Rapid and dramatic changes in the world’s approach to energy have major implications for Kentucky and its coal industry. Concerns about climate change are driving policy that favors cleaner energy sources and increases the price of fossil fuels. The transition to sustainable forms of energy is…
Mycle Schneider, Steve Thomas, Antony Froggatt, Doug Koplow
Posted on:
10/14/2009
The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2009 provides the reader with the basic quantitative and qualitative facts on the nuclear power plants in operation, under construction and in planning phases throughout the world. A detailed overview assesses the economic performance of past and current…
Patterns of energy production and use threaten the stability of
eco-systems and the health and well-being of current and future
generations. Still, energy subsidies worldwide amount to around USD
300.000 billion per year, or around 0.7 per cent of GDP.
Inappropriate subsidies contribute to widespread overfishing and to the
distortion of trade in fisheries products. Current negotiations in the
World Trade organization aim to address this problem through binding
new subsidies rules. Meanwhile, many governments are working to reform
their domestic…
According to government data commissioned by the GSI, China provided a total of RMB 780 million (US$ 115 million, roughly US$ 0.40 a litre) in biofuel subsidies in 2006. These comprised support for ethanol in the form of direct output-linked subsidies paid to the five licensed producers, as well as…
Irrigation accounts for 70 to 90 percent of total water use in developing countries and for more than one third of water use in many Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. The significance of irrigation in increasing agricultural production and in meeting the food…
Tara Laan, Todd Alexander Litman and Ronald Steenblik
Posted on:
7/24/2009
This study aims to reduce this complex debate to two simple questions: how much money are Canadian federal and provincial governments spending to support liquid biofuels—fuel-grade ethanol and biodiesel—and does it represent good value-for-money to Canadian taxpayers?
Within the past year, estimates of the cost of nuclear power from a new generation of reactors have ranged from a low of 8.4 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) to a high of 30 cents. This paper tackles the debate over the cost of building new nuclear reactors.
Advocates of nuclear power are promoting a “nuclear renaissance,” based on claims that a new generation of reactors will produce relatively cheap electricity while solving the threat posed by global climate change. As of October 2008, U.S. utilities and power producers had already proposed building…
Federal Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) were nearly quintupled in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, mandating use of 36 billion gallons of biofuels per year by 2022. Because key federal subsidies scale linearly with production without limit, biofuels will receive more than $400 billion…
A case study of the proposed new reactor at Calvert Cliffs in Lusby, MD provides a useful window into the dynamics and implications of federal nuclear policy today. The analysis demonstrates not only that the taxpayer ends up as the largest de facto investor in this project, but also that while we…
Government involvement in financing large scale energy projects has a checkered past. Historical forays into loan guarantees for biofuels and syn-fuels have been expensive failures. Large hydroelectric dams and federally-owned uranium enrichment facilities were built and operated as government…
Many organizations and key members of government believe that US energy markets need to embark on an accelerated transition off of oil. Some focus on diversification away from oil imports in order to stop funding countries that don't like us much. Others focus on climate change worries, working to…
Tracking energy subsidies for a single country is a challenging task; trying to measure them globally is even more so. Multi-country studies of fossil fuel studies have been done, and normally use a price gap measure. This approach compares the world price of the energy commodity with a transport…
This chapter reviews the major policy developments affecting the fuel-ethanol industry of the United States since the late 1970s, quantifies their value to the industry, and evaluates the efficacy of ethanol subsidization in achieving greenhouse gas reduction goals. Total support to ethanol is…