Articles

In order to make R&D funding decisions to meet particular goals, such as mitigating climate change or improving energy security, or to estimate the social returns to R&D, policy makers need to combine the information provided in this study on cost reduction potentials with an analysis of the macroeconomic implications of these technological changes. The authors conclude with recommendations for future directions on energy expert elicitations.

This article shows that it is possible to unify several realistic features of the deployment and development problem for the electricity sector to meet sustainability goals into one framework.

The authors analyze and contrast how China and India mobilized financial resources to build domestic technological innovation systems in wind energy.

International trade has become the fastest growing driver of global carbon emissions, with large quantities of emissions embodied in exports from emerging economies. International trade with emerging economies poses a dilemma for climate and trade policy: to the extent emerging markets have comparative advantages in manufacturing, such trade is economically efficient and desirable. However, if carbon-intensive manufacturing in emerging countries such as China entails drastically more CO2 emissions than making the same product elsewhere, then trade increases global CO2 emissions.

China is the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide, accounting for one-quarter of the global total in 2013. Although the country has successfully lowered the rate of emissions from industry in some cities through improved technology and energy-efficiency measures, rapid economic growth means that more emissions are being added than removed. Without mitigation, China's CO2 emissions will rise by more than 50% in the next 15 years.

Local acceptance of wind energy technology has become an important factor to consider when designing local and national wind energy technological innovation policies. Previous studies have investigated the factors that shape the local acceptance of wind power in high-income countries. However, to the best of the authors' knowledge, these factors had not been investigated in China. Utilizing a survey and quantitative analysis, the authors have identified the factors that are correlated with local acceptance of wind power in China.

The energy sector is increasingly facing water scarcity constraints in many regions around the globe, especially in China, where the unprecedented large-scale construction of coal-fired thermal power plants is taking place in its extremely arid northwest regions. As a response to water scarcity, air-cooled coal power plants have experienced dramatic diffusion in China since middle 2000s. By the end of 2012, air-cooled coal-fired thermal power plants in China amounted to 112 GW, making up 14% of China's thermal power generation capacity. But the water conservation benefit of air-cooled units is achieved at the cost of lower thermal efficiency and consequently higher carbon emissions intensity.

Energy technology innovation is the key to driving the technological changes that are necessary to meet the challenge of mitigating energy-related greenhouse gas emissions to avoid 'dangerous climate change.' Success in innovation requires the enhancement of public investment in the innovation process, the creation of markets for low-carbon technologies through stronger climate policies, and a continued focus on energy access and equity.

China's booming economy has brought increasing pressures on its water resources. The water scarcity problem in China is characterized by a mismatch between the spatial distributions of water resources, economic development and other primary factors of production, which leads to the separation of production and consumption of water-intensive products. In this paper, the authors quantify the scale and structure of virtual water trade and consumption-based water footprints at the provincial level in China based on a multi-regional input–output model.

The energy sector is a major user of fresh water resources in China. We investigate the life cycle water withdrawals, consumptive water use, and wastewater discharge of China's energy sectors and their water-consumption-related environmental impacts, using a mixed-unit multi-regional input-output (MRIO) model and life cycle impact assessment method (LCIA) based on the Eco-indicator 99 framework.