Wind Energy Curtailment Case Studies

National Renewable Energy Laboratory http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy10osti/46716.pdf (report) http://www.nrel.gov/wind/systemsintegration/publications.html (NREL wind systems page) [Greenwire] A lack of electric transmission capacity is curbing energy that wind turbine operators can feed local grids, a problem that is likely to worsen until new transmission projects are completed, a new study says. The report commissioned by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory [...]

Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) Selects 37 Projects to Pursue Breakthroughs

US DOE http://arpa-e.energy.gov/ [Press release] The Department of Energy today announced major funding for 37 ambitious research projects – including some that could allow intermittent energy sources like wind and solar to provide a steady flow of power, or use bacteria to produce automotive fuel from sunlight, water and carbon dioxide. ARPA-E was originally established [...]

The Psychology of Climate Change Communication

Center for Research on Environmental Decisions, Columbia University http://cred.columbia.edu/guide/ [Christian Science Monitor's Bright Green Blog]  Freely available online, the manual endeavors to describe the various biases and barriers that lurk in the minds of the general public, and that, as the authors see it, confound an accurate comprehension of climate science and its ramifications.

2009 Ecological Footprint Atlas

Global Footprint Network http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/blog/ [Greenwire] Each year, the world’s population uses resources equivalent to nearly one-and-a-half times what the Earth has to offer, according to a report issued yesterday by the Global Footprint Network. “We are demanding nature’s services — using resources and creating CO2 emissions — at a rate 44 percent faster than what [...]

The Copenhagen Diagnosis : Climate Science Report

UNSW Climate Change Research Centre for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change http://copenhagendiagnosis.com/ [Website] It is more than three years since the drafting of text was completed for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). In the meantime, many hundreds of papers have been published on a suite of topics [...]

Market Power and Windfall Profits in Emission Permit Markets

Center for Energy Policy and Economics, Swiss Federal Institutes of Techology / by Beat Hintermann http://www.cepe.ethz.ch/publications/workingPapers/CEPE_WP62.pdf [Abstract] Although market power in permit markets has been examined in some detail following the seminal work of Hahn (1984), the effect of free allocation on price manipulation with market power in both output and permit market has not [...]

Pricing Externalities from Passenger Transportation in Mexico City

The World Bank, Development Research Group, Environment and Energy Team / by Ian W.H. Parry and Govinda R. Timilsina http://tinyurl.com/ykodyna [Abstract] The Mexico City Metropolitan Area has been suffering severely from transportation externalities such as accidents, air pollution, and traffic congestion. This study examines pricing instruments to reduce these externalities using an analytical and numerical [...]

The Economics of 350 : The Benefits and Costs of Climate Stabilization

Economics for Equity and Environment / by Frank Ackerman, Elizabeth A. Stanton, Stephen J. DeCanio, Eban Goodstein, Richard B. Howarth, Richard B. Norgaard, Catherine S. Norman, Kristen A. Sheeran http://www.e3network.org/papers/Economics_of_350.pdf [From executive summary]  This report demonstrates that the ‘go slow’ recommendations are unjustified. A number of economic analyses, informed by recent scientific findings and using [...]

NOx Budget Trading Program 2008 Progress Reports

US EPA http://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/progress/nbp08.html [Website] The NOx Budget Trading Program (NBP) was a market-based cap and trade program created to reduce the regional transport of emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from power plants and other large combustion sources that contribute to ozone nonattainment in the eastern United States. NOx is a major precursor to the formation [...]

Economic Impacts of S. 1733: The Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act of 2009

US EPA http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/economics/pdfs/EPA_S1733_Analysis.pdf [From preface] On September 30, 2009, Senators Kerry and Boxer introduced the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act of 2009 (S. 1733). The counterpart bill in the House of Representatives is the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454), for which EPA developed cost estimates on June 23, [...]