November 1998
The current misplaced focus on short-term climate policies is a product both of domestic political exigencies and badly flawed technical analyses. A prime example of the latter is a recent U.S. Department of Energy study, prepared by five national laboratories. The 5-Labs study assumes--incorrectly--that technical solutions are readily at hand. Worse, advocates of short-term emissions targets under the Framework Convention on Climate Change are using this study to justify the subsidy of existing energy technologies--diverting resources from the effective long-term technology response that will be needed if the climate picture darkens.
Contents
1. INTRODUCTION
2. ANALYSIS OF EMISSIONS CONTROL POLICY
3. THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY'S 5-LAB STUDY
4. APPLICATION TO ADMINISTRATION POLICY, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
5. CONCLUSION
6. REFERENCES
The search for low-carbon technology for the long run must be a central element in the global response to the threat of climate change. Unfortunately, actions taken by both the U.S. Congress and the Administration run the risk of crippling the U.S. effort to explore this avenue, in effect throwing out the baby with what is perceived by some to be policy bathwater. In its current focus on short-term Kyoto-type emissions targets, and the Congress' reaction to the process, the United States is wasting time and effort that could be applied to the search for cost-competitive, low-carbon ways of powering the modern economy. This is a tragic mistake. At the heart of the problem is a push for a short-term technical fix, driven by domestic political exigencies and unfortunately supported by badly flawed analyses of the process of technical change. The focus of this paper is one widely cited study of technology options by five U.S. national laboratories, and the uses and misuses of this work as a guide to policy.
Failure to harness technology development intelligently in response to the climate issue could have serious consequences. Although the possible magnitude of potential change is very uncertain, the risk of human influence appears substantial. Our own MIT analysis (Prinn et al., 1998) shows that the range of possible outcomes over the next century is very wide. We only partially understand climate system behavior, and our ability to forecast economic growth and technical change, and the resulting greenhouse emissions, is limited as well. Our understanding of the ecosystem effects of rapid climate change is even weaker. The magnitude of the combined uncertainties is so great that the problem could prove either not so important as we imagine, or much worse. Thus, whatever one's position regarding the current conflict over near-term emission controls, we should, in my view, be able to agree that we are taking considerable risks with global climate in the long term.
Unfortunately, even the emergence of universal consensus that the problem is serious, and that something dramatic should be done, may not lead to meaningful action. Nations have very different interests and priorities. A treaty that could meet the needs of each, and suppress the incentive for free-riding, is difficult to formulate even as a theoretical exercise, much less to negotiate among dozens of nations. In principle, rich countries could use various forms of foreign aid, trade in emissions permits, or other side payments to gain the participation of hold-outs, but the amounts of money that would be needed are very large in relation to anything seen before, or to what would seem politically feasible.
It may well be, therefore, that the key to future response capability is the development of low-carbon energy supply technologies that can compete head-to-head with conventional fossil-fuel burning, and use technologies that can deliver the same services as today with much lower energy input. We do not have these options in hand now, and their development is a long-term, multi-decade process. Moreover, at least within the next few decades we cannot look to resource depletion to have a substantial effect on the prices of conventional fossil fuels, to allow market penetration by today's relatively costly alternatives. Thus a shift of limited R&D resources and managerial and political attention to short-term policy targets may come at the cost of long-term technical developments, to our considerable regret in the future. Unfortunately, in recent months a few prominent technology studies have lent support to just this outcome.
2. ANALYSIS OF EMISSIONS CONTROL POLICY
2.1 Two Approaches to the Task
To provide a context for discussion of these studies, it is helpful to have a map of the methods usually applied to studies of emissions control. As illustrated in Figure 1, they fall into two rough categories, each encompassing a rich variety of detailed methods. As the figure suggests, some analytical efforts involve a mix of the two so that the categories overlap, but the distinction nonetheless remains a useful one.
Figure 1. Different Approaches to Control Cost
One approach, usually carried out by economists, might be called "market-based." Its concern is with how markets respond under assumed policy intervention, and the essential question is, "At what price?" That is, the focus is on market price as the essential mechanism through which policy acts. Frequently, this approach also is referred to as "top-down" analysis, meaning that it encompasses the economy as a whole (or at least a number of interacting sectors), and it analyzes the interplay of policies within this larger system. The most common alternative is "engineering-cost" analysis. Frequently associated with studies dominated by engineers, its essential question is, "At what cost?" Its focus is on estimation of the cost of particular supply technologies and/or end-use devices, and comparison of these costs with reduced energy expenditures and other environmental benefits. It is frequently referred to as "bottom-up," in that assessment of a policy involves the adding up of energy savings or emissions reductions from various technologies, each considered independently.
Each of these two approaches to analysis has its strengths and weaknesses. Market-based methods take account of interactions in the markets for intermediate and final goods and inputs to production like capital, labor and natural resources, and they can take explicit account of consumer preferences and how they change with increasing wealth. They can consider the fiscal effects of policy measures such as carbon taxes or permit auctions. They also can be formulated to reflect the ways that policy impacts are mediated through international trade. In short, they can be designed to consider the side effects, spillovers and feedbacks that flow from a policy change, the so-called "general equilibrium" adjustment of the economy.
There is a tradeoff, of course. Gaining multi-sector, multi-region interactions requires a sacrifice in technical detail, through the need to use simplified representations of production processes and to aggregate industrial sectors. However, for an economic change as large as the emissions reductions under the Kyoto Protocol, these market interactions are crucial, and so these market-based methods offer significant advantages for addressing the implications of such a commitment.
The chief advantage of the technology-costing methods, naturally, is their technical detail, which makes it possible to study specific cases where markets may not be working efficiently, and to guide expenditures on technology research and development to the areas of greatest payoff. To gain this detail they usually must assume prices of energy and other key inputs rather than analyze them, and omit consideration of the many substitutions that take place among goods and processes in response to any policy action.
If done well, studies following a technology-costing approach can offer insight into larger economy-wide questions, like the implications of climate agreements. In the attempt, however, these studies frequently encounter one of several pitfalls, which can make them positively misleading as a guide to broad policy. Three of these are of particular relevance to this discussion.
2.2 Pitfalls of Technology-Costing
Confusion of Market Failures with Other Market Barriers. Technology-costing studies usually start with a list of particular technologies, such as energy-saving end-use devices or low-carbon energy sources, which look attractive but are "under-used." An analytical basis for this judgment is constructed by means of a calculation of net present value (NPV), taking account of capital and other components of cost and the savings to be realized in energy expenditures. Examples of such opportunities include highly efficient windows or higher mile-per-gallon cars, and wind and solar power supplies. If such "good" technologies go wanting something must be wrong in the economy, so the argument goes. The analysis proceeds to show how much improvement could be gained at a low cost, or even a net benefit, with only small changes in policy or perhaps just general encouragement.
The question is, what is the barrier to use of a technology which is to be corrected by policy intervention? Here it is helpful to distinguish two possible reasons why an apparently attractive technology may not be quickly adopted. One is appropriately classified as a market "failure"; the other is not attributable to failure in market function but to some inhibiting feature of market preferences or normal market activity (Jaffe and Stavins, 1994; Sutherland, 1991). The difference between the two circumstances can be illustrated using Figure 2, which is adapted from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (1996). An economy cannot produce everything its citizens want; there are always tradeoffs. Here the textbook choice of "guns vs. butter" is restated in terms of some traditional measure of economic welfare vs. climate-related environmental quality. In this example, the vertical axis includes output of market-priced goods plus all environmental benefits except those of reducing the risk of climate change; the horizontal axis is the level of greenhouse gas emissions. The figure thus illustrates the components of a cost-effectiveness analysis of climate policy, which is the type of calculation being reviewed here. An economy is said to be "efficient" when it is not possible to lower greenhouse gas emissions without incurring welfare losses elsewhere. In the economist's jargon, an efficient economy is on its production possibility frontier, at points like A, B or C in the figure.
Figure 2. Tradeoff of Economic Welfare vs. Reduction in Greenhouse Gas Emissions
A market "failure" occurs when there is some flaw in the way markets are organized, which leads consumers and/or producers to respond to the wrong price signals. That is, the economy is operating in a state like point Z, where there may be so-called "no regrets" opportunities to move to point B, or even A, thereby achieving environmental improvement at no cost or even a net benefit. Or it may be possible to move from Z to point C, which would involve economic costs but which might be justified on a benefit-cost basis. Such failures include situations were decision-makers have insufficient or incorrect information (consumers don't perceive how costly it is to own a power-guzzling air conditioner), where there is an asymmetry between the person making the energy use decisions and the one paying the bills (the landlord-tenant problem), or where there is some form of non-priced externality (like urban air pollution). These conditions lead to calls for government action, in the interest of economic efficiency, ranging from labeling rules to device performance standards to various forms of direct government expenditure or tax subsidy.
In contrast to these market failures are another set of barriers that may retard the spread of a technology, even when analyst's calculations show it has a positive NPV, that are better thought of as an unfortunate set of normal market preferences. In these cases the economy is operating efficiently, and emissions reduction (say, through the use of a new technology) can be had only at some cost, as with a move from A to B, or B to C, in the figure. In other words, the technology is not economically competitive apart from possible expected benefits from reduced climate risk.
A wide range of normal market conditions can contribute to this result, where technology-cost analysis shows the move is costless or a (net benefit) but buyer behavior indicates otherwise. First, potential buyers simply may not like the technology. That is, it may have undesired attributes that matter to users but are not priced in the technology-cost analysis.[1] Or there may be transactions costs or other expenses of adoption that are hard to include in the calculations. Uncertainty about performance, or about energy prices, may lead users (quite rationally) to exercise their option to wait and reconsider the opportunity next year. And most significant is the issue of discount rates. Consumers and industry decision-makers may appear to operate at discount rates higher than those that analysts choose for their NPV calculations. Sorting out the influence of discount rates from that those of un-priced attributes and options behavior is a very complex matter. (Do I decide not to buy more energy-efficient fluorescent lightbulbs because I over-discount the electricity savings, or because they don't look good in my existing appliances?) Still, technology-costing studies that apply discount rates below the levels generally seen in practice do not reveal a market failure so much as an analyst's disagreement with market preferences.
The key difference between these two causes of non-use is that correcting failures may in some circumstances offer a net benefit, whereas overcoming non-failure or market-preference barriers always involves cost. The distinction is of concern in this discussion because in some technology studies these two effects are mixed indiscriminately. Too often market intervention to advance a particular technology is implicitly assumed to be correcting failures, and therefore the analysts feel no need to dig into specific policy instruments and their costs. An example of this phenomenon will be seen later.
Lack of Attention to Market Structure. In analyzing a new technology, such as a consumer device or production process, it may be difficult to account for all the conditions (besides engineering NPV) that must be met before it can take market share. It can be even harder to estimate how long the process may take. Aspects of market structure, which are outside the usual boundaries of technology-cost analysis, are crucial at this point. These factors include the structure of distribution channels and industries supplying key (and perhaps new) inputs, and they may involve regulatory and legal-liability issues particularly regarding health, safety and environmental quality. Most important, they include the internal organization of the particular industry--firms, consumers, and intervening markets--which is to adopt the technology.
These aspects of detailed market structure may or may not determine the fate of a new technology in the long run, but they have a huge influence on the likely pace of adoption. Failure to consider them may lead (incorrectly) to a judgment that something is "wrong" with the market, or if truly wrong that it is fixable at reasonable cost. Such faulty analysis can lead to bad policy advice.
Failure to Account for Inter-Market Adjustments. Finally, in a partial analysis built up from assessments of individual technologies, and policies to foster them, it is very difficult to consider interactions across markets. If the changes are small, then this aspect can be ignored. If these effects are large in relation to the markets at issue, however, then failure to consider them can lead to serious flaws in the analysis. Proposed climate policies, which involve major shifts in the structure of energy supply and use, present such a case. An obvious source of concern is the evaluation of a large-scale policy-induced change in use of a particular fuel or other input, when the study assumes an exogenous (and constant) estimate of its domestic price. Some changes in technology may also influence the prices of capital and specialized labor. Less obvious, but nonetheless significant in some cases, are interactions though international trade.
3. THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY'S 5-LAB STUDY
An example of how a study can suffer from the ills above, and yet be applied to an important policy issue, is the analysis of U.S. carbon reductions prepared by a consortium of five DOE laboratories, frequently referred to as the 5-Lab Report (Interlaboratory Working Group, 1997). Beginning with an observation that many energy-efficient technologies remain "underutilized," it sets out to "... quantify the reductions in carbon emissions that can be attained through the improved performance and increased penetration of efficient and low-carbon technologies by the year 2010" (p. 1.1). It has proved an influential piece of work, as discussed below. Its dominant and much-publicized conclusion is that, by pursuing a technology path, the United States could stabilize carbon emissions at 1990 levels, at no cost or even a positive net benefit. As stated in the Report, if certain measures discussed are taken, "... the cases analyzed in the study are judged to yield energy savings that are roughly equal to or greater than the costs" (p. 1.1).
3.1 The Study's Structure The 5-Lab study divides the U.S. energy economy into four sectors (buildings, industry, transportation and electric utilities) and compiles estimates of how carbon emissions in 2010 could be reduced by means of a technology push. Reductions in energy and carbon emissions are calculated from a baseline or "business as usual" case drawn from forecasts in the U.S. Department of Energy's 1997 Annual Energy Outlook. Possible carbon reductions are described for three policy cases:
* High-Efficiency/Low Carbon (HE/LC) Case with a $25 price per ton of
carbon ($/tC). It is presumed that the carbon premium is attained through a
cap-trade-system. This policy is accompanied by a "greater commitment" through
federal programs, strengthened state programs, and "very active" private sector
involvement.
* High-Efficiency/Low Carbon (HE/LC) Case with a $50/tC price. This is the same as that immediately above, only with a higher carbon price.
The sector breakdown of these reductions is shown in Table 1, which is drawn from Table 1.2 of the Report. Before looking at some of the assumptions behind these estimates, two general points should be made about the analytical method. First, only in the case of the electric sector has the 5-Lab group conducted any numerical analysis of the potential effects of carbon prices. For all other sectors the net decreases in carbon emissions are the result of "expert" judgments about the effects of price and the assumed effect of a "greater commitment" by government and the "very active" private sector that might accompany the imposition of a permit scheme.
Table 1.Forecast Carbon Reduction Below the 2010 Baseline (MMtC)
| High Efficiency/Low-Carbon | |||
| Efficiency | $25/tC | $50/tC | |
| Buildings | 25 | 44 | 62 |
| Industry | 28 | 54 | 93 |
| Transportation | 73 | 88 | 103 |
| Electricity | 0 | 48 | 136 |
| Total (rounded) | 120 | 230 | 390 |
Second, the study does not describe the policies that might be used to accomplish higher penetration of energy-efficient and/or low-carbon technologies. There is not even any explicit treatment of the reasons why emissions should be lower in the Efficiency case than under Business as Usual. The report simply posits a "host of market barriers [that] account for the lost opportunities," with no attempt to sort out the failures-vs.-preferences puzzle discussed above.
3.2 The Study's Shortcomings
Based on these observations, and others below, many criticisms can be leveled at this study (for example, see Sutherland, 1998; General Accounting Office, 1998). It also should be noted that the authors were aware of many of its shortcomings and cite them in the body of the Report and its appendices. The argument here is not that the staffs of these national laboratories didn't know what they were doing, or that they hid the blemishes from the diligent reader. The central critique is that the 5-Lab Study is not an appropriate vehicle for analysis of the policy question which its main conclusion addresses, i.e., how costly it would be to return to 1990 U.S. carbon emissions by 2010. A look at the details of just three of the many components of the analysis--for automobile fuel economy, building efficiency, and reduction of coal use in electric power--will illustrate the cause for concern.
Automotive Fuel Efficiency: Regulation is Costless. As can be seen in Table 1, over half of the carbon reduction in the Efficiency case is realized in the transport sector. Of the 73 MMtC reduction, 61 MMtC or 84% is from increases in vehicle efficiency and the remainder result from the assumed introduction of ethanol from biomass. Here we focus on just the main component of this estimate. The increase in efficiency is the result of the assumed market penetration of new technologies such as direct-injection stratified charge engines, direct-injection diesels, and gasoline- and/or diesel-electric hybrids, in addition to other changes in vehicle design and materials. In the overall cost analysis, the additional capital cost of these vehicles is weighed against the assumed fuel savings, with market penetration rates and other calculations performed using the Energy Information Administration's National Energy Modeling System (NEMS) model.
The question is, why should these efficiencies appear in the Efficiency case but not in the baseline, when there are no price incentives such as higher gasoline prices? The answer comes in two parts. First, vastly increased R&D is assumed to reduce the time required for market introduction of new technologies by 25% (by a mechanism that is not explained). But second and most important is the following:
That is, underlying the analysis, which is supposedly about technology, is a regulatory and tax program. The components of such a policy program receive no analysis in the Report, and only the barest description beyond what is quoted here. As noted earlier, the Report is explicit about its lack of analysis of specific policies, but less obvious is the fact that any costs of such a regulatory and tax program are omitted from the benefit-cost analysis. In effect, regulation and tax programs are treated as politically acceptable, and free of economic cost. Thus the analysis is best described as a scenario exercise gone haywire, not a plausible economic forecast as implied by the study's conclusions and the way they have been interpreted in policy discussions.
When the Report comes to the HE/LC cases, the analysis descends even deeper into the imaginary world of "what if." As noted earlier, there is no analysis of the potential effect of the $25 or $50 carbon price ($50/tC would add roughly 25 cents per gallon to the gasoline price). Instead, the additional reductions derived for these cases, shown in Table 1, are based on "technological breakthroughs" and "a certain degree of luck" (p. 5.3). Lost in references to this study in policy discussions is the fact that the report itself declares that the HE/LC case is best described as "optimistic" or "possible," and that in addition to a major intensification of R&D it presumes the adoption of, "... significant policy measures aimed at pushing the market towards giving fuel efficiency a much higher priority" (p 5.3). In the terms introduced above, the Study implicitly assumes that regulatory or tax intervention is justified by the correction of (unspecified) market failures, so the costs are not important to the analysis. As a result, the economic cost analysis is not correct, the considerable political difficulties of "pushing the market" are hidden, and thus the future the Report lays out is not realistic. Moreover, little evidence is presented that this market push could produce the promised magnitude of energy and carbon savings, even if it were somehow carried out.
Building Efficiency: Arbitrary Assumptions about Markets. The study's handling of the building sector provides a disturbing example of the failure to consider the structure of markets when preparing this form of technology-cost analysis. To arrive at the carbon reductions presented in Table 1, the study first constructed an estimate of how much energy and carbon would be saved if maximum cost-effective energy improvements were installed in 100% of U.S. homes and commercial and public buildings. These improvements include appliances such as lighting, refrigeration and space conditioning equipment, and more effective building design and construction. The definition of "cost effective" for this analysis is a positive NPV to the user, assuming a 7% real discount rate.
For the Efficiency case, it is assumed that 35% of this maximum reduction is achieved. Why the Efficiency case should differ from the baseline in this way (with no price incentives) is not discussed, except to say that that the expected savings result from a "moderately vigorous" effort to reduce energy use using, "[a] combination of mechanisms that may include higher prices . . . energy-efficiency standards and information programs" (p. 3.11). The HE/LC cases assume that 65% of the maximum is achieved. Again, prices of energy, as they might be influenced by the carbon permit system, are not considered explicitly. Rather, the 65% result flows from a judgment as to the effect of a "vigorous effort" to reduce energy use (in contrast to a "moderately-vigorous" effort in the Efficiency case). That is the extent of the reported analysis.
The study imagines an appliance and construction market with a structure quite different than the one we actually have. With a straight face, the 5-Lab Report authors justify the 7% discount rate on the basis that, "The long term average return for the utility industry is about 6% real and the typical rates for auto loans and business loans are also in this range" (Appendix C, p. 1.5). Controversy over the economics of demand-side management programs conducted by U.S. electric utilities spawned a large amount of careful work on consumer and industry behavior in the area of energy efficiency investments (e.g., Joskow and Marron, 1992; Levine and Sonnenblick, 1994; Nichols, 1994). In the light of this work it is clear that 7% is far below actual experience, and any analysis using such a low rate is seriously misleading.
Also included in the savings in building efficiency is the effect of "vigor" and "moderate vigor" on the design, construction and equipping of new residential and commercial structures. Here again, forecasting the response of this industry to heightened societal concern for conservation, and perhaps to price incentives flowing from the carbon permit scheme, requires consideration of its peculiar structure. The U.S. construction industry is notorious for the fragmentation of its various components such as local building codes, development and finance, design, construction (with its various layers of sub-contractors), materials manufacture and supply, certification and training of construction trades. To be realistic, any analysis of response to policy must reflect the inertia of this system (Hansen, 1998). It is an issue that the Report does not address.
Thus the 35% or 65% numbers, which reflect progress toward some maximum potential, involve seriously flawed assumptions about the structure of markets in this sector, and unspecified policy intervention. As such it may be a start toward an analysis of long-term potential and sector-specific policies, but it is not a reasonable approach to estimation of likely developments by 2010.
Electricity: Ignore Inter-Market Adjustments. The electric sector is the one place in the 5-Lab Study where explicit account is taken of the potential effect of a cap-and-trade system. As Table 1 shows, 136 MMtC or one-third of the reduction needed to achieve the 390 MMtC reduction in 2010 comes from the electric sector. Here we focus on the shift from coal to natural gas in existing generators which accounts for 70% of the total. The remainder of the savings come from a combination of small contributions from biomass, wind, hydro and nuclear sources, and various improvements in other parts of the electric system.
The results in Table 1 are calculated on the basis of only one case of an emissions permit system, i.e., the one yielding a carbon price of $50/tC. (The $25 case was constructed using analysts' judgment.) System calculations were made using a simulation model of the generation sector. A base case was constructed to approximate the results under the EIA, 1997, Annual Energy Outlook, which underlies the analysis of other sectors, and an attempt was made to adjust the model for market changes that will accompany the current process of electricity deregulation. Then analysis of the $50/tC carbon case was conducted in two parts: adjustments on the demand side, and changes in the supply structure. First, as a result of lowered end-use of electricity in the Building and Industry sectors, the demand for electric generation will be reduced. Some of this effect is already accounted for in these other sectors, but not counted there is the fact that, with lower overall electricity demand and the new carbon charge, there will be a re-dispatching of existing generating units, in general away from coal. Second, whatever the demand level, coal-fired units will be re-powered with lower-carbon-emitting natural gas.
Unfortunately, at this point the Study drops into the third of the pitfalls laid out above. Underlying all of the model results is the key assumption that the prices of oil, natural gas and coal are constant. This condition holds across all cases (Appendix F-2). This of course means that the coal-gas price ratio, which is a crucial input to the calculation of coal to gas conversion, also is constant. In reality, if coal demand falls domestically because of climate policy (electric generation accounts for about 80% of U.S. coal use), coal prices will fall as well. Since the United States is a net exporter of coal, and any U.S. domestic carbon control policy presumably will have counterparts in other countries, this price response will be augmented through international trade. Also, the conversion of coal plants to natural gas will cause a substantial increase in gas demand, driving up its price. In omitting these intermarket effects the 5-Lab analysis overestimates the carbon reductions from re-dispatch and re-powering. In addition, the calculated fuel shift is strongly influenced by assumed prices of emissions permits under sulfur and NOx control programs, but these prices also are held constant even with drastic reductions in coal use.
Without re-analysis, taking account of the changing market equilibria in these closely related markets, it is not possible to say how big an error is introduced by this procedure. Note, moreover, that this assumption of constant prices will bias the estimates of the penetration of other contributors to carbon reduction in the electric sector, such as biomass, wind, and solar power.
In short, it is not correct to calculate these changes in generation patterns in a partial or one-sector analysis, ignoring the response of fuel prices. To be fair to the 5-Lab effort, it should be said that the authors do describe their method in one place or another, and they are explicit about the fact that they did no analysis of natural gas or coal prices (p. 7.3 and Appendix F-1). It is not that work underlying the sector chapters and appendices is misrepresented, or that an effort was not made to lay out a set of interesting scenarios. The problem is that this technology-costing analysis, with its particular structure, is simply inappropriate for the policy question at which it is directed.
4. APPLICATION TO ADMINISTRATION POLICY, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
It would be easy to overstate the influence on government policy of any particular piece of analysis. Diverse forces come to bear, many of them much more powerful than the computer model and the word processor. However, recent U.S. climate policy, particularly as it concerns the role of new technology, is a case where this influence merits greater attention. By the same token, it is not altogether fair to single out the 5-Lab Report for criticism, because it is only one of a number of studies that offer a similar brand of technological optimism (e.g., National Academy of Sciences, 1991; Alliance to Save Energy et al., 1997). On the other hand, the 5-Lab Study has proved to be an influential piece of work, frequently cited as justification for a technology-based approach to climate change in the short term. Of course, the policy consequences should not be attributed to the 5-Lab Study alone, but equally to those who misapply its results (and those of other studies like it) in climate discussions.
4.1 U.S. Climate Policy and Its Analytical Justification
The outlines of U.S. climate policy were stated by the President in an October 1997 speech before the National Geographic Society (The White House, 1997a). The President instructed U.S. negotiators to seek agreement to a legally-binding target of returning to 1990 emissions by a 2008-2012 budget period, a target tightened to minus 7% in the subsequent Kyoto Conference of Parties (United Nations, 1997). Further, the speech laid out a three-stage approach to attaining this goal. The first and key stage was a technology initiative. The plan involved $5 billion in additional federal expenditures over five years for tax incentives, R&D spending, and various federal energy initiatives, plus a program of jawboning of U.S. industry. No additional actions were foreseen for seven years or more! Only after, "... a decade of experience, a decade of data, a decade of technical innovation" did the plan foresee a need to impose significant economy-wide economic incentives. These are to be in the form of a system of tradable emissions permits, "to insure that we hit the binding targets."
Most forecasts show U.S. carbon emissions, without policy, to be one-quarter to one-third above 1990 levels by 2010, yet at the time of the anticipated "launch" of this permit system the start of the first budget period would be less than three years away. At one point in the press briefing that followed the President's announcement, the Chair of the National Economic Council, Gene Sperling, declared, "The plan that we have as you look forward does not include increased energy prices" (The White House, 1997b). Thus the plan had to assume great success from the technology initiative. As one wag put it, "It was the tooth fairy in reverse: put $1 billion per year under your pillow, and in the year 2010 you'll find teeth capable of eating 400 million tons of carbon!"
How could this proposal pass the laugh test? One justification was the 5-Lab Study, with its forecast that emissions stabilization could be achieved at a net gain to the economy (Interlaboratory Working Group 1997, Romm et al., 1998). Indeed, when questioned in the briefing about the analytical basis for the plan, Sperling replied,
As the year wore on, the 5-Lab analysis continued to be used as a validation of the proposed policy. In Senate committee hearings in the wake of the Kyoto meeting, the chief U.S. negotiator, Undersecretary of State Stuart Eizenstat, was questioned about the analytical basis for the positions the United States had accepted. In part, his response was,
As recently as June 1998, a top DOE official testified that R&D was a key element of our response to climate change, and that,
Later, in an effort led by the President's Council of Economic Advisors, the Administration presented a full analysis of its Kyoto position, this time based on top-down models (Executive Office of the President, 1998). The study included unreasonably optimistic assumptions about the extent of an international permit trading systems to be in place in time for the first budget period, but at least the paper is clear about the policy measures to be used and their economic basis. Interestingly, the 5-Lab Study merited only a passing reference in this later Administration analysis. This type of technology-costing study nonetheless continues to be influential in public discourse, because it makes a point that many players want to hear: that is, that even large-scale, short-term carbon reductions will be cheap.
4.2 The Consequences
An important consequence of this approach to technology development is the subversion of what is essentially a long-term policy tool to the service of short-term emissions goals. In February 1998, when the 1999 budget was put forward, the Administration's October proposal emerged as a 5-year $6.3 billion Climate Change Technology Initiative (CCTI). The major portion of this funding was proposed not for R&D but for tax expenditures and other measures intended to spur adoption of existing technologies. That is, "... to stimulate adoption of more efficient technologies in buildings, industrial processes, vehicles, and power generation" (OMB, 1998). The plan is heavily biased toward resolving problems of market barriers, as described above, based on justifications that sound a lot like the assumptions in the 5-Lab Report.
By coincidence, it was also in the Fall of 1997 that a study by a panel of the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) presented its carefully reasoned recommendations for a program of long-term R&D focused on climate issues (PCAST, 1997). However, although the CCTI contains useful expansions of some existing federal R&D programs, the PCAST report and other studies of the long-term climate issue appear to have had little effect on the overall allocation of the proposed new resources. To the contrary, the desire to produce results by a technology path within the 2008-2012 budget period appears to have been the stronger influence on the design of the CCTI.[3]
Even worse, this focus on short-term emissions goals threatened the loss of or drastic reduction in the CCTI program itself, including the portion that does contribute to long-term R&D. This is because of a backlash in the Congress over "implementation without ratification." Some members express a fear that the Administration is trying to achieve the goals of the Kyoto agreement even though it has not been ratified (or even submitted for ratification), ignoring the stringent conditions for approval set by the Senate (U.S. Senate, 1997).
This larger issue of ratification and implementation are beyond the scope of this paper. The one aspect that is of concern here, however, is the fact that long-term R&D, which might receive wide-spread congressional support as prudent preparation for an uncertain and risky future, has become caught in the fray. Happily, a cut-down version of the first year's funding for Administration's CCTI proposal survived the 1999 omnibus spending compromise, reached in Fall 1998. But this achievement came in the face of opposition of key members of Congress on the grounds that, "... [the] $6.3 billion initiative is intended to help meet emissions reductions mandated in the Kyoto Protocol" (U.S. House of Representatives, 1998a). It is lamentable that key preparations for the long road are so deeply tangled in a debate about the first steps.
5. CONCLUSION
Technology-costing studies, like the 5-Lab Report and its cousins, can be a useful input to climate policymaking. They point to possible market failures; they help sort out the most important targets for R&D and perhaps for selected technology-push investments; and they help provide justification for these activities. However, it is very important to avoid misuse of these studies. There is no technical fix in the short run of a decade or so, as implied by the 5-Lab Report. Science does not run on the policymakers clock; new technologies frequently require breakthroughs and they take time to develop; markets for new consumer devices and industrial processes, including needed distribution and materials supply systems, require time to evolve. Further, capital turnover has its own internal dynamics, particularly in the heavily capital-intensive sub-sectors of energy supply. In the long run of several decades, and with a well-designed effort, the prospects are brighter. Indeed they must be brighter of we are to have any hope of an effective response, should the climate picture darken. For example, the Kyoto commitments are just an easy first step, compared to the carbon reductions needed to achieve ultimate stabilization of atmospheric concentrations (Jacoby, Schmalensee and Reiner, 1997).
However, enthusiasm for the task does not mean that it will be easy to do well, or even that we know very clearly how to proceed. At the level of basic science, with its public good characteristics, the role of government expenditure is clear. At subsequent stages of technology development and application--like pilot facilities, commercial demonstration plants, and subsidy schemes to seek benefits of economies of scale and learning--the history is mixed. Picking winners is a difficult art, and spending money effectively is a daunting challenge in the midst of regional and industrial demands for a share of the pie. Most important, the expertise in many technical areas resides in private industries--particularly oil, chemicals and electric power. Government-industry partnerships and tax subsidies can help direct their efforts, and useful experiments are now being tried. But the only way to truly attract industry attention is through an influence on the bottom line, which necessarily involves (among other things) price expectations. In the energy sector, at least, large-scale technical change with no price incentive is a non sequitur.
Precisely because it is such a complex task to devise policies that can hasten major technical advances in energy supply and use, it is important to free decisions about these important long-term measures from disputes over short-term policy issues. A key step in this process is to put studies of technology cost in their proper place, and avoid their misuse as guides to short-term policy development.
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End Notes
* William F. Pounds Professor of Management, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology and Co-Director, MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of
Global Change. This paper was prepared for a forum on "Climate Change Policy:
Practical Strategies to Promote Economic Growth and Environmental Quality,"
sponsored by the Center for Policy Research of the American Council for Capital
Formation, 23 September 1998.
[1] A classic example is the finding that a
highly cost-effective energy-saving technology would be to cover the roofs of
all U.S. residences with white paint (National Academy of Sciences, 1991). The
analysis does not ask the question whether people want to do this and how they
might be encouraged to carry it out, or what they might pay to avoid it.
[2] The size of the needed reduction is subject
to considerable uncertainty (Webster, 1997). Our MIT reference forecast implies
a 470 MMtC reduction would be needed to achieve 1990 levels, and the latest
Administration analyses use 2010 baselines which would yield a number in the
same range (Executive Office of the President, 1998; Department of Energy,
1998). The larger the number the higher the cost.
[3] As argued by Jacoby, Prinn and Schmalensee
(1998), long-term R&D was only one of several long-term tasks which have
taken a back seat to the push for short-term targets for the richer countries.
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