Karen L. Palmer

Sulfur Dioxide Control by Electric Utilities: What Are the Gains from Trade?

Title IV of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA) established a market for transferable sulfur dioxide (SO2) emission allowances among electric utilities. This market offers firms facing high marginal abatement costs the opportunity to purchase the right to emit SO2 from firms with lower costs, and this is expected to yield cost savings compared to a command‐and‐control approach to environmental regulation. This paper uses econometrically estimated marginal abatement cost functions for power plants affected by Title IV of the CAAA to evaluate the performance of the SO2 allowance market. Specifically, we investigate whether the much‐heralded fall in the cost of abating SO2, compared to original estimates, can be attributed to allowance trading. We demonstrate that, for plants that use low‐sulfur coal to reduce SO2 emissions, technical change and the fall in prices of low‐sulfur coal have lowered marginal abatement cost curves by over 50 percent since 1985. The flexibility to take advantage of these changes is the main source of cost reductions, rather than trading per se. In the long run, allowance trading may achieve cost savings of

The determinants of household recycling: a material-specific analysis of recycling program features and unit pricing

700–

Ancillary benefits of reduced air pollution in the US from moderate greenhouse gas mitigation policies in the electricity sector

800 million per year compared to an “enlightened” command‐and‐control program characterized by a uniform emission rate standard. The cost savings would be twice as great if the alternative to trading were forced scrubbing. However, a comparison of potential cost savings in 1995 and 1996 with modeled costs of actual emissions suggests that most trading gains were unrealized in the first two years of the program.

Bridging the Energy Efficiency Gap: Policy Insights from Economic Theory and Empirical Evidence

Abstract This paper analyzes the impact of two popular solid waste programs on the percent recycled of several different materials found in the residential solid waste stream. We examine a unique, household-level data set representing middle and upper-middle income groups in 20 metropolitan statistical areas across the country and containing information on the percent recycled of five different materials: glass bottles, plastic bottles, aluminum, newspaper, and yard waste. We find that access to curbside recycling has a significant positive effect on the percentage recycled of all five materials and that the level of this effect varies across different materials. The length of the recycling programs life also has a significant positive effect on two materials. Making recycling mandatory has an insignificant effect on all five materials. The level of the unit price is insignificant in our regressions, but the effect of unit pricing on recycling activity remains unclear.

The Effect on Asset Values of the Allocation of Carbon Dioxide Emission Allowances

This paper considers how moderate actions to slow atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gases from fossil fuel use also could reduce conventional air pollutants in the United States. The benefits that result would be “ancillary” to greenhouse gas abatement. Moreover, the benefits would tend to accrue locally and in the near term, while benefits from reduced climate change mostly accrue globally and over a time frame of several decades or longer. The previous literature suggests that changes in nitrogen oxides (NOx) would be the most important consequence of moderate carbon policies. We calculate these changes in a detailed electricity model linked to an integrated assessment framework to value changes in human health. A tax of

Sources of Structural Change in the United States, 1963-78: An Input-Output Perspective

25 per metric ton of carbon emissions would yield NOx related health benefits of about

Compensation Rules for Climate Policy in the Electricity Sector

8 per metric ton of carbon reduced in the year 2010 (1997 dollars). Additional savings accrue from reduced investment in NOx and SO2 abatement in order to comply with emission caps. These savings sum to

Winner, Loser, or Innocent Victim? Has Renewable Energy Performed As Expected?

4-

Soft and Hard Price Collars in a Cap-and-Trade System: A Comparative Analysis

7 per ton of carbon reduced. Total ancillary benefits of a

Assessing the Energy-Efficiency Information Gap: Results from a Survey of Home Energy Auditors

25 carbon tax are estimated to be