Energy efficiency and CO2 emissions in Swedish manufacturing industries

This paper analyses the trends in energy consumption and CO₂ emissions as a result of energy efficiency improvements in Swedish manufacturing industries between 1993 and 2008. Using data at the two-digit level, the performance of this sector is studied in terms of CO₂ emissions, energy consumption, energy efficiency measured as energy intensity, value of production, fuel sources, energy prices and energy taxes. It was found that energy consumption, energy intensity and CO₂ emission intensity, measured as production values, have decreased significantly in the Swedish manufacturing industries during the period studied. The results of the decomposition analysis show that output growth has not required higher energy consumption, leading to a reduction in both energy and CO₂ emission intensities. The role of structural changes has been minor, and the trends of energy efficiency and CO₂ emissions have been similar during the sample period. A stochastic frontier model was used to determine possible factors that may have influenced these trends. The results demonstrate that high energy prices, energy taxes, investments and electricity consumption have influenced the reduction of energy and CO₂ emission intensities, indicating that Sweden has applied an adequate and effective energy policy. The study confirms that it is possible to achieve economic growth and sustainable development whilst also reducing the pressure on resources and energy consumption and promoting the shift towards a low-carbon economy.     

Revisiting CO2 emissions convergence in G18 countries

This study revisits whether CO₂ emissions converge in G18 countries over the period of 1950–2013. To work on this empirical analysis, we employ a more powerful quantile unit root test with per capita CO₂ emissions. While conventional unit root tests fail to reject convergence in CO₂ emissions in these G18 countries, quantile unit root test results demonstrate CO₂ emissions converged in 5 of these G18 countries (i.e., Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, and India). Our empirical results have important policy implications for the governments of G18 countries to direct efficient and effective energy policies to reduce the CO₂ emissions.     

The impact of coal consumption and CO2 emission on economic growth

This study examined the long-run and the causal relationship between total coal consumption, CO₂ emission, and GDP growth in China, the United States, India, Germany, Russia, South Africa, Japan, Australia, Poland, and South Korea. The panel model was employed during the period 1992–2009. The results showed that total coal consumption and CO₂ emission have a long-run relationship with the GDP growth. In addition, there was a short-run positive bidirectional causal relationship between total coal consumption and CO₂ emission. However, total coal consumption and CO₂ emission have no short-run or long-run causal relationship with GDP growth. Thus energy conservation policies on total coal consumption such as rationing energy consumption and controlling CO₂ emissions are likely to have no negative impact on the real output growth of the investigated countries.     

Possibilities of reducing CO2 emissions from energy-intensive industries by the increased use of forest-derived fuels in Ireland

A range of EU environmental policies support the goal of reducing fossil-fuel use in commercial thermal applications. Combustion installations which are covered by the EU Emissions Trading Scheme now face a substantial opportunity cost for fossil-fuel CO₂ emissions. However, it is unclear whether the EU ETS will provide a sufficient incentive for switching to forest-derived biomass fuel by energy-intensive installations currently firing on coal or peat. Using Ireland as a case study, the paper analyses the availability and cost competitiveness of forest residues produced within the vicinity of three cement kilns. EU Allowance prices observed during much of 2007 and 2008 would appear to be sufficient to equalise the carbon-adjusted purchase costs between chipped pulpwood and bituminous coal. However, no such fuel switching has been observed to date by kiln operators and none appears to be envisaged. The apparent reasons for this include (1) a ready availability of cheaper substitute fuels such as Meat and Bone Meal; (2) technical issues regarding the chemical consistency of the woodchip; and (3) the prospect of pulpwood prices rising in the medium term due a growing supply shortage. The prospect of such a constraint is an unintended consequence of Irish government policy to promote biomass co-firing in peat-fired power stations.     

Exploring the price dynamics of CO2 emissions allowances in China's emissions trading scheme pilots

Establishing regional emissions trading scheme pilots in China is a newly transformative and explorative practice. In this paper, we examine the spot price dynamics, asymmetric clustering and regime-switching behaviors of CO₂ emissions allowances in the new China-wide emissions trading scheme (CETS) pilots using AR-GARCH, AR-TARCH and MRS-AR-GARCH models. The regional ETS pilots' design in China vary widely in their coverage thresholds, sector coverage, emissions allocation and caps setting methods, market trading rules and price stabilization provisions. Our empirical results indicate that the spot prices of regional emissions allowances exhibit significant dynamic behaviors, asymmetric leverage effects and regime-switching behaviors in the entire period considered; previous market overreactions in the Beijing, Tianjin and Guangdong pilots have stronger price clustering effects on future conditional variances than do the Shanghai and Hubei pilots. Unexpected market shocks and greater persistence in the Beijing, Tianjin and Guangdong ETS pilots display stronger market volatility and higher market risks, and their asymmetric leverage effects display a decreasing trend in the volatility of the BEA, TJEA and GDEA prices. The BEA and SHEA prices exhibit significant regime-switching behaviors, price jumps and higher volatility; in addition, the changes in the regime-switching phases are often related to the political mechanism design and the fundamental market factors. Those empirical results are beneficial for government decision-makers and market participants to strengthen risk management strategies, support emission-related investment decisions and optimize co-benefits of alternative energy-environmental policies.     

Heterogeneous effects of endogenous and foreign innovation on CO2 emissions stochastic convergence across China

This paper mainly explores the heterogeneous effects of endogenous and foreign innovation on convergence of CO₂ emissions across China's 30 provinces from 2003 to 2017. The main academic contributions of this paper are as follows: convergence analysis of CO₂ emissions in China is conducted by integrating the β-convergence and stochastic convergence, which can overcome the invalid inferences of conventional convergence. We also compare different effects of inward foreign direction investment (IFDI) versus outward foreign direction investment (OFDI) on CO₂ emissions convergence. Quantile regression is employed in absolute and conditional β-convergence of CO₂ emissions, which considers more detailed quantile distribution of different variables than traditional ordinary least squares regression. We also compare different convergence of CO₂ emissions across China's East, Middle and West. According to the stochastic convergence, East China has the largest convergence rate, followed by Middle China; endogenous innovation decreased CO₂ emissions in China. OFDI had negative effects on CO₂ missions in China. It is important for Chinese firms to enhance endogenous green innovation capacity. It is imperative for Chinese government to increase reverse green technology spillover from OFDI.     

Metafroniter energy efficiency with CO2 emissions and its convergence analysis for China

This paper measures the energy efficiency performance with carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in 30 provinces in China during the period of 1997–2011 using a meta-frontier framework with the improved directional distance function (DDF). We construct a new environmental production possibility set by combining the super-efficiency and sequential data envelopment analysis (DEA) models to avoid “discriminating power problem” and “technical regress” when evaluating efficiency by DDF. Then, it is used in a meta-frontier framework to reflect the technology heterogeneities across east, central and west China. The results indicate that eastern China achieved the highest progress inefficiency relative to the metafrontier, followed by western and the central China. By focusing on technology gaps, we offer some suggestions for the different groups based on group-frontier and meta-frontier analyses. The inefficiency can be attributed to managerial failure for eastern and western China, and technological differences for central China. The convergence analysis shows that energy and CO₂ emission governance will produce negative effects on economic growth, and it is suitable and acceptable to introduce rigorous environmental measures in eastern China.     

The impact of energy trade patterns on CO2 emissions: An emergy and network analysis

Fossil fuel is considered to be the major cause of CO₂ emissions, and it flows across countries through the international energy trade. In this paper, we analyse the impact of energy trade patterns on CO₂ emissions for a global sample from 2000 to 2014. We construct an international fossil fuel trade network based on emergy theory and calculate some corresponding structural parameters. Then, we systematically evaluate the impact of energy trade on CO₂ emissions from the trade volume and trade relationships perspectives. We obtain the following results: (1) Trade strength mainly affects CO₂ emissions through the scale effect, composition effect and technique effect. (2) Trade security and trade-centre status of one country will significantly affect CO₂ emissions. (3) For high economic-level (HE) countries, concentrating the trade volume on several finite countries will destroy the environment; low economic-level (LE) countries that are proximal to the important countries of the energy market will experience an increase in pollution. This research also discusses some implications for policy makers.     

Analysis of energy use and CO2 emission in service industries: Evidence from Sweden

This study analyses the trends in energy use and CO₂ emissions for 19 sub-sectors in the Swedish service sectors following the classification of the International Standard Industrial Classification of all Economic Activities (ISIC) at the 2-digit level of aggregation over the period 1993–2008. This empirical study intends to examine energy use, energy efficiency and CO₂ emissions using data envelopment analysis (DEA) and panel data techniques. DEA is applied to assess energy efficiency within a production framework. Panel data techniques are used to determine which variables influence energy efficiency. The results show that Swedish services industries have increased energy consumption and CO₂ emissions in the period 1993–2008. The results from the DEA show significant variation in energy efficiency across service industries. The results also indicate that this sector has increased technical efficiency and energy efficiency while decreasing CO₂ emissions, especially in the later years of our sample period. The results of panel data techniques show that higher energy taxes, electricity consumption, investments and labour productivity generate higher energy efficiency, while higher fossil fuel consumption leads to lower energy efficiency. All findings of this study are important for developing effective energy policies that encourage better energy use and energy management in the service industries.     

The impact of biomass consumption on CO2 emissions: Cointegration analyses with regime shifts

The source of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions has been of great interest to researcher(s) and/or policy maker(s) within ongoing efforts to diminish the emissions in the world due to CO₂'s serious adverse environmental effect. This paper investigates the possible existence of long run relationship between CO₂ emissions and biomass consumption in US for the period January 1990–September 2011. To this end, paper first seeks for effect of biomass on CO₂ through energy literature and later follows cointegration analyses with structural breaks to reveal parameter estimates of long run equilibrium of CO₂ with fossil fuel consumption and biomass consumption. Eventually this paper explores that structural breaks are important to understand the course of CO₂ and that, as expected, fossil fuel and biomass effect CO₂ positively and negatively, respectively. Alternative cointegration analyses with regime shifts confirm negative impact of biomass and positive impact of fossil fuel on CO₂, as well.     

The potential of demand-side management in energy-intensive industries for electricity markets in Germany

This paper investigates the technical and economic potential of energy-intensive industries to provide demand-side management (DSM) in electricity and balancing markets through 2030. Increasing shares of renewables will lead to a rising demand for ancillary services at the same time that less conventional plants will be available to provide these services. This paper makes projections on the extent to which DSM from industrial processes can provide economic benefits in electricity markets with renewables by providing tertiary reserve capacity. Different industrial processes and their specific technical and economic properties are investigated and compared with other storage devices and electricity generation technologies. Based on an extension of an existing European electricity market model, simulations are used here to make long-term forecasts for market prices, dispatch and investments in the electricity markets through linear optimization.     

Factors influencing CO2 emissions in China's power industry: Co-integration analysis

More than 40% of China's total CO₂ emissions originate from the power industry. The realization of energy saving and emission reduction within China's power industry is therefore crucial in order to achieve CO₂ emissions reduction in this country. This paper applies the autoregressive-distributed lag (ARDL) co-integration model to study the major factors which have influenced CO₂ emissions within China's power industry from 1980 to 2010. Results have shown that CO₂ emissions from China's power industry have been increasing rapidly. From 1980 to 2010, the average annual growth rate was 8.5%, and the average growth rate since 2002 has amounted to 10.5%. Secondly, the equipment utilization hour (as an indicator of the power demand) has the greatest influence on CO₂ emissions within China's power industry. In addition, the impact of the industrial added value of the power sector on CO₂ emissions is also positive from a short-term perspective. Thirdly, the Granger causality results imply that one of the important motivators behind China's technological progress, within the power industry, originates from the pressures created by a desire for CO₂ emissions reduction. Finally, this paper provides policy recommendations for energy saving and emission reduction for China's power industry.     

China's transportation energy consumption and CO2 emissions from a global perspective

Rapidly growing energy demand from China's transportation sector in the last two decades have raised concerns over national energy security, local air pollution, and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, and there is broad consensus that China's transportation sector will continue to grow in the coming decades. This paper explores the future development of China's transportation sector in terms of service demands, final energy consumption, and CO₂ emissions, and their interactions with global climate policy. This study develops a detailed China transportation energy model that is nested in an integrated assessment model—Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM)—to evaluate the long-term energy consumption and CO₂ emissions of China's transportation sector from a global perspective. The analysis suggests that, without major policy intervention, future transportation energy consumption and CO₂ emissions will continue to rapidly increase and the transportation sector will remain heavily reliant on fossil fuels. Although carbon price policies may significantly reduce the sector's energy consumption and CO₂ emissions, the associated changes in service demands and modal split will be modest, particularly in the passenger transport sector. The analysis also suggests that it is more difficult to decarbonize the transportation sector than other sectors of the economy, primarily owing to its heavy reliance on petroleum products.     

European emissions trading and the international competitiveness of energy-intensive industries: a legal and political evaluation of possible supporting measures

The EU Emissions Trading Directive is expected by European energy-intensive industries to harm their competitiveness vis-à-vis non-European competitors. Many additional measures have thus been proposed to ‘level the playing field’ and to protect the competitiveness of European energy-intensive industries within the larger effort of reducing Europe's greenhouse gas emissions and of meeting its obligations under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. This article evaluates a range of proposed measures based on a set of political and legal criteria, including environmental effectiveness; the need to consider differentiated commitments, responsibilities and capabilities; conformity with world trade law and European Union law; and Europe's overall political interests. We discuss measures that could be adopted by the European Union and its member states, such as direct support for energy-intensive industries, restrictions of energy-intensive imports into the European Union through border cost adjustments, quotas or technical regulations, and cost reimbursement for affected developing countries. We also analyse measures available to multilateral institutions such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol and the World Trade Organisation. We conclude with a classification of the discussed measures with red (unfeasible), yellow (potentially feasible) or green (feasible) labels.     

Using performance indicators to reduce cost uncertainty of China's CO2 mitigation goals

Goals on absolute emissions and intensity play key roles in CO₂ mitigation. However, like cap-and-trade policies with price uncertainty, they suffer from significant uncertainty in abatement costs. This article examines whether an indicator could be established to complement CO₂ mitigation goals and help reduce cost uncertainty with a particular focus on China. Performance indicators on CO₂ emissions per unit of energy consumption could satisfy three criteria: compared with the mitigation goals, (i) they are more closely associated with active mitigation efforts and (ii) their baselines have more stable projections from historical trajectories. (iii) Their abatement costs are generally higher than other mitigation methods, particularly energy efficiency and conservation. Performance indicators could be used in the following way: if a CO₂ goal on absolute emissions or intensity is attained, the performance indicator should still reach a lower threshold as a cost floor. If the goal cannot be attained, an upper performance threshold should be achieved as a cost ceiling. The narrower cost uncertainty may encourage wider and greater mitigation efforts.     

The impact of socioeconomic characteristics on CO2 emissions associated with urban mobility: Inequality across individuals

Concerns about the unequal distribution of greenhouse gas emissions attributable to mobility are gaining increasing attention in scholarly analyses as well as in the public policy arena. The factors influencing the emissions of individuals are largely undocumented, but they are assumed to be the same for all, be they low or high emitters. We use a household travel survey conducted in the metropolitan area of Barcelona to differentiate the factors that result in different rates of emission. It shows that the top 10% of emitters produce 49% of total emissions while ‘non-daily’ emitters make up 38.5% of the sample. We adopt a quantile regression approach, which reveals significant socioeconomic differences between groups of emitters. Gender, income and home-municipality type are influential in accounting for CO₂ emissions for all groups. Educational level appears to be less significant, and occupation shows no significance at all. The study confirms the ineffective nature of toll policy design in the area. Overall, socioeconomic factors have different impacts on different emitting groups, but these characteristics do not impact equally across all the population. Quantile regression using mobility survey data gathered from various cities would provide useful evidence for improving the design of urban mobility policies.     

Benchmarking the energy use of energy-intensive industries in industrialized and in developing countries

Improved energy efficiency is among the key measures for CO₂ emission abatement in the industry. Energy benchmark curves provide data measured at individual plants and they offer a basis to estimate the sectoral energy efficiency improvement potentials (IP) compared to a best practice technology (BPT) currently in operation worldwide. In this paper, we estimate the BPT energy use of 17 industry sectors based on such curves or energy indicators prepared at country-level. We compare BPT data with current energy use to estimate the IP. According to our analysis, BPT offers improvement potentials of 27 ± 8% worldwide. This is equivalent to 32.5 ± 9.6 EJ (exajoules) of final energy savings worldwide, of which three-quarters can be achieved in developing countries. Due to lack of benchmark curves and limited data availability for developing countries, our results include uncertainties. We used literature data at country-level and international energy statistics to fill data gaps and to develop energy indicators. Quality of these data should be improved and benchmark data needs to be collected for more sectors. By doing so, energy benchmarking could become a key tool to estimate energy saving potentials and energy indicators could serve as strong supplementary methodology.     

The impact of energy consumption and CO2 emission on the economic and financial development in 19 selected countries

This study investigated the impact of energy consumption on the economic and financial development in 19 countries. These countries were selected due to the fact that the financial development indicators contribute an important share to their total GDP. The panel model was employed taking the period of 1980 to 2008. The results show that energy consumption enables these countries to achieve high economic and financial development. However, the high development that these countries have achieved in the late three decades increased the CO₂ emission. It is important that these countries should reduce the level of pollution through utilizing energy protection policies, such as rationing energy consumption and controlling carbon dioxide emissions or increasing the share of clean energy of their total energy consumption.     

The impact of thermal storage on the operational behaviour of residential CHP facilities and the overall CO2 emissions

When evaluating the environmental impact of small-scale cogeneration facilities, two important boundary conditions are often overlooked. Firstly, cogeneration units are mostly considered as stand-alone facilities, although, in reality, they will be part of a system that may also contain a thermal-storage tank and back-up boiler. Secondly, usually mainly static and simplified methods are used to calculate the possible reduction of CO₂ emissions. In this paper, these issues are discussed in two parts. The dimensioning of cogeneration facilities to fulfil a certain heat demand and the impact of thermal-storage tanks on the operational behaviour of these units are dealt with. It is shown that the use of thermal-storage tanks prolongs the yearly operation time of a CHP facility and allows the cogeneration unit to operate more continuously. Also, it is clarified how to interpret thermal load-duration diagrams in a correct way. Furthermore, the impact of thermal storage on the overall CO₂ emissions is investigated. Hereby, the interaction with the expansion of the central power system and the annual use of the cogeneration units are two important parameters. Using a small thermal-storage device causes the net reduction of CO₂ emissions, in comparison with a reference scenario without additionally installed cogeneration, to be almost three times higher compared to the case without heat buffer. Finally, it is shown that the operational behaviour of multiple small-scale cogeneration units can be approximated by the behaviour of one large fictitious unit for the determination of the net reduction of CO₂ emissions.     

Regional differences in the CO2 emissions of China's iron and steel industry: Regional heterogeneity

Identifying the key influencing factors of CO₂ emissions in China's iron and steel industry is vital for mitigating its emissions and formulating effective environmental protection measures. Most of the existing researches utilized time series data to investigate the driving factors of the industry's CO₂ emission at the national level, but regional differences have not been given appropriate attention. This paper adopts provincial panel data from 2000 to 2013 and panel data models to examine the key driving forces of CO₂ emissions at the regional levels in China. The results show that industrialization dominates the industry's CO₂ emissions, but its effect varies across regions. The impact of energy efficiency on CO₂ emissions in the eastern region is greater than in the central and western regions because of a huge difference in R&D investment. The influence of urbanization has significant regional differences due to the heterogeneity in human capital accumulation and real estate development. Energy structure has large potential to mitigate CO₂ emissions on account of increased R&D investment in energy-saving technology and expanded clean energy use. Hence, in order to effectively achieve emission reduction, local governments should consider all these factors as well as regional heterogeneity in formulating appropriate mitigation policies.