Giving green to get green? Incentives and consumer adoption of hybrid vehicle technology

Federal, state, and local governments use a variety of incentives to induce consumer adoption of hybrid-electric vehicles. We study the relative efficacy of state sales tax waivers, income tax credits, and non-tax incentives and find that the type of tax incentive offered is as important as the generosity of the incentive. Conditional on value, sales tax waivers are associated with more than a ten-fold increase in hybrid sales relative to income tax credits. In addition, we examine how adoption varies with fuel prices. Rising gasoline prices are associated with greater hybrid vehicle sales, but this effect operates almost entirely through high fuel-economy vehicles. By comparing consumer response to sales tax waivers and estimated future fuel savings, we estimate an implicit discount rate of 14.6% on future fuel savings.     

Does localized imitation drive technology adoption? A case study on rooftop photovoltaic systems in Germany

The purpose of this paper is to illuminate the spatio-temporal diffusion of rooftop household photovoltaic installations in Germany and to test whether localized imitation drives their adoption. Our study is based on a unique data set of some 576,000 household photovoltaic systems installed in Germany through 2009. We employ an epidemic diffusion model which includes a spatial dimension, and control for temporal and spatial heterogeneity. According to our results, imitative adoption behavior is highly localized and an important factor for the diffusion of household photovoltaic systems.     

Trade, technology, and the environment: Does access to technology promote environmental regulation?

Focusing specifically on regulation of coal-fired power plants, we examine how technological innovation by early adopters influences the timing of new environmental regulation in non-innovating countries. We build a general equilibrium model of an open economy to identify the political-economy determinants of regulation. With a newly created dataset of SO₂ and NO_x regulations for coal-fired power plants and a patent-based measure of the technology frontier, we estimate the determinants of environmental regulation diffusion. Our findings support the hypothesis that international economic integration eases access to environmentally friendly technologies and leads to earlier adoption, ceteris paribus, of regulation in non-innovating countries. However, we also find evidence that domestic trade protection promotes earlier adoption allowing shifts of regulatory costs to domestic consumers. Furthermore, international market power permits large countries to shift costs to foreign consumers. Other political economy factors, such as the quality of domestic coal, are also important determinants.     

Does efficient irrigation technology lead to reduced groundwater extraction? Empirical evidence

Encouraging the use of more efficient irrigation technology is often viewed as an effective, politically feasible method to reduce the consumptive use of water for agricultural production. Despite its pervasive recommendation, it is not clear that increasing irrigation efficiency will lead to water conservation in practice. In this paper, we evaluate the effect of a widespread conversion from traditional center pivot irrigation systems to higher efficiency dropped-nozzle center pivot systems that has occurred in western Kansas. State and national cost-share programs subsidized the conversion. On an average, the intended reduction in groundwater use did not occur; the shift to more efficient irrigation technology has increased groundwater extraction, in part due to shifting crop patterns.     

Innovation and diffusion of clean/green technology: Can patent commons help?

This paper explores the characteristics of 238 patents on 90 inventions contributed by major multinational innovators to the “Eco-Patent Commons”, which provides royalty-free access to third parties to patented innovations on green technologies. We compare the pledged patents to other patents in the same technologies or held by the same multinationals to investigate the motives of the contributing firms as well as the potential for such commons to encourage innovation and diffusion of climate change related technologies. We find pledged patents to protect environmentally friendly technologies and to be of similar value as the average patent in a pledging firm's patent portfolio but of lower value than other patents in their class. Our analysis of the impact of the patent commons on diffusion of patented technologies suggests that making patents accessible royalty-free did not result in any significant increase in diffusion as measured by citing patents. This study, therefore, indirectly provides evidence on the role of patents in the development and diffusion of green technologies.     

How does the presence of HOV lanes affect plug-in electric vehicle adoption in California? A generalized propensity score approach

Policymakers have sought to spur consumer adoption of advanced clean vehicles by granting them single-occupancy access to high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes. We offer the first evaluation of these policies that accommodates geographic variability in the magnitude of this policy's treatment effect. Focusing on the outcome of plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) adoption in California, we employ a generalized propensity score approach that allows for continuous, rather than binary, treatment effects. We estimate a state-wide dose-response curve to show that access to 6, 20, and 100 miles of nearby HOV lanes leads to 1, 3, and 10 additional PEV registrations in a census tract. The lower end of our 95% confidence interval implies that at least one quarter of California PEV registrations during 2010–2013 were a result of the HOV lane policy. We identify geographically-specific marginal policy effects that are smaller in Los Angeles, but relatively larger in San Diego and Sacramento.     

Emergency drinking water treatment in source water pollution incident—technology and practice in China

An investigation into emergency potable water treatment technologies was conducted to investigate China’s water pollution situation. In order to confirm optimum parameters, the technological efficiency of each pollutant was obtained. About 100 contaminants were tested to find the emergency treatment technologies, most of which were found to be positive. This paper presents the three largest and most significant water pollution incidents in China to date, analyzing cases such as the nitrobenzene pollution incident in the Songhua River in November 2005, the cadmium pollution incident in the Beijiang River in December 2005, and the water crisis with odorous tap water in Wuxi City in May 2007.     

Application of magnesite–bentonite clay composite as an alternative technology for removal of arsenic from industrial effluents

This study evaluated the feasibility of integrating amorphous magnesite and bentonite clay (composite) as an alternative technology for removing arsenic from industrial effluents. The removal of arsenic from industrial effluents by using magnesite–bentonite clay composite was carried out in batch mode. The effects of equilibration time, adsorbent dosage, adsorbate concentration, and pH on removal of arsenic were investigated. The experiments demonstrated that ≈100% arsenic removal is optimum at 30 minutes of agitation, 2 g of adsorbent dosage (2 g: 100 mL, S/L ratio), and 20 mg L^?1 of arsenic concentration. The adsorption data fitted well to both Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption models, hence proving monolayer and multilayer adsorption. The kinetic studies revealed that the data fitted better to a pseudo-second-order reaction than to a pseudo-first-order reaction, hence proving chemisorption. At optimized conditions, the composite was able to remove arsenic to below World Health Organization water quality guidelines, hence depicting that the composite is effective and efficient in removing arsenic from contaminated water. Based on that, this comparative study proves that the composite is a promising adsorbent with high adsorption capacity for arsenic and can be a suitable substitute for the conventional treatment methods.     

Using T-RFLP technology to analyze bacterial diversity in the rhizospheric soils of tea tree at different ages北大核心CSCD

The rhizospheric soils of Tieguanyin at different ages were used as the study materials, and terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) was used to analyze the changes in bacterial diversity. The results showed that the number of T-RFs, Simpson index, and Shannon index decreased significantly with the age of the tea tree. Results of correlation analysis showed that 9 T-RFs from the bacterial community were significantly and positively correlated with the age of the tea tree, and included 34 species of microbes belonging to 10 classes. The 34 microbes were divided into 6 types according to their functional attributes, and included pathogenic bacteria, bacteria that improved soil texture or inhibited pathogenic bacteria, and bacteria associated with the carbon, nitrogen, or sulfur cycles, in which the percentage of pathogenic bacteria was 58.82%. Seventeen T-RFs were significantly and negatively correlated with the age of the tea tree, and included 38 species of bacteria belonging to 12 classes. The 38 bacterial species were divided into 5 types according to their functional attributes, and included pathogenic bacteria, bacteria that improved soil quality or inhibited pathogenic bacteria, and bacteria associated with the carbon cycle or nitrogen cycle, in which all the others, barring the pathogenic bacteria, accounted for 78.95% of the bacterial population. In brief, the diversity and function of bacteria in the rhizospheric soil of tea tree changed significantly with the age of the tea tree, which provides a theoretical basis for studying the interactions of bacterial communities. © 2018 Science Press. All rights reserved.     

Review on the study of mercury/silver ions-pyrimidine base pairs in DNA duplexes and their application in detection technology北大核心CSCD

Nucleic acids and their analogues are getting more and more attention. Metal-mediated base pairs as a kind of simple and functionalized nucleic acids in special positions have widened the scope of application of functional nucleic acids and their analogues. In this type of base pairs, the representative is the interaction between metal ions and pyrimidine bases, especially the research on thymine-Hg2+-thymine (T-Hg2+-T) and cytosine-Ag+-cytosine (C-Ag+-C) base pairs. This review summarizes the structure and mechanism of metal-mediate pyrimidine base pairs as well as the application in the biochemical analysis. It explores the mode and ratio of coordination between metal ions and base pairs, the effects on the stability of DNA helical structure, the related crystal structure and the three-dimensional configuration information in the DNA helix. The analytical application mainly includes various probes of metal ions, small molecules, protein and the detection of single nucleotide polymorphism. Among them the most widely used metal ions detection, and its combination with spectrum technology, visualization and amplification technology greatly promoted the rapid development of sensitive detection technology. In further studies, it is necessary to reveal the mechanism of interaction between T-Hg2+-T and C-Ag+-C, and more attention should be paid to combining of T-Hg2+-T and C-Ag+-C base pairs with other new technologies. The scope of practical application should also be further extended.