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Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309155800
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 506
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Book Description
Despite the many benefits of energy, most of which are reflected in energy market prices, the production, distribution, and use of energy causes negative effects. Many of these negative effects are not reflected in energy market prices. When market failures like this occur, there may be a case for government interventions in the form of regulations, taxes, fees, tradable permits, or other instruments that will motivate recognition of these external or hidden costs. The Hidden Costs of Energy defines and evaluates key external costs and benefits that are associated with the production, distribution, and use of energy, but are not reflected in market prices. The damage estimates presented are substantial and reflect damages from air pollution associated with electricity generation, motor vehicle transportation, and heat generation. The book also considers other effects not quantified in dollar amounts, such as damages from climate change, effects of some air pollutants such as mercury, and risks to national security. While not a comprehensive guide to policy, this analysis indicates that major initiatives to further reduce other emissions, improve energy efficiency, or shift to a cleaner electricity generating mix could substantially reduce the damages of external effects. A first step in minimizing the adverse consequences of new energy technologies is to better understand these external effects and damages. The Hidden Costs of Energy will therefore be a vital informational tool for government policy makers, scientists, and economists in even the earliest stages of research and development on energy technologies.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309155800
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 506
Get Book Here
Book Description
Despite the many benefits of energy, most of which are reflected in energy market prices, the production, distribution, and use of energy causes negative effects. Many of these negative effects are not reflected in energy market prices. When market failures like this occur, there may be a case for government interventions in the form of regulations, taxes, fees, tradable permits, or other instruments that will motivate recognition of these external or hidden costs. The Hidden Costs of Energy defines and evaluates key external costs and benefits that are associated with the production, distribution, and use of energy, but are not reflected in market prices. The damage estimates presented are substantial and reflect damages from air pollution associated with electricity generation, motor vehicle transportation, and heat generation. The book also considers other effects not quantified in dollar amounts, such as damages from climate change, effects of some air pollutants such as mercury, and risks to national security. While not a comprehensive guide to policy, this analysis indicates that major initiatives to further reduce other emissions, improve energy efficiency, or shift to a cleaner electricity generating mix could substantially reduce the damages of external effects. A first step in minimizing the adverse consequences of new energy technologies is to better understand these external effects and damages. The Hidden Costs of Energy will therefore be a vital informational tool for government policy makers, scientists, and economists in even the earliest stages of research and development on energy technologies.
Author: Dileep K. Birur
Publisher: RTI Press
ISBN:
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 50
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Book Description
This research report examines the economic and environmental externalities associated with the US transportation sector. The United States currently accounts for about 25 percent of world oil consumption, about 50 percent of which is imported. Achieving energy security by reducing dependence on imported oil has been the foremost challenge of several major energy-importing countries, including the United States. In this study, we explored the costs associated with energy security/cost of dependence on oil and estimated the environmental externalities associated with different types of transportation fuels based on a set of economic, environmental, and life-cycle analysis models. Our assessment of estimations on oil dependence costs indicates that several elements constitute the true cost of oil and not many studies have attempted to include all of these costs for various reasons. For analyzing the environmental externalities, we used a life-cycle analysis model; the FASOM-GHG model of agriculture and forestry; APEEP—an integrated assessment model to calculate the marginal damage of emissions; GTAP-BIO—a computable general equilibrium model to estimate land use changes; and the OSIRIS model to estimate the species extinctions based on deforestation. This study on assessing the externalities could provide a quantitative basis for policy initiatives pertaining to America’s future transportation infrastructure. This study suggests that there is a need to consider economic, environmental, and other societal costs within a holistic framework to assess relative costs and benefits and suitability of alternative transportation fuels that could play a role in meeting our future energy needs.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309149096
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 737
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Book Description
For multi-user PDF licensing, please contact customer service. Energy touches our lives in countless ways and its costs are felt when we fill up at the gas pump, pay our home heating bills, and keep businesses both large and small running. There are long-term costs as well: to the environment, as natural resources are depleted and pollution contributes to global climate change, and to national security and independence, as many of the world's current energy sources are increasingly concentrated in geopolitically unstable regions. The country's challenge is to develop an energy portfolio that addresses these concerns while still providing sufficient, affordable energy reserves for the nation. The United States has enormous resources to put behind solutions to this energy challenge; the dilemma is to identify which solutions are the right ones. Before deciding which energy technologies to develop, and on what timeline, we need to understand them better. America's Energy Future analyzes the potential of a wide range of technologies for generation, distribution, and conservation of energy. This book considers technologies to increase energy efficiency, coal-fired power generation, nuclear power, renewable energy, oil and natural gas, and alternative transportation fuels. It offers a detailed assessment of the associated impacts and projected costs of implementing each technology and categorizes them into three time frames for implementation.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309159474
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 251
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Book Description
Technologies and Approaches to Reducing the Fuel Consumption of Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles evaluates various technologies and methods that could improve the fuel economy of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, such as tractor-trailers, transit buses, and work trucks. The book also recommends approaches that federal agencies could use to regulate these vehicles' fuel consumption. Currently there are no fuel consumption standards for such vehicles, which account for about 26 percent of the transportation fuel used in the U.S. The miles-per-gallon measure used to regulate the fuel economy of passenger cars. is not appropriate for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, which are designed above all to carry loads efficiently. Instead, any regulation of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles should use a metric that reflects the efficiency with which a vehicle moves goods or passengers, such as gallons per ton-mile, a unit that reflects the amount of fuel a vehicle would use to carry a ton of goods one mile. This is called load-specific fuel consumption (LSFC). The book estimates the improvements that various technologies could achieve over the next decade in seven vehicle types. For example, using advanced diesel engines in tractor-trailers could lower their fuel consumption by up to 20 percent by 2020, and improved aerodynamics could yield an 11 percent reduction. Hybrid powertrains could lower the fuel consumption of vehicles that stop frequently, such as garbage trucks and transit buses, by as much 35 percent in the same time frame.
Author: Chris T. Hendrickson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136525491
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
Environmental life cycle assessment is often thought of as cradle to grave and therefore as the most complete accounting of the environmental costs and benefits of a product or service. However, as anyone who has done an environmental life cycle assessment knows, existing tools have many problems: data is difficult to assemble and life cycle studies take months of effort. A truly comprehensive analysis is prohibitive, so analysts are often forced to simply ignore many facets of life cycle impacts. But the focus on one aspect of a product or service can result in misleading indications if that aspect is benign while other aspects pollute or are otherwise unsustainable. This book summarizes the EIO-LCA method, explains its use in relation to other life cycle assessment models, and provides sample applications and extensions of the model into novel areas. A final chapter explains the free, easy-to-use software tool available on a companion website. (www.eiolca.net) The software tool provides a wealth of data, summarizing the current U.S. economy in 500 sectors with information on energy and materials use, pollution and greenhouse gas discharges, and other attributes like associated occupational deaths and injuries. The joint project of twelve faculty members and over 20 students working together over the past ten years at the Green Design Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, the EIO-LCA has been applied to a wide range of products and services. It will prove useful for research, industry, and in economics, engineering, or interdisciplinary classes in green design.
Author: Jean-Paul Rodrigue
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136777326
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 432
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Book Description
Mobility is fundamental to economic and social activities such as commuting, manufacturing, or supplying energy. Each movement has an origin, a potential set of intermediate locations, a destination, and a nature which is linked with geographical attributes. Transport systems composed of infrastructures, modes and terminals are so embedded in the socio-economic life of individuals, institutions and corporations that they are often invisible to the consumer. This is paradoxical as the perceived invisibility of transportation is derived from its efficiency. Understanding how mobility is linked with geography is main the purpose of this book. The third edition of The Geography of Transport Systems has been revised and updated to provide an overview of the spatial aspects of transportation. This text provides greater discussion of security, energy, green logistics, as well as new and updated case studies, a revised content structure, and new figures. Each chapter covers a specific conceptual dimension including networks, modes, terminals, freight transportation, urban transportation and environmental impacts. A final chapter contains core methodologies linked with transport geography such as accessibility, spatial interactions, graph theory and Geographic Information Systems for transportation (GIS-T). This book provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the field, with a broad overview of its concepts, methods, and areas of application. The accompanying website for this text contains a useful additional material, including digital maps, PowerPoint slides, databases, and links to further reading and websites. The website can be accessed at: http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans This text is an essential resource for undergraduates studying transport geography, as well as those interest in economic and urban geography, transport planning and engineering.
Author: David A. Hensher
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 9780080441030
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 864
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Book Description
Each chapter was specially commissioned from an acknowledged world expert on the topic.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309268524
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 395
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Book Description
For a century, almost all light-duty vehicles (LDVs) have been powered by internal combustion engines operating on petroleum fuels. Energy security concerns about petroleum imports and the effect of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on global climate are driving interest in alternatives. Transitions to Alternative Vehicles and Fuels assesses the potential for reducing petroleum consumption and GHG emissions by 80 percent across the U.S. LDV fleet by 2050, relative to 2005. This report examines the current capability and estimated future performance and costs for each vehicle type and non-petroleum-based fuel technology as options that could significantly contribute to these goals. By analyzing scenarios that combine various fuel and vehicle pathways, the report also identifies barriers to implementation of these technologies and suggests policies to achieve the desired reductions. Several scenarios are promising, but strong, and effective policies such as research and development, subsidies, energy taxes, or regulations will be necessary to overcome barriers, such as cost and consumer choice.
Author: Andreas Kopp
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 0821398350
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 182
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Book Description
Transport provides access to public services for the poor, opens up trade opportunities, and maximizes the benefits of urbanization: the mobility of people and goods drives development. So how can we protect the role of transport in times of scarcer fuels, costly and harmful carbon emissions, and the rising threat of extreme weather events? This is the central question that this book seeks to answer. Turning the Right Corner: Ensuring Development through a Low-Carbon Transport Sector finds that adopting new vehicle technologies and alternative fuels will not be enough to curb greenhouse gas emissions from transport: new patterns of mobility will also be needed. In developing countries where past infrastructure investments have not yet locked in particular transport modes, there is an opportunity to contain emissions by harnessing low-emission modes of transport. The book argues that the transition to low-carbon mobility is not only urgently needed if economies are to avoid becoming locked into high-carbon growth, but is also affordable. It outlines how countries can combine policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with broader sector reforms that generate new fiscal resources to finance the transition in addition to carbon financing and international assistance. Turning the Right Corner: Ensuring Development through a Low-Carbon Transport Sector will be of interest to policy makers, academics, and development practitioners with an interest in transport. It will help decision makers better understand how to contain the transport sector's contribution to climate change and protect transport infrastructure and services from severe weather events.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309045304
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 280
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Book Description
This volume presents realistic estimates for the level of fuel economy that is achievable in the next decade for cars and light trucks made in the United States and Canada. A source of objective and comprehensive information on the topic, this book takes into account real-world factors such as the financial conditions in the automotive industry, costs and benefits to consumers, and marketability of high-efficiency vehicles. The committee is composed of experts from the fields of science, technology, finance, and regulation and offers practical evaluations of technological improvements that could contribute to increased fuel efficiency. The volume also examines potential barriers to improvement, such as high production costs, regulations on safety and emissions, and consumer preferences. This practical book is of considerable interest to car and light truck manufacturers, policymakers, federal and state agencies, and the public.
