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| 1 |
ID:
115655
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2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The European Commission did not publish a cost-benefit analysis for its 2020 climate package. This paper fills that gap, comparing the marginal costs and benefits of greenhouse gas emission reduction. The uncertainty about the marginal costs of climate change is large and skewed, and estimates partly reflect ethical choices (e.g., the discount rate). The 2010 carbon price in the EU Emissions Trading System can readily be justified by a cost-benefit analysis. Emission reduction is not expensive provided that policy is well-designed, a condition not met by planned EU policy. It is probably twice as expensive as needed, costing one in ten years of economic growth. The EU targets for 2020 are unlikely to meet the benefit-cost test. For a standard discount rate (3% pure rate of time preference), the benefit-cost ratio is rather poor (1/30)-so that benefits need to be very much higher, or costs very much lower than typically assumed to justify the 2020 targets. Only a very low discount rate (0% PRTP) would justify the 20% emission reduction target for 2020.
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| 2 |
ID:
125610
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2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This paper analyzes the effects of the green transformation on the German electricity sector with respect to the energy-political triangle. It focuses on how the development of renewable energies will affect security of electricity supply. In a cost-benefit analysis, the value of supply security is compared with its costs of provision. More specifically, the benefits of maintaining the present quality of electricity supply are the avoided social damages from electricity outages and are compared with the respective investment costs in the low- and medium-voltage distribution grid. It is shown that the transformation process towards a green and decentralized production structure will be costly for society, even though the costs can be reduced by different measures.
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| 3 |
ID:
126495
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2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This paper addresses the problem of transmission planning in interconnected power systems under the uncertainty of future generation parks and fast varying marginal production costs. The decision maker has to consider many different aspects during the definition of different transmission planning strategies that sometimes might even be contradicting. Major contributions are the incorporation of energy policy measurements in the evaluation process of candidate transmission plans and the inclusion of short- and long-term uncertainties. The proposed methodology, so-called C-TRAP, is based on a semi-dynamic heuristic approach that solves the social welfare maximization problem for several discrete steps considering different preferences for energy policy and transmission network reinforcements. The flexibility provided through the heuristic analysis is very important for decision makers in the new uncertain environment in power systems.
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| 4 |
ID:
117242
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| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Improving the energy economics of manufacturing is essential to revitalizing the industrial base of advanced economies. This paper evaluates ex-ante a federal policy option aimed at promoting industrial cogeneration-the production of heat and electricity in a single energy-efficient process. Detailed analysis using the National Energy Modeling System (NEMS) and spreadsheet calculations suggest that industrial cogeneration could meet 18% of U.S. electricity requirements by 2035, compared with its current 8.9% market share. Substituting less efficient utility-scale power plants with cogeneration systems would produce numerous economic and environmental benefits, but would also create an assortment of losers and winners. Multiple perspectives to benefit/cost analysis are therefore valuable. Our results indicate that the federal cogeneration policy would be highly favorable to manufacturers and the public sector, cutting energy bills, generating billions of dollars in electricity sales, making producers more competitive, and reducing pollution. Most traditional utilities, on the other hand, would lose revenues unless their rate recovery procedures are adjusted to prevent the loss of profits due to customer owned generation and the erosion of utility sales. From a public policy perspective, deadweight losses would be introduced by market-distorting federal incentives (ranging annually from $30 to $150 million), but these losses are much smaller than the estimated net social benefits of the federal cogeneration policy.
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| 5 |
ID:
125492
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| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The inclusion of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions costs in energy systems investment decision-making requires the development of a framework that accounts for GHG and economic tradeoffs. This paper develops such a framework by integrating partial cost-benefit analysis with life cycle assessment to explore the question of whether bitumen should be upgraded in the Canadian province of Alberta to produce synthetic crude oil (SCO), or blended with light hydrocarbons to produce lower-quality diluted bitumen (dilbit). The net present value (NPV) of these options is calculated from the stakeholder perspectives of the oil sands industry, the Alberta public, and a climate-concerned Alberta resident. This calculation includes monetized GHG emissions costs stemming from a hypothetical economy-wide GHG price, and a sensitivity analysis explores the effects of variations in technical and economic conditions on stakeholders' preferences. We find that under most plausible sets of conditions, industry would prefer the dilution option, while the climate-concerned Alberta resident would prefer the upgrading option. In contrast, the preferences of the general Alberta public depend on the values of key variables (e.g., the SCO-dilbit price differential). Key drivers of differences among stakeholders' preferences include different perceptions of risks and responsibilities for life cycle GHG emissions.
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| 6 |
ID:
140262
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| Summary/Abstract |
This paper introduces a cost–benefit analysis for future nuclear weapon possession using natural numbers in a simple discrete time model. In essence, I focus on the expected values (probability multiplied by magnitude of detonations) of deliberate and accidental nuclear wars among unitary states. I take the United Kingdom’s current Trident renewal program as my case study. I seek to establish the expected value of a nuclear attack on the UK in the absence of nuclear weapons necessary to make the possession of nuclear weapons worthwhile. I find the net-value of nuclear weapons to be negative even under generous parametric values in their favor. I also discuss how our cognitive biases may affect the interpretation of the results. The analysis and discussion are limited to the UK, but the implications are likely to apply to other small nuclear weapon states, as well.
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