IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eneeco/v33y2011i4p584-593.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The status and prospects of renewable energy for combating global warming

Author

Listed:
  • Arent, Douglas J.
  • Wise, Alison
  • Gelman, Rachel

Abstract

Reducing anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in material quantities, globally, is a critical element in limiting the impacts of global warming. GHG emissions associated with energy extraction and use are a major component of any strategy addressing climate change mitigation. Non-emitting options for electrical power and liquid transportation fuels are increasingly considered key components of an energy system with lower overall environmental impacts. Renewable energy technologies (RETs) as well as biofuels technologies have been accelerating rapidly during the past decades, both in technology performance and cost-competitiveness -- and they are increasingly gaining market share. These technology options offer many positive attributes, but also have unique cost/benefit trade-offs, such as land-use competition for bioresources and variability for wind and solar electric generation technologies. This paper presents a brief summary of status, recent progress, some technological highlights for RETs and biofuels, and an analysis of critical issues that must be addressed for RETs to meet a greater share of the global energy requirements and lower GHG emissions.

Suggested Citation

  • Arent, Douglas J. & Wise, Alison & Gelman, Rachel, 2011. "The status and prospects of renewable energy for combating global warming," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 584-593, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:33:y:2011:i:4:p:584-593
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988310001908
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Komor, Paul & Bazilian, Morgan, 2005. "Renewable energy policy goals, programs, and technologies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(14), pages 1873-1881, September.
    2. Lund, Henrik & Kempton, Willett, 2008. "Integration of renewable energy into the transport and electricity sectors through V2G," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 3578-3587, September.
    3. Fischer, Carolyn & Newell, Richard G., 2008. "Environmental and technology policies for climate mitigation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 142-162, March.
    4. Gillingham, Kenneth & Newell, Richard G. & Pizer, William A., 2008. "Modeling endogenous technological change for climate policy analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 2734-2753, November.
    5. Nemet, Gregory F., 2006. "Beyond the learning curve: factors influencing cost reductions in photovoltaics," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(17), pages 3218-3232, November.
    6. Verbruggen, Aviel & Fischedick, Manfred & Moomaw, William & Weir, Tony & Nadaï, Alain & Nilsson, Lars J. & Nyboer, John & Sathaye, Jayant, 2010. "Renewable energy costs, potentials, barriers: Conceptual issues," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 850-861, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yeh, Sonia & Rubin, Edward S., 2012. "A review of uncertainties in technology experience curves," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 762-771.
    2. del Río, Pablo, 2012. "The dynamic efficiency of feed-in tariffs: The impact of different design elements," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 139-151.
    3. Kristoffer Palage & Robert Lundmark & Patrik Söderholm, 2019. "The innovation effects of renewable energy policies and their interaction: the case of solar photovoltaics," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 21(2), pages 217-254, April.
    4. Pizer, William A. & Popp, David, 2008. "Endogenizing technological change: Matching empirical evidence to modeling needs," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 2754-2770, November.
    5. Rubin, Edward S. & Azevedo, Inês M.L. & Jaramillo, Paulina & Yeh, Sonia, 2015. "A review of learning rates for electricity supply technologies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 198-218.
    6. Popp, David & Newell, Richard G. & Jaffe, Adam B., 2010. "Energy, the Environment, and Technological Change," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 873-937, Elsevier.
    7. Mort Webster & Karen Fisher-Vanden & David Popp & Nidhi Santen, 2017. "Should We Give Up after Solyndra? Optimal Technology R&D Portfolios under Uncertainty," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(S1), pages 123-151.
    8. Grafström, Jonas & Poudineh, Rahmat, 2023. "No evidence of counteracting policy effects on European solar power invention and diffusion," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    9. Samadi, Sascha, 2018. "The experience curve theory and its application in the field of electricity generation technologies – A literature review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 82(P3), pages 2346-2364.
    10. Gawel, Erik & Lehmann, Paul & Purkus, Alexandra & Söderholm, Patrik & Witte, Katherina, 2017. "Rationales for technology-specific RES support and their relevance for German policy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 16-26.
    11. Elizabeth Baldwin, Yongyang Cai, Karlygash Kuralbayeva, 2018. "To build or not to build? Capital stocks and climate policy," GRI Working Papers 290, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    12. Oscar Afonso & Ana Catarina Afonso, 2015. "Endogenous Growth Effects of Environmental Policies," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 62(5), pages 607-629, December.
    13. Nesta, Lionel & Vona, Francesco & Nicolli, Francesco, 2014. "Environmental policies, competition and innovation in renewable energy," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 396-411.
    14. Paul Lehmann & Patrik Söderholm, 2018. "Can Technology-Specific Deployment Policies Be Cost-Effective? The Case of Renewable Energy Support Schemes," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 71(2), pages 475-505, October.
    15. Baldwin, Elizabeth & Cai, Yongyang & Kuralbayeva, Karlygash, 2020. "To build or not to build? Capital stocks and climate policy∗," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    16. Baker, Erin & Shittu, Ekundayo, 2008. "Uncertainty and endogenous technical change in climate policy models," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 2817-2828, November.
    17. Scrieciu, S. Şerban & Barker, Terry & Ackerman, Frank, 2013. "Pushing the boundaries of climate economics: critical issues to consider in climate policy analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 155-165.
    18. Schauf, Magnus & Schwenen, Sebastian, 2021. "Mills of progress grind slowly? Estimating learning rates for onshore wind energy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    19. Kim, Hansung & Lee, Hwarang & Koo, Yoonmo & Choi, Dong Gu, 2020. "Comparative analysis of iterative approaches for incorporating learning-by-doing into the energy system models," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    20. Elvira Cerver-Romero & João J. Ferreira & Cristina Fernandes, 2020. "A scientometric analysis of knowledge spillover research," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 45(3), pages 780-805, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:33:y:2011:i:4:p:584-593. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eneco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.