Improving Cost-Effectiveness and Mitigating Risks of Renewable Energy Requirements
Policymakers at the federal and state levels of government are debating actions to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on oil as an energy source. Renewable energy requirements are frequently proposed to address these concerns, and are currently in place, in various forms, at the federal and state levels of government. These policies specify that a certain portion of the energy supply come from renewable energy sources. This dissertation focuses on a specific proposal, known as 25 x 25, which requires 25% of electricity and motor vehicle transportation fuels supplied to U.S. consumers to come from renewable energy sources, such as wind power and ethanol, by 2025. This dissertation assesses the social welfare implications of a 25 x 25 policy and applies new methods of uncertainty analysis to multiple policy options that decisionmakers can use to implement the policy.
- Full Document (pdf format)
Use Adobe Acrobat Reader version 7.0 or higher for the best experience.
Document Details
- Copyright: RAND Corporation
- Availability: Web-Only
- Pages: 266
- Document Number: RGSD-236
- Year: 2008
- Series: Dissertations
Contents
Chapter One
Introduction
Chapter Two
Research Approach
Chapter Three
Effects Of 25% Requirement Under Initial Strategy
Chapter Four
Finding More Robust Strategies
Chapter Five
Conclusions
This document was submitted as a dissertation in September 2008 in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the doctoral degree in public policy analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. The faculty committee that supervised and approved the dissertation consisted of Robert J. Lempert (Chair), Michael A. Toman, and Steven W. Popper.
This report is part of the RAND Corporation dissertation series. PRGS dissertations are produced by graduate fellows of the Pardee RAND Graduate School, the world's leading producer of Ph.D.'s in policy analysis. The dissertations are supervised, reviewed, and approved by a PRGS faculty committee overseeing each dissertation.
Permission is given to duplicate this electronic document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Copies may not be duplicated for commercial purposes. Unauthorized posting of RAND PDFs to a non-RAND Web site is prohibited. RAND PDFs are protected under copyright law. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit the RAND Permissions page.
The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.
RAND® is a registered trademark. Copyright © 1994-2012 RAND Corporation.