Political Ecology

Artificial light has long been a significant factor contributing to the quality and productivity of human life. As a consequence, we are willing to use huge amounts of energy to produce it. Solid-state lighting (SSL) is an emerging technology that promises performance features and efficiencies well beyond those of traditional artificial lighting, accompanied by potentially [...]

Sarah Lyutse of the NRDC reports as follows: Last week, NRDC released a new fact sheet on the VEETC, highlighting how our government’s biggest incentive program for biofuels has almost exclusively supported the production of corn ethanol which, when all direct and indirect costs are added, creates more global warming pollution than the oil it [...]

This paper analyses algal biodiesel production for the EU road transportation and compares it to the fossil fuels and 1st generation biofuels. A cost-effectiveness analysis was used to aggregate private and external costs and derive the social cost of each fuel. The following externalities were internalized: emissions (GHG and non-GHG), food prices impact, pesticides/fertilizers use [...]

Evidence of the causality links that have prevailed in 13 advanced economies over the 1980–2004 period has been obtained through dynamic panel models. Our findings confirm that government R&D spending is not sufficient by itself to boost the energy innovation process. Public energy R&D has been successful in improving energy efficiency at country level, but [...]

The Growth Energy publicity juggernaut ceaselessly reminds us that, at 10 percent blends of ethanol, the US can absorb only about 13 billion gallons of ethanol before it has nowhere to market its ethanol fuel, given the tepid distribution options for E85.But even were the US EPA to approve E15 ethanol blending, there are some [...]

The result of these trends: “In the past year, the lines have crossed in North Carolina,” say study authors John Blackburn and Sam Cunningham. “Electricity from new solar installations is now cheaper than electricity from proposed new nuclear plants.”If the data analysis is correct, the pricing would represent the “Historic Crossover” claimed in the study’s [...]

Dagobert Brito, the George A. Peterkin Professor of Political Economy, and Robert Curl, the Kenneth S. Pitzer-Schlumberger Professor Emeritus of Natural Sciences and winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry, made this recommendation in a paper published by Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. A PDF of the paper can be viewed at: [...]