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Biomass is considered one of the most important options in the transition to a sustainable energy system with reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and increased security of enegry supply. In order to facilitate this transition with targeted policies and implementation strategies, it is of vital importance to understand the economic benefits, uncertainties and risks of this transition. This article presents a quantification of the economic impacts on value added, employment shares and the trade balance as well as required biomass and avoided primary energy and greenhouse gases related to large scale biomass deployment on a country level (the Netherlands) for different future scenarios to 2030. This is done by using the macro-economic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model LEITAP, capable of quantifying direct and indirect effects of a bio-based economy combined with a spread sheet tool to address underlying technological details. Although the combined approach has limitations, the results of the projections show that substitution of fossil energy carriers by biomass, could have positive economic effects, as well as reducing GHG emissions and fossil energy requirement. Key factors to achieve these targets are enhanced technological development and the import of sustainable biomass resources to the Netherlands. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Recent empirical research indicates that certain types of emissions follow an inverted-U or environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) as income grows. This regularity has been interpreted as a possible de-linking of economic growth and patterns of certain pollutants for developed economies. In this paper the empirical basis of this result is investigated by considering some statistical particularities of the various EKC studies performed. It is argued that the inverted-U relationship between income and emissions estimated from panel data need not hold for specific individual countries over time. Based on insights from 'intensity-of-use' analysis in resource economics, an alternative growth model is specified and estimated for three types of emissions (CO

Organic photovoltaics (OPV) have developed into a vast research area. Progress in various directions has made it difficult to monitor the technology's precise development state. We offer a patent landscape analysis over all OPV devices, their substrates and encapsulation materials to provide an overview of patenting activity from a historical, organizational, geographical and technological point of view. Such an exercise is instrumental for private companies and research institutes aiming at both internal or external technology creation. We discuss our findings in the context of the Industrial Life Cycle model and find OPV still residing in the fluid technology development phase. Technology development is still following an exponential growth path, with the majority of patents coming from the Asian continent and in general private companies. For devices, the main technological focus can be traced back to the " H01L-031" international patent classification (IPC) main group. For the queried substrates, the most attention has gone to glass, but paper and textile have drawn significant interest too. Finally, encapsulation is found to be a less mature research field given the smaller number of patent families. The latter shows that the technology has not matured to the level where processing is carried out on a commercial scale

Abstract In this study, we investigate the driving forces behind the changes in residential energy consumption (REC) in China’s urban and rural areas over the 2001–2012 period. Based on the logarithmic mean Divisia index method, the REC changes are decomposed into seven driving forces, which are climate change, energy price, energy expenditure mix, energy cost share (in total expenditure), expenditure share (in income), per capita income and population effects. According to the results, climate effect due to increasing days with abnormal temperature, energy cost share effect characterized by more expenditure to be paid for energy use, income effect describing constant income growth in the residential sector definitely increase REC in both urban and rural areas. In contrast, energy prices and energy expenditure mix effects negatively contribute to the REC increase, respectively because of the increase in energy prices and the transition from the low-priced energy to high-priced energy. Expenditure share and population effects play opposite roles in urban and rural areas, and the reasons and implications are analysed in depth.

We propose a method that combines local productivity factors, economic factors, crop-specific sensitivity to climatic extremes, and future climate change scenarios, to assess potential impacts of extreme weather events on agricultural production systems. Our assessment is spatially explicit and uses discounted time series of cash flows taking into account expected future impacts on yield and crop quality, to estimate changes in the expected net present value (NPV) of agricultural systems. We assess the economic feasibility of a portfolio of adaptation measures by considering their initial investments, annual costs, and effectiveness in reducing crop damage. We apply the method to investigate potential economic impacts of extreme weather events in arable farming systems in the Netherlands around 2050. We find that the expected increase in extreme weather events frequency can severely affect future productivity potential. Particularly, heat waves, warm winters, and high intensity rainfall are expected to substantially undermine the future economic viability of Dutch arable farming systems. The results indicate considerable differences between regions in terms of vulnerability to climatic extremes: while some regions are severely impacted by all climatic extremes, other regions consistently demonstrate high resilience to increases in extreme event frequency. The findings are robust to a wide range of scenarios and suggest that the interactions between economic factors and management practices (particularly, crop specialisation) are decisive drivers of the economic viability of agricultural systems under more frequent climatic extremes. However, the exact magnitude of the impacts remains highly uncertain, as we do not consider endogenous interactions in market conditions resulting from climate change and socio-economic developments. Nevertheless, crop adaptation measures should be regarded as no-regret strategies, since they alleviate both economic impacts and uncertainty around impact magnitude. The proposed method provides insights in region-specific threats and opportunities that are relevant for stakeholders and policy-makers. This information improves communication on main climate risks at the local and regional levels and contributes to prioritising adaptation strategies.

We present trends in energy intensities for 56 Dutch economic sectors over the 20-year period 1969–1988. The intensities were calculated by using input–output analysis. The effects of energy-price changes were examined. More than half of the economic sectors show significant declines in energy intensities as a result of increasing energy prices. As a result, the energy intensity for final demand shows a significant decline, although a shift to more energy-intensive sectors was found.

Variation in household CO2 emissions between and within countries may have important consequences for the equity dimension of climate policies. In this Study we aim to identify some determinants of national household CO2 emissions and their distribution across income groups. For that purpose, we quantify the CO2 emissions of households in the Netherlands, UK, Sweden and Norway around the year 2000 by combining a hybrid approach of process analysis and input-output analysis with data on household expenditures. Our results show that average households in the Netherlands and the UK give rise to higher amounts of CO2 emissions than households in Sweden and Norway. Moreover, CO2 emission intensities of household consumption decrease with increasing income in the Netherlands and the UK, whereas they increase in Sweden and Norway. A comparison Of the national results at the product level points out that country characteristics, like energy supply, population density and the availability of district heating, influence variation in household CO2 emissions between and within countries. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The chapter is based on analysis of the data from the different parts of Europe on the issue of energy poverty in order to undertake explorative work on comparative energy poverty research. The questionnaire surveys, which were conducted in five studied cities (Brno, Kassel, Leipzig, Lüneburg and Poznan) included 49 open, partly-open and closed questions on the locations and characteristics of dwellings, reasons for choosing the dwelling and personal opinions on its conditions, housing and energy costs, energy use, and the personal situation of the interviewee and other households members.

This empirical paper tests for trade-facilitated spillovers in the convergence of energy productivity across 16 European Union (EU) countries from 1995 to 2005. One might anticipate that by inducing specialization, trade limits the potential for convergence in energy productivity. Conversely, by inducing competition and knowledge diffusion, trade may spur sectors to greater energy productivity. Unlike most previous work on convergence, we explain productivity dynamics from cross-country interactions at a detailed sector level and apply a spatial panel data approach to explicitly account for trade-flow related spatial effects in the convergence analysis. Our study confirms the existence of convergence in manufacturing energy productivity, caused by efficiency improvements in lagging countries, while undermined by increasing international differences in sector structure. Further, we find that trade flows explain 30 to 40% of the unobserved variation in energy productivity. Trade continues to explain the unobserved variation in energy productivity even after accounting for geographic proximity. Last, we find that those countries and sectors with higher dependence on trade both have higher energy productivity growth and a higher rate of convergence, further implying that trade can enhance energy productivity. Thus, unlike concerns that trade may spur a 'race to the bottom', we find that promoting trade may help stimulate energy efficiency improvements across countries.

Tourism is an important economic sector that has a significant impact on sustainability indicators, such as GHG emissions and cohesion. Local policy makers are increasingly challenged to manage the urban tourism system at large. As part of a EU funded project, the authors have conceptualized sustainable urban tourism as the ‘management of competing values’ represented in a conceptual model of ecology, visitability, livability, equity, economic growth and smart citizenship. A simulation game was designed and implemented to improve social learning about these competing values. The game was played in six European cities, with around 15 local policy-makers and stakeholders in each session. The players indicated a high level of satisfaction with the game and social learning. In order to understand to what extent the game is able to validate and communicate the competing values model, the start and end states of the tourism values of the cities, as logged in the game’s dashboard, were analyzed in a comparative manner. The analysis shows significant differences in how cities manage sustainable tourism, with marked differences in ecology and smart citizenship. The differences in tourism issues and policy making styles demonstrate the value of a simulation approach to support future planning processes.