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Recent controversy suggests that energy e$ciency policies used to reduce carbon emissions might actually increase overall energy consumption. The result would be an unintended increase in carbon emissions. This paper examines the underlying issues of this so-called `rebound e!ecta from both a historical perspective and through the results of a recent macroeconomic analysis completed for the United States. Depending on the assumptions of income and price elasticities, as well as the supply/demand interactions within a macroeconomic model, the rebound e!ect might reduce overall savings by about 2}3% compared to a pure engineering analysis. In other words, an economy-wide, cost-e!ective engineering savings of 30% might...
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State governments have taken the lead on U.S. energy and climate policy. It is not yet clear, however, whether state energy policy portfolios can generate results in a similar magnitude or manner to their presumed carbon mitigation potential. This article seeks to address this lack of policy evidence and contribute empirical insights on the carbon mitigation effects of state energy portfolios within the U.S. electricity sector. Using a dynamic, long-term electricity dispatch model with U.S. power plant, utility, and transmission and distribution data between 2010 and 2030, this analysis builds a series of state-level policy portfolio scenarios and performs a comparative scenario analysis. Results reveal that state...
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This article underlines the main implications of the interrelations between the energy problem and that of environmental pollution, using the most widely used macroeconomic indicators in the field of policy analysis. In fact, carbon dioxide (CO2) emission intensity and energy intensity trends may be used to highlight the most important features of economic development over a given time scale in a variety of different countries. The empirical analysis proposed here—covering a time-span of some 40 years in a number of the most highly industrialised nations—seems to be useful if we are to understand the main similarities and differences in the interaction between the energy choices made by different countries and their...
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