Consumers' willingness to pay for renewable and nuclear energy: A comparative analysis between the US and Japan

This paper examines consumers' willingness to pay for nuclear and renewable electricity as two alternatives to fossil fuels for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. We conduct a choice experiment of consumer-stated preferences on the basis of an online survey in four US states and Japan after the Fukushima nuclear plant accident. First, the results suggest that US consumers' willingness to pay for a 1% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions is $0.31 per month, which is similar to the results for the US a decade ago. Japanese consumers show a slightly lower willingness to pay of $0.26 per month. Second, the average consumer in both countries expresses a negative preference for increases in nuclear power in the fuel mix (to a greater extent in Japan). Third, renewable energy sources were endorsed by both US and Japanese consumers, who show a willingness to pay $0.71 and $0.31 per month for a 1% increase in the use of renewable source energy. This study also examines the differences in respondents' characteristics. Approximately 60% of the US respondents who did not change their perception concerning the use of nuclear energy subsequent to the Fukushima nuclear crisis have almost no preference for variation in nuclear power, which is in stark contrast to the Japanese respondents' opposition to nuclear energy.     

A transition toward a market expansion phase: Policies for promoting wind power in Taiwan

Considering the significant issues on global warming and environmental protection, the energy sector needs a long-term policy, by which renewable energies gradually replace conventional fossil fuels. In terms of an energy system, the development of renewable energies implies a challenge to existing energies like fossil fuels and nuclear power that have been for decades equipped with sound infrastructure and regulations. And a transformation of the energy system cannot expect any achievement without overcoming considerable opposition from vested interests involved with the fossil fuels technologies.     

Eliciting public support for greening the electricity mix using random parameter techniques

With its commitment to double the share of renewable fuels in electricity generation to at least 30% by 2020, the German government has embarked on a potentially costly policy course whose public support remains an open empirical question. Building on household survey data, in this paper we assess people's willingness-to-pay (WTP) for various fuel mixes in electricity generation, and capture preference heterogeneity among respondents using random parameter techniques. Based on our estimates, we trace out the locus that links the premia charged for specific electricity mixes with the fraction of people supporting the policy. Albeit people's WTP for a certain fuel mix in electricity generation is positively correlated to the renewable fuel share, our results imply that the current surcharge effectively exhausts the financial scope for subsidizing renewable fuels.     

Evaluating options for the future energy mix of Japan after the Fukushima nuclear crisis

The Fukushima nuclear accident in March 2011 has increased social and political reluctance to embrace nuclear power in Japan (and elsewhere). The Japanese government has thus been considering four possible future energy mixes, including a nuclear-free pathway, and three others with 10%–35% nuclear supply coupled with a larger proportion of renewable energy and fossil fuels to replace nuclear. Here we use multi-criteria decision-making analysis (MCDMA) to assess the potential negative economic (levelised cost of electricity, and energy security), environmental (greenhouse-gas emissions, land transformation, water consumption, heated water discharge, air pollution, radioactive waste, and solid waste) and social (safety issues) impacts of the four proposed pathways to determine which scenario most holistically minimises adverse future outcomes. The nuclear-free pathway has the highest overall potential for adverse outcomes (score=2.49 out of 3), and the 35% nuclear power supply option yielding the lowest negative impact score (0.74) without weightings. Despite some sensitivity to the choice of criterion weights, our analyses demonstrate clearly that from an empirical perspective, a nuclear-free pathway for Japan is the worst option to pursue. We recommend that MCDMA methodology we used for Japan can be applied to other countries to evaluate future electricity generation scenarios.     

Evaluation of post‐Fukushima Japanese electricity strategies: A stochastic simulation model

Japan has not settled on a coherent long‐term electricity strategy for its post‐Fukushima reality. In this analysis, a stochastic electricity sector simulation model is formulated and used to evaluate alternative strategies prescribing different generation mixes for 2050. The generation mix evolves deterministically, demand is endogenous, and social cost of carbon is randomly sampled. The model treats fossil fuel prices and advanced technology cost dynamics stochastically. Monte Carlo simulation produces a distribution of net present social cost for each strategy, and the alternatives are assessed based on the median (expected cost) and standard deviation (risk). Aggressively expanding renewables is a promising strategy; it has the lowest expected cost and moderate risk. Whether this is preferred to substantial nuclear generation is sensitive to parameter assumptions, but a general finding is robust: severely limiting nuclear generation and substituting liquefied natural gas (LNG) and other fossil fuels is costly and risky. Principal component analysis confirms the vulnerability of such strategies to LNG price and social cost of carbon uncertainty. Japan's dominant short‐term response to Fukushima has been a dramatic decrease in nuclear generation coupled with increased use of fossil fuels, particularly LNG. This study suggests that continuing this approach would constitute a poor long‐term Japanese electricity strategy. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

福岛核危机对日本能源战略的影响及启示

至本世纪前10年,核能已成为日本能源供应中不可或缺的重要因素,然而,2011年因"东日本大地震"引发的福岛核危机却动摇了日本继续发展核能的信心,不得不对现有的能源战略进行调整。福岛核危机对日本原来制定的能源战略产生了巨大影响,其中包括能源战略目标难以实现,加剧了对化石燃料的依赖;造成大量的电力缺口,总发电量减少了1/4,导致消费者用电成本急剧增加;短期内不得不增加液化天然气、原油、燃料油和煤炭等化石能源的进口量,加剧了日本能源安全的不确定性。为了缓解福岛核危机所造成的一系列负面影响并保障能源安全,日本政府重新制定了能源战略——重点集中在去核能化,去核能化是顺应民意、安抚民心,并防止核事故再次发生的根本性战略,是日本的必然选择;同时高度重视可再生能源的发展,可再生能源发电比例将由2010年的10%跃升至2030年的35%,总发电量将由2010年的1100×108kW.h提高到2030年的3000×108kW.h;大力实施节约能源战略,提出2030年电力消耗量在2010年的基础上节约1100×108kW.h,能源消耗量在2010年的基础上节约720×108L;另外,日本政府还对电力系统进行改革。结合我国的能源战略及核电发展现状,日本的能源战略调整给予我国的启示包括:要将核安全置于首要地位、加速可再生能源发展和坚持节约能源战略。     

Utilization of renewable energy sources for power generation in Iran

Utilization of non-renewable energy sources not only results in environmental deterioration but also confronts us with the dilemma of a rapid rate of depletion of such resources, while renewable energy sources can serve us indefinitely with minimal environmental impacts as compared with fossil and nuclear fuels.This article deals with the extent of harnessing renewable energy sources for power generation in Iran, a Middle Eastern Asian nation.     

The achievement,significance and future prospect of China's renewable energy initiative

China's high-speed economic growth and ambitious urbanization depend heavily on the massive consumption of fossil fuel. However, the over-dependence on the depleting fossil fuels causes severe environmental problems, making China the largest energy consumer and the biggest CO₂ emitter in the world. Faced with significant challenges in terms of managing its environment and moving forward with the concept of sustainable economic development, the Chinese government plans to move away from fossil fuels and rely on renewables such as hydropower, wind power, solar power, biomass power and nuclear power. In this paper, the current status of China's renewable energy deployment and the ongoing development projects are summarized and discussed. Most recent developments of major renewable energy sources are clearly reviewed. Additionally, the renewable energy development policies including laws and regulations, economic encouragement, technical research and development are also summarized. This study showcases China's achievements in exploiting its abundant domestic renewable energy sources to meet the future energy demand and reducing carbon emissions. To move toward a low carbon society, technological progress and policy improvements are needed for improving grid access (wind), securing nuclear fuel supplies and managing safety protocols (nuclear), integrating supply chains to achieve indigenous manufacture of technologies across supply chains (solar). Beyond that, a preliminary prediction of the development of China's future renewable energy developments, and proposes targeted countermeasures and suggestions are proposed. The proposal involves developing smart-grid system, investing on renewable energy research, improving the feed-in tariff system and clarifying the subsidy system.     

Climate changes,biofuels and the sustainable future

Climate change is one of the most dangerous problems of the contemporary world. We can either adapt to the corresponding changes or try to reduce their impact by significantly reducing fossil fuel burning. A hydrogen-based economy using energy from biomass, solar, wind and other renewable sources and/or nuclear energy seems to be a viable alternative. Here we analyse the possibilities of the biofuels to replace fossil fuels and their potential to contribute to hydrogen economy.     

Renewable energy options: What could developing countries expect from them?

In order to make a realistic assessment of the energy alternatives for the developing world, the present conditions of the developing region, consisting of Africa and Asia (excluding South Africa, Japan and China), are studied first. Highlights include: low commercial energy consumption (0.2 kW/cap), heavy dependence on oil and noncommercial energy, and especially poor conditions of the rural energy supply.Since fossil fuels need to be conserved and nuclear energy is not an option for many of the developing countries, what renewable options could bring is evaluated in detail. Socio-techno-economic parameters for developing and employing renewable energy sources are identified for biogas, wood plantation, solar, and hydropower. The study concludes that the developing countries could obtain 35% of the energy in 2030 with the low-demand scenario of 0.9 kW/cap. However, with the high-demand scenario of 1.4 kW/cap, active policies in nuclear energy and fossil fuels as well would be required.     

Eliciting public preference for nuclear energy against the backdrop of global warming

One of the most important issues related to sustainability is to reduce the use of fossil fuels due to the reduction in greenhouse gases (GHG) emission. Nuclear power results in low carbon emissions and is thus important to mitigating the adverse effects of global warming and climate change. However, the downside of nuclear power cannot be overlooked, and consequently nuclear power is a controversial issue in many countries around the world. Thus an important question concerns how people should support nuclear power. Do the climate and energy security benefits of nuclear power outweigh its risks and costs? Therefore, we use a modified double-bounded contingent valuation model to explore the attitudes and the willingness to pay (WTP) of a country in order to demonstrate its implications for policy. We confirm that supporters and opponents of nuclear power are balanced both in terms of their numbers and in terms of their WTP. The policy implication is that people do not support any dramatic increase or reduction in nuclear power, and that nuclear power should still be an important means of generating electricity in Taiwan. The current share of nuclear power in electricity generation of 20% should be maintained in the near future.     

Greenhouse warming — A comment

In the short term there are logistic constraints on the extent to which nuclear power or renewable energy sources can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by substituting for fossil fuels, although a much greater impact is possible in the longer term. Contrary to views sometimes expressed the nuclear option can be economically attractive when compared with conservation measures, and the two technologies should be seen as complementary rather than as competitors.     

SUNRISE – A caesura after nuclear has gone: Energy in Germany(and in other potentially de-nuclearizing countries)

The German Bundestag decided June 30, 2011 to shut down by 2022 stepwise the complete national nuclear power plant capacity which at the time of decision generated some 22% of the nation’s electricity demand. This presentation tries to present a technology forecast of three potential compensations 1) energy and exergy efficiency gains, 2) renewable energies, and 3) hydrogen energy, thereby bearing in mind that fossil fuels such as coal, mineral oil and natural gas will by no means be gone after that short 10 year transition time. Consequently, not only the three compensations, but also fossil fuels – now efficient to the technological utmost – have to meet the obligation of reducing anthropogenic environmental and climate changing influences, and, in Germany’s case with 75% of its energy demand covered by imports of great importance, try to decrease the almost life risking high import rate by distributing suppliers all over the world and start introducing global clean renewable energies and trade in renewable hydrogen energy. Whether SUNRISE will evolve into a paragon for all those nations thinking of, planning for, or already taking the first steps towards saying farewell to nuclear is too early to determine. The four components of energy sustainability compensating for nuclear – energy and exergy efficiency gains, clean fossil, solar and hydrogen – pluck up courage, make headway and leave nuclear behind. And, in particular, hydrogen energy is and will increasingly become humankind’s common cause!     

The cross-section of returns,benchmark model parameters,and idiosyncratic volatility of nuclear energy firms after Fukushima Daiichi

This study analyzes how the stock market returns, the factor loadings from the Carhart (1997) 4-factor model, and the idiosyncratic volatility of shares in energy firms have been affected by the Fukushima nuclear accident. Unlike existing studies, which provide evidence of a wealth transfer from nuclear to renewable energy firms for specific countries, we use an international sample and investigate whether changes in the regulatory environment and the firm-specific commitment to nuclear and renewable energies correlate with the capital market's reactions to the Fukushima Daiichi accident. Our findings suggest that the more a firm relies on nuclear power, the more its share price declined after the accident. A commitment to renewable energies does not prevent declines in share prices but significantly helps to reduce the increase in market beta that is associated with this event. Nuclear energy firms domiciled in countries with a higher number of regulatory interventions that were triggered by the catastrophe have lower abnormal returns than those that are domiciled elsewhere. However, as a cross-sectional analysis reveals, a stronger commitment to nuclear power is the main driver for negative stock market returns. Furthermore, nuclear energy firms domiciled in countries with stronger regulatory shifts away from nuclear energy experience significant increases in market beta and the book-to-market equity factor loading according to the Carhart (1997) 4-factor model. We conclude that capital market participants are able to differentiate between the affectedness of firms with respect to their product portfolio. Energy firms could prevent increases in market beta due to catastrophes such as the Fukushima Daiichi accident by shifting some of their energy production from nuclear to renewable or other sources.     

Alternative Energy Sources: The Quest for Sustainable Energy [book review]

This book presents a large amount of data dealing with the conventional and alternate energy resources and how they are used. The book is comprised of ten chapters and covers some of the following topics: a discussion about fossil fuels, including coal-fired power plants; sustainable development, and the role of natural gas; environmental impacts of energy consumption; nuclear energy; and renewable energy resources such as solar, wind, hydro, tidal. wave, biomass, and geothermal sources. The book provides lots of data, but not in an organized way. It also appears that the selection of fuels and energy supply alternatives seem to be arbitrary. Despite the book's title, more than half of the pages discuss energy from fossil fuels and their impact on the environment.     

Technical efficiency of economic systems of EU-15 countries based on energy consumption

In the present study, Data Envelopment Analysis is used to determine the Technical Efficiency index of EU-15 countries from 1980 to 2008, using cross-country comparison. Technical Efficiency index represents the capacity of an economy to produce a higher level of Gross Domestic Product for a given level of total energy input. The level of the Technical Efficiency index is determined from the energy mix (fossil fuels, non-fossil fuels, nuclear energy) of each country and depends on the maximization level of the production of the Gross Domestic Product of the economic system, without waste of energy resources. The current study is applied in the case of the EU15 countries. Its scope is to highlight the differentiations of country classifications before and after the integration of nuclear energy in the energy mix of each country. The main result is that the integration of nuclear energy as an additional input in the energy mixture affects negatively the Technical Efficiency of countries. Also, when an economy achieves a decrease of the energy consumption produced from fossil fuels, and a better exploitation of renewable energy sources, clearly improves its capacity to produce more output with the given levels of inputs.     

Exergy analysis of renewable energy sources

Oil crises in the past years made more obvious the dependency of economies on fossil fuels. As a consequence, the need for new energy sources became more urgent. Renewable energy sources could provide a solution to the problem, as they are inexhaustible and have less adverse impacts on the environment than fossil fuels. Yet, renewable energy sources technology has not reached a high standard at which it can be considered competitive to fossil fuels. The present study deals with the exergy analysis of solar energy, wind power and geothermal energy. That is, the actual use of energy from the existing available energy is discussed. In addition, renewable energy sources are compared with the non-renewable energy sources on the basis of efficiency.     

Renewable electricity as a differentiated good? The case of the Republic of Korea

This paper examines the willingness for Korean consumers to pay a premium for renewable electricity under a differentiated good framework by applying the contingent valuation method. Korean consumers have been required to pay for their use of renewable electricity as of 2012. First, we find that Korean consumers recognise renewable electricity as a differentiated good from traditional electricity generated from fossil fuels or nuclear energy. The mean willingness to pay to use renewable electricity is USD 1.26 per month. Second, we confirm the existence of perfect substitution relationships among variant renewable technologies, which suggests that Korean consumers do not perceive them as differentiated goods. One reason for this perception is that Korean consumers are more inclined to favour economic feasibility over sustainability or the availability of the resource stock when choosing between renewable technology types. In sum, we can say that Korean consumers recognise renewable electricity as a differentiated good but that they do not differentiate between variant renewable technologies. Thus, the imposition of the cost of renewable electricity on consumers in the form of increased electricity charges would be acceptable to consumers as long as any price rise properly reflects their preferences.     

Life cycle assessment of electricity generation in Mexico

This paper presents for the first time a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study of electricity generation in Mexico. The electricity mix in Mexico is dominated by fossil fuels, which contribute around 79% to the total primary energy; renewable energies contribute 16.5% (hydropower 13.5%, geothermal 3% and wind 0.02%) and the remaining 4.8% is from nuclear power. The LCA results show that 225 TWh of electricity generate about 129 million tonnes of CO₂ eq. per year, of which the majority (87%) is due to the combustion of fossil fuels. The renewables and nuclear contribute only 1.1% to the total CO₂ eq. Most of the other LCA impacts are also attributed to the fossil fuel options. The results have been compared with values reported for other countries with similar electricity mix, including Italy, Portugal and the UK, showing good agreement.     

Progress of renewable electricity replacing fossil fuels

Dramatic fall in costs of renewable energy in the last 24 months has not only accelerated the replacement of fossil fuels by renewable energy in electricity generation. The low cost renewable electricity is now starting to replace fossil fuels in other sectors.One reason is that renewable electricity is now cheaper per unit energy than oil, about the same price as fossil methan but, still, more expensive than coal. Another reason is that electricity often offer other opportunities, such as cheaper transport, better control, higher energy efficiency in final production of energy services and lower local environmental costs.