Journal Article Review

Searched for "energy" in journal titles through UMASS online journals

Annual Review of Environment and Resources
1. "ENERGY EFFICIENCY POLICIES: A Retrospective Examination." Annual Review of Environment & Resources; 2006, Vol. 31 Issue 1, p161-192, 32p.
Synopsis of programs related to appliance standards, financial incentive programs, information and voluntary programs, management of government energy use.

Energy
Spring 2007 issue alone had articles on lots of different energy-related things, including grid computerization, green buildings, biofuels, EU carbon trading.

Energy and Environmental Management
UK-themed journal published between 2000-2004

Energy Economics

• January 2008 issue has a lot of articles using Data Envelopment Analysis methodology (don't understand what it is). An article titled " Energy use efficiency in U.S. manufacturing: A nonparametric analysis" uses DEA to measure energy efficiency. Talks about energy intensity as traditional measure of energy efficiency and discusses different methods.
• November 2007 has several articles on relationship between GDP and energy/electricity, within and across countries. "Energy consumption and GDP revisited: A panel analysis of developed and developing countries" talks about how previous studies often contradictory. Says change in country's energy policy can bring about structural change in relationship between energy and GDP. Right! Not sure about their results - don't seem much more convincing than previous studies.
• July 2007. Issue on modeling industrial energy consumption. Article on decoupling CO2 emissions from industrial growth in EU, using decomposition analysis. "The above shortly presented findings can be summarized in one sentence stating that the countries that showed the best environmental performance in the EU in 1990 continue to move faster in successfully implementing emission abatement measures and thus the gap between forerunners and followers has become larger in 2003." Another on the macroecon effects of efficiency policies for energy intensive industries in UK: "The results show that incentivized energy-efficiency improvements for energy-intensive industries yield positive macroeconomic effects in economic terms, with small increases in GDP (0.12% above base by 2010) and employment (0.03%), and negligible changes in general inflation. The system-wide final energy reductions is estimated to be 4.2 mtoe, or 2.6% of total final demand for energy by 2010, with a rebound effect of 19%, and a reduction of 3.3% in CO₂ emissions, a significant amount in view of the UK's Kyoto commitment of 12.5% in greenhouse gases below 1990 levels. "
• May 2007 has article titled " On the importance of equity in international climate policy: An empirical analysis." Survey data shows that equity more important to developing countries, while richer countries less in favor of polluter-pays rule. Richer countries in favor of incorporating egalitarian rules in long run. Another article: " A combined input–output and sensitivity analysis approach to analyse sector linkages and CO₂ emissions."
• January 2007 has article on "Increased energy efficiency and the rebound effect: Effects on consumption and emissions." "Briefly, the rebound effect can be described as the direct and indirect effects, such as substitution and income effects, induced by a new energy-saving technology. This rebound effect may then partly, or entirely, offset the initial or direct energy saving resulting from a new technology."... "The RE is usually discussed in connection with “new energy-saving technology”. A new energy-saving technology essentially implies a lower energy bill, which can be viewed as a reduction of the real price of energy services. Thus, if petrol costs less per transport unit, car use may increase, which partially offsets the initial energy-saving potential. Furthermore, lower energy costs increase real income, which leads to an increase in consumption of other goods. This in turn offsets the emission reductions from the initial energy saving. A third effect may be denoted general equilibrium effects, since changes in aggregate consumption patterns may lead to structural change and changes in relative prices. Taken together, these effects can be denoted the rebound effect."

Energy Policy

• Dec 2007 issue: "International passenger transport and climate change: A sector analysis in car demand and associated CO₂ emissions from 2000 to 2050." "A sector wide approach to emissions mitigation may—in certain cases—be more successful than national approaches, as competitiveness risks and carbon leakage can be overcome."... Figure 3 shows income elasticities of car consumption over time for different regions. Car consumption most inelastic in US - fell below 1 by 1970. Another article, "Energy productivity improvements and the rebound effect: An overview of the state of knowledge," surveys evidence of macroeconomic rebound effect and says effect shouldn't be underestimated. Concludes..."Therefore, energy efficiency policies ought to be considered as short-term policy instruments that cannot, in any case, substitute for long-term policies that promote carbon-free or carbon-neutral energy sources." First article in issue: "Bioenergy expansion in the EU: Cost-effective climate change mitigation, employment creation and reduced dependency on imported fuels." From abstract: "Maximizing climate benefits cost-effectively is in conflict with maximizing employment creation. The former perspective proposes the use of lignocellulosic biomass in the stationary sector, while the latter requires biofuels for transport based on traditional agricultural crops." From conclusion: "Estimates of the employment creation potential for various bioenergy options differ substantially. However, liquid biofuels based on traditional agricultural crops seem to be the most employment-intensive option, especially when the biofuel conversion plants are small. The production of biomass for energy has the potential to contribute to employment creation at a magnitude that is significant in relation to total employment in agriculture, but small compared to the total employment in industry in a country."
• Nov 2007 issue: "Is the choice of renewable portfolio standards random?" What are explanatory variables for adopting an RPS (in US)? Education, political party dominancy, GSP, GRP. Article: " Investment risks under uncertain climate change policy."
• Oct 2007 issue: Article on GIS assessment of RE potential in Spain. Another article, "The economics of climate change and the change of climate in economics," talks about getting away from mainstream economic analysis and using more evolutionary model. Cites this article: Toman, 2006 M. Toman, Values in the economics of climate change, Environmental Values 15 (3) (2006), pp. 365–379.
  

Ecological Economics

• Oct 2007: "Using Monte Carlo analysis to investigate the relationship between overconsumption and uncertain access to one's personal utility function." "In this paper, I seek to incorporate recent findings in hedonic psychology in order to ask the question of whether specific biases may lead to overconsumption not only from an ecological perspective, but from that of the individual as well."..."That said, under the circumstances described in this paper, workers will engage in overconsumption with respect to well-being. By this I mean that they will overengage in income-producing work and underengage in other activities, leading to a depression of well-being relative to the optimum. This is an important result because it indicates that a certain amount of pernicious consumption can be reduced through optimal policies or education, leading not only to significantly reduced ecological harm, but social benefits accruing from increased resources available for social interactions (and positive externalities from increased participation), at the same time as happiness is increased relative to the market equilibrium."
• Sept 2007: Theme is valuation and C/B analysis. Editorial on Stern report critiquing its use, despite noting all problems, of a global cost benefit analysis. Another paper: " Technological change in energy systems: Learning curves, logistic curves and input–output coefficients." Questions appropriateness of learning curve, where cost declines are power function of cumulative production. "So far there are few critiques of the learning curve in energy modelling, probably because the relationship described by learning curves is derived from empirical observations. However, Cory et al. (1999) and Ibenholt (2002) in studies of wind power technology argue that the learning effect is not the only factor determining costs; other factors such as R&D investment, process innovation, input prices, economies of scale, and others can affect costs as well."... "the learning curve implicitly assumes that technology can change instantly with installed capacity, which is implausible." Possible application to non-fixed coefficient I-O tables: "We show that the top-down Leontief representation of technology can be connected with bottom-up technology, whether described as learning curves or logistic curves, by using the curve to adjust input–output coefficients."
• May 2007: " Why we need a commitment approach to environmental policy"..."The second purpose is to explain why the neoclassical model is deficient as a basis for environmental policy and to explicate the nature of a more appropriate model."
• March 2007: " Quality of life: An approach integrating opportunities, human needs, and subjective well-being" coauthored by half the professors at UVM