Energy Research at DOE Was It Worth It? Energy Efficiency and Fossil Energy Research 1978 to 2000 (2001) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix D: Measuring the Benefits and Costs of the Department of Energy's Energy Efficiency and Fossil Energy R&D Programs
Appendix D: Measuring the Benefits and Costs of the Department of Energy's Energy Efficiency and Fossil Energy R&D Programs
Pages 86-94
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From page 86... ...
Realized Benefits ~ Options Benefits ~ Knowledge Benefits and Costs and Costs and Costs Economic benefits and costs Environmental benefits and costs Security benefits ~ and costs FIGURE D-1 Matrix for assessing benefits and costs.
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From page 87... ...
Environmental net benefits are typically not directly mea surable by market prices but instead by some measure of the valuation society is willing to place on changes in the quality of the environment. Security Net Benefits Security net benefits are based on changes in the prob ability or severity of abnormal energy-related events that would adversely impact the overall economy or the environ ment, although traditionally, economic impacts have been the primary security issue.
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From page 88... ...
All other benefits, to the extent they exist, the committee designated "knowledge benefits." Knowledge benefits thus form a very broad category, including knowledge generated by programs still in progress, programs terminated as failures, and technological successes that will not be adopted because economic and policy conditions will never become favorable. Realizecl Net Benefits Realized net benefits are economic, environmental, or security net benefits that flow from technologies for which R&D has been completed, that have been or are ready to be commercialized on an economic basis, under current economic, regulatory, and tax conditions.
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From page 89... ...
Even if the prices of the energy services the consumer faces do not fully capture all costs of that service, the committee expected that the net benefits of the rebound effect would be relatively small and could be reasonably ignored in the estimations. Thus, benefits would be ascribed as follows: · A technology that leads to reduced capital costs of equipment to convert energy to energy services would have benefits measured by the market value of the reduction in capital costs.
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From page 90... ...
However, the macroeconomic costs of energy disruptions can be counted as economic costs, since they can be controlled only very imperfectly through the existing economic institutions. This issue is discussed more fully in the section describing security benefits.
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From page 91... ...
The calculation of environmental benefits of that technology would then include an evaluation of the environmental consequences of the stricter standards, and the calculation of its economic benefits would include the cost of meeting those standards. In principle, the expected estimated environmental benefits can exceed the estimated economic costs, if such
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From page 92... ...
Therefore, in those cases where the technology has led to stricter environmental standards, it is particularly important to make the environmental and economic estimates in a consistent manner. Factors That Will Not Be Consiclerecl in Estimating Environmental Benefits A reduction in the cost of a fixed, regulated amount of environmental improvement is included among the economic benefits.
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From page 93... ...
Thus, the energy efficiency R&D program to develop electronic ballasts for fluorescent lights, conducted in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, had produced substantial realized net economic benefits by 2000, whereas the PNGV program, which began in the late 1990s, is not expected to begin generating economic benefits until after 2005. Focusing on realized economic benefits alone would inappropriately bias the assessment in favor of R&D on electronic ballasts and against R&D through the PNGV program.
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From page 94... ...
However, energy reliability has aspects that apply to most cells in the matrix: The reliability of the energy infrastructure has obvious security implications, but, especially in the new high-tech information and manufacturing economy, even very short interruptions in energy supplies can have enormous economic costs. Another example of the potential fluidity of the matrix criteria relates to R&D programs designed to address greenhouse gas emissions.
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