Empirical research suggests that spillover effects frequently exceed the intended impacts of policy decisions. Knowledge and technology spillovers of early […]
READ moreOn January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order halting new leases for offshore wind power. This effectively […]
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Global demand for key minerals such as copper, nickel, cobalt, and Rare Earth Elements (REEs), crucial for advancing green technologies, […]
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Electric vehicles (EVs) offer a vital solution in global efforts to combat climate change, especially as the transportation sector accounts […]
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The U.S. government relies on investment tax credits to increase private-sector investment in renewable energy. Other governments, as well as […]
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One of the dramatic changes to the energy landscape over the last decade has been the substantial decline in the […]
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According to decarbonization pathways, carbon capture and storage (CCS) forms a core part of the mitigation technology portfolio for energy-intensive […]
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Efficient extraction and processing of ores into metals are fundamental to several clean energy transition technologies. Metals such as copper, […]
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With the intensifying global focus on fighting climate change, more consumers are turning to green energy, often verified through energy […]
READ moreAlthough energy production from wind and solar has grown rapidly in the United States, its integration into the national electric […]
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As climate change continues to worsen and cause more extreme temperature fluctuations and weather events, access to sufficient energy services […]
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A new Salata Institute-Roosevelt Project study has been released that examines the regulatory, political, and social factors that shape long-distance […]
READ moreClean-energy investment in America is off the charts—but it still isn’t translating into enough electricity that people can actually use. […]
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Trade-Climate Cooperation at the Crossroads Recent years have witnessed the emergence of a broad range of multilateral, plurilateral and bilateral […]
READ more“MIT is never better than when we come together to solve big problems,” said MIT President Sally Kornbluth in a […]
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The energy transition stands as a cornerstone in fighting climate change and reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. This challenge requires […]
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Global CO2 emissions are continuing to rise. That may eventually change, but even with a substantial decline in emissions, the […]
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In almost all US states, electric utilities have been recovering distribution costs, along with electricity supply costs, from residential and […]
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Incentive regulation mechanisms have been applied for many years to the regulation of electric utilities in countries other than the […]
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Below a message from our Institute Innovation Fellow, Brian Deese: Dear Colleague, Three months ago, we launched the Clean […]
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Ammonia is a pivotal energy vector in the ongoing global energy transition, serving as a versatile feedstock and a prospective […]
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Competition compels industry suppliers to serve the best interests of consumers in many sectors of the economy. Intense competition to […]
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Climate policy goals call for substantial investments in low-carbon generation and storage technologies. Whether such investments materialize will depend in […]
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Wind electricity generation grew exponentially in the past two decades from 6 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2000 to 380 billion […]
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The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) represents the largest federal response to climate change to date. The problem IRA confronts is […]
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What makes a sustainable company a sustainable company? More and more companies are setting seemingly ambitious net-zero targets for their […]
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With tightening carbon emission regulations in the transportation sector, more and more consumers are switching to electric vehicles (EVs). However, […]
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In the discussion surrounding the timely transition to a net-zero economy, commentators frequently point to the obstacles of reducing the […]
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Bitcoin mining is renowned for its energy intensity. As of March 25th, 2023, Bitcoin miners’ power demand amounts to 15.4 […]
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New technologies offer captivating opportunities to trade and improve efficiency in markets, illustrations ranging from ICT to smart technologies for […]
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In the intensifying debate about alternative pathways for rapid decarbonization, hydrogen is increasingly viewed as a critical building block for […]
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Migration decisions are increasingly studied as an adaptation response to climate change and empirical evidence is important to quantify its […]
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State investment banks (SIBs), i.e., publicly funded financial institutions with a domestic focus, exist in nearly all OECD member countries […]
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A nuclear battery is a stand-alone, plug-and-play energy platform combining a micro-reactor of 1-20 megawatts electric and a turbine to […]
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Worldwide, poor air quality is a leading preventable cause of death and morbidity. Air pollution reduces the life expectancy of […]
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Significant public resources are being dedicated to stimulating private sector investment in electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure. In the U.S., […]
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Economists widely agree that putting a price on carbon emissions is a key element of economically efficient policies to reduce […]
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Transportation is the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Given that, a key element of […]
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Boston suffered from a tremendous heat wave this summer. Both in July and August temperatures rose beyond 90°F (32°C) for […]
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An increasing number of public and private actors have announced “net-zero” emissions targets by mid-century. In the electricity sector, the […]
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Additional climate policy efforts are needed for “hard-to-abate” sectors such as heavy-duty trucking, shipping, and aviation, in order for governments […]
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CEEPR is delighted to welcome Gilbert E. Metcalf as a Visiting Professor. Professor Metcalf is an economist who has made […]
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Among economists, there is near unanimous consensus that a necessary component of any portfolio of policies to address climate change […]
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Currently, U.S. residential and small commercial electricity consumers are typically billed based on nearly flat rates, i.e., a constant price […]
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The 2021 Texas power crisis, caused by a series of winter storms, led to prices that were 100 times higher […]
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We explore the quantitative impact of a carbon tax that reduces emissions by 35 percent—a target consistent with the Biden […]
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In many regions of the world, the economic dispatch of electricity, and the corresponding financial arrangements, are organized using spot […]
READ moreWind power accounted for 8 percent of U.S. electricity consumption in 2020, and is growing rapidly in the country’s energy […]
READ moreEnvironmental groups and policymakers are softening their stances against nuclear power, some reluctantly, some whole-heartedly, and many with a new […]
READ moreIn an article on Foreign Affairs, MIT Professors John M. Deutch and Ernest J. Moniz discuss how the Inflation Reduction […]
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Achieving net zero emissions by 2050 represents a significant challenge for the global trucking, shipping and aviation sectors. Unlike the […]
READ moreAs national debate over nuclear power’s future continues, there are signs that the movement to keep plants open is making […]
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Gas prices in the United States are at record highs. And even when adjusting for inflation, they are on average […]
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Industrial energy efficiency plays a central role in projections that achieve net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by mid-century. According […]
READ moreAs states race to keep plants open, California becomes a test case of how much the tide has shifted. The […]
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The MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) has just released a significant new research report, The Future of Energy Storage—the culmination of […]
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In the late 1990s, several states in the United States started to restructure the electricity sector, replacing regulated and vertically […]
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Fuel subsidies for fossil generators persist in different electricity markets across five continents. In light of the current European energy […]
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A principal (e.g., a regulator or a firm) needs to procure multiple units of a good or service that can […]
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For several months, electricity prices in the European Union (EU) have been at sustained and unprecedentedly high levels. The current […]
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In July 2021, three of Germany’s largest automakers, BMW, Daimler, and Volkswagen, settled with the European Commission (EC) to pay […]
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Green finance certification allows investors to link their decisions to firms’ commitments toward the environment. Green bonds are the most […]
READ moreChristopher Knittel has held a number of titles at MIT: George P. Shultz Professor of Energy Economics … Director of […]
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Wind energy plays a critical role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by providing carbon-free and low marginal cost energy. In […]
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How to fight global problems without hurting the local welfare? Economists are increasingly confronting this question: Whether it relates to […]
READ moreDespite providing nearly 9% of California’s electricity generation, and accounting for 15% of its clean-energy production, Diablo Canyon is set […]
READ moreA delegation from MIT traveled to Glasgow for COP26, where international negotiators sought to keep global climate goals on track. […]
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We evaluated the system cost of providing electricity and heat to serve the load profiles of two types of Alaskan […]
READ moreCEEPR Executive Director Joshua Hodge is interviewed by E&E News on the potential policy ramifications of Maine voters opting to […]
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Future electricity systems with constraints on carbon emissions will rely more on wind and solar generation, with zero marginal cost, […]
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Article 6 of the Paris Agreement enables Parties to engage in voluntary cooperation as they implement their nationally determined contributions […]
READ moreCEEPR Director Christopher Knittel is among a group of experts interviewed by CBS News for a piece on the effects […]
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Car use is associated with significant negative local and global external costs (e.g., from pollution), and many consider electrification as […]
READ moreIn an Op-Ed on The Hill, Professor Christopher Knittel discusses the plastic pollution problem and how a tax on new […]
READ moreMeredith Fowlie and Christopher Knittel have been appointed as co-directors of the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Environment and Energy […]
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On Thursday, September 23 at 4PM EDT, the Roosevelt Project held a webinar to release preliminary findings from the Gulf […]
READ moreThe decarbonization of the light-duty vehicle (LDV) fleet in the United States is an important policy priority for the coming […]
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The costs of replacing dispatchable power sources based on fossil fuels with intermittent renewable power sources remain controversial. The life-cycle […]
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The transition to EVs is within grasp, if it is supported by the right mix of policies. Prof. Knittel and two co-authors propose policies that Congress can adopt to meet this 50% goal by 2030.
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An article on NBCnews looks at storage solutions, such as Form Energy’s iron-air battery technology, and asks CEEPR Director Christopher Knittel for his thoughts on grid-scale storage options.
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CEEPR’s Deputy Director Michael Mehling and the Bipartisan Policy Center’s George David Banks discuss border carbon adjustment proposals from both the US and the EU in this piece on The Hill.
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California has a pressing need for additional sustainable fresh water supplies. This report explores the feasibility and economic benefits of co-locating a large seawater desalination plant at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant to supply potable water to the state. This arrangement integrates the two facilities by sharing infrastructure, forming a water-power coproduction system.
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In this paper, the authors assess options for rapid decarbonization of the power system with a focus on coal-reliant states across the midcontinent, where a diversity of entities share responsibility for maintaining a reliable and affordable supply of electricity.
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Many studies have found that achieving decarbonization targets in a cost-efficient manner will require significant investments in new transmission capacity. However, there are numerous barriers that go beyond “NIMBY†opposition. These barriers are identified and potential reforms to reducing them are discussed in this Working Paper.
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Many electricity sectors are now pursuing deep decarbonization goals which will entail replacing dispatchable fossil generation primarily with intermittent renewable generation over the next 20-30 years. In this paper, Paul Joskow thinks broadly about the options for institutional change from a Williamsonian perspective, which provides a useful framework for examining institutional adaptation.
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In an episode of NPR’s Planet Money podcast series, Director Christopher Knittel discusses corporate taxes, the current state of oil prices, and employment trends.
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Power-to-Gas technology has recently seen falling acquisition costs and lower conversion efficiency losses. In a new Working Paper, the authors examine the economic potential of reversible Power-to-Gas systems that can convert electricity to hydrogen or operate in the reverse direction to deliver electricity during times of high power prices.
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The next issue of the CEEPR Newsletter is now online. Read about research work and other collected news items from the past few months here.
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Congressman Scott H. Peters highlights CEEPR study on the benefits of including carbon pricing in a climate policy portfolio.
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The plan includes a broad array of new initiatives and significant expansions of existing programs to bring the Institute’s expertise to bear on this critical global issue.
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Fostering innovation is one of the longest-standing and most pressing economic challenges. Governments globally provide subsidies comprising hundreds of billions of dollars each year. A paper by CEEPR faculty affiliate Jacquelyn Pless examines the interdependence of direct subsidies and tax incentives on private R&D.
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MIT researchers join scholars from across the United States in an analysis of 35 policy proposals to support an equitable energy transition for all communities.
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Canada’s leading newspaper highlights CEEPR research that informed Hydro-Québec’s strategic realignment under CEO Sophie Brochu.
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The transition to a low-carbon electricity system is likely to require grid-scale energy storage to smooth the variability and intermittency of renewable energy. This paper investigates whether private incentives for operating and investing in grid-scale energy storage are optimal and the need for policies that complement investments in renewables with encouraging energy storage.
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The past decade has seen an unprecedented surge of climate change-driven extreme weather events that have wrought over $800 billion in damage and taken more than 5,200 lives across the United States — a trend that appears poised to intensify. At the same time, the need for a large-scale effort to decarbonize the U.S. electric power system has become clear, along with the growing climate risks and impacts that any such effort will face.
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An article in The New York Times explores how long fleet turnover may take to switch from gas-powered cars to electric vehicles and interviews CEEPR Director Christopher Knittel for his thoughts…
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CEEPR’s oil-battery price calculator used to evaluate prospects for EV uptake in Forbes Magazine. Read the full article here.
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In this Q&A with MIT SHASS Communications, Professor Clare Balboni describes the burgeoning influence of economics in understanding climate, energy, and environmental issues.
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Highway fast-charging (HFC) stations for electric vehicles (EVs) are necessary to address range anxiety concerns and thus to support economy-wide decarbonization goals through the electrification of transportation. The characteristics of HFC electricity demand – their relative inflexibility, high power requirements, and spatial concentration – have the potential to adversely impact grid operations as HFC infrastructure expands.
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In this paper, Bora Ozaltun carries out three studies of the local and global impacts of supply shocks in energy markets, including looking at the relationship between power plants, energy prices and local pollution, analyzing fossil fuel trade networks, and developing a general equilibrium model to isolate trade impacts of the shale revolution.
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For the ninth consecutive year, MIT CEEPR has been ranked among the top ten energy policy think tanks in the world, according to the annual “Global Go To Think Tank Index Report.”
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Held from March 10-12, the 2021 MIT Energy Conference will feature high-profile keynote speakers and panels covering the fossil transition, trends in renewable energy development, and many more.
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Variable renewable energy (VRE) resources, mainly wind and solar, are becoming increasingly important sources of electricity in many regions. In a new CEEPR Working Paper, MIT’s Cristian Junge, Dharik Mallapragada, and Richard Schmalensee consider welfare-optimal investment in – and operation of – electric power systems.
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Renewable generating technologies in the electricity market are often evaluated using the Levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). Using a more holistic approach, this CEEPR Working Paper measures the Levelized Avoided Cost of Electricity (LACE), which considers what it will cost the grid to generate electricity using renewable technology, amortized over its lifetime, to assess the economical value of the renewable generating technology.
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The next issue of the CEEPR Newsletter is now online. Read about research work and other collected news items from the past few months here.
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The Roosevelt Project has created an interactive mapping tool that visualizes the data collected by the research group, down to an individual US county level. You may visit the page here.
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In this upcoming webinar on Nov. 19, organized in collaboration with the MIT Energy Initiative Electric Power Systems Low Carbon Center, two experts on electricity systems and market design will address the impacts of power sector decarbonization on grid reliability.
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Past research suggests that choosing between these policies involves trade-offs between the relative efficiency and progressivity of carbon pricing on the one hand and the political acceptability of low-carbon standards on the other. To inform policy choice, this paper explores the effects of different combinations of both policies.
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As part of its Green Deal, the EU is currently preparing a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) that will extend carbon pricing to imports with a view to mitigating carbon leakage concerns. This paper outlines a CBAM design that allows producers to demonstrate that their actual carbon intensity lies below the default value.
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Sade Nabahe is a CEEPR Research Assistant working with the Roosevelt Project. Sade shares her experiences interning in Senator Tina Smith’s (D-MN) office as an energy workforce policy fellow.
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In this upcoming webinar on Oct. 22, two experts on transportation policy and economics, who will draw on recent research work to discuss challenges and opportunities on the path towards a low-carbon transportation sector.
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As federal debate heats up, a Washington Times op-ed co-authored by CEEPR’s Michael Mehling discusses the rationale of carbon pricing in the electricity sector.
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MIT today announced a dramatic overhaul of the MIT Climate Portal, climate.mit.edu, which provides timely, science-based information about the causes and consequences of climate change.
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By using a dataset of 100,000 customers’ half-hourly load data and income quintiles from Chicago, IL, the authors of this Working Paper simulate the operation of residential solar and behind-the-meter battery systems under 20%, 45% and 70% adoption levels and calculate both resulting bills as well as cost-shifts for every client.
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In this upcoming webinar on Oct. 8, organized in collaboration with the MIT Energy Initiative Electric Power Systems Low Carbon Center, three experts will weigh in on the prospects of hydrogen from different backgrounds and regional contexts.
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A new CEEPR Working Paper shows that residential rooftop solar PV adoption under typical electricity tariffs that inefficiently recover residual costs through volumetric charges creates substantial income distributional effects, specifically increasing average expenditures substantially for non-adopters, which tend to be predominantly lower income customers.
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In a post on Axios, Amy Harder recaps some highlights from her discussion with MIT’s Ernest Moniz during the Roosevelt Project webinar.
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The next webinar in the CEEPR Fall 2020 series takes place on Thursday September 24, and brings together Professor Jing Li and Professor Christopher Knittel – the authors of two CEEPR working papers evaluating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic through use of empirical data.
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The first nine Working Papers have been released under the Roosevelt Project, an initiative examining the transitional challenges associated with progress toward a deeply decarbonized U.S. economy. Please click here to access the series page.
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In this webinar, Professor Ernest Moniz will be joined by a group of high-level experts from academia, public policy and civil society to release nine Working Papers completed during the first phase of the Roosevelt Project. These offer a crosscutting and multidisciplinary assessment of key challenges and opportunities related to the transition. Panelists will present and discuss central messages from this first project phase.
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Many policymakers aim to redirect electric utilities’ power plant investments toward renewables. In much of Europe, state-owned and private utilities co-exist in a liberalized market environment, but the impact of ownership on the adoption of renewables is unclear. By investigating the investments of incumbent utilities in the EU during 2005-2016, the authors study the mechanisms by which ownership made a difference.
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This series of webinars will take place from August 27 through December 10 and will cover topics including challenges in electricity markets with high shares of renewables, the economic and environmental impacts of COVID-19, transportation emissions policy, the role of hydrogen in the energy sector, and more. Additional information may be found here as it is updated throughout the Fall semester.
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In this upcoming webinar on August 27, the authors of two recent CEEPR Working Papers will describe how bidding formats and pricing models are evolving on both sides of the Atlantic to accommodate the operational constraints of renewable energy and energy storage providers, highlighting a number of lessons learned.
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Members of Wyoming’s government and public university met with MIT researchers to discuss climate-friendly economic growth.
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CEEPR is pleased to announce its Fall 2020 Webinar Series. The series of seven webinars will take place from August 27 through December 10. Additional information may be found here:
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Researchers present an idealized model of optimally-controlled climate change, showing that the four methods of controlling climate damage– mitigation, carbon dioxide removal, adaptation, and solar radiation modification– are not interchangeable, as they enter at different stages of the causal chain that connects GHG emissions to damages.
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Emission standards are one of the primary policy tools used to reduce CO2 emissions in the passenger vehicle market. This Working Paper studies the 2015 introduction of an EU-wide emission standard to understand the effects of emission standards for consumers, firms, and the environment.
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The increasing penetration of renewable energy as well as storage resources requires adapting bidding formats and pricing schemes. Learning from best practices from both sides of the Atlantic, the researchers in this Working Paper review current trends and future challenges to properly evolve these market design elements.
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Power systems with high penetrations of solar generation need to replace solar output when it falls rapidly in the late afternoon – the duck curve problem. In this paper, Richard Schmalensee considers investment in generation and storage to minimize expected cost in a model of an electric power system with alternating daytime periods, with solar generation, and nighttime periods, without it.
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In this commentary, the researchers explore how the short-run effects of Covid-19 in reducing CO2 and local air pollutant emissions can easily be outweighed by the long-run effects of a slowing of the clean energy innovation. A quick stabilization of the economy and expediting investment in clean energy can make all the difference.
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An article in the Wall Street Journal discusses findings from a recent CEEPR Working Paper by Christopher Knittel and Bora Ozaltun on COVID-19 death rates.
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In this Working Paper, the researchers examine the global implications of electrifying the transportation fleet. Their analysis covers an array of topics including vehicle cost considerations, infrastructure concerns, emissions consequences, and the potential effect of electrification on gasoline tax revenues.
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In this article, Professor Knittel and Bora Ozaltun describe the conclusions from a recent CEEPR Working Paper on Covid-19 death rates.
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In this CEEPR Working Paper, Professor Knittel and Bora Ozaltun correlate county-level COVID-19 death rates between April 4, 2020 to May 27, 2020 with key variables using both linear regression and negative binomial mixed models. They include four sets of variables: socio-economic variables, county-level health variables, modes of commuting, and climate and pollution patterns.
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In a new CEEPR Working Paper, Professor Robert Pindyck explains that we face considerable uncertainty over climate change and its impact, why there is so much uncertainty, and why we will continue to face uncertainty in the near future. He also discusses the policy implications of climate change uncertainty.
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Pumped hydro storage (PHS) is an old solution to a new problem – the variability of renewable generation. A new CEEPR Working Paper presents a case study of Spain, demonstrating how PHS significantly increases the dispatch of low-carbon technologies and lowers emissions.
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In a new CEEPR Working Paper, the authors, which include CEEPR faculty member Professor Robert Pindyck, discuss the economics of catastrophic events such as climate change and global pandemics.
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In a feature on MIT News, Professor Jing Li discusses course 15.0201/14.43 – Economics of Energy, Innovation, and Sustainability.
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In lieu of the Spring 2020 Workshop, CEEPR Associates will have access to a series of webinars on May 14, 21, and 28. Please check here for further information.
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In this CEEPR Working Paper, the authors investigate how variable renewable energy and energy storage impacts the formation of prices and optimal investments in electricity markets, using an analytical approach to derive the system-optimal conditions for installed capacity of all generators and storage devices.
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Based on data for 548 apartment buildings over 16 years, this paper quantifies the implicit price of carbon associated with more than 400 energy efficiency interventions in 240 treated buildings. The results suggest significant heterogeneity in both energy savings and in the cost of carbon abatement associated with frequently subsidized measures such as windows replacement and wall insulation.
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An article in Bloomberg discusses recent findings from a CEEPR Working Paper on the role of Canadian hydropower for deep decarbonization of the US Northeast.
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States in the Northeastern U.S. can transition to low-carbon electricity at a lower cost by using hydropower reservoirs in Quebec for energy storage according to a new CEEPR Working Paper.
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Climate risk is everywhere — from flood, fire, and wind to migrating labor and depleted raw materials. MIT experts, including Chris Knittel, talk about what to do now to harden your supply chain.
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Governments use procurement auctions for renewable energy support to stimulate
investment in renewable energy. This Working Paper assesses the effect of prevalent auction design elements on effectiveness, using a unique dataset with results of auctions for renewable energy support from 1990 to 2017.
For the eighth year in a row, MIT CEEPR has been ranked among the top ten energy policy think tanks in the world, according to the annual “Global Go To Think Tank Index Report.”
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MIT researchers review renewable energy and carbon pricing policies as states consider repealing or relaxing renewable portfolio standards.
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To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, the world’s electric energy systems must stop producing carbon by 2050. “My work has shown me that we do have the means to tackle the problem…”
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On January 14, 2020, Professor Christopher Knittel testified before the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy at the Massachusetts State House. Read his full statement here.
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In this Working Paper, the researchers use causal forests to evaluate the heterogeneous treatment effects (TEs) of repeated behavioral nudges towards household energy conservation and find suggestive evidence of a “boomerang effectâ€: households with lower consumption than similar neighbors are the ones with positive TE estimates.
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In this CEEPR Working Paper, the authors report results from a social comparison feedback experiment incentivizing a reduction of indoor temperatures during the heating season. Despite the fact that most study participants did not face direct financial benefits from lowering heating energy consumption, the results show a statistically significant treatment effect of -0.54°F (-1.2%).
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The US solar industry typically uses a standard credit score as a factor in approving customers for new installations. The authors of this paper compare machine learning and econometric models to predict the probability of default to credit-score cutoffs.
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CEEPR faculty members Paul Joskow, David Keith, Christopher Knittel and Jessika Trancik participated in a recent MIT symposium titled “Decarbonizing the Electricity Sector.”
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In this CEEPR Working Paper, Professor Christopher Knittel and Professor Shinsuke Tanaka use novel microdata on on-road fuel consumption and prices paid for fuel to estimate short-run elasticities of demand for gasoline consumption.
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In an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, Professor Christopher Knittel lays out five features that combine to make global warming a more vexing environmental crisis than any we have faced before.
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The studies presented in this CEEPR Working Paper employ the Reference Electrification Model (REM) to investigate the value of accurately modeling detailed demand characteristics for electrification planning endeavors. REM prescribes cost-optimal supply technology designs for large areas of interest at building-level granularities given information about existing infrastructure, supply technology, and demand characteristics.
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Professor Valerie Karplus and Mengying Wu investigate how ï¬rms respond to crackdowns on public policy enforcement by linking the timing of centralized dispatch of environmental inspectors to cities in China with high-frequency observations of air pollution at coal power plants.
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Professor Richard Schmalensee provides a broad-brush comparison of performance under traditional arrangements for electricity supply with those that emerged after the world-wide wave of restructuring that began in the 1990s in a new CEEPR Working Paper.
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In an op-ed on The Rift, CEEPR’s Emil Dimanchev outlined the pros of a carbon tax on imports in the EU, stating that pricing CO2 imports would be a win-win for the environment and the EU economy.
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In a new CEEPR Working paper, researchers examine direct financial incentives for consumers that purchase battery electric vehicles. Their analysis estimates that state-level subsidies in the form of vehicle purchase rebates were responsible for an 11% increase in overall BEV registrations in the US from 2011 to 2015.
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A team of researchers, including CEEPR Director Christopher Knittel, examine the welfare effects of fuel-economy standards and apply their analytical framework to the recent government proposal to roll them back. They find that the rollback proposal suffers from inconsistencies due to a piecemeal equilibrium analysis, which are highlighted in a new CEEPR Working Paper.
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In a new journal article, CEEPR’s Andrés Inzunza and co-authors analyze how overlooking certain details in energy planning models may lead to an underestimation of the value of energy storage.
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In a new CEEPR Working Paper, Professor Christopher Knittel models the carbon price needed to achieve projected emission reductions under Obama-era vehicle mileage standards, the Clean Power Plan, and a biofuel mandate. He found that a federal carbon price of $7 in 2020 could reduce emissions by the same amount as all of the flagship climate policies adopted by the Obama administration.
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In an Op-ed in the Boston Globe, CEEPR faculty member and MIT Sloan Mitsui Career Development Professor David Keith provides insights in response to MassDOT’s report on traffic congestion.
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Negative emissions technologies (NETs) are increasingly looked to as a lever to achieve committed decarbonization goals. However, such technologies raise urgent technical questions around their risks, costs, and benefits. In a new CEEPR Working Paper, MIT Institute Professor John Deutch presents several options for the creation of a NET innovation program to promote their development and deployment, and discusses their implications.
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Researchers combine electricity prices, emissions rates, and weather data to map the changing value of PV at ~10,000 locations across the US. Cost declines are found to have outrun value declines, such that the energy, capacity, health, and climate benefits of PV outweigh utility-scale PV costs at the majority of locations modeled.
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Innovative methods for dispatching power at the residential level must be explored as more DERs are entering the market. This CEEPR Working Paper explains how power dispatching works today, and introduces an alternative, decentralized method that accounts for DERs such as rooftop solar and electric vehicles.
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Namrata Kala and Christopher Knittel plan to examine key policy levers for meeting electricity demand and renewable energy growth without jeopardizing system reliability in the developing world.
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In this commentary, CEEPR Senior Research Associate Emil Dimanchev discusses research on the effects of Ohio’s RPS on air quality and human health.
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On the Indicator, an NPR podcast show, Stacey Vanek Smith talks to Christopher Knittel, an economist at MIT, about what caused the turnaround in the oil dynamic between the US and OPEC, and what it means for the US and for the global economy.
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FERC recently issued Order 841, which is intended to open wholesale energy markets to merchant storage providers. In this Working Paper, Prof. Richard Schmalensee explores the validity of the Order’s presumption that existing markets will provide at least approx. optimal incentives for investment in both storage and generation: it does not contemplate the establishment of new markets or new policies.
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In The New York Times, Christian Stoll discusses findings first published in a CEEPR Working Paper on the carbon footprint of virtual currency.
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Christopher Knittel is P&Qs’ Professor of the Week. Everybody knows that Millennials marry later and buy fewer homes than previous generations did. But when it comes to cars, that conventional wisdom is wrong…
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When governments need to raise public revenues, they should tax non-renewable resources more than regular commodities according to a dynamic rule. For carbon resources, that means augmenting the carbon tax in a way that further reduces their development and slows down their exploitation, which goes further in the direction of resolving the climate problem.
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In this article on The Conversation, CEEPR faculty Professors David Keith and Christopher Knittel point out the difficulties facing the transition away from internal combustion engine vehicles.
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In an article on Press&Journal, John Parsons discusses a vital decision about the place nuclear power will have in Pennsylvania’s future.
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In this episode of TILclimate (Today I Learned: Climate), MIT economics professor Christopher Knittel joins host Laur Hesse Fisher to break down the complexities of carbon pricing.
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Power-to-Gas could become a central enabler of the transition towards a sustainable economy by reversibly converting electricity to hydrogen. A new paper shows that it will be competitive with fossil-based energy sources so as to solve the challenges of intermittent renewable generation and widespread industrial decarbonization.
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Professor Christopher Knittel and CEEPR graduate Elizabeth Murphy delve into the data to determine if conventional thinking regarding Millennials pans out. Their findings indicate there is little difference in preferences for vehicle ownership versus prior generations when controlling for confounding variables.
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Christopher Knittel and Elizabeth Murphy’s recent work on millennial vehicle ownership trends are highlighted in this Economics Opinion piece on Bloomberg.
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In an article on Global.ca, a panel of experts, including Prof. Knittel, highlight choices one can make to reduce your carbon footprint.
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In this article on CityLab, reporter Laura Bliss discusses findings from a new working paper by CEEPR Director Christopher Knittel and recently graduated CEEPR Research Assistant Elizabeth Murphy.
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Fuel-switching is inevitable to achieve deep decarbonization. This has, inter alia, prompted an increasing number of countries to announce coal phase-out mandates in the power sector. This working paper suggest that, when accounting for stranded assets, a decarbonization pathway that is based on gradual transition to renewable energy and initially retains coal generating assets turns out to be less expensive than a strict coal phase-out.
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In this SF Chronicle article, a group of experts, including CEEPR Director Christopher Knittel, weigh in on some of the potential reforms and changes that PG&E may consider.
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CEEPR Deputy Director Michael Mehling serves as conference co-chair.
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Professor Paul L. Joskow discusses the provisions of Order 1000, its application by ISOs, and examines the evidence to date regarding the development and application of the competitive transmission procurement model in the U.S in this CEEPR Working Paper.
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This working paper studies the effectiveness of energy efficiency upgrades in K-12 schools, and demonstrate that the machine learning method outperforms standard panel fixed effects approaches. The authors find that the upgrades deliver only 53% of ex ante expected savings on average, and find a similarly low correlation between school-specific predictions of energy savings and realized savings.
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In this paper, researchers find that low-income customers would face bill increases on average in a transition to more economically efficient electricity tariffs. However, they demonstrate that simple changes to fixed charges in two-part tariffs can mitigate these disparities while preserving all, or the vast majority, of the efficiency gains.
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A paper written by Professor Paul L. Joskow examines the current and likely future effects on wholesale electricity markets and the challenges these markets face due to the rapid expansion of intermittent (or variable) renewable energy, primarily wind and solar, with close to zero marginal generating costs.
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Blockchain has its roots in the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, which was the first successful attempt to validate transactions via a decentralized data protocol. Participation in its validation process requires specialized hardware and vast amounts of electricity, which translate into a significant carbon footprint.
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CEEPR Deputy Director Michael Mehling presented research on the implementation of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement at a COP24 side event.
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CEEPR graduate students Sruthi Davuluri and Anthony Fratto recently attended the COP24 held in Katowice, Poland. Read about their reflections here.
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A recent paper written by a team of researchers from leading universities, including CEEPR Director Christopher Knittel, has been published in Science today. Read about the conclusions here.
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As Parties to the Paris Agreement convene in Poland for COP24, they will be negotiating guidance on the implementation of cooperative approaches, which allow countries to use internationally transferred mitigation outcomes towards their national climate pledges. A new CEEPR Working Paper offers insights from theory and practice to inform the negotiations.
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Nuclear power provides more than 20% of Spain’s electricity. As each of the 7 plants approaches its 40 year design life, a decision must be made whether to invest in a life extension, considering Spain’s goal of reducing GHG emissions. This research shows that life extensions are the least-cost alternative for further reducing GHG emissions.
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Who would pay for a company to sequester carbon underground? MIT economist Christopher Knittel discusses a potential solution in a Wired article here.
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Market power is typically an important concern in restructured electricity markets. This paper shows that financial traders, who trade alongside physical buyers and sellers, can increase competitiveness and lead to lower consumer prices by effectively competing with generators and restricting their market power.
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In an article in Grist, Professor Christopher Knittel comments on the carbon tax debate. Read the full article here.
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In this paper, the authors explore role of imperfect information and attentional biases in the context of energy efficiency investments by quantifying how alternative informational interventions affect tenants’ acceptance of rent increases in exchange for improved energy efficiency of their heating appliance.
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In “The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World,” released by the MIT Energy Initiative on Sept. 3, the authors analyze the reasons for the current global stall of nuclear energy capacity…
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Christopher Knittel, Konstantinos Metaxoglou, Anson Soderbery and Andre Trindade examine the effect of the US Shale Gas Boom on global trade, consumption of coal, and CO2 emissions and the results show that the total quantity of coal traded around in the absence of the Boom is essentially the same as the actual…
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In a new CEEPR Working Paper, the authors delineate various aspects of equity and fairness that regulators must grapple with when designing electricity tariffs and show that more economically efficient tariffs can improve several aspects of equity. The research argues that DER adoption under existing tariff schemes may increase inequities already present in the power system.
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In a new CEEPR Working Paper, the authors show that inefficiencies from having separate markets to correct an environmental externality are significantly mitigated when firms participate in an integrated product market, using data from an integrated wholesale electricity market.
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Climate and energy policies lead to a declining market for the incumbent technologies in electricity markets. Facing the challenge of closures, incumbent firms have incentives to coordinate closures through cross-ownership to achieve a collusive phase-out. For the Nordic nuclear industry, a quantification shows a highly distorted phase-out, both for the consumer surplus and the environment.
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Data analytics will play a major role in advancing global energy efficiency and high performance building goals nationally and globally. As the fault detection and diagnostics industry emerges and unlocks numerous energy efficiency savings opportunities in buildings, it is crucial that we also advance our methodologies for evaluating these systems and quantifying the energy impact.
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Professor Robert S. Pindyck of MIT and Professor James H. Stock of Harvard University discuss the importance of the social cost of carbon in a new piece on TheHill.
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A new paper compares EU and US electricity market designs, arguing for a focus on correct price formation in the short-term to incentivize investments and reliability. Increased demand-side participation, improved pricing during scarcity, and a transition from technology-specific renewables subsidies towards adequate pricing of carbon emissions, are key to achieving a market-compatible integration of renewable energy.
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In light of the decentralization of the power sector, a new CEEPR Working Paper carefully considers how industry structure regulations impacts competition, market development, and the efficiency of investments in and operations of network infrastructure and connected resources.
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In this paper, the authors conduct an econometric analysis of the performance of reforms in terms of efficiency, welfare, and economic development in 47 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa between 2002 and 2013.
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Jacopo Buongiorno and John Parsons, co-directors of the MITEI LCEC for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems, discuss how to overcome the challenges and realize the benefits of expanding nuclear power.
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In 2013, the UK introduced radical market reform to meet the new challenges – a change which some critics denounced as a return to central planning, whilst others feared the costs. The results to date suggest that EMR is a step forwards, not backwards; but it is not the end of the story.
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Christopher Knittel and Francis O’Sullivan, co-directors of the MITEI LCEC for Electric Power Systems Research, are exploring cleaner, more reliable, and more cost-effective solutions.
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On Jan. 25, a panel at MIT explored the benefits, costs, and political challenges involved in translating carbon pricing from concept into law in Massachusetts and beyond.
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Soon-to-be assistant professor of applied economics focuses on development and deployment solutions that can help the world move to a low-carbon future.
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In a new CEEPR Working Paper, the authors examine the response of vehicle purchase behavior to China’s largest national subsidy program for fuel efficient vehicles during 2010 and 2011.
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Corrective taxes can completely solve a variety of market failures, but actual policies are commonly forced to deviate from the theoretical ideal due to administrative or political constraints. A new CEEPR Working Paper presents a method that requires a minimum of market information to quantify the costs of imperfect pricing, using simple regression statistics.
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MIT CEEPR, together with the Baker Institute, will host experts for a discussion focusing on the future of transportation. Registration is now open, please find details within.
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Prices in U.S. electricity markets fell precipitously in recent years, driving several nuclear power plants to announce plans to close well before the end of their licensed operation. A new working paper provides the first empirical estimate of the geographically heterogeneous impact of three factors on the decline in market prices earned by nuclear plants in the PJM Interconnection between 2008-2016.
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At this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP23), delegates from around the world worked on strategies to accelerate progress toward the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement. In Bonn, Germany, as negotiators worked to find common ground, MIT researchers from different technology and social science backgrounds shared their ideas for climate action.
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In a new CEEPR working paper, the authors find that climate-related actions outside of Russia decrease Russia’s energy exports and lower Russia’s GDP growth rate. The paper offers suggestions for key elements of the Post-Paris strategy, including diversification of economy, moving to low-carbon energy, and investing in human capital development.
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MIT researchers are working with the Mexican government on carbon pricing options to meet the country’s climate goals under the Paris Agreement. For further reading please visit the MIT News site here.
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International linkage of climate policies can play an important role in ensuring adequate climate ambition under the Paris Agreement. A new Working Paper looks at the opportunities for – and barriers to – linkage of heterogeneous regional, national and subnational climate policies.
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Innovative study finds energy efficiency investments made at California public schools may not provide as much benefit as officials expected.
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A study released Tuesday by economists at UC Davis, Yale, and MIT shows that families who own fuel-efficient cars tend to buy big, powerful gas guzzlers as their second vehicle, largely defeating the purpose of the little petrol sippers in their garages.
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Now more than ever, natural gas is hoped to effectively help shale gas producing regions reduce their CO2 emissions, by largely replacing their coal energy input. At the same time, the domestic replacement of coal by gas releases amounts of tradable coal, whose supply meets the foreign energy demand, contributing to increase emissions in the rest of the world.
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Black carbon particulates in “soot†emissions have significant detrimental impacts on public health, climate change and food production; and diesel engines in the transportation sector are a major source of such emissions. There are cost-effective technologies that can mitigate the emissions. However, a wide range of policies at all levels of government are needed to incentivize the uptake of emission-mitigating technologies.
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Market-Âbased regulation, and in particular Pigovian taxes/subsidies, have the potential to make consumers internalize socially harmful external effects associated with their choices. Recent behavioral literature, however, suggests that explicit financial penalties/rewards may undermine willingness to behave prosocially.
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Electricity sector restructuring processes can undergo long, protracted transition periods that are not well-captured in typical power systems operation models. We create a tractable dispatch optimization with important political considerations for a region of China, demonstrating interactions among institutions relevant for ongoing power sector reforms.
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U.S. nuclear reactors have been retiring at an unprecedented pace for the last few years. Tens of gigawatts of zero-emission nuclear capacity are now at risk of retiring prematurely, before the end of their operating license. We examine the root causes of this phenomena and discuss regulatory options for policymakers.
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The impact of environmental regulation on firm productivity has been long been debated, however, mainly for western economies and with limited firm-level evidence. We study the impact of a large-scale national energy saving program in China on firm productivity in the iron and steel industry and find positive effects on productivity growth.
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The existence of a forest-savanna tipping point implies that changes in forest resilience affect the marginal economic value of a standing forest. We propose a new framework for calculating the economic value of a standing tropical forest, and explore the implications of tipping points on the design of optimal land-use policy and payments for ecosystem services.
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When do states drive green industrial change? We show that in mature industries with powerful incumbents the ability of the state to organize private interests in support of technological change is critical to develop innovation policy. States with competitive state-business relations can accomplish this more easily than states with cooperative state-business relations. In the case of the auto industry, the United States adopted a policy package to commercialize electric cars. Germany, instead, adopted a wait-and-see policy based on coordination with automakers.
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Environmental standards can affect new-equipment sales and used-equipment retirements. We identify two additional effects, of anticipation, on the flow and stock of regulated equipment, and discuss the implications for policy design and program evaluation.
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Like in other deregulated markets, financial players were introduced to the Midwest electricity market to arbitrage price differences that distort planning decisions. Unlike other markets, this did not seemed to be working. Instead, we find some players bidding in the wrong direction and consistently losing money, possibly in an attempt to manipulate market prices.
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In a new CEEPR Working Paper, Ian Schneider and Mardavij Roozbehani explain how existing production-based subsidies for wind energy bias marginal investments to underweight the market value of energy produced.
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How much shale oil do we have left? And how much of that can be recovered economically? A new estimation technique suggests that, in the Bakken play, roughly 8 billion barrels of the remaining shale oil resources could be developed at a cost of $50/barrel.
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The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program was introduced in 1975 with the objective of reducing gasoline consumption. Under CAFE, automakers are required to meet a minimum sales-weighted average fuel economy for their vehicle fleets. Fuel economy standards impose costs, but who bears those costs?
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As hydraulic fracturing, or fracing, is poised to play an even more important role in the nation’s energy system in coming years, how can benefits at the national scale—such as lower energy prices, enhanced energy security, and lower air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions—be weighed against concerns that negative health and social impacts outweigh the economic benefits for local communities where drilling takes place?
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A new working paper by Fiona Burlig, Christopher Knittel, David Rapson, Mar Reguant and Catherine Wolfram1 studies the cost-effectiveness of energy efficiency investments in over 2,000 K-12 California public schools served by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E).
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Energy storage will play a critical role in enabling the transition to low-carbon electricity systems, providing capacity, energy, and ancillary benefits to help secure a stable and reliable power supply. But even as the technology horizon evolves, the value of different storage technologies remains uncertain.
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Between June 2014 and March 2016, the inflation-adjusted price of oil dropped by 66%, yet average U.S. economic growth accelerated only slightly from 1.8% at annual rates before the oil price decline to 2.2% thereafter. The fact that this decline in the price of oil failed to translate into faster U.S. economic growth has puzzled many observers who expected a boom in the U.S. economy.
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The economics rationale for environmental regulation is simple and strong: private decisions about how much to pollute lead to socially undesirable levels of pollution. We need policy to correct this flaw in markets. The question is, which policies?
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Together with partners from German utility and CEEPR Associate Energie Baden-Württemberg AG (EnBW), the University of Duisburg-Essen and the Stiftung Energie & Klimaschutz, MIT CEEPR organized a conference on September 8th and 9th, 2016 to discuss analytical tools and decision making strategies for dealing with uncertainty in energy policy, economics and management.
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According to the latest energy outlook from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, tight oil production was 4.28 Mb/d for 2014 and 4.89 Mb/d for 2015. It is projected to fall to 4.27 Mb/d for 2016. A recent CEEPR working paper by Robert Kleinberg, Sergey Paltsev, Charles Ebinger, David Hobbs, and Tim Boersma offers an investigation into this phenomenon.
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In a recent MIT CEEPR working paper, we start with the observation that, since the mid-twentieth century, public regulators have lost public trust. Recent catastrophes, such as the global financial crisis, the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil-drilling rig, and the Fukushima disaster, have reinforced this dynamic, raising questions about the independence of the agencies involved.
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On July 7th and 8th, 2016, CEEPR cooperated with EPRG and Electricité de France to convene the 2016 European Energy Policy Conference in Paris, France. Over 70 participants from research, industry, and the public sector converged at the historic George C. Marshall Center for a varied program covering key topics in the energy and environmental policy arena.
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In the development of energy and environmental policy, cooperation between research, industry and policy making is critical. This message was central to the work presented and discussed at the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR) 2016 Spring Research Workshop.
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MIT has formally joined the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition, a global partnership of governments, businesses, and civil society organizations working together with the goal of applying a price on carbon emissions, the predominant cause of climate change.
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Against the backdrop of a recent U.S.-Canada Joint Statement on Climate, Energy, and Arctic Leadership that emphasized the role of carbon trading in North American climate cooperation, MIT CEEPR convened a timely high-level event on the prospects for emissions trading and carbon market linkage in Canada and the United States.
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On April 29, 2016, CEEPR and the Alfred P. Sloan foundation convened a symposium for the leadership and management of major energy economics and policy research initiatives across the United States.
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The E2e Project is in the process of launching the largest demonstration and evaluation of an innovative energy monitoring system for industrial facilities.
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Energy scenarios are a useful tool for industry experts, government officials, academic researchers and the general public to assist in policy-making, planning and investment decisions. Such scenarios provide projections on a wide range of issues, including production, consumption, trade, prices, investments, technology mixes, and many others.
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In 2014, global oil supply overtook demand and the oil price started to decline. In its November 2014 meeting, OPEC decided not to reduce supply and prices fell further. In its December 2015 meeting, OPEC reiterated its commitment to a “market-share†strategy. Many have opined on whether or not OPEC’s moves are sensible.
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Intermittent energy resources increase the volatility of energy supply as well as the associated market clearing prices, creating uncertainty around when the system will experience “scarcityâ€â€” the very few hours of the year when capacity is strained exhibiting prices high-enough to cover a large portion of the capital and fixed operation and maintenance costs incurred by all types of installed generation capacity.
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On the heels of a historic climate agreement in Paris, a new study published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives sheds light on the world’s ability to stop using fossil fuels. Its conclusion: fossil fuel consumption is likely to continue growing without clear and decisive global action to introduce an adequate price on greenhouse gas emissions and increase research and development spending toward clean energy technologies.
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Electricity systems are currently facing significant changes as a result of the deployment of information and communication technologies (ICTs), power electronics, and distributed energy resources (e.g., gas-fired distributed generation, solar PV, small wind farms, electric vehicles, energy storage, and demand response). Given the small scale of these technologies, many industry stakeholders claim that aggregators can create economic value by enabling DERs to provide these services at scale.
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Held in Cambridge, Massachusetts on November 19 and 20, the 2015 Fall Research Workshop brought together over 80 participants for a lively discussion of relevant issues in the broader energy and environmental policy arena.
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On November 5, the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR) joined the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change and the Program on Science, Technology, and Society at Harvard University to convene a discussion on the upcoming United Nations Climate Change summit in Paris.
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On October 21, Richard Schmalensee, Professor and Dean Emeritus at the MIT Sloan School of Management and former CEEPR Director, spoke at a seminar hosted by Resources for the Future in Washington, D.C.
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In October, a group of experts gathered at the Brookings Institute to discuss the Renewable Fuel Standard, a policy to promote biofuels that was enacted ten years ago. Participants in the event assessed the success of the legislation and evaluated its effects on greenhouse gas emissions, food prices, and fuel prices.
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A recent CEEPR working paper uses data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Energy Information Administration (EIA) along with market models to provide an in depth look at the environmental and operational effects of fuel price changes on electricity generators.
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A newly published study co-authored by Christopher R. Knittel shows how the asymmetric distribution of costs and benefits of the 2005 Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) has implications for voting behavior and climate policy choices.
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With great sadness, MIT CEEPR faculty and staff learned of the passing of a long-time friend and supporter, Tom Therkildsen of Statoil ASA. “Tom was one of our most thoughtful and engaged
partners in the energy industry– he will be sorely missedâ€, said CEEPR Director Christopher Knittel.
On September 7, 2015, MIT CEEPR Senior Research Scientist Sergey Paltsev visited
Istanbul, Turkey, for an invited lecture on the economics and geopolitics of natural
gas at Sabanci University.
On July 9 and 10, CEEPR and EPRG joined forces with Royal Dutch Shell plc to host the
15th installment of the European Energy Policy Conference in London,United Kingdom. Reflecting the disruptive trends affecting various areas of the energy sector, and acknowledging
the importance of the upcoming international climate summit in Paris (COP21), the organizers titled the 2015 conference “Building a Sustainable Future Energy System: More Energy, Better Energy Management, Less CO2â€.
On May 21 and 22, the 2015 Spring Research Workshop brought together around 70 participants for a timely discussion of trends and developments in the energy space.
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MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research is delighted to welcome a new faculty affiliate: Georgia Perakis, the William F. Pounds Professor of Management and a Professor of Operations Research and Operations Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
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Two recent working papers co-authored by Georgia Perakis, the William F. Pounds Professor of Operations Research at the MIT Sloan School of Management and an affiliate of CEEPR examine such factors by addressing the role of competition and flexibility in the application of green technology subsidies.
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On May 5, 2015, the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) released a comprehensive new study titled The Future of Solar Energy. As with earlier installments of the highly regarded MIT “Future of … “ report series, several CEEPR faculty and research affiliates were involved in the elaboration of the study, contributing economic and policy insights to a multidisciplinary, multi-year research effort. Former CEEPR Director Richard Schmalensee, a Professor of Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, served as the study’s chair.
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For the third year in a row, CEEPR has placed among the top 10 “Energy and Resource Policy Think Tanks in the annual Global Go To Think Tank Index Report
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Sound climate policy makes for good politics. In a nutshell, that was the message conveyed by a high-ranking delegation of government, civil society and business representatives from British Columbia, who discussed experiences with their province’s carbon tax at an Earth Day Colloquium organized on April 13, 2015 by the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) and the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy (CEEPR). More than 200 participants convened in the Walker Memorial’s spacious Morss Hall to hear first-hand how British Columbia was able to introduce a carbon price, and what effects it has had on the local economy and the environment. Comments by MIT faculty and a local State Senator underscored the economic merits of carbon pricing and its prospects as a policy option for Massachusetts.
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On April 22, 2015, CEEPR and the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) convened a
symposium to address the latest developments in unconventional hydrocarbon exploration, its effects on oil and natural gas markets, and broader geopolitical implications.
Implemented in the midst of the 2009 recession, the U.S. Cash for Clunkers program aimed to boost sales in the struggling automobile industry. A recent CEEPR working paper by Hoekstra, Puller, and West (HPW, 2015) finds that this multifaceted program design actually caused Cash for Clunkers to reduce overall revenues to the industry the policy was designed to help.
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In a recent CEEPR working paper, Saraly Andrade de Sá and Julien Daubanes combine empirical estimates to establish that the demand for OPEC’s oil exhibits a less-than-one demand elasticity, in contradiction with the widely-used approach to OPEC’s market power.
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Working with four colleagues in DAS, Dr. John E. Parsons completed a study of a unique type of financial trading known as Virtual Bidding. The research helps understand certain situations in which virtual bidding not only fails to improve system performance, but also adds to system costs.
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In climate diplomacy, negotiators frequently reject “technical†initiatives that only require simple coordination, despite the affordable reputational gains they may gain from cooperation. Motivated by this puzzle, Dr. Antto Vihma and Dr. Johannes Urpelainen developed a formal model to analyze negotiation dynamics.
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A balanced mix of current themes in the energy and environmental policy debate
featured at CEEPR’s 2014 Fall Research Workshop, held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on November 20 and 21, 2014.
CEEPR Director Christopher Knittel gives an interview on WGBH radio on energy prices…
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Last June, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed a rule to limit carbon dioxide emissions from existing U.S. power plants. A new article published in Science magazine on 14 November 2014 and co-authored by CEEPR Director Christopher R. Knittel examines how key design features of the proposed rule might affect its environmental effectiveness, and offers recommendations to help minimize the economic costs of compliance.
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National media outlets turned to CEEPR experts for early reactions on the EPA’s proposed rulemaking on carbon emissions from existing power plants, issued in early June.
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CEEPR faculty affiliate Michael Greenstone was cited in a New York Times article on the potential impacts of abundant natural gas on the environment.
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Morris Albert Adelman, a giant in the field of energy economics and a faculty member in the MIT Department of Economics for 40 years, died on May 8 at the age of 96.
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In a column in the Los Angeles Times, CEEPR faculty Michael Greenstone, with Francesca Dominici and Cass Sunstein of Harvard University commented on the recent decision by a US Court of Appeals over the EPA
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CEEPR’s Executive Director, Dr. John Parsons, was recently appointed to the Global Markets Advisory Committee of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The CFTC is the US government agency responsible for supervising most derivatives trading in the US, including the energy and agriculture commodity derivatives markets.
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If you have stopped at a gas station recently, there is a good chance your auto has consumed fuel with ethanol blended into it. Yet the price of gasoline is not substantially affected by the volume of its ethanol content, according to a paper co-authored by an MIT economist.
READ moreThe structure of the auditing business appears problematic: Typically, major companies pay auditors to examine their books under the so-called
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Professor Robert Pindyck has a new working paper (CEEPR-WP-2013-007) that has attracted a good share of attention since it steps into the highly charged debate on the reliability of research related to climate change.
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A high level of air pollution, in the form of particulates produced by burning coal, significantly shortens the lives of people exposed to it, according to a unique new study of China co-authored by an MIT economist.
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The E2e Project aims to give decision-makers real-world evidence on the most cost-effective ways to reduce energy and emissions.
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In this Faculty Forum Online broadcast, Chris Knittel discussed his studies of consumer and company reactions to energy price fluctuations and the implications of this work for effective environmental policies.
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Would the approval and construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta, Canada to the US Gulf Coast lead to increased emissions?
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In a column in USA Today, CEEPR co-Director Christopher Knittel writes that more research into energy efficiency is needed if Americans are to meet the energy efficiency goal set by President Obama in his State of the Union Address.
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MIT Economics doctoral students are researching a wide range of energy and environmental policy issues. Pictured above, from left to right, are Joseph Shapiro, Manasi Abhay Deshpande and Jennifer Peck.
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For more than 60 years the BP Statistical Review of World Energy has published some of the most comprehensive analysis on global energy markets.
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CEEPR Executive Director Dr. John Parsons
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Michael Greenstone writes in the Washington Post that President Obama
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Knittel is the William Barton Rogers Professor of Energy Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management, having joined MIT earlier this year.
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On Monday, December 5th, members of the MIT study team presented the results of The Future of the Electric Grid: An MIT Interdisciplinary Study at the National Press Club, 529 14th Street NW, Washington, DC.
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Anna Agarwal is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and is also pursuing a M.S. in the Technology and Policy Program. Her research focus is on risk management and the commercial structuring of the CCS (carbon capture and storage) value chain.
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MIT has completed a multi-year study on the Future of Natural Gas. This report updates an interim report released in June 2010.
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MIT has completed a 3-year study on the Future of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle. The study addresses two overarching questions: (1) What are the long-term desirable fuel cycle options and (2) What are the implications for near-term policy choices?
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Dr. Jean-Pierre Hansen will teach the IAP course
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CEEPR and MIT’s Joint Program, together with Japan’s Institute of Energy Economics (IEEJ) co-hosted a Workshop on energy and climate change policy in Tokyo on September 30-October 1, 2010. The Workshop took place in the Keidanren Kaikan.
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On August 3, 2010, Dr. Zhaoguang Hu, Vice President and Chief Energy Specialist at the State Grid Energy Research Institute and head of the Power Supply and Demand Research Laboratory, presented a seminar titled
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Please join MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change on JUNE 24 at an Afternoon Symposium to honor and pay tribute to Program Co-Founder and Co-Director, Professor Henry D. “Jake” Jacoby.
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The first attempt by any group of nations to establish a hard limit on greenhouse gas emissions
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January is Independent Activities Period (IAP) at MIT. Students at MIT
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MIT Economics Ph.D. students are researching a wide range of energy and environmental policy issues. Pictured above, from left to right, are Mar Reguant, Tatyana Deryugina, Nicholas Ryan and Joseph Shapiro.
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Student participation in CEEPR research is integral to MIT educational mission.
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On Thursday, April 16, MITEI celebrated the 70th birthday of Institute Professor John Deutch by holding a symposium in recognition of his significant contributions over the last 40 years in the field of chemistry and physics, his role in national security and energy policy, as well as his years of governance at MIT.
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CEEPR will host 2 Visiting Professors at MIT to collaborate and work on energy research.
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Richard Schmalensee takes over as CEEPR Director as of September 2008. Most recently, Professor Schmalensee served as the John C Head III Dean of MIT
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In January 2008, CEEPR hosted a workshop in Washington DC on the European CO2 Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) as part of a project funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.
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Long time CEEPR Director, Professor Paul Joskow, has resigned his position in order to become President of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
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CEEPR is collaborating with professors in a number of engineering disciplines on a research program that will explore the conversion of low-value carbon feedstocks such as petcoke and coal to high-value products such as electricity, liquid fuels and chemicals while minimizing carbon dioxide emissions.
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