Measuring the Environmental Benefits of Wind-Generated Electricity

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Cullen, Joseph
• 署名单位: Washington University (WUSTL)
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-ECONOMIC POLICY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7731
• DOI: 10.1257/pol.5.4.107
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 107-133
• 关键词: carbon-dioxide emissions; turbines

摘要

Production subsidies for renewable energy, such as solar or wind power, are rationalized by their environmental benefits. Subsidizing these projects allows clean, renewable technologies to produce electricity that otherwise would have been produced by dirtier, fossil-fuel power plants. In this paper, I quantify the emissions offset by wind power for a large electricity grid in Texas using the randomness inherent in wind power availability. When accounting for dynamics in the production process, the results indicate that only for high estimates of the social costs of pollution does the value of emissions offset by wind power exceed cost of renewable energy subsidies.