Karl W. Steininger

Implementing nature's lesson: The industrial recycling network enhancing regional development

Abstract While biological systems are centrally characterized by the rate of composition and decomposition being practically equal, industrial systems show a primary focus on production. The industrial recycling network integrates the re-use of ‘former waste’ by an inter-company matching of production processes. In this way it helps to reduce material and energy throughput in the economic system to sustainable levels. This article identifies central characteristics of this concept. Conclusions for further enhancement are drawn based on two observed recycling systems. The industrial recycling network is also shown to foster development within regions.

From ownership to service use lifestyle: the potential of car sharing

Abstract The shift from ownership to service use, often promoted in concepts of sustainability, has recently become available in private vehicle mobility. Currently 38 000 people in a number of European cities are participating. This example is used here, to analyze the characteristics of people sharing one ‘material’ product as well as to investigate which services they actually render. Different views on the latter imply different evaluations of the size of the market potential and different conclusions on the effectiveness of various policy instruments. When service use is a separate lifestyle, policy instruments have to ultimately foster it directly, rather than changing economic costs at the margin only.

Car-sharing organizations: The size of the market segment and revealed change in mobility behavior

Car-sharing organizations (CSO) have recently spread throughout central European cities and currently have 20000 members. They lower individual fixed costs of car availability change the incentive structure of private vehicle use by transforming nearly all costs into variable costs. A survey of all current Austrian CSO members is used to identify the characteristics significant of members. A procedure is proposed to quantify urban local market segment potentials and is applied to two residential areas. The net impact of CSOs depends on how the new incentive structure changes mobility behavior. A controlled experiment of voluntary new members was carried out to compare pre-membership and membership trip structure and modal split. Results indicate a substantial reduction of aggregate private vehicle mileage. While the share of trips by car is constant, changes in trip length are observed, with there being different changes for households which previously owned a car and those which did not. Combining behavior impact with market segment size results in the quantification of emission reduction and car ownership reduction (land use demand) due to car-sharing, which is a decentralized demand-side transport policy.

Exploiting the Medium Term Biomass Energy Potentials in Austria: A Comparison of Costs and Macroeconomic Impact

The transition to an implicitly solar-basedenergy system can make use of various specificbiomass energy systems. This paper provideseconomic and environmental indicators forevaluating alternative options.The paper proceeds in three empirical steps.First, an expert survey supplies the primarybiomass potentials available for non-food usein Austria and their respective costs. Second,an inquiry into investment, operating andfinancing costs of 30 different biomass energyuse systems allows a standardized comparisonamong them and their relationship to fossilreference technologies. Third, a computablegeneral equilibrium model of the Austrianeconomy is employed to quantify the impacts offostering the use of distinct biomass energytechnologies.The results allow us to distinguish betweenthose technologies that tend to lead to anincrease in both GDP and employment (e.g.,combined heat and power production from sewagesludge biogas), to an increase only inemployment, while GDP tends to diminish (e.g.,district heating based on agricultural pellets)or to a decline in both (e.g., co-firing basedon wood-chips, bark or industrial pellets).Individual technologies could account for up toone third of Austrias Kyoto obligation, whilecombinations of technologies, triggered by acombined CO2 tax and biomass energysubsidy for example, could almost fully lead toAustrian Kyoto-compliance.

Reconciling trade and environment: towards a comparative advantage for long-term policy goals

Abstract For an economic order to remain within ecological boundaries, countries need to respond to ecological feedback effects. Resulting environmental compliance costs have so far hardly influenced trade flows and firm location decisions. Future developments of economic integration and the increasing urgency of stricter environmental objectives are shown to change this picture. Primarily for the case of transnational and global environmental problems countries will need to be relieved from the threat of competitive disadvantage caused by environmental production process regulation that the current international regulatory trade framework implies. The first option to do so, international harmonization of environmental regulation, is connected to a range of shortcomings, especially for countries differing in natural endowments and preferences. For counterbalancing measures, two regulatory frameworks are analyzed based on (a) a physical inventory system or (b) a direct environmental compliance cost comparison. The adequacy of the physical system is shown to be limited, whereas the cost basis option can be applied on a broader range. It cannot fully re-establish the optimal situation that would be achieved by an (often unlikely) environmental agreement, but would encourage countries to take necessary unilateral environmental action. Changing current trade regulation in that respect will be crucial to foster sustainable development.

Reducing CO2-Emissions Under Fiscal Retrenchment: A Multi-Cohort CGE-Model for Austria

The stabilization of budget deficit and budget debt ratios by fiscal retrenchment in order to fulfill the Maastricht criteria for the EMU is of central focus in most EU countries. At the same time the national policy dimension of acute environmental problems such as global warming has receded in the public eye. The environmental dimension nonetheless remains urgent, and a re-evaluation of the prospects of CO2-policy is needed against the background of fiscal retrenchment required by supranational obligations. We shall do this for the small, open, Austrian economy by constructing a dynamic multi-cohort CGE model enabling us to assess quantitatively the lifetime welfare impacts on the cohorts affected by three different options for using CO2-permit revenues. The distribution of welfare costs of (Toronto-) CO2-policy across cohorts significantly differs with use. This is explained by income, inheritance and price effects.

Indicators To Determine Winning Renewable Energy Technologies with an Application to Photovoltaics

Several forms of renewable energy compete for supremacy or for an appropriate role in global energy supply. A form of renewable energy can only play an important role in global energy supply if it fulfills several basic requirements. Its capacity must allow supplying a considerable fraction of present and future energy demand, all materials for its production must be readily available, land demand must not be prohibitive, and prices must reach grid parity in the nearer future. Moreover, a renewable energy technology can only be acceptable if it is politically safe. We supply a collection of indicators which allow assessing competing forms of renewable energy and elucidate why surprise is still a major factor in this field, calling for adaptive management. Photovoltaics (PV) are used as an example of a renewable energy source that looks highly promising, possibly supplemented by solar thermal electricity production (ST). We also show why energy use will contribute to land use problems and discuss ways in which the right choice of renewables may be indispensible in solving these problems.

Biomass Energy Use to Reduce Climate Change: A General Equilibrium Analysis for Austria

Abstract A further increase in biomass energy supply is a crucial future option for reducing the Austrian contribution to climate change. Analysis of it has so far focused mainly on supply potentials and costs of production. Increased biomass energy supply, however, is also connected to economy-wide effects and to feedback effects on its own demand. This paper quantifies such effects in a general equilibrium framework of the Austrian economy for different supply scenarios. Increases in biomass energy are shown, for example, to cause substantial changes in the necessary CO 2 tax rate to reach a given emission objective level.

Environmentally Sustainable Transport: Definition and Long-Term Economic Impacts for Austria

The transition to an environmentally sustainable transport system involves a combination of technological and demand-side transport policies. Regulatory, educational and economic instruments can be used to enhance the development of cleaner transport technologies as well as the shift from road-based towards more environmentally benign modes of transport. This article provides estimates of overall economic impacts in the long term and describes the required change in the transport system. The article proceeds in three steps. First, this article reviews concepts of sustainability and applies them to transportation. Second, a small open economy computable general equilibrium model for Austria is developed to evaluate the long-term macroeconomic and sectoral impacts of a sustainable freight transport policy. Third, simulation results are discussed and conclusions drawn concerning the crucial features of a sustainable freight transport policy.Although the required transition within the transport system is substantial, the economic costs in terms of GDP are comparably low and employment is likely to increase slightly.

The Foreign Trade and Sectoral Impact of Truck Road Pricing for Cross-Border Trade

Truck road pricing is on the brink of beingintroduced in a number of European countries.The experience gained from Switzerland, thefirst country worldwide to implement such adistant-dependent pricing scheme, has provedinvaluable. Nevertheless, significant questionsstill remain. The present paper attempts toprovide some clarity by analysing the welfareand sectoral impact resulting from theintroduction of truck road pricing with respectto foreign trade. It is shown that this impactcan be separated into four effects: the pureterms of trade effect, the tax revenue effect,the transit tax revenue effect and the resourcegain effect (resources set free by a reductionin transport activity). A CGE simulation ofeach of these effects identifies theirquantitative implications. Out of the foureffects the pure terms of trade effect turnsout to dominate at both the sectoral andaggregate level. It triggers a trade-inducedwelfare loss. The tax revenue effect, and lessso the transit revenue effect, mitigate thisloss. For a full road transport costinternalization a trade-induced welfare loss isquantified for Austria at 1.3%. Sensitivity ofthis and other aggregate variables is high withrespect to household reaction to transport taxrevenue refunding. The trade-induced welfareloss of variable size as explored in thisarticle counterbalances a fraction of thewelfare gain due to internalization.