•A dynamic panel threshold regression model is proposed.•Renewable energy development can reduce energy intensity.•Renewable energy development has a threshold effect on energy intensity.•Effects are ...different between the high and the low regimes.
In recent years, renewable energy (RE) has seen rapid development worldwide. However, energy intensity has not declined at the same rate. This study applies a dynamic panel threshold regression model to explore the effects of RE development on energy intensity in 82 major countries. The results show that RE development has a significantly negative impact on energy intensity. Specifically, for every 10.0% increase in RE development, energy intensity reduces by 0.3%. The threshold point of the effect is determined and estimated at 2.3588 (the equivalent RE consumption is 10.58 billion MJ) between the low and the high development regimes of RE. Every 10.0% increase in the development of RE leads to a 2.2% decrease in energy intensity in the high development regime, but only 0.2% decrease in the low development regime. Economic development has a significantly negative impact on energy intensity, while energy consumption structure based on non-renewable energy creates has a significantly positive impact. All countries should increase the consumption of renewable energy to more than 10.58 billion MJ to cut energy intensity and improve the technical content of international trade products, especially in low renewable energy development level regimes.
Margarita M. Balmaceda follows Russia's three largest fossil-fuel exports-natural gas, oil, and coal-from production in Siberia through transportation via Ukraine to final use in Germany in order to ...understand the tension between energy as threat and as opportunity.
Throughout the world, the threat of climate change is pressing governments to accelerate the deployment of technologies to generate low carbon electricity or heat. But this is frequently leading to ...controversy, as energy and planning policies are revised to support new energy sources or technologies (e.g. offshore wind, tidal, bioenergy or hydrogen energy) and communities face the prospect of unfamiliar, often large-scale energy technologies being sited near to their homes. Policy makers in many countries face tensions between 'streamlining' planning procedures, engaging with diverse publics to address what is commonly conceived as 'NIMBY' (not in my back yard) opposition, and the need to maintain democratic, participatory values in planning systems.
This volume provides a timely, international review of research on public engagement, in contexts of diverse, innovative energy technologies. Public engagement is conceived broadly - as the interaction between how developers and other key actors engage with publics about energy technologies (including assumptions held about the methods used, such as the provision of financial benefits or the holding of deliberative events), and how individuals and groups engage with energy policies and projects (including indirectly through the media and directly through emotional and behavioural responses).
The book's contributors are leading experts in the UK, Europe, North and South America and Australia drawn from a variety of relevant social science disciplinary perspectives. The book makes a significant contribution to our existing knowledge, as well as providing interested professionals, policymakers and members of the public with a timely overview of the critical issues involved in public engagement with low carbon energy technologies.
With the increasing concerns of global climate change, clean energy development is regarded as one of the most important measures to mitigate CO2 emissions. However, existing studies pay little ...attention to the spatial spillover effect of clean energy development on CO2 emissions. Using a provincial-level panel data set during 1997–2017 and a spatial Durbin model, this is the first study to investigate the effect of clean energy development measured by the share of clean energy generation in total electricity generation on CO2 emissions in China. The results show that clean energy development causes less CO2 emissions in the local region but more CO2 emissions in spatially related regions. This finding is reinforced through a series of robustness checks. The heterogeneity analysis indicates that the local CO2 emission reduction effect of clean energy development is greater in the period of 2013–2017, electricity-poor regions, and low-carbon pilot regions; meanwhile, electricity-poor regions and low-carbon pilot regions suffer from a more adverse impact of clean energy development in spatially related regions on local CO2 emission reduction in the long run. Furthermore, the results of mechanism analysis suggest that the fossil energy saved by the usage of clean energy from the power generation sector in the local region flows into spatially related regions to crowd out clean energy consumption in these regions. Therefore, the overall effectiveness of CO2 emission reduction effort in clean energy development is partly undermined by the CO2 transfer effect. This paper provides a novel perspective to understand the effect of clean energy development on CO2 emission reduction and helps to promote inter-regional cooperative CO2 emission reduction within a country.
•We investigate the effect of clean energy development on CO2 emissions in China.•We use the spatial Durbin model based on a provincial panel data set over 1997–2017.•A rise in local clean energy development causes more CO2 emissions in neighbor regions.•Fossil energy saved by clean energy use in the local region flows into neighbor regions.•Emission reduction effort in clean energy development is offset by CO2 transfer effect.
Carbon neutrality is a widespread target for many countries to mitigate the climate change. Clean power is expected to be the fastest-growing energy in the next decades. In this context, renewable ...energy development is a significant road for energy transition. Recently, more and more central governments worldwide grant relevant responsibilities of environment protection to subnational governments. This paper focuses on the impact of fiscal decentralization on renewable energy development in China, which is currently one of the largest market for renewable energy development. The results show that fiscal development has positive effects on renewable energy development. Although Chinese provinces have variety of local environmental, institutional and social conditions, the “race to the top” approach still occurs. This research reveals the role of fiscal decentralization in renewable energy development and provides important policy implications for renewable energy development considering fiscal decentralization. It fills the gap between former research and current situation of renewable energy development on different regions' devolution features. Specifically, this study takes different regions’ economic development situations and environment protection pressures into consideration. It provides implications on how to keep the balance of environment protection and economic development for different regions.
•Fiscal decentralization stimulates renewable energy development in China.•Heterogeneity of regional renewable energy development preferences and performances.•Local governments tend to prioritize economic growth over environment regulation.•Local governments prefer the balance between benefit and environment target.
A low-carbon energy transition is permeating many industrialized countries due to the overuse of fossil fuels and the climate change. Some countries stress the hydrogen energy in optimizing their ...energy structures. This article examines both the markets and the policies of the hydrogen industry in the World's Top 4 largest economies. To make the comparative analysis more logical, a novel conceptual model for energy transition -- the institution-economics-technology-behavior framework -- has been adopted to make a multi-dimensional discussion. The results show that: (1) From the perspective of strategic intention, developing hydrogen energy is conductive to the energy transition. (2) From the horizontal comparison, each country has its own advantages, however, the main driving factors are different. (3) From the vertical comparison, the hydrogen energy development in each country is still in the stage of quantitative change, and the inflection point of qualitative change has not been reached yet.
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•A novel conceptual model -- IETB framework -- is adopted.•Hydrogen energy serves three functions in the energy transition.•The World's Top 4 largest economies are used for comparative analysis.•Each country has different advantages of developing its own hydrogen energy.•Qualitative inflection point of hydrogen energy development has not yet reached.
Renewable energy (RE) is strategically important to achieve sustainability. Its development in China, however, is clearly imbalanced across regions. The uneven distribution of natural resources, ...financial resources and other factors across this country has brought serious challenges to the policymakers. It is thus important to give a comprehensive evaluation of China's regional RE development. To do so, this paper introduces a multidimensional approach and establishes a quantitative evaluation framework. Based on the existing literature, five dimensions of factors have been chosen for the framwork: economic foundation, institutions, technological development potential, energy security and environmental protection, and current status of the RE sector. A dynamic principal component analysis technique is applied to data from 29 provinces between 2008 and 2014. The results demonstrate large variations in RE development across provinces in China. More economically developed regions, such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong, have maintained a higher ranking and have clear advantages in almost all dimensions. Policy implications and recommendations for more balanced development across China are drawn from the empirical results. This approach can also be extended to investigate similar issues in other countries.
•A five-dimensional index is proposed to quantify renewable energy (RE) development in China.•RE development performance in China has improved over time.•Disparities in RE development across regions have become smaller.•The institutional dimension is a challenging segment in RE development.•Beijing and Shanghai have the highest level of RE development.
•The impact of renewable energy development on carbon emission efficiency is studied.•A panel threshold model with IFEs is employed to explore the nonlinear relationship.•RED has a positive but ...nonlinear effect on CEE.•The positive effect declines as the energy consumption intensity enhances.•The positive effect improves as the financial development, RED and CEE increase.
This study aims to explore the non-linear renewables and carbon emission efficiency (CEE) nexus to optimize the energy transition path. Taking 32 developed countries that have proposed carbon neutrality targets as the research objects, the super-efficiency slacks-based measure (SE-SBM) model is first used to measure their CEE from 2000 to 2018. Then, a newly developed panel threshold model with interactive fixed effects (PTIFEs) is established to comprehensively explore the non-linear impact of renewable energy development (RED) on CEE. The results show that: (1) During the sample period, there are significant differences in CEE among countries, and most countries are inefficient. (2) On the whole, RED is conductive to CEE, but there is a significant threshold effect. Specifically, this positive effect decreases with energy consumption intensity, whereas it increases with financial development, RED, and CEE. (3) The heterogeneity analysis shows that the threshold effect persists across countries with different income levels, and the direction is consistent with the entire sample. Besides, as the incomes down, the positive correlation between RED and CEE is significantly diminished. This study provides a new perspective for optimizing the energy transition path.
High-quality energy development (HED) is conducive to achieving a win-win situation for economic development and carbon emission reduction in the context of the current “carbon neutrality” ...constraints in China, and the digital economy will likely accelerate the achievement of its goals. To verify the above hypothesis, based on China's provincial panel dataset from 2007 to 2017, this paper uses a dynamic panel model to estimate the nexus between the digital economy and HED and further explores their heterogeneous influence. The main results indicate that: (1) the digital economy positively affects HED in China; in other words, a 1 % increase in the digital economy index will boost HED by an average of 0.191 %; (2) the results of heterogeneity show that the influence of the digital economy on HED is stronger in regions with higher digital economy indexes and higher HED indexes; and (3) the digital economy positively affects HED through the innovation and application sub-indicator and the economic growth and jobs sub-indicator. We also provide policy implications for governments and scholars in related fields for reference.
•The impact of the digital economy on high-quality energy development (HED) is explored.•We measure the digital economy indexes and HED indexes in China.•The digital economy has a positive effect on HED in China.•The digital economy positively affects HED through two dimensions: “innovation and application” and “economic growth and jobs.”•The effect of the digital economy on HED is heterogeneous.
