Energy quality is the relative economic usefulness per heat equivalent unit of different fuels and electricity. One way of measuring energy quality is the marginal product of the fuel, which is the marginal increase in the quantity of a good or service produced by the use of one additional heat unit of fuel. These services also include services received directly from energy by consumers. Some fuels can be used for a larger number of activities and/or for more valuable activities. For example, coal cannot be used directly to power a computer whereas electricity can. The marginal product of a fuel is determined in part by a complex set of attributes unique to each fuel: physical scarcity, capacity to do useful work, energy density, cleanliness, amenability to storage, safety, flexibility of use, cost of conversion, and so on. But also the marginal product is not uniquely fixed by these attributes. (more…)
Statistics on national production levels and indicators of environmental pressure have been collected during the past few decad ...
The long-term prospects for the U.K. economy are inevitably uncertain, and the most recent Department of Energy long-term proje ...
Energy is consumed by various segments of the economy, including households, commercial establishments, manufacturing enterpris ...
In terms of aggregate health effects, household solid fuel use is currently the most important source of indoor air pollution i ...
From prehistory until the Industrial Revolution, most energy sources used by humans were localized (i.e., available within 5–10 mil ...
Energy efficiency is defined here to mean energy services provided per unit of energy input (for example, gallons of water heated to a specified temperature per British thermal units of natural gas input). Within this framework, energy efficiency is conceived primarily at the disaggregated, product level, rather than at a more aggregated sectoral level. (more…)
Cost–benefit analysis (CBA), also known as benefit–cost analysis, is rooted in applied welfare economics. It is a way of organizing ...
Statistics on national production levels and indicators of environmental pressure have been collected during the past few decad ...
Another possible non-market-failure explanation for the energy efficiency gap is associated with the fact that even if a given tech ...
Recently, attention to energy efficiency has been gaining momentum. The attention given by policy maker is mainly due to concer ...
Not surprisingly, most Energy Research and Development takes place in industrialized countries where both the public and private se ...
