Marilyn A. Brown

Market failures and barriers as a basis for clean energy policies

Abstract This paper provides compelling evidence that large-scale market failures and barriers prevent consumers in the United States from obtaining energy services at least cost. Assessments of numerous energy policies and programs suggest that public interventions can overcome many of these market obstacles. By articulating these barriers and reviewing the literature on ways of addressing them, this paper provides a strong justification for the policy portfolios that define the “Scenarios for a Clean Energy Future,” a study conducted by five National Laboratories. These scenarios are described in other papers published in this special issue of Energy Policy .

Closing the efficiency gap: barriers to the efficient use of energy

Abstract Only half of the potential for improving U.S. energy efficiency over the next 20 years is likely to be achieved, given current government policies and programs. This large untapped potential to save money, improve environmental quality, and reduce the foreign trade deficit exists because of structural and market barriers that inhibit adoption of cost-effective energy-efficient practices and measures. Structural barriers include distortions in fuel prices, uncertainty about future fuel prices, limited access to capital, government fiscal and regulatory policies, codes and standards, and supply infrastructure limitations. Behavioral barriers include attitudes toward energy efficiency, perceived risk of energy-efficiency investments, information gaps, and misplaced incentives.

Scenarios for a clean energy future

Abstract This paper summarizes the results of a study—Scenarios for a Clean Energy Future—that assess how energy-efficient and clean energy technologies can address key energy and environmental challenges facing the US. A particular focus of this study is the energy, environmental, and economic impacts of different public policies and programs. Hundreds of technologies and approximately 50 policies are analyzed. The study concludes that policies exist that can significantly reduce oil dependence, air pollution, carbon emissions, and inefficiencies in energy production and end-use systems at essentially no net cost to the US economy. The most advanced scenario finds that by the year 2010, the US could bring its carbon dioxide emissions three-quarters of the way back to 1990 levels. The study also concludes that over time energy bill savings in these scenarios can pay for the investments needed to achieve these reductions in energy use and associated greenhouse gas emissions.

Residential energy conservation: The role of past experience in repetitive household behavior

This article focuses on repetitive behaviors that conserve residential energy. It views repetitive behavior as a function of past experience, attitudes, subjective norms, and intentions. Data from a three-wave panel survey of homeowners living in Decatur, Illinois, form the basis for statistical analysis. Findings indicate that for conservation behavior that is repetitive at a high frequency, adoption is best predicted by past experience, while for less frequent behaviors, intention is the best predictor. Intentions, in turn, are affected by past experience, attitudes, and subjective norms. Adopters and nonadopters are found to differ in the mechanisms through which their intentions change: Adopters alter intentions more through changing attitudes and nonadopters through changing social influences. Policy implications are discussed.

Scaling the policy response to climate change

Abstract This article assesses the advantages and disadvantages of fighting climate change through local, bottom-up strategies as well as global, top-down approaches. After noting that each scale of action—the local and the global—has distinct costs and benefits, the article explores the importance of scale in three case studies (the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol, and efforts at adaptation/mitigation). It concludes that local thinking must be coupled with global and national scales of action in order to achieve the levels of carbon dioxide reductions needed to avoid dangerous climate impacts.

Mitigating climate change through green buildings and smart growth

Energy-efficient buildings are seen by climate change experts as one of the least-cost approaches to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. This paper summarizes a study carried out for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change that takes a broader look at the potential role of a climate-friendly built environment including not only considerations of how buildings are constructed and used, but also how they interface with the electric grid and where they are located in terms of urban densities and access to employment and services. In addition to summarizing mechanisms of change (barriers and drivers) the paper reviews a set of policies that could bring carbon emissions in the building sector in 2025 almost back to 2004 levels. By the middle of the century the combination of green buildings and smart growth could deliver the deeper reductions that many believe are needed to mitigate climate change.

Modelling the Spatial Distribution of Suburban Crime

This paper examines the spatial distribution of crime among Chicagos suburbs by completing a spatial autocorrelation and regression analysis of crime occurrence rates. The results suggest that there is little interjurisdictional spillover of violent crime among the suburbs of Chicago. Rather, the clustered spatial pattern of crime and its decay with distance to the city of Chicago reflects the nonrandom spatial distribution of offender rates. The distribution of property crime exhibits neither spatial autocorrelation nor a relationship with distance to Chicago. Instead, it is closely associated with the location of retail and manufacturing activities. This suggests that the journey to property crime extends many miles and crosses suburban boundaries.

The geography of metropolitan carbon footprints

Abstract The worlds metropolitan carbon footprints have distinct geographies that are not well understood or recognized in debates about climate change, partly because data on greenhouse gas emissions is so inadequate. This article describes the results of the most comprehensive assessment of carbon footprints for major American metropolitan areas available to date, focusing on residential and transportation carbon emissions for the largest 100 metropolitan areas in the United States. These findings are put into the context of efforts across the country and the globe to characterize carbon impacts and policy linkages.

Guidelines for successfully transferring government-sponsored innovations☆

The purpose of this paper is to develop guidelines that managers of government-sponsored R&D could use in identifying appropriate technology transfer strategies for specific innovations. The paper begins with a description of six types of commercialization strategies that have been successfully used by federal agencies: contracting R&D to industrial partners, working with industrial consortia, licensing to industry, influencing key decision makers, working with broker organizations, and generating end-user demand. Next the results of nine case studies of innovations are summarized: five have been fully commercialized and four have been semi-commercialized. These case studies illustrate the need to tailor commercialization strategies to specific innovations.Three ways of classifying innovations (based on technological, market, and policy criteria) are proposed. Technological criteria evaluate inventions on scientific and technical grounds, while market criteria evaluate inventions with respect to characteristics of the marketplace. Policy criteria refer to a government agencys resources and goals. Once these evaluations are completed, the choice of a commercialization mode is facilitated.Finally, guidelines for selecting a technology transfer strategy are developed, based primarily on the five fully commercialized innovations. These guidelines are summarized in a matrix which presents the relationships between the evaluation criteria and appropriate technology transfer strategies. The guidelines are tested by applying them to the semi-commercialized innovations. The consistency between the recommended strategies and the strategies actually used is examined.

Electric Urban Delivery Trucks: Energy Use, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and Cost-Effectiveness

We compare electric and diesel urban delivery trucks in terms of life-cycle energy consumption, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and total cost of ownership (TCO). The relative benefits of electric trucks depend heavily on vehicle efficiency associated with drive cycle, diesel fuel price, travel demand, electric drive battery replacement and price, electricity generation and transmission efficiency, electric truck recharging infrastructure, and purchase price. For a drive cycle with frequent stops and low average speed such as the New York City Cycle (NYCC), electric trucks emit 42-61% less GHGs and consume 32-54% less energy than diesel trucks, depending upon vehicle efficiency cases. Over an array of possible conditions, the median TCO of electric trucks is 22% less than that of diesel trucks on the NYCC. For a drive cycle with less frequent stops and high average speed such as the City-Suburban Heavy Vehicle Cycle (CSHVC), electric trucks emit 19-43% less GHGs and consume 5-34% less energy, but cost 1% more than diesel counterparts. Considering current and projected U.S. regional electricity generation mixes, for the baseline case, the energy use and GHG emissions ratios of electric to diesel trucks range from 48 to 82% and 25 to 89%, respectively.