This paper investigates the impact of temperature on economic activity in India, using state-level data from 1980–2015. We estimate that a 1∘C increase in contemporaneous temperature (relative to our sample mean) reduces the economic growth rate that year by 2.5 percentage points. The adverse impact of higher temperatures is more severe in poorer states and in the primary sector. Our analysis of lagged temperatures suggests that our effects are driven by the contemporaneous effect of temperature on output; we do not find evidence of a permanent impact of contemporaneous temperatures on future growth rates.
It is well known that solar photovoltaic technologies provide significant environmental, economic, and social benefits over conventional energy sources. One study in the Journal of Industrial Ecology investigates the economic and social impacts of China's multi-crystalline silicon photovoltaic modules production stages. The main cost of these modules lies in raw materials and productions, with the greatest cost being the production of the multi silicon photovoltaic cells. Social impact analysis in the report shows that the employment contribution index is 0.72 - this is to say that module production in China greatly contributes to employment. However, the labor civilization degree and labor income contribution indexes are both at around 0.6, meaning that multi silicon PV production has a relatively small labor level and income contribution. Further, the modules contribute very little to GDP, as the report concludes that the production capacity contribution index is 0.183. With this, there is new support for research on more efficient ways to produce the raw materials, as well as support for the upgrading of manufacturing facilities in order to improve the labor civilization degree.
This report reflects work performed under contract with the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The research focused on applying the result of EPRI’s 2014 US Energy Efficiency Potential Study which was conducted at the Census division level and developing a method to apply the division level results to the state level by customer class and by end-use. The state allocation shows that every state has a large amount of electric energy efficiency potential that can be utilized as a cost-effective energy resource. This cost-effective electric potential grows over time as equipment reaches the end of its useful life and is replaced by a cost-effective efficient replacement. In total gigawatt-hours (GWh), this energy efficiency economic potential in 2035 ranges from 901 GWh in Vermont to 87,336 GWh in Texas, reflective of the both electric loads and the types electric services in each state. Finally, to understand the potential to bring additional technologies to market and the impact that added incentives can have on energy efficiency potential, the national model and state allocations were re-run with differing levels of incentives. These results, which vary by state, show both the direct impact of incentives as well as potential opportunities to increase energy efficiency through cost reductions.
Overview
The EPRI's 2014 study found 790,639 GWh of cost-effective electric energy efficiency available from 2012 to 2035, which represents 17.5% of baseline retail sales in 2035. Immediately following the study, stakeholder's expressed interest in state level energy efficiency potential analysis to aid in more localized energy planning. Updated analysis shows an estimate of 740,985 GWh of cost effective electric-energy efficiency economic potential from 2016 to 2036 with significant savings across residential, commercial, and industrial sectors.
The report concludes that every state has a large amount of electric energy efficiency potential that can be utilized as a cost-effective energy resource. As equipment reaches the end of its useful life and is replaced by cost-effective energy efficient replacements, the cost-effective electric potential grows over time. The study estimates that state-level energy efficiency potential ranges from 12% in Missouri to 21% in Florida relative to adjusted baseline sales, with twenty six states showing more than 15% savings available cost-effectively between 2016 and 2035. Another important conclusion of the study is that there are numerous states that do not completely achieve their energy efficient economic potential (EP). Only twenty two states have developed programs that would be on track to achieve 100% of the model's cost savings by 2035. This is to say that there is still significant underinvestment in energy efficiency; in fact, 18 states would have captured less than 50% of the energy efficiency potential estimated by the EPRI model if they were to continue on the same historical trajectory. The role of incentives in energy efficiency potential was also analyzed. With $20/MWh, the EE economic potential increases by 102,848 GWh, which is a 13% increase over the case with no incentives involved.
Comprehensive wealth focuses on the role of people, the environment and the economy in creating and sustaining well-being. Complementing indicators like gross domestic product (GDP) and addressing issues the can’t capture on their own, comprehensive wealth measures are key to successfully guiding Canada through the 21st century and beyond.
This study reviewed Canada’s comprehensive wealth performance over the 33-year period from 1980 to 2013. This timeframe extends well beyond business and political cycles, ensuring that the results reveal trends free from the ebb and flow of markets and policies. The report found that comprehensive wealth grew slowly in Canada between 1980 and 2013 (0.19 per cent annually in real per capita terms). This was in contrast to relatively robust growth in real per capita consumption of goods and services (1.36 per cent annually). The divergence between these two trends points to potential concerns for long-term well-being.
In terms of the components of comprehensive wealth:
Produced capital was the bright spot, growing by 1.68% annually from 1980 to 2013, though most (70%) of this growth was concentrated in the oil and gas extraction industry and housing
Market natural capital (fossil fuels, timber, minerals and farmland) declined by 0.93% annually (for a total drop of 25%)
Non-market natural capital (ecosystems and climate) declined based on a set of non-monetary indicators
Human capital, which accounts for about 80% of Canada’s comprehensive wealth, did not grow at all, meaning that average lifetime earnings prospects in 2013 were no better than in 1980
Social capital appears to have been stable based on a suite of non-monetary indicators.
Comprehensive Wealth rose 7%, or .19% per year from $592000 in 1980 to $631,000 in 2013 as Market Natural Capital fell from $39,800 to $29,200 per person.
... A few years ago, the American entrepreneur [Xavier Helgesen ...] traveling through Malawi stopped in Monkey Bay, a town of about 30,000 people, to spend the night. What made this place unforgettable, he says, was that it was "100 percent off-grid." The streets were pitch black. People carried kerosene lamps to walk around at night. When a family invited him to dinner, they all huddled under one dim light. "It was amazing," he says, "to see that was how everyone lived."
Helgesen ... today, is the head of Off-Grid Electric, a for-profit solar energy company that provides affordable electricity service for people in Africa who are off the grid. He started Off-Grid in 2012.... Off-Grid has reached more than 100,000 households and hired 800 of its 1,000 workers in Tanzania. This year, it's expanding to Rwanda. The goal to reach 1 million homes in Africa by 2017.
In countries like Tanzania, citizens who lack power may have to wait years for the government to build up the grid and plug them in. And they'll pay for the privilege. ... By contrast, Off-Grid's customers can power up their homes for as little as $6 a month. When someone signs up for a system, there's a $6 fee for Off-Grid to install solar panels and a meter to monitor their energy usage, along with LED lights, a radio and a phone charger that all work off the solar charge. It only takes a few hours. Then customers pay about $6 a month to access the power they need — about what they'd be paying for kerosene for home energy.
USAID is a big fan. Citing the group's "tremendous progress providing access to clean and reliable light and electricity," USAID launched a $36 million joint Power Africa and U.S. Global Development Lab effort [in June].... Off-Grid secured $45 million from stakeholders in December 2015 to expand the company. In January, it won the Zayed Future Energy Prize for its creative, "massively scalable" business model. ... Some solar companies tell potential customers, you'll be purchasing, say, 80 watts for your home. But it's confusing to sell electricity when you talk in watts, says Helgesen. Instead, Off-Grid reps talk about how many appliances in your home you can power....Off-Grid asks their customers which appliances they want to power up — then designs a package based on their specific needs. If they need to buy certain devices as well, like lights or a radio, Off-Grid can add those to the package, too. ... For many of Off-Grid's clients, their No. 1 wish is for electricity to run a phone charger.
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Customers might be intimidated by the idea of a monthly bill for 24/7 electricity, so Off-Grid customers pay for power as they use it, relying on mobile payment apps like M-Pesa.
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One thing Off-Grid tried that tanked? Getting fishermen in Lake Victoria to switch from using kerosene lamps to solar-powered lights at night. The fishermen use the lamps to attract fish to the surface of the water to catch them. "We failed," he says. "Kerosene is very warm light — which is what fish are attracted to — and solar is cold light
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Many villagers displayed their new solar-powered light fixtures on their porch, leaving the inside of their homes dark. It was because they wanted others in the community to know they had electricity — a local status symbol. ...
In June Off-Grid announced a new program called "Kazi na Zola," a collection of solar appliances like phone charging strips, entertainment systems and hair clippers designed to help rural entrepreneurs generate income.
Abstract: Groundwater is a vital yet threatened resource in much of South Asia. This paper develops a model of groundwater transactions under payoff uncertainty arising from unpredictable fluctuations in groundwater availability during the agricultural dry season. The model highlights the trade-off between the ex post inefficiency of long-term contracts and the ex ante inefficiency of spot contracts. The structural parameters are estimated using detailed micro-data on the area irrigated under each contract type combined with subjective probability distributions of borewell discharge elicited from a large sample of well-owners in southern India. The findings show that, while the contracting distortion leads to an average welfare loss of less than 2 percent and accounts for less than 50 percent of all transactions costs in groundwater markets, it has a sizeable impact on irrigated area, especially for small farmers. Uncertainty coupled with land fragmentation also attenuates the benefits of the water-saving technologies now being heavily promoted in India.
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Our environment is characterized by considerable land fragmentation coupled with a high fixed cost of borewell installation, on the order of US$1000 (excluding the pump-set). Fragmentation is driven by the pervasive inheritance norm dictating equal division of land among sons and the prohibitive transaction costs entailed in consolidating spatially dispersed plots through the land market.
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Our estimate of buyer bargaining-power η translates (cf., definition of δ in Table 5) into a 3.7% efficiency loss due to holdup in the per-irrigation arrangement, which is an upper bound on the overall contracting distortion. The incremental cost of cultivating leased land versus own land, γ, is precisely estimated at less than 1%.
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Beginning with scenario (1), borewell owners with smaller plots, ceteris paribus, are more likely to sell groundwater and hence incur proportionally greater transaction cost than those with large plots. The difference between the dashed consolidation line and the transaction cost rebate line indicates the size of the uncertainty-induced contracting distortion; it averages about 1.5% of the total rabi surplus generated by the borewell, similar in magnitude to the average fixed transaction cost of 1.8%. For the same reason as before, the contracting distortion is greater for borewell owners with smaller plots. Interestingly, comparing the right and left panels of the figure, the impact of groundwater market frictions on area irrigated is, in percentage terms, roughly triple its impact on welfare.
This paper examines the effects of knowledge diffusion on growth and costs of climate policy. We develop a general equilibrium model with endogenous growth which represents knowledge diffusion between sectors and regions. Knowledge diffusion depends on accessibility and absorptive capacity which we estimate econometrically using patent and citation data. Knowledge diffusion leads to a “greening” of economies boosting productivity of “clean” carbon-extensive sectors. Knowledge diffusion lowers the costs of global climate policy by about 90% for emerging countries (China) and 20% for developed regions (Europe and USA), depending on the substitutability between different knowledge types.
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The impacts of knowledge spillovers on economic growth are substantial, corresponding to welfare gains for the global economy of about 4-10%; they depend on the substitutability between different types of knowledge. Regions with initially relatively low knowledge (e.g., China) benefit the most from knowledge diffusion whereas developed regions (e.g., Europe and U.S.) gain relatively less. In line with previous analyses (Eaton and Kortum, 1999; Keller, 2002), we find that the major sources of technical change leading to productivity growth are not domestic but, instead, lie abroad: international knowledge spillovers account for two thirds of the increase in knowledge capital due to knowledge diffusion, domestic spillovers contribute one third. ...
