• Energy Research
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• 11. Sustainability close
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• Research Papers in Economics close

We propose an ethical analysis as a method to reflect on how companies’ decisions promote sustainable development. The method proceeds by first identifying the choice according to financial business interests, and by then scrutinizing this choice according to consequentialist and deontological ethics. The paper applies the method to the choice of an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) that a consortium of Brazilian companies (EGASUR) delivered as part of their project proposal for the realization of the Inambari hydropower dam in the Peruvian Amazon. We show that if an EIA is chosen based on the attempt to maximize the financial bottom line, it raises ethical issues both from a consequentialist perspective by involving negative consequences for various stakeholder groups, and from a deontological perspective by not complying with relevant rules, guidelines, and principles. The two ethical perspectives hence reveal where the consortium faces impediments to a genuine commitment to sustainability. Building on stakeholder interviews, observations of the project developments, and the executive summary of the actual EIA, we provide indications that EGASUR has indeed made a choice that resembles a decision based on financial interests.

This paper extends recent work on interruption insurance for electric power by introducing onsite backup generation capacity as a supplementary form of interruption insurance. The basic model of interruption insurance as a mechanism for differential pricing is reviewed, the incentive for providing onsite backup generation capacity is demonstrated and the interaction between onsite backup generation and interruption insurance is analyzed. Two types of onsite backup, customer and utility owned, are discussed. It is shown that individuals’ economic incentives to install onsite backup generation dominate the utility’s incentive. Hence customer owned onsite backup decisions will pre-empt the utility’s plan to mitigate compensation payments by providing onsite backup generation.

Abstract We investigate the impacts of capacity payment mechanisms on generation capacity investment and subsequent energy and capacity market competition. We analyze the optimal design of capacity demand parameters. The presence of price-responsive capacity demand reduces firms' abilities to exercise market power, alleviates the volatile bimodal capacity market pricing structure, reduces market concentration, and increases expected consumer surplus. While capacity payments expand investment, the first-best aggregate level of capacity is not achieved at the optimal capacity payment parameters. We demonstrate that the addition of subsidized renewable generation capacity puts downward pressure on energy prices. When renewable output is not sufficiently positively correlated with energy demand, renewable capacity expansion reduces the expected available production capacity and increases the probability of capacity scarcity for a given level of capacity demand parameters. Consequently, the regulator must expand capacity payments to achieve the same level of resource adequacy.

Between 2008 and 2012, the delivered price of natural gas to the U.S. power sector fell 60 percent. This paper addresses, in theory and in practice, the effects of this negative price shock on electricity consumers and the environment. We demonstrate with a simple model that the larger the effects of gas prices on consumer welfare, the smaller the effects on pollution emissions and the smaller the increase in profits of existing natural gas-fired generators. Using detailed data on electricity prices, fuel consumption, and fuel prices from 2001 to 2012, we confirm this hypothesis. Regions that experience greater reductions in pollution emissions experience smaller reductions in electricity prices and consumer welfare.

A comparative exergoeconomic analysis is reported for waste heat recovery from a gas turbine-modular helium reactor (GT-MHR) using various configurations of organic Rankine cycles (ORCs) for generating electricity. The ORC configurations studied are: a simple organic Rankine cycle (SORC), an ORC with an internal heat exchanger (HORC) and a regenerative organic Rankine cycle (RORC). Exergoeconomic analyses are performed with the specific exergy costing (SPECO) method. First, energy and exergy analyses are applied to the combined cycles. Then, a cost-balance, as well as auxiliary equations are developed for the components to determine the exergoeconomic parameters for the combined cycles and their components. The three combined cycles are compared considering the same operating conditions for the GT-MHR cycle, and a parametric study is done to reveal the effects on the exergoeconomic performance of the combined cycles of various significant parameters, e.g., turbine inlet and evaporator temperatures and compressor pressure ratio. The results show that the GT-MHR/RORC has the lowest unit cost of electricity generated by the ORC turbine. This value is highest for the GT-MHR/HORC. Furthermore, the GT-MHR/RORC has the highest and the GT-MHR/HORC has the lowest exergy destruction cost rate.

Deciding upon optimum planning actions in terms of sustainable urban planning involves the consideration of multiple environmental and socio-economic criteria. The transformation of natural landscapes to urban areas affects energy and material fluxes. An important aspect of the urban environment is the urban metabolism, and changes in such metabolism need to be considered for sustainable planning decisions. A spatial Decision Support System (DSS) prototyped within the European FP7-funded project BRIDGE (sustainaBle uRban plannIng Decision support accountinG for urban mEtabolism), enables accounting for the urban metabolism of planning actions, by exploiting the current knowledge and technology of biophysical sciences. The main aim of the BRIDGE project was to bridge the knowledge and communication gap between urban planners and environmental scientists and to illustrate the advantages of considering detailed environmental information in urban planning processes. The developed DSS prototype integrates biophysical observations and simulation techniques with socio-economic aspects in five European cities, selected as case studies for the pilot application of the tool. This paper describes the design and implementation of the BRIDGE DSS prototype, illustrates some examples of use, and highlights the need for further research and development in the field.

The past two decades have seen an impressive expansion of municipal engagement with climate change. Yet while interest has broadened, actions remain shallow. This is in part because climate policies fit uneasily into existing bureaucratic structures and practices. Effective climate programmes require adaptive and innovative responses that span departmental divisions. This challenges siloised municipal offices that are embedded in their own organisational cultures and technical practices. Understanding those challenges is crucial to understanding urban responses to climate change, but they remain critically understudied. This paper helps to fill that gap by looking at the experiences of two cities, Durban (KZN, South Africa) and Portland (OR, USA) as they attempt to put in place integrated responses to climate change. To do so, it brings together complementary critical perspectives drawn from the study of bureaucracies and complex institutions in sociology and geography. This hybrid critical framework is used to elaborate on both the organisational barriers that inhibit effective responses to climate change, and approaches that can be used to enable change and innovation.

Biofuel plantations have been hyped as a means to reinvigorate Africa’s rural areas. Yet there is still apprehension about the negative environmental and social impacts of large-scale commercial biofuel production around rising food prices, land grabbing, ecological damage, and disruption of rural livelihoods. Given the extent of Jatropha curcas production in Ghana and Ethiopia and Castor bean (Ricinus communis) in Ethiopia, this paper presents the results of a study that assessed the socio-economic implications of industrial Jatropha plantations on local livelihoods in Ghana, and of industrial Jatropha and Castor plantations on local livelihoods in Ethiopia. This study used primary data collected from 234 households in Ghana and 165 in Ethiopia. The cultivation of Jatropha and Castor has had several important effects on local livelihoods in the study sites, most notably decreases in household landholdings due to the arrival of industrial Jatropha or Castor plantations; and the resulting changes these plantations have caused in household socio-economic status, food security, fallow periods, and fodder availability. We consider how a lack of meaningful consultation between local people, their traditional authorities and the biofuel company managers, along with shortcomings in each country’s broader land acquisition process and poor land use information, may have contributed to these overall negative effects on local livelihoods. We conclude by suggesting several ways that emerging biofuel industries could be improved from the perspective of local people and their livelihoods.