| 1. |
- Bengtsson Ryberg, Johanna, et al.
(författare)
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The Effects of Wind Power on Human Interests : A Synthesis
- 2013
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- PrefaceThere is a great need for knowledge concerning the impacts of wind power on humans, landscapes, the marine environment, birds, bats and other mammals.Previous studies of these environmental impacts have lacked an overall view of the effects. This has led to deficiencies in the processes surrounding the establishment of new wind farms. Vindval is a knowledge programme undertaken as a collaboration between the Swedish Energy Agency and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. Its aim is to gather and communicate scientific knowledge about the impacts of wind power on people and the natural environment. The programme continues until 2013.Vindval comprises some 30 individual research projects, together with four synthesis projects. Syntheses are prepared by experts, who compile and assess overall research results and experience regarding the effects of wind power in four different areas – humans, birds/bats, marine life and terrestrial mammals.The results of this research and synthesis work will provide a basis for environmental impact assessments and for the planning and permitting processes associated with wind power installations. Vindval requires high standards in the review and approval of research proposals, in order to ensure high-quality reports. The same high standards apply to the reporting, approval and publication of research results from the projects.This report was written by Johanna Bengtsson Ryberg, Gösta Bluhm, Karl Bolin, Bosse Bodén, Kristina Ek, Karin Hammarlund, Marianne Henningsson, Inga-Lena Hannukka, Carina Johansson, Sofia Jönsson, Sanna Mels, Tom Mels, Mats Nilsson, Erik Skärbäck, Patrik Söderholm, Åsa Waldo, Ingegärd Widerström, Niklas Åkerman.This report is a translation of the previous report in Swedish “Vindkraftens påverkan på människors intressen” (Naturvårdsverket report no 6497). Translated by Sofia Jönsson.The contents of the report are the responsibility of the authors.
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| 3. |
- Berglund, Christer, et al.
(författare)
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Modeling technical change in energy system analysis : analyzing the introduction of learning-by-doing in bottom-upenergy models
- 2005
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The main objective of this paper is to provide an overview and acritical analysis of the recent literature on incorporatinginduced technical change in energy systems models. Special emphasisis put on surveying recent studies aiming at integrating learning-by-doing into bottom-up energy systems models through so-calledlearning curves, and on analyzing the relevance of learning curveanalysis for understanding the process of innovation and technologydiffusion in the energy sector. The survey indicates that this modelwork represents a major advance in energy research, and embedsimportant policy implications, not the least concerning the costand the timing of environmental policies (including carbon emissionconstraints). However, bottom-up energy models with endogenouslearning are also limited in their characterization of technologydiffusion and innovation. While they provide a detailed accountof technical options - which is absent in many top-down models -they also lack important aspects of diffusion behavior that arecaptured in top-down representations. For instance, they fall incapturing strategic technology diffusion behavior in the energysector, and they neglect important general equilibrium impacts(such as the opportunity cost of redirecting R&D support to theenergy sector). For these reasons bottom-up and top-down modelswith induced technical change should not be viewed as substitutes but rather as complements.
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| 4. |
- Bergquist, Ann-Kristin, et al.
(författare)
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Command-and-control revisited : environmental compliance and innovation in Swedish industry 1970-1990
- 2012
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper addresses the issue of environmental policy instrument choice for achieving deep emissions reductions in the industrial sector. Specifically, it provides: (a) a theoretical review of the conditions under which performance standards can provide efficient incentives for environmental compliance and innovation ; and (b) an analysis of the design and the outcomes of the standards-based regulation of industrial pollutants in Sweden during the period 1970 - 1990. The empirical findings suggest that the Swedish regulatory approach comprised many key elements of an efficient policy-induced transition towards radically lower emissions in the metal smelting and pulp and paper industries. The regulation relied heavily on performance standards, thus granting flexibility to firms in terms of selecting the appropriate compliance measures, and the standards were implemented in combination with extended probation periods. R&D projects and the new knowledge that was advanced incrementally in interaction between the company, the environmental authorities and the research institutions provided a direct catalyst to the regulatory process. As such the Swedish regulatory approach provided scope for creative solutions, environmental innovation, and permitted the affected firms to coordinate pollution prevention measures with productive investments.
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| 5. |
- Bladh, Mats, 1953-, et al.
(författare)
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Shared or Individual Responsibility : Eco-labelling and Consumer Choice in Sweden
- 2010
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Ingår i: Environmental Policy and Household Behaviour. - London : Earthscan. - 9781844078974 ; , s. 173-192
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Our behaviour in our own homes - our recycling habits, consumer choices and transport preferences - all have a huge impact on the environment locally and globally. Governments across the world are trying to formulate and implement policies to encourage and enforce more sustainable household actions. Yet so often these policies fail to have the desired effects because of a lack of understanding of the complex interplay of policy and individual behaviour. This book examines this interplay, looking at the role of values, attitudes and constraints in the links between policy and changing behaviour at the household level. The first part of the book explores the theoretical background looking at the politics of lifestyles and lifestyle change, policy legitimacy and barriers and facilitators for pro-environmental behaviour. The second part is made up of in-depth case studies from Sweden - one of the fore-running countries in this area - examining three main types of household behaviour: waste and recycling; consumption and labelling; and transportation choices. Within these case studies, the contributors examine what policy initiatives have and haven't worked and the role of values and constraints in those processes. This is the first inter-disciplinary, in-depth look at how environmental policy enters the private, domestic sphere. The theoretical insights and policy guidance the book offers will be vital in the drive to generate behaviour change at the household level and the move towards sustainable societies.
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| 7. |
- Bryngemark, Elina, 1987-
(författare)
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The Competition for Forest Raw Materials in the Presence of Increased Bioenergy Demand : Partial Equilibrium Analysis of the Swedish Case
- 2019
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Growing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions have implied an increased attention to the development of renewable energy sources. Bioenergy from forest biomass is expected to be one of the cornerstones in reaching renewable energy targets, especially in forest-rich countries such as Sweden. However, forest biomass is a limited resource, and an intensified use of bioenergy could affect roundwood and forest products’ markets in several ways. The overall purpose of this thesis is to analyze price formation and resource allocation of forest raw materials in the presence of increased bioenergy demand. The empirical focus is on the competition for wood fibres between bioenergy use and the traditional forest industries, as well as synergy effects between the various sectors using forest raw materials. The methodologic approach is partial equilibrium modeling (forest sector model), and the geographical focus is on Sweden. The thesis comprises three self-contained articles, which all address the above issues.The first paper presents an economic assessment of two different policies – both implying an increased demand for forest ecosystem services – and how these could affect the competition for forest raw materials. A forest sector trade model is updated to a new base year (2016), and used to analyze the consequences of increased bioenergy use in the heat and power (HP) sector as well as increased forest conservation in Sweden. These overall scenarios are assessed individually and in combination. The results show how various forest raw material-using sectors are affected in terms of price changes and responses in production. A particularly interesting market impact is that bioenergy promotion and forest conservation tend to have opposite effects on forest industry by-product prices. Moreover, combining the two policies mitigates the forest industry by-product price increase compared to the case where only the bioenergy-promoting policy is implemented. In other words, the HP sector is less negatively affected in terms of increased feedstock prices if bioenergy demand target are accompanied by increased forest conservation. This effect is due to increasing pulpwood prices, which reduces pulp, paper and board production, and in turn mitiges the competition for the associated by-products. Overall, the paper illustrates the great complexity of the forest raw material market, and the importance of considering demand and supply responses within and between sectors in energy and forest policy designs.The second article investigates the forest raw material market effects from introducing second-generation transport biofuel (exemplified by Bio-SNG) production in Sweden. Increases in Bio-SNG demand between 5 and 30 TWh are investigated. The simulation results illustrate increasing forest industry by-product (i.e., sawdust, wood chips and bark) prices, not least in the high-production scenarios (i.e. 20-30 TWh). This suggests that increases in second-generation biofuel productions lead to increased competition for the forest raw materials. The higher feedstock prices make the HP sector less profitable, but very meagre evidence of substitution of fossil fuels for by-products can be found. In this sector, there is instead an increased use of harvesting residues. Fiberboard and particleboard production ceases entirely due to increased input prices. There is also evidence of synergy (“by-product”) effects between the sawmill sector and the use of forest raw materials in the HP sector. Higher by-product prices spur sawmills to produce more sawnwood, something that in turn induces forest owners to increase harvest levels. Already in the 5 TWh Bio-SNG scenario, there is an increase in the harvest level, thus suggesting that the by-product effect kicks in from start.Biofuels and green chemicals are likely to play significant roles in achieving the transition towards a zero-carbon society. However, large-scale biorefineries are not yet cost-competitive with their fossil-fuel counterparts, and it is therefore important to identify biorefinery concepts with high economic performance in order to achieve widespread deployment in the future. For evaluations of early-stage biorefinery concepts, there is a need to consider not only the technical performance and the process costs, but also the performance of the full supply chain and the impact of its implementation in the feedstock and products markets. The third article presents – and argues for – a conceptual interdisciplinary framework that can form the basis for future evaluations of the full supply-chain performance of various novel biorefinery concepts. This framework considers the competition for biomass feedstocks across sectors, and assumes exogenous end-use product demand and various geographical and technical constraints. It can be used to evaluate the impacts of the introduction of various biorefinery concepts in the biomass markets in terms of feedstock allocations and prices. Policy evaluations, taking into account both engineering constraints and market mechanisms, should also be possible.Overall, the thesis illustrates the importance of considering the market effects when designing and evaluating forest policies and bioenergy policy targets. The forest industry sector and the bioenergy sector are closely interlinked and can both make or break one another depending on the policy design. The results indicate that for an increased demand of bioenergy, an industrial transformation is to be expected, as well as increased roundwood harvest.
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| 8. |
- Bryngemark, Elina, 1987-
(författare)
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The Economics of Biofuel Development : Policy Incentives and Market Impacts
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis examines the economics of biofuel development by studying the forest raw material market impacts of increased biofuel production, as well as the role of specific policy incentives. Paper [I] presents an economic assessment of two different developments – both implying an increased demand for forest ecosystem services – and how these could affect the competition for forest raw materials. A Swedish forest sector trade model is updated to a new base year and used to analyze the consequences of: (a) increased bioenergy use in the heat and power sector; and (b) increased forest conservation. A particularly interesting market impact is that bioenergy promotion and forest conservation tend to have opposite effects on forest industry by-product prices. Furthermore, combining the two scenarios mitigates the forest industry by-product price increase compared to the case where only the bioenergy-promoting scenario is implemented. In other words, the heat and power sector is less negatively affected in terms of increased feedstock prices if a bioenergy demand increase is accompanied by increased forest conservation. Paper [2] explores the forest product market impacts of increased domestic second-generation (2G) biofuel production in Sweden. Changes in forest raw material prices and resource allocation are assessed using a forest sector trade model, which has been extended with a 2G biofuel module to address such production. The simulation results show increasing forest industry by-product prices, e.g., displaying that increased 2G biofuel production leads to a more intense raw material competition. The higher feedstock prices make the use of forest biomass in the heat and power sector less profitable. Still, we find little evidence of substitution of fossil fuels for by-products. There is also evidence of synergy effects in that the higher by-product prices spur sawmills to produce more sawn wood, something which in turn induces forest owners to increase harvest levels. Paper [3] presents and demonstrates a conceptual interdisciplinary framework that can constitute the basis for evaluations of the full supply-chain performance of various biorefinery concepts. The framework involves soft-linking a bottom-up and a top-down model; it considers the competition for biomass across sectors, assumes exogenous end-use product demand, and incorporates various geographical and technical constraints. We demonstrate this framework empirically by modelling the case of a sawmill-integrated biorefinery, which produces liquefied biomethane from forest industry residues. This case shows, among other things, the importance of acknowledging price change responses when evaluating supply chains. Paper [4] studies the relationship between green industrial policies and domestic biofuel production among 24 OECD countries over the period 2000-2016. This panel is estimated using a variant of the so-called Poisson pseudo-maximum-likelihood model, and incorporates the mix of demand-pull (biofuel blending mandates) and technology-push policies (government R&D), as well as the interaction between these two types of instruments. The results suggest that a more stringent blending mandate tends not only to increase the use of biofuels, but also domestic production. Government R&D has not, however, induced domestic biofuel industrialization processes. The results instead imply that these two polices target different technological fields, in turn leading to no positive interaction between demand-pull and technology-push policies. Finally, Paper [5] investigates the factors that tend to influence Swedish municipalities’ uptake of green public procurement (GPP) practices in the transport sector. The analysis builds on survey responses from civil servants representing 140 Swedish municipalities, complemented by secondary data on, for instance, municipality size. The survey collected information about both individual (e.g., education) and organizational characteristics (e.g., strategies). These data were used to estimate a bivariate probit model, which addresses the endogeneity in the GPP decision-making process. The results indicate that municipality size increases the likelihood of adopting a GPP strategy but decreases the likelihood for GPP uptake. This suggests that larger municipalities benefit from more resources (e.g., staff), but suffer from a larger organizational distance between the procuring and environmental departments. Finally, the results lend meagre support to the street-level bureaucracy hypothesis, i.e., that individual characteristics influence the uptake of GPP.
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| 9. |
- Cialani, Catia, 1970-
(författare)
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Essays on growth and environment
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of a summary and four self-contained papers.Paper [I] Following the 1987 report by The World Commission on Environment and Development, the genuine saving has come to play a key role in the context of sustainable development, and the World Bank regularly publishes numbers for genuine saving on a national basis. However, these numbers are typically calculated as if the tax system is non-distortionary. This paper presents an analogue to genuine saving in a second best economy, where the government raises revenue by means of distortionary taxation. We show how the social cost of public debt, which depends on the marginal excess burden, ought to be reflected in the genuine saving. We also illustrate by presenting calculations for Greece, Japan, Portugal, U.K., U.S. and OECD average, showing that the numbers published by the World Bank are likely to be biased and may even give incorrect information as to whether the economy is locally sustainable.Paper [II] This paper examines the relationships among per capita CO2 emissions, per capita GDP and international trade based on panel data spanning the period 1960-2008 for 150 countries. A distinction is also made between OECD and Non-OECD countries to capture the differences of this relationship between developed and developing economies. We apply panel unit root and cointegration tests, and estimate a panel error correction model. The results from the error correction model suggest that there are long-term relationships between the variables for the whole sample and for Non-OECD countries. Finally, Granger causality tests show that there is bi-directional short-term causality between per capita GDP and international trade for the whole sample and between per capita GDP and CO2 emissions for OECD countries.Paper [III] Fundamental questions in economics are why some regions are richer than others, why their growth rates differ, whether their growth rates tend to converge, and what key factors contribute to explain economic growth. This paper deals with the average income growth, net migration, and changes in unemployment rates at the municipal level in Sweden. The aim is to explore in depth the effects of possible underlying determinants with a particular focus on local policy variables. The analysis is based on a three-equation model. Our results show, among other things, that increases in the local public expenditure and income taxe rate have negative effects on subsequent income income growth. In addition, the results show conditional convergence, i.e. that the average income among the municipal residents tends to grow more rapidly in relatively poor local jurisdictions than in initially “richer” jurisdictions, conditional on the other explanatory variables.Paper [IV] This paper explores the relationship between income growth and income inequality using data at the municipal level in Sweden for the period 1992-2007. We estimate a fixed effects panel data growth model, where the within-municipality income inequality is one of the explanatory variables. Different inequality measures (Gini coefficient, top income shares, and measures of inequality in the lower and upper part of the income distribution) are examined. We find a positive and significant relationship between income growth and income inequality measured as the Gini coefficient and top income shares, respectively. In addition, while inequality in the upper part of the income distribution is positively associated with the income growth rate, inequality in the lower part of the income distribution seems to be negatively related to the income growth. Our findings also suggest that increased income inequality enhances growth more in municipalities with a high level of average income than in municipalities with a low level of average income.
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| 10. |
- Coria, Jessica, 1979, et al.
(författare)
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The progress of GHG markets : opportunities and risks
- 2010
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The climate negotiations at the COP15 in December 2009 did not produce a new international treaty with binding emissions commitments but the Copenhagen Accord for dealing with post-2012 climate change. Given the current climate negotiation process it is unlikely that we will see a global climate agreement soon on a global cap between all Convention members participating in a single carbon market. We may be more likely to see a stepwise process moving towards this scenario, most likely involving linkages between different national policy programs when it comes to mitigation as well as offsetting emissions. In such a process countries will offer commitments based on their domestic abilities, preferences and policies, norms and institutions. National and sub-national policies are thus likely to be the de-facto building blocks of nations' abilities to make and fulfill international commitments. However, also with multilateral mitigation programs without binding commitments, carbon markets will be needed as well as international authorities that support measurement, reporting and verification rules and the international registries. Such markets will necessarily be complicated and temporary in a world without an overarching binding agreement. There will be numerous tradeoffs between different kinds of second-best arrangements. The purpose of this report is to build knowledge about the effects of the development of regional and international carbon markets and the auxiliary technology agreements that might be needed. Among the topics we address are: the evolution and integration of carbon markets, the impacts of policy and technology cost uncertainty on the cost of meeting targets through a carbon market mechanism, the effect of banking, price floors and ceilings, institutional constraints and technological change in the further development of carbon markets and their links to other environmental policy instruments, and the potential of REDD-plus to encourage sustainable forest development and climate mitigation.
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