• Energy Research
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Building on cornerstone traditions in historical sociology, as well as work in environmental sociology and political-economic sociology, we theorize and investigate with moderation analysis how and why national militaries shape the effect of economic growth on carbon pollution. Militaries exert a substantial influence on the production and consumption patterns of economies, and the environmental demands required to support their evolving infrastructure. As far-reaching and distinct characteristics of contemporary militarization, we suggest that both the size and capital intensiveness of the world’s militaries enlarge the effect of economic growth on nations’ carbon emissions. In particular, we posit that each increases the extent to which the other amplifies the effect of economic growth on carbon pollution. To test our arguments, we estimate longitudinal models of emissions for 106 nations from 1990 to 2016. Across various model specifications, robustness checks, a range of sensitivity analyses, and counterfactual analysis, the findings consistently support our propositions. Beyond advancing the environment and economic growth literature in sociology, this study makes significant contributions to sociological research on climate change and the climate crisis, and it underscores the importance of considering the military in scholarship across the discipline.

Energy intensity of the economy is often modeled as being determined by the combined effect of a fixed price elasticity of demand, and an exogenously specified, fixed technical change parameter denoted as the autonomous energy efficiency improvement (AEEI). Typically, the AEEI rate is set to 0.5–1.5% improvement per annum. Here, we study historic aggregate energy intensity trends for the US from 1954 to 1994. We show that the historic trends are inconsistent with an autonomous model of improved energy efficiency—especially when the model is used to inform policies that impact energy prices. As an alternative we propose a model of price-induced efficiency, π, in which aggregate energy intensity trends respond to changes in energy prices beyond price elasticity of demand e. Our exercise reveals that the aggregate price elasticity of energy demand of the US economy has declined by roughly 15% over the past four decades. But beyond this decline, bringing our simulations and historical data into close correspondence requires π to change sign before and after 1974. Before 1974, after accounting for price elasticity of demand, the economy was growing less energy efficient. After 1974, after accounting for the price elasticity of demand, the economy was growing more energy efficient. Furthermore, since 1984, the rate of energy efficiency gain has been declining. When projections of long-term energy use are compared, those with a price-induced energy efficiency formulation generate significantly more price sensitive energy use and emissions trajectories. When in the business as usual scenario energy prices are expected to be rising, climate policies involve lower shadow carbon prices with π than with AEEI formulations. In scenarios where energy prices are relatively flat, energy intensity rises leading to CO2 emissions far higher than standard business as usual projections utilizing AEEI assumptions.

Abstract A carbon tax has been proposed or applied in many countries and regions around the world to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In this study, a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model for the Province of Saskatchewan is first developed to examine and analyze a series of direct and indirect socio-economic impacts of a carbon tax. The energy sector is further disaggregated based on the production structure and energy use pattern to obtain robust results. Different carbon tax rates are simulated to quantify the inter-relationships of the carbon tax, GHG emission reduction, and economic growth. In-depth examinations are also conducted to investigate some other macroeconomic impacts and responses from specific economic sectors. The results show that the GDP change is mainly caused by consumption reduction and import increases, due to the income decline and relatively low tariff rates. Changes in coal and petroleum product production and processes result in the greatest GHG emissions among all sectors. This suggests that clean coal and petroleum technologies may be the crucial issues for realizing both national and provincial environmental and economic objectives. It is expected that the results will provide a solid basis for supporting the application of an effective Pan-Canadian carbon pricing strategy.

Abstract The apparel industry is responsible for 10% of the world's carbon emissions, and is considered as the second highest industrial polluter after the oil industry. In Sri Lanka, the apparel sector is the key foreign revenue earner, and developing a sustainable apparel industry will provide a competitive and strategic advantage to the Sri Lankan apparel products in the global market. However, limited data availability and a lack of studies carried out to quantify environmental impacts and propose mitigation strategies have detrimentally affected the growth of the Sri Lankan apparel industry. This study proposes a framework to quantify the environmental impacts due to energy use in garment production in the Sri Lankan apparel industry. Initially, the impacts were quantified using life cycle assessment with a gate-to-gate approach, based on the specific energy use and energy sources being used in the major production and transportation phases in a garment's life cycle. A case study was then conducted based on the data from an apparel production facility located in Sri Lanka. The life cycle impacts of energy use of the selected process phases were compared to identify the most critical processes in terms of the environmental footprint. Finally, the study was extended to investigate the effects of using different alternative energy supply scenarios. The life cycle impact assessment was conducted using the ReCiPe (Ver 1.11) Midpoint method in SimaPro. The findings revealed that the garment production phase carries the highest life cycle impacts among the studied process phases from fabric manufacture to distribution to the end market. Scenario analysis showed that the use of solar photovoltaics and biomass to supply the required electricity and thermal energy for apparel manufacturing can reduce climate change, ozone depletion, and terrestrial acidification by 90–95%. This information can be used by decision makers to plan for sustainability and growth of the apparel industry.

This thesis proposes the application of various economic theories and analytical techniques from the fields of energy economics, environmental economics, comparative economic systems and, development economics in the regional context of South and Central Asia. Applying IV estimation in essay one leads to the conclusion that ethnolinguistic diversity instrumented by diversity of ancient civilizations/empires is strongly linked with contemporary development in Afghanistan. Ethnolinguistic diversity induces higher levels of trust and lower levels of individualism. Moreover, it is associated with higher levels of income and lower levels of violence or crime. A robust regression discontinuity design has been used to estimate the impact of historical ethnolinguistic borders on the contemporary economic development of Afghanistan. Pashtuns have the clear advantage over the other ethnolinguistic groups in Afghanistan in terms of level of income and provision of public goods such as safe drinking water and electricity. The Pashtun belt has suffered more violence and crime due to foreign interference in the Pashtun areas. The ethnolinguistic division in Afghanistan in terms of political preferences is obvious by the fact that support for Ashraf Ghani declines significantly when crossing the ethnic and linguistic border into the non-Pashtun areas. Structural equation modeling results reveal that the empires of Achaemenids, Parthians, and, most prominently, Sasanians, categorized as Old Persian, and the empires of Turkic origin left a positive and persistent impact on the contemporary economic development of Afghanistan. Essay 2 and essay 3 of the dissertation deal with the economics of electricity and sustainable energy. Electricity generation from the use of fossil fuels is one of the largest sources of man-made carbon dioxide emissions in the world. Switching the power industry to the use of renewables such as hydro, solar, and wind energy is an option to deal with the issue of climate change. There are various challenges confronting the world and particularly South Asia in this energy transition towards renewable energy resources. Therefore, there is a necessity to take policy measures that enable electric utilities operating on fossil fuels to reach a technically efficient point where considerable savings in terms of costs and carbon emissions can be made. This has been estimated in the case of Pakistan in essay 2, with a possible reduction of about 34% of carbon emissions and 26% of the cost of power generation from fossil fuels with the use of technically efficient inputs. In essay 3, this thesis explores factors that are impediments to growth of the renewable energy sector by using pooled mean group autoregressive distributed lag (PMG ARDL) and the time series autoregressive distributed lag model, as well as by using the analytical tool of SWOT methodology to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in relation to the internal and external environment of development of the renewable energy sector in South Asia. Empirical results suggest that poor economic growth and the depreciating exchange rate are the major barriers to the development of the renewable energy sector of South Asia. SWOT analysis suggests that credit institutions’ lack of interest in financing for renewable energy projects, the poor financial situation of the distribution companies, and inadequate research in the sustainable energy sector are the main obstacles to this development.

Abstract Improving economic competitiveness is the key for sustainable development of the wood pellet industry. To support this development, we have carried out a comprehensive techno-economic evaluation of five possible process configurations for production of conventional (CWP) and torrefied (TWP) wood pellets in the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC), based on process simulation with multi-scale models involved as illustrated in the graphical abstract. A novel heat integration strategy is proposed for the TWP production process to avoid the use of N2 and achieve auto-thermal operation. In comparison with CWPs, producing TWPs in the operating sequence drying, torrefaction, grinding, pelletization can reduce production costs by about 10% and reduce delivered costs to both domestic and overseas markets by about 20%. It is essential that the TWP plant is located in a region with abundant and low-cost feedstock, low electricity price, low labor cost, and efficient distribution logistics. Due to the low capital cost contribution (10%), torrefaction could be implemented by either building a new plant or upgrading an existing conventional pellet plant. The market analysis reveals that the future market for TWPs from BC is expected to lie outside Canada, in the Asia Pacific region, and Europe, unless significant domestic policy measures are introduced to promote Canadian use of TWPs.

Abstract. Canopy structure is one of the most important vegetation characteristics for land–atmosphere interactions, as it determines the energy and scalar exchanges between the land surface and the overlying air mass. In this study we evaluated the performance of a newly developed multi-layer energy budget in the ORCHIDEE-CAN v1.0 land surface model (Organising Carbon and Hydrology In Dynamic Ecosystems – CANopy), which simulates canopy structure and can be coupled to an atmospheric model using an implicit coupling procedure. We aim to provide a set of acceptable parameter values for a range of forest types. Top-canopy and sub-canopy flux observations from eight sites were collected in order to conduct this evaluation. The sites crossed climate zones from temperate to boreal and the vegetation types included deciduous, evergreen broad-leaved and evergreen needle-leaved forest with a maximum leaf area index (LAI; all-sided) ranging from 3.5 to 7.0. The parametrization approach proposed in this study was based on three selected physical processes – namely the diffusion, advection, and turbulent mixing within the canopy. Short-term sub-canopy observations and long-term surface fluxes were used to calibrate the parameters in the sub-canopy radiation, turbulence, and resistance modules with an automatic tuning process. The multi-layer model was found to capture the dynamics of sub-canopy turbulence, temperature, and energy fluxes. The performance of the new multi-layer model was further compared against the existing single-layer model. Although the multi-layer model simulation results showed few or no improvements to both the nighttime energy balance and energy partitioning during winter compared with a single-layer model simulation, the increased model complexity does provide a more detailed description of the canopy micrometeorology of various forest types. The multi-layer model links to potential future environmental and ecological studies such as the assessment of in-canopy species vulnerability to climate change, the climate effects of disturbance intensities and frequencies, and the consequences of biogenic volatile organic compound (BVOC) emissions from the terrestrial ecosystem.