Funding and Awards

Defences and Events

• Apollos Kim, Ph.D. Thesis Defence, MBB
  11:00 AM - 3:00 PM
  June 19, 2013
  Thesis Title: Structural and kinetic analysis of Escherichia coli signal peptide peptidase A Dr. Mark Paetzel (Sr. Supervisor) Dr. Nicholas Harden Dr. Edgar Young Dr. Dipankar Sen (Public Examiner) Dr. Ross MacGillivray - UBC (External Examiner) Dr. Frederic Pio (Chair)
• Hagen Schwerin, PhD Thesis Defence, Economics
  11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
  June 20, 2013
  Senior Supervisor: Steeve Mongrain Abstract: This thesis considers implications of the commitment of resources to specific dirty and clean production technologies. Chapter one examines underutilizing capital to preserve the environment. I consider an economy in which building new capital units may create additions to pollution of the same kind that production of a general factor creates. The second chapter analyzes the distribution of investment in dirty versus clean technologies when building new capital units creates such emissions. The third aspect, in Chapter three, is the planning and dispatch of dirty and clean production capacity given the fluctuation of clean technology inputs, in particular of renewable energy for electricity production. Chapter 1: If the utilization of dirty technology capital can be chosen then emissions can be saved. If underutilization postpones capital use, replacing investment, then emissions from investment can be prevented. This is of particular interest in regard to climate change, because currently existing fossil-fuel using machines have been built without regard to the climate, and investment in clean energy technology creates emissions. I examine the Pareto optimal utilization of dirty and clean technology capital and their irreversible investment in controlling an environmental stock. Dirty technology production is below capacity if government policy internalizes the externality after such policy is sufficiently long delayed. Capital can be optimally underutilized if the pollution is below its long-term level. Optimal early utilization diminishes the capital stock until investment becomes worthwhile followed by full utilization. The emissions tax that implements an optimum is smaller in those early periods than the tax that induces a welfare maximum under the premise that producers fully utilize capital. Clean technology capital may be underutilized to save emissions from investment or because creating new units is more costly than forwarding existing units. Chapter 2: The paper studies the role of emissions from investment for the distribution of investment among dirty and clean technologies. Dirty technology may not be used at a stationary point that is a Quasi-Clean Age because the cost of pollution reduction relative to consumption increase is smaller for the dirty technology, though clean technology may be relatively more expensive on all scales, and the societal effect of the first pollution unit may be small. In plausible cases there is a unique stationary point. If technologies imply a continuum of stationary points then the point with greatest clean capacity is optimal. If the discount factor is not too small then disregarding emissions from investment in dirty technology biases the stationary cost of polluting downward, because society is willing to pay more to preserve the environment if it has less polluting technology and accounting a greater portion of emissions in investment lowers the complete emission intensity. The paper establishes relationships between the investment in clean technology, the cost of polluting, and the shadow return or marginal rate of return. Chapter 3: This paper examines production using a dirty and reliable technology versus production using a clean and unreliable technology in a dynamic economy. Consumption can be efficiently equal across states because investment absorbs the fluctuation in clean technology productivity in days in which consumption is maximized. In the celebrated case dirty technology backs up production in states when productivity of clean technology is low, yet the underutilization of dirty technology capital when the clean technology’s productivity is high does not smooth consumption across all states in a long period in which capital is built. Clean output subsidies such as feed-in premiums, when rebating a general energy tax or a general tax on investment goods that produce energy, or that differentiate the surcharge in a fully-funded system between households, can implement a Pareto optimum.
• Hagen Schwerin, PhD Thesis Defence, Economics
  11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
  June 20, 2013
  Senior Supervisor: Steeve Mongrain Abstract: This thesis considers implications of the commitment of resources to specific dirty and clean production technologies. Chapter one examines underutilizing capital to preserve the environment. I consider an economy in which building new capital units may create additions to pollution of the same kind that production of a general factor creates. The second chapter analyzes the distribution of investment in dirty versus clean technologies when building new capital units creates such emissions. The third aspect, in Chapter three, is the planning and dispatch of dirty and clean production capacity given the fluctuation of clean technology inputs, in particular of renewable energy for electricity production. Chapter 1: If the utilization of dirty technology capital can be chosen then emissions can be saved. If underutilization postpones capital use, replacing investment, then emissions from investment can be prevented. This is of particular interest in regard to climate change, because currently existing fossil-fuel using machines have been built without regard to the climate, and investment in clean energy technology creates emissions. I examine the Pareto optimal utilization of dirty and clean technology capital and their irreversible investment in controlling an environmental stock. Dirty technology production is below capacity if government policy internalizes the externality after such policy is sufficiently long delayed. Capital can be optimally underutilized if the pollution is below its long-term level. Optimal early utilization diminishes the capital stock until investment becomes worthwhile followed by full utilization. The emissions tax that implements an optimum is smaller in those early periods than the tax that induces a welfare maximum under the premise that producers fully utilize capital. Clean technology capital may be underutilized to save emissions from investment or because creating new units is more costly than forwarding existing units. Chapter 2: The paper studies the role of emissions from investment for the distribution of investment among dirty and clean technologies. Dirty technology may not be used at a stationary point that is a Quasi-Clean Age because the cost of pollution reduction relative to consumption increase is smaller for the dirty technology, though clean technology may be relatively more expensive on all scales, and the societal effect of the first pollution unit may be small. In plausible cases there is a unique stationary point. If technologies imply a continuum of stationary points then the point with greatest clean capacity is optimal. If the discount factor is not too small then disregarding emissions from investment in dirty technology biases the stationary cost of polluting downward, because society is willing to pay more to preserve the environment if it has less polluting technology and accounting a greater portion of emissions in investment lowers the complete emission intensity. The paper establishes relationships between the investment in clean technology, the cost of polluting, and the shadow return or marginal rate of return. Chapter 3: This paper examines production using a dirty and reliable technology versus production using a clean and unreliable technology in a dynamic economy. Consumption can be efficiently equal across states because investment absorbs the fluctuation in clean technology productivity in days in which consumption is maximized. In the celebrated case dirty technology backs up production in states when productivity of clean technology is low, yet the underutilization of dirty technology capital when the clean technology’s productivity is high does not smooth consumption across all states in a long period in which capital is built. Clean output subsidies such as feed-in premiums, when rebating a general energy tax or a general tax on investment goods that produce energy, or that differentiate the surcharge in a fully-funded system between households, can implement a Pareto optimum.

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