Handbook of sustainable energy
Launch of the book edited by BC3, Basque Centre for Climate Change
"Handbook of sustainable energy"
The book has been edited by Mr. Ibon Galarraga and Mr. Mikel González-Eguino researchers at BC3, Basque Centre for Climate Change, and its Scientific Director, Prof. Anil Markandya and was published by Edward Elgar.
It will be presented to the public on the 19th of December at the Palacio Euskalduna Conference Centre in Bilbao (18:00, Room BT Terraza).
At the event Mr. Tomás Gómez San Román, co-author of the book and Director of the Spanish Energy Commission, will deliver a speech on "Retos para la sostenibilidad del sector eléctrico en España".
BC3-UPV/EHU Seminars: Spatial green accounting for terrestrial ecosystems: from theory to practice
Prof. Alejandro Caparrós
Institute for Public Goods and Policies – CSIC)
National accounts are widely used to assess the performance of an economy and theory has shown the relationship between the Net National Product and the linearized Hamiltonian. This implies that it suffices to maximize it to keep an economy on its optimal path and that only values estimated for the current year are needed. Theoretical literature on green accounting has extended these results to natural resources and there is now a great interest in expanding national accounts to cover the environment. However, national accounts are based on market prices and environmental valuation typically focuses on consumer surplus. To aggregate values in a consistent manner we propose to simulate the price that would occur if the environment were perfectly internalized. To do this, we propose to simulate the whole market: demand (using non-market valuation techniques), supply and market structure. We also show that the theoretical result that only values of the year are needed depends on assumptions which are unrealistic for forests, especially if results are to be spatially explicit. Thus, forward looking values are necessary to estimate variations in capital (we discuss a simplified method to do this).In the second part we present an application of the theory discussed above to Andalusia. The goal of the RECAMAN project is to integrate commercial and non-commercial values in a single accounting framework in a consistent manner. The accounting framework, the System of Agroforestry Accounts, integrates a production and a capital account. The production account distinguishes final from intermediate goods and services, and natural capital values are estimated discounting future net revenues (natural resource rents), when asset market prices are not available. Commercial values are based on market prices (timber, cork, firewood, pasture and hunting). For non-commercial values the Simulated Exchange Value method discussed above is used. Non-commercial values included are: public and private recreation, biodiversity preservation, landscape, carbon sequestration and mushroom recollection. All estimates are spatially explicit.
Remedia Workshop
Workshop on mitigation of GHG emissions from the Spanish agroforestry sector
En los últimos años investigadores provenientes de diferentes disciplinas hemos venido desarrollando nuestro trabajo en el ámbito de la cuantificación y el estudio de medidas para reducir el impacto del sector agroforestal en las emisiones de GEI (Mitigación).
Algunos nos hemos centrado en uno de los gases, otros en el C que se almacena en la materia orgánica, etc… Además, en cuanto a la escala de estudio, tanto espacial como temporal, algunos miramos al animal, otros al sistema planta-suelo, unos usamos experimentos físicos de semanas y otros simulamos experimentos virtuales durante décadas a través de modelización.
Así, pensamos que es importante que tengamos un marco común donde la comunidad científica en España, a través de diferentes escalas y metodologías, pueda discutir sobre las evidencias científicas de los tres gases y el secuestro de C conjuntamente y así, conseguir una visión global del efecto neto y ser un elemento necesario en que basarse para estrategias integradas y sostenibles a medio y largo plazo.
BC3 Seminars: Altering Hydrology due to a Changing Climate and the Perception of these Changes: Examples from the Mountains of Colorado and Mongolia
Prof Steven R. Fassnacht
ESS-Watershed Science, Warner College of Natural Resources, Colorado State University
The analysis of a changing climate has explored variations in annual temperatures and precipitation quantities, as well as seasonal variations and various indices of extreme conditions. The investigation of hydrological change is more recent and includes annual peak, average and low streamflows, as well as the timing of peak flows. Changes in snow accumulation patterns, typically April 1st snowpack quantities, have also been explored. This talk will present some of the hydrological changes that have been computed in the snow dominated regions of the Western United States, especially in the context of climate change. Some public perceptions of inter-annual variability among winters will be presented. The perception of hydro-climatic change observed by herders near the Khangai Mountains of central Mongolia will be compared to the station-based analysis of change. Finally, since the perception of change may be based on different time periods, an analysis of the significance of the length of record will be presented
BC3 Seminars: Integrating biophysical and socioeconomic issues regarding adaptation to climate change in California
Prof. Louise Jackson
Univ. California, Davis
This place-based case-study of potential responses to climate change in an agricultural county in California’s Central Valley focused on the period of 2010–2050, and dealt with biophysical and socioeconomic issues related to both mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and to adaptation to an uncertain climate. Statistical relationships showed that in the past 100 years, changes in crop acreage by crop has depended little on growing degree days during summer, and in fact, summer temperatures have increased much less than winter temperatures. Econometric analysis indicated that warmer winters, as projected by Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory-BCCA during 2035–2050, will decrease wheat acreage and increase alfalfa and tomato acreage, with slight effects on tree and vine crops. Crop price and availability of irrigation water were often more important for crop acreage projections than temperature. The Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) model showed that these econometric projections did not reduce irrigation demand under either the B1 or A2 scenarios, but a diverse, water-efficient cropping pattern combined with improved irrigation technology reduced demand to 12 percent below the historic mean. Assessment of countywide agricultural GHG emissions and engagement in the development of Yolo County’s Climate Action Plan showed that nitrous oxide (mainly from nitrogen fertilizers) was the main source (ï€40 percent) of emissions from agricultural practices. Reduction in cropland area and a shift toward crops that use less nitrogen has resulted in an ï€11 percent decline in agricultural GHG emissions since 1990. Emissions from cropland and rangeland were several orders of magnitude lower than urbanized land per unit area. A survey distributed to 570 farmers and ranchers achieved a 34 percent response rate. Farmers concerned about climate change impacts on future water availability were more likely to implement water conservation practices. Also, those with strong beliefs that climate change was occurring and posed risks to agriculture were more likely to adopt voluntary GHG mitigation practices. Exploration of future urbanization scenarios with the urban growth model (UPlan) showed that channeling much or all future development into existing urban areas, rather than onto agricultural lands, will increase ecosystem services by preserving agricultural land and open space, immensely reducing the Yolo County’s GHG emissions, and greatly enhancing agricultural sustainability.
BC3-UPV/EHU Seminars: Voluntary and Information Based Approaches to Environmental Management: An Impure Public Good and Club Theory Perspective
Prof. Matthew Kotchen.
Associate Professor of Economics (Yale University) School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
This presentation will evaluate voluntary- and information-based approaches (VIBAs) to environmental management through the lens of public economic theory, which some empirical evidence. The unifying theme is that VIBAs are based on market arrangements with joint production of private benefits along with environmental public goods. The joint production applies not only to firms that join a voluntary environmental program, which may provide reputation benefits along with improved environmental performance, but also to consumers that purchase environmentally friendly goods and services, which offer private benefits along with reduced environmental impacts. The innovation of these arrangements is that joint production of the private benefits effectively “subsidizes” voluntary provision of the public good. When viewed in this way, VIBAs have a property rights interpretation because they privatize some aspect of public good provision in order to make it more incentive compatible. While this strategy can create meaningful incentives for greater environmental protection and efficiencies, this need not be the case, and a more complete understanding of the theoretical basis of VIBAs and careful empirical studies will help determine the circumstances under which they may offer an effective form of environmental management.
Directions in the Voluntary Provision of International Public Goods
The Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) and the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) are jointly organising a conference on "New Directions in the Voluntary Provision of International Public Goods", scheduled for April 17-18, 2012, in Mannheim, Germany. International and global public goods are increasingly attracting attention on the political agenda, thereby reinforcing interest in the theory of the voluntary provision of public goods. This conference brings together renowned researchers in order to present their theoretical, experimental, and empirical work. Furthermore, it aims to thoroughly discuss and advance new directions in the research on the voluntary provision of international public goods. We invite interested participants (non-presenters) to register no later than March 19, 2012, via our registration site. Please note that only a limited number of non-presenters will be able to attend. The conference fee is EUR 110, covering conference materials, coffee breaks, and first conference day's lunch.
BC3-UPV/EHU Seminars: Market-based valuation of transmission network expansion. A heuristic application in GB
Prof. Jose Manuel Chamorro UPV/EHU
Transmission investments are currently needed to meet an increasing electricity demand, to address security of supply concerns, and to reach carbon emissions targets. A key issue when assessing the benefits from an expanded grid concerns the valuation of the uncertain cash flows that result from the expansion. We develop a valuation model which combines optimization techniques, Monte Carlo simulation over the expansion project lifetime, and market data from futures contracts on commodities. The model allows for random failures in generation and transmission infrastructure. Uncertainty stems also from nodal loads, fuel prices, allowance prices, wind generation, and hydro generation. Thus the model accounts for the stochastic dynamics on both the demand side and the supply side. To demonstrate the model by example, we consider a simplified network with two nodes. It is intended to broadly resemble the power generation sectors in England/Wales and Scotland. We then focus on the proposed Western HVDC subsea link. We simulate the whole distribution of effects on system costs, carbon emissions, and unserved load.
BC3-UPV/EHU Seminars: Market-based valuation of transmission network expansion. A heuristic application in GB.
BC3-Basque Centre for Climate Change Sede Building 1, 1st floor, Scientific Park of the University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Bizkaia, SpainProf. Jose Manuel Chamorro
UPV/EHU
Transmission investments are currently needed to meet an increasing electricity demand, to address security of supply concerns, and to reach carbon emissions targets. A key issue when assessing the benefits from an expanded grid concerns the valuation of the uncertain cash flows that result from the expansion. We develop a valuation model which combines optimization techniques, Monte Carlo simulation over the expansion project lifetime, and market data from futures contracts on commodities. The model allows for random failures in generation and transmission infrastructure. Uncertainty stems also from nodal loads, fuel prices, allowance prices, wind generation, and hydro generation. Thus the model accounts for the stochastic dynamics on both the demand side and the supply side. To demonstrate the model by example, we consider a simplified network with two nodes. It is intended to broadly resemble the power generation sectors in England/Wales and Scotland. We then focus on the proposed Western HVDC subsea link. We simulate the whole distribution of effects on system costs, carbon emissions, and unserved load.
BC3 Seminars: Past climate change recorded in polar ice cores
Prof. Kumiko Goto-Azuma
National Institute of Polar Research, Tokyo, Japan
Snow falls on polar ice sheets and ice caps deposits onto the snow layers underneath, which accumulated in previous years. Snow then gets buried and turns into ice due to the overburden pressure. During this process, atmosphere is incorporated in ice as air bubbles. Polar ice sheets and ice caps are thus frozen archives of the past snow and atmosphere. Ice cores, cylindrical ice drilled from ice sheets (as well as from ice caps or glaciers), have been retrieved from Antarctica, Arctic and high mountains in low-mid latitudes. They have provided us with invaluable information on the past climate and environment.
The National Institute of Polar Research in Japan, together with Japanese and overseas collaborators, has drilled ice cores in Antarctica, Greenland, and on Arctic ice caps. A 3035m deep ice core was recently recovered at Dome Fuji, Antarctica and various analyses are underway. The Dome Fuji core goes back to 700,000 years ago, and reveals climatic and environmental variations during the past seven glacial cycles. Japan has participated in international deep ice coring projects in Greenland (GRIP, NGRIP and NEEM). These cores record climatic and environmental changes during the past 120,000 years and indicate that surprisingly abrupt climate changes have taken place in the past. Shallow Arctic ice cores covering the last few hundred years have extended our knowledge on the spatial and temporal changes of climate and environment. At the seminar, I will introduce how the ice cores are analyzed, dated, and used as climate and environment proxies, and discuss about the past climate and environmental changes recorded in the polar ice cores.
