Publication Year

2018

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

The Carbon Footprint of Bitcoin

December 20, 2018

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.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

Cooperative approaches under the Paris Agreement discussed at COP 24

December 17, 2018

CEEPR Deputy Director Michael Mehling presented research on the implementation of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement at a COP24 side event.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

“Climate change will not wait for us”

December 14, 2018

CEEPR graduate students Sruthi Davuluri and Anthony Fratto recently attended the COP24 held in Katowice, Poland. Read about their reflections here.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

Rules to boost fuel economy for passenger vehicles will do more good than harm, new study shows

December 6, 2018

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.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

Governing Cooperative Approaches under the Paris Agreement

December 3, 2018

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.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

The Rationale for Investment in Life Extension of Spanish Nuclear Power Plants

November 20, 2018

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.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

Carbon Capture is Messy and Fraught – But Might Be Essential

October 29, 2018

Who would pay for a company to sequester carbon underground? MIT economist Christopher Knittel discusses a potential solution in a Wired article here.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

Dynamic Competition and Arbitrage in Electricity Markets: The Role of Financial Players

October 12, 2018

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.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

Carbon tax debate: Nobels and IPCC vs. Trump and Doug Ford

October 9, 2018

In an article in Grist, Professor Christopher Knittel comments on the carbon tax debate. Read the full article here.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

Energy Efficiency, Information, and the Acceptability of Rent Increases

September 14, 2018

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.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

MIT Energy Initiative study reports on the future of nuclear energy

September 6, 2018

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…

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

Does the U.S. Export Global Warming? Coal Trade and the Shale Gas Boom

September 4, 2018

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…

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

Fair, Equitable, and Efficient Tariffs in the Presence of DERs

August 15, 2018

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.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

Coordinating Separate Markets for Externalities

July 26, 2018

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.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

Who Closes First? Ownership and Collusive Early Exits

July 17, 2018

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.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

Measuring Savings from Fault Detection and Diagnostics

June 4, 2018

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.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

We don’t know what climate change will cost — that doesn’t mean we can ignore it

May 9, 2018

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.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

Electricity Market Design with Renewables

May 1, 2018

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.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

Restructuring Revisited: Competition and Coordination in Electricity Distribution Systems

March 20, 2018

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.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

Power Sector Reform and Corruption: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

March 7, 2018

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.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

3 Questions: The Future of Nuclear Energy

February 21, 2018

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.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

Reforming Electricity Markets for the Transition: Emerging Lessons from the UK’s Bold Experiment

February 7, 2018

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.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

3 Questions: Transforming our Electric Power System

February 2, 2018

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.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

Is Massachusetts ready for carbon pricing?

January 30, 2018

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.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

Jing Li: Applying economics to energy technology

January 30, 2018

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.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

Subsidizing Fuel Efficient Cars: Evidence from China’s Automobile Industry

January 29, 2018

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.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

The Use of Regression Statistics to Analyze Imperfect Pricing Policies

January 24, 2018

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.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

A Sector in Transition: Transportation in the 21st Century

January 10, 2018

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.

Parliamentary Secretary Mike Bernier summarizes British Columbia’s positive experience with its revenue-neutral carbon tax

What’s Killing Nuclear Power in U.S. Electricity Markets?

January 4, 2018

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.