Robust technology policy against emission leakage: The case of upstream subsidies

Asymmetric regulation of a global pollutant between countries can alter the competitiveness of industries and lead to emissions leakage, which hampers countries’ welfare. In order to limit leakage, governments consider supporting domestic trade-exposed firms by subsidizing their investments in abatement technology. The suppliers of such technologies tend to be less than perfectly competitive, particularly when both emissions regulations and advanced technologies are new. In this context of twin market failures, we consider the relative effects and desirability of subsidies for abatement technology. We find a more robust recommendation for upstream subsidies than for downstream subsidies. Downstream subsidies tend to increase global abatement technology prices, reduce pollution abatement abroad and increase emission leakage. On the contrary, upstream subsidies reduce abatement technology prices, and hence also emissions leakage.     

How certain are we about the certainty-equivalent long term social discount rate?

Theoretical arguments for using a term structure of social discount rates (SDR) that declines with the time horizon have influenced government guidelines in the US and Europe. The certainty equivalent discount rate that often underpins this guidance embodies uncertainty in the primitives of the SDR, such as growth. For distant time horizons the probability distributions of these primitives are ambiguous and the certainty equivalent itself is uncertain. Yet, if a limited set of characteristics of the unknown probability distributions can be agreed upon, ‘sharp’ upper and lower bounds can be defined for the certainty-equivalent SDR. Unfortunately, even with considerable agreement on these features, these bounds are widely spread for horizons beyond 75 years. So while estimates of the present value of intergenerational impacts, including the social cost of carbon, can be bounded in the presence of this ambiguity, they typically remain so imprecise as to provide little practical guidance.     

Ambio’s legacy on monitoring,impact, and management of acid rain: This article belongs to Ambio’s 50th Anniversary Collection. Theme: Acidification

Early studies published in Ambio showed large-scale acidification of lakes in southern Sweden and Norway from acid rain. These studies were important for delimiting various scientific issues and thus for eventually contributing to legislation, which reduced emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides and helped to mitigate this major environmental problem. Long-term studies and monitoring in Sweden and Norway and at Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire helped guide this legislation in Europe and in the USA.     

排污权有偿使用与交易制度若干问题探析——以浙江省温州市为例

排污权有偿使用与交易制度是我国一项重要的环境经济政策。文章以温州市为例,从水环境管理视角出发,探讨排污权有偿使用与交易的若干问题。着重分析温州市初始排污权核定与分配的成效、存在的问题和解决途径,利用平均治理成本等方法设计排污权有偿使用价格,研究排污权交易的实现途径。在此基础上,文章提出应探索利用地方立法权制定排污权相关法律法规、完善初始排污权核定与分配方法、优化排污权竞拍机制和实施市场化激励政策等建议。     

某钢铁企业颗粒物无组织排放核算与监测对比分析

以济南东部老工业区一家大型钢铁企业为例,通过前期调研和排放系数核算出颗粒物(TSP)排放总量,再运用公式计算出厂区周边不同距离颗粒物(TSP)的落地浓度。将该落地浓度与厂区周边颗粒物(TSP)的监测值进行对比分析,充分印证了连续点源扩散的高斯模式的准确性和可行性。随着气流经过该厂区,对比上下风向监测点位颗粒物(TSP)浓度迅速升高(增大1.04倍),下风向颗粒物(TSP)浓度超出二级标准1.32倍;颗粒物(TSP)的落地浓度在厂区不同距离上的浓度变化明显,从0.1到10 km其落地浓度稀释了约3 500倍,距离>4 km时,无组织排放的颗粒物(TSP)对周围空气质量直接影响有限。     

Influence of agricultural activities, forest fires and agro-industries on air quality in Thailand

Annual and monthly-based emission inventories in northern, central and north-eastern provinces in Thailand, where agriculture and related agro-industries are very intensive, were estimated to evaluate the contribution of agricultural activity, including crop residue burning, forest fires and related agro-industries on air quality monitored in corresponding provinces. The monthly-based emission inventories of air pollutants, or, particulate matter (PM), NOx and SO₂, for various agricultural crops were estimated based on information on the level of production of typical crops: rice, corn, sugarcane, cassava, soybeans and potatoes using emission factors and other parameters related to country-specific values taking into account crop type and the local residue burning period. The estimated monthly emission inventory was compared with air monitoring data obtained at monitoring stations operated by the Pollution Control Department, Thailand (PCD) for validating the estimated emission inventory. The agro-industry that has the greatest impact on the regions being evaluated, is the sugar processing industry, which uses sugarcane as a raw material and its residue as fuel for the boiler. The backward trajectory analysis of the air mass arriving at the PCD station was calculated to confirm this influence. For the provinces being evaluated which are located in the upper northern, lower northern and northeast in Thailand, agricultural activities and forest fires were shown to be closely correlated to the ambient PM concentration while their contribution to the production of gaseous pollutants is much less.     

Predicting vehicle fuel consumption patterns using floating vehicle data

The status of energy consumption and air pollution in China is serious. It is important to analyze and predict the different fuel consumption of various types of vehicles under different influence factors. In order to fully describe the relationship between fuel consumption and the impact factors, massive amounts of floating vehicle data were used. The fuel consumption pattern and congestion pattern based on large samples of historical floating vehicle data were explored, drivers'' information and vehicles'' parameters from different group classification were probed, and the average velocity and average fuel consumption in the temporal dimension and spatial dimension were analyzed respectively. The fuel consumption forecasting model was established by using a Back Propagation Neural Network. Part of the sample set was used to train the forecasting model and the remaining part of the sample set was used as input to the forecasting model.     

Effect of barium sulfate modification on the SO2 tolerance of V2O5 /TiO2 catalyst for NH3-SCR reaction

Sulfur poisoning of V_2O_5/BaSO_4–TiO_2(VBT),V_2O_5/WO_3–TiO_2(VWT) and V_2O_5/BaSO_4–WO_3–TiO_2(VBWT) catalysts was performed in wet air at 350℃ for 3 hr,and activities for the selective catalytic reduction of NO_x with NH_3 were evaluated for 200–500℃.The VBT catalyst showed higher NO_x conversions after sulfur poisoning than the other two catalysts.The introduction of barium sulfate contributed to strong acid sites for the as-received catalyst,and eliminated the redox cycle of active vanadium oxide to some extent,which resulted in a certain loss of activity.Readily decomposable sulfate species formed on VBT-S instead of inactive sulfates on VWT-S.These decomposable sulfates increased the number of strong acid sites significantly.Some sulfate species escaped during catalyst preparation and barium sulfate was reproduced during sulfur poisoning,which protects vanadia from sulfur oxide attachment to a great extent.Consequently,the VBT catalyst exhibited the best resistance to sulfur poisoning.     

应用数值法对井工开采对地下水预测研究——以晋城矿区赵庄煤矿为例

为了预测井工煤矿开采后地下水水位变化,及对矿区内居民水源井的影响程度,文章在详细分析赵庄煤矿区域及井田水文地质条件的基础上,运用VisualMODFLOW软件对该煤矿及周边影响范围进行了地下水流数值模拟分析,预测了赵庄煤矿开采后不同阶段地下水水位、水量及影响范围的变化,并分析了煤矿开采对当地居民饮用水源的影响,模型的识别与检验表明,所建模型能够较好地反映水文地质条件,能够与目前实际开采地下水影响相吻合。     

五大连池药泉湖水质评价

采用主成分分析法在2010年平水期对五大连池药泉湖6个采样点的8个水质指标进行分析,同时研究药泉湖水体污染的空间分布特征。结果表明:高锰酸盐指数是影响药泉湖水质的首要因子,即有机污染对水体污染的贡献最大;瀑布出水口采样点污染最严重,该出水口为药泉湖观光景区入口,因此要密切关注药泉湖人为点源污染,加大景区环境管制力度。