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Pacific Islands Coconut Oil Power Generation : A How-To Guide for Small Stationary Engines.
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Year: 2009 Publisher: Washington, D.C. : The World Bank,

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This guide has been written to assist anyone interested in running small stationary diesel powered engines on coconut oil. It is intended to be a 'how-to' guide to provide with relevant information of every aspect of fuelling an engine with coconut oil. The guide is specifically written with small (less than about 50 kVA) diesel generators in mind. While the information and principles can be applied to all diesel engines, there are additional complicating factors to consider when applying to a vehicle, for example. It must be noted also, that this manual is intended for stationary applications that typically involve few stop-starts, longer running times and consistent loads. Diesel engines that stop-start regularly and unpredictably (eg. car engine or back up generator) are outside the scope of this guide. The technical considerations for running a diesel engine on coconut oil, or any vegetable oil for that matter, are not particularly complex. The concept of powering a diesel engine with vegetable oil is, after all, as old as the diesel engine itself. To do it successfully, however, and particularly with today's modern diesel engines, several key elements of the fuel delivery and combustion system must be suitable or made suitable. If these elements are not the engine will be damaged and it will ultimately lead to premature engine failure.


Book
Substitution and Technological Change Under Carbon Cap and Trade : Lessons From Europe
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Year: 2009 Publisher: Washington, D.C., The World Bank,

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The use of carbon-intense fuels by the power sector contributes significantly to the greenhouse gas emissions of most countries. For this reason, the sector is often key to initial efforts to regulate emissions. But how long does it take before new regulatory incentives result in a switch to less carbon intense fuels? This study examines fuel switching in electricity production following the introduction of the European Union's Emissions Trading System, a cap-and-trade regulatory framework for greenhouse gas emissions. The empirical analysis examines the demand for carbon permits, carbon based fuels, and carbon-free energy for 12 European countries using monthly data on fuel use, prices, and electricity generation. A short-run restricted cost function is estimated in which carbon permits, high-carbon fuels, and low-carbon fuels are variable inputs, conditional on quasi-fixed carbon-free energy production from nuclear, hydro, and renewable energy capacity. The results indicate that prices for permits and fuels affect the composition of inputs in a statistically significant way. Even so, the analysis suggests that the industry's fuel-switching capabilities are limited in the short run as is the scope for introducing new technologies. This is because of the dominant role that past irreversible investments play in determining power-generating capacity. Moreover, the results suggest that, because the capacity for fuel substitution is limited, the impact of carbon emission limits on electricity prices can be significant if fuel prices increase together with carbon permit prices. The estimates suggest that for every 10 percent rise in carbon and fuel prices, the marginal cost of electric power generation increases by 8 percent in the short run. The European experience points to the importance of starting early down a low-carbon path and of policies that introduce flexibility in how emission reductions are achieved.


Book
Substitution and Technological Change Under Carbon Cap and Trade : Lessons From Europe
Authors: ---
Year: 2009 Publisher: Washington, D.C., The World Bank,

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Abstract

The use of carbon-intense fuels by the power sector contributes significantly to the greenhouse gas emissions of most countries. For this reason, the sector is often key to initial efforts to regulate emissions. But how long does it take before new regulatory incentives result in a switch to less carbon intense fuels? This study examines fuel switching in electricity production following the introduction of the European Union's Emissions Trading System, a cap-and-trade regulatory framework for greenhouse gas emissions. The empirical analysis examines the demand for carbon permits, carbon based fuels, and carbon-free energy for 12 European countries using monthly data on fuel use, prices, and electricity generation. A short-run restricted cost function is estimated in which carbon permits, high-carbon fuels, and low-carbon fuels are variable inputs, conditional on quasi-fixed carbon-free energy production from nuclear, hydro, and renewable energy capacity. The results indicate that prices for permits and fuels affect the composition of inputs in a statistically significant way. Even so, the analysis suggests that the industry's fuel-switching capabilities are limited in the short run as is the scope for introducing new technologies. This is because of the dominant role that past irreversible investments play in determining power-generating capacity. Moreover, the results suggest that, because the capacity for fuel substitution is limited, the impact of carbon emission limits on electricity prices can be significant if fuel prices increase together with carbon permit prices. The estimates suggest that for every 10 percent rise in carbon and fuel prices, the marginal cost of electric power generation increases by 8 percent in the short run. The European experience points to the importance of starting early down a low-carbon path and of policies that introduce flexibility in how emission reductions are achieved.


Book
Infrastructure and Economic Growth in the Middle East and North Africa
Authors: --- ---
Year: 2009 Publisher: Washington, D.C., The World Bank,

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This paper analyzes the impact of infrastructure on growth of total factor productivity and per capita income, using both growth accounting techniques and cross-country growth regressions. The two econometric techniques yield some consistent and some different results. Regressions based in the growth accounting framework suggest that electricity production helps explain cross-country differences in total factor productivity growth in the Middle East and North Africa region. Growth regressions support that conclusion, while also stressing an effect of telecommunications infrastructure. Finally, growth regressions also indicate quite consistently that the returns to infrastructure have been lower in the Middle East and North Africa region than in developing countries as a whole.


Book
More On the Energy : Non-Energy Commodity Price Link
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Year: 2009 Publisher: Washington, D.C., The World Bank,

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This paper examines the energy/non-energy commodity price link, based on a reduced form econometric model and using annual data from 1960 to 2008. The transmission elasticity from energy to the non-energy index is estimated at 0.28. At a more disaggregated level, the fertilizer index exhibited the largest elasticity (0.55), followed by precious metals (0.46), food (0.27), metals and minerals (0.25), and raw materials (0.11). By contrast, only a few price indices responded strongly to inflation, although the trend parameter estimate (often viewed as a proxy for technological progress) is negative for agriculture and positive for metals. A key implication of the pass-through results is that for as long as energy prices remain elevated, most non-energy commodity prices are expected to be high.


Book
Climate Change and Individual Behavior : Considerations for Policy
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Year: 2009 Publisher: Washington, D.C., The World Bank,

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Climate change is anthropogenic - the product of billions of acts of daily consumption. That solutions need to be anthropogenic too is well accepted. Yet, suggested solutions are normally cast in the realms of finance and technology, often neglecting the primal root of the problem: individual behavior. An emerging body of social-psychology scholarship has examined the barriers and drivers of individual behavior in relation to both adaptation and mitigation. This paper reviews some of its conclusions, and suggests policy areas that should be considered in devising appropriate interventions.


Book
Climate Change and the Economics of Targeted Mitigation in Sectors With Long-Lived Capital Stock
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Year: 2009 Publisher: Washington, D.C., The World Bank,

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Mitigation investments in long-lived capital stock (LLKS) differ from other types of mitigation investments in that, once established, LLKS can lock-in a stream of emissions for extended periods of time. Moreover, historical examples from industrial countries suggest that investments in LLKS projects or networks tend to be lumpy, and tend to generate significant indirect and induced emissions besides direct emissions. Looking forward, urbanization and rapid economic growth suggest that similar decisions about LLKS are being or will soon be made in many developing countries. In their current form, carbon markets do not provide correct incentives for mitigation investments in LLKS because the constraint on carbon extends only to 2012, and does not extend to many developing countries. Targeted mitigation programs in regions and sectors in which LLKS is being built at rapid rate are thus necessary to avoid getting locked into highly carbon-intensive LLKS. Even if the carbon markets were extended (geographically, sectorally, and over time), public intervention would still be required, for three main reasons. First, to ensure that indirect and induced emissions associated with LLKS are taken into account in investor's financial cost-benefit analysis. Second, to facilitate project or network financing to bridge the gap between carbon revenues that accrue over time as the project/network unfolds and the capital needed upfront to finance lumpy investments. Third, to internalize other non-carbon externalities (e.g., local pollution) and/or to lift barriers (e.g., lack of capacity to handle new technologies) that penalize the low-carbon alternatives relative to the high-carbon ones.


Book
On Interfuel Substitution : Some International Evidence
Authors: ---
Year: 2009 Publisher: Washington, D.C., The World Bank,

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This paper estimates interfuel substitution elasticities in selected developing and industrialized economies at the national and sector levels. In doing so, it employs state-of-the-art techniques in microeconometrics, particularly the locally flexible normalized quadratic functional forms, and provides evidence consistent with neoclassical microeconomic theory. The results indicate that the interfuel substitution elasticities are consistently below unity, revealing the limited ability to substitute between major energy commodities (i.e., coal, oil, gas, and electricity). While the study finds some evidences of larger interfuel substitution potential in high-income economies as compared to that in the middle- and low-income economies in the industrial and transportation sectors, no such evidence is observed in the residential and electricity generation sectors or at the national level. The implication is that interfuel substitution depends on the structure of the economy, not the level of economic development. Moreover, a higher change in relative prices is needed to induce switching toward a lower carbon economy.


Book
Welfare Impacts of Rural Electrification : Evidence from Vietnam
Authors: --- --- ---
Year: 2009 Publisher: Washington, D.C., The World Bank,

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Access to electricity is crucial for economic development and there is a growing body of literature on the impact of rural electrification on development. However, most studies have so far relied on cross-sectional surveys comparing households with and without electricity, which have well known causal attribution problems. This paper is one of the first studies to examine the welfare impacts of households' rural electrification based on panel surveys conducted in 2002 and 2005 for some 1,100 households in rural Vietnam. The findings indicate that grid electrification has been both extensive (connecting all surveyed communes by 2005) and intensive (connecting almost 80 percent of the surveyed households by 2005). Vietnam is unusual in that once electricity is locally available, both rich and poor households are equally likely to get the connection. The econometric estimations suggest that grid electrification has significant positive impacts on households' cash income, expenditure, and educational outcomes. The benefits, however, reach a saturation point after prolonged exposure to electricity. Finally, this study recommends investigating the long-term benefits of rural electrification - not just for households, but for the rural economy as a whole.


Book
More On the Energy : Non-Energy Commodity Price Link
Author:
Year: 2009 Publisher: Washington, D.C., The World Bank,

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Abstract

This paper examines the energy/non-energy commodity price link, based on a reduced form econometric model and using annual data from 1960 to 2008. The transmission elasticity from energy to the non-energy index is estimated at 0.28. At a more disaggregated level, the fertilizer index exhibited the largest elasticity (0.55), followed by precious metals (0.46), food (0.27), metals and minerals (0.25), and raw materials (0.11). By contrast, only a few price indices responded strongly to inflation, although the trend parameter estimate (often viewed as a proxy for technological progress) is negative for agriculture and positive for metals. A key implication of the pass-through results is that for as long as energy prices remain elevated, most non-energy commodity prices are expected to be high.

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