louisa M. Holmes, Manuel Reina

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

In order to understand the impact of individual communities on global sustainability, we need a community sustainability assessment system (CSAS). While many sustainability assessment systems exist, they prove inadequate to the task. This article presents the results of a systematic review of the literature on existing sustainability assessment systems; offers a definition of a sustainable community; provides a multi-scale, systems approach to thinking about community; and makes recommendations from the field of performance measurement for the construction of a CSAS.

The Uk Summer Heatwave Of 2018 And Public Concern Over Energy Security, Shaun Larcom, Po-Wen She, Terry Van Gevelt

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

The UK summer heatwave of 2018 led to changes in consumer behaviour, including large increases in electricity demand due to increased use and intensity of refrigeration and air-conditioning devices1,2. Although the United Kingdom experienced its equal hottest summer on record, the extreme temperatures were concentrated in the south and east of England3. Here we exploit the regional variation to test for the effect of experiencing extreme temperatures on perceptions of resource security and on related pro-environmental behaviour. We analyse data from 2,189 individuals across the UK over a 7 day period and use a difference-in-differences estimation to compare responses of …

Regulatory Design For Transport Security Regulations Of Nuclear And Other Radioactive Material, Marc R. Fialkoff

Purdue Workshop on Nonproliferation: Technology and Approaches

A cornerstone within a nuclear security regime of a country is a legislative and regulatory framework that both regulates the individuals using radioactive and nuclear materials, but also regulates the regulators for their commitments under International Law. When drafting nuclear law and regulations, both technical and legal expertise is needed to ensure the regulation meets the technical requirements for security, but also is legally enforceable within a country’s jurisdiction. While the Primary Nuclear Law, or Enabling Act provides establishes the Competent Authority and responsibilities for nuclear security, regulatory development is where the proverbial, rubber meets the road for requirements. The …

Policies To Overcome Barriers For Renewable Energy Distributed Generation: A Case Study Of Utility Structure And Regulatory Regimes In Michigan, Emily Prehoda, Joshua M. Pearce, Chelsea Schelly

Department of Social Sciences Publications

Because of its environmental damage and now often being the most expensive source for electricity production, coal use is declining throughout the United States. Michigan has no active coal mining and seemingly supportive legislation for distributed generation (DG) and renewable energy (RE) technologies. However, Michigan still derives approximately half of its power production from large centralized coal plants, despite the availability of much lower cost RE DG technologies. To understand this conundrum, this study reviews how Michigan investor owned utilities utilize their political power to perpetuate utility structures that work toward the financial interests of the utilities rather than the …

Russia's Use Of The Energy Weapon: How Russia Manipulates Ukraine, Georgia, And The Baltic States, Sierra Brown

Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris Undergraduate Journal

Russia’s stranglehold on oil and gas as a resource, and use of energy as a weapon is a long standing humanitarian crisis as shown by the cut off of oil exports to former Soviet Republics, in efforts to gain political and economic dependence, resulting in, as one example shows, electricity and heat suspensions of innocent citizens homes. Other concerted efforts of Moscow include control over export routes, the attempt to reinstate the Soviet Union, and the intimidation of the Western World. The Soviet Union may have collapsed, but the drive for state control over resources, people, and land did not. …

Apples Or Oranges? Identification Of Fundamental Load Shape Profiles For Benchmarking Buildings Using A Large And Diverse Dataset, June Young Park, Xiya Yang, Clayton Miller, Pandarasamy Arjunan, Zoltan Nagy

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Buildings are responsible for 30–40% of the anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption worldwide. Thus, reducing the overall energy use and associated emissions in buildings is crucial for meeting sustainability goals for the future. In recent years, smart energy meters have been deployed to enable monitoring of energy use data with hourly or sub-hourly temporal resolution. The concurrent rise of information technologies and data analytics enabled the development of novel applications such as customer segmentation, load profiling, demand response, energy forecasting and anomaly detection. In this paper, we address load profiling and benchmarking, i.e., determining peer groups for buildings. …

Oregon Clean Fuels Program Report 2018, Northwest Economic Research Center, Jenny H. Liu, Emma Willingham

Northwest Economic Research Center Publications and Reports

This report, written by the Northwest Economic Research Center (NERC) of Portland State University with support from the Packard Foundation, is the first in a series designed to assess the economic impact of the Oregon Clean Fuels Program (CFP). Following a discussion of carbon mitigation tools and policies, the body of the report establishes a baseline of infrastructure and regulated parties, followed by presentation and analysis of a set of economic indicator variables expected to influence or be influenced by the CFP. (See p. 5 for a table with all variables and their relevance to the program.)

Low carbon fuel …