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ABSTRACT: Grey relation analysis (GRA) was utilized in this study to capture the dynamic characteristics of different factors in the transportation system during their development process and to evaluate the relative influence of the fuel price, the gross domestic product, the number of motor vehicles and the vehicle kilometers of travel (VKT) per energy increase. Furthermore, results from this method were then compared with the OECD decoupling index. This comparison revealed that the steady growth of economic development was strongly correlated with vehicular fuel consumption. The relation grade of 0.967 implies that the increase in the number of passenger cars was another important factor for energy increase. As for the motorcycles, the relative influence of VKT was insignificant, and the positive relationship to GFK indicated that the performance of vehicular energy efficiency has improved in recent years. In comparison to the other factors, the contribution of fuel price was obscure. Additionally, the analysis of decoupling effects also yielded similar results to those of GRA. The coupling index between economic growth and fuel price was observed for passenger cars and motorcycles, while the VKT was relatively decoupled.
Energy Policy. 01/2008;
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ABSTRACT: Taiwan currently emits approximately 1% of the world's CO2--ranking it 22nd among nations. Herein, we use the input-output (I-O) structural decomposition method to examine the changes in CO2 emission over a 15-year period. By decomposing the CO2 emission changes into nine factors for the periods of 1989-1994, 1994-1999, and 1999-2004, we have identified the key factors causing the emission changes, as well as the most important trends regarding the industrial development process in Taiwan. The 5-year increment with the largest increase of CO2 emission was that of 1999-2004, due to the rapid increase of electricity consumption. From the decomposition, the industrial energy coefficient and the CO2 emission factors were identified as the most important parameters for the determination of the highway, petrochemical materials, iron and steel, the commercial sector, and electric machinery as the major sources of increased CO2 emission during the past 15 years. From 1989 to 2004, the level of exports and the level of domestic final demand were the largest contributors to the increase in the total increment of CO2 change. During 1989-2004, the industrial energy coefficient and CO2 emission factors, being minimally significant during 1989-1994, became extremely important, joining the domestic final demand and the level of exports factors as the major causes of the increase increment of CO2. This indicates a heavy reliance upon high-energy (and CO2) intensity for Taiwanese industries; therefore, continuous efforts to improve energy intensity and fuel mix toward lower carbon are important for CO2 reduction, especially for the electricity and power generation sectors. Relevant strategies for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from major industries are also highlighted.
Energy Policy. 01/2008; 36(7):2471-2480.
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Energy Policy. 02/2001; 29(3):237-244.
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ABSTRACT: This study employs input-output structural decomposition analysis to examine emission trends and effects of industrial CO2 emission changes in Taiwan during 1981–1991. Results indicate that the primary factor for the increase of CO2 emission is the level of domestic final demand and exports; however, the effect of an increasing rate of added value is less obvious. On the other hand, the effects of a decreasing industrial CO2 intensity is a main reducing factor, next is the structure of domestic final demand, and the rate of domestic production to intermediate input also has partial reducing effects for CO2 emission. Besides, the structure change of exports has only low reducing effects. Results presented herein can provide valuable information regarding the characteristics and key factors of CO2 emission in the industrial development process. This information can also serve as a basic reference for the CO2 reduction plan in Taiwan.
Energy Policy. 02/1998;
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ABSTRACT: The semiconductor industry plays a leading role in supporting economic stabilization and social progress in Taiwan. In this paper, Eco-indicator 95 and Impact 2002+ are utilized to evaluate the potential environmental impacts from five production processes of the double data rate synchronous dynamic random access memory (DDR SDRAM). The comparisons between these two impact methods and their scopes are also discussed.From our results, global warming potential and non-renewable energy consumption were identified as the major environmental impacts. Applications of Eco-indicator 95 and IMPACT 2002+ also suggest that summer smog and respiratory inorganics are significant impact categories. The comparison of the scopes of these two methods identifies that low GWP potential PFCs substitution and electricity saving are effective ways to decrease environmental impacts of DRAM manufacturing. In addition, IMPACT 2002+ is a more applicable LCA method for the semiconductor industry in Taiwan due to the structure and reference area of this method and the characteristics of the semiconductor industry in Taiwan.
Journal of Cleaner Production.
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ABSTRACT: Taiwan currently emits approximately 1% of the world's CO2—ranking it 22nd among nations. Herein, we use the input–output (I–O) structural decomposition method to examine the changes in CO2 emission over a 15-year period. By decomposing the CO2 emission changes into nine factors for the periods of 1989–1994, 1994–1999, and 1999–2004, we have identified the key factors causing the emission changes, as well as the most important trends regarding the industrial development process in Taiwan. The 5-year increment with the largest increase of CO2 emission was that of 1999–2004, due to the rapid increase of electricity consumption. From the decomposition, the industrial energy coefficient and the CO2 emission factors were identified as the most important parameters for the determination of the highway, petrochemical materials, iron and steel, the commercial sector, and electric machinery as the major sources of increased CO2 emission during the past 15 years. From 1989 to 2004, the level of exports and the level of domestic final demand were the largest contributors to the increase in the total increment of CO2 change. During 1989–2004, the industrial energy coefficient and CO2 emission factors, being minimally significant during 1989–1994, became extremely important, joining the domestic final demand and the level of exports factors as the major causes of the increase increment of CO2. This indicates a heavy reliance upon high-energy (and CO2) intensity for Taiwanese industries; therefore, continuous efforts to improve energy intensity and fuel mix toward lower carbon are important for CO2 reduction, especially for the electricity and power generation sectors. Relevant strategies for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from major industries are also highlighted.
Energy Policy.
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ABSTRACT: We adopted the Divisia index approach to explore the impacts of five factors on the total carbon dioxide emissions from highway vehicles in Germany, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan during 1990–2002. CO2 emission was decomposed into emission coefficient, vehicle fuel intensity, vehicle ownership, population intensity and economic growth. In addition, the decoupling effects among economic growth, transport energy demand and CO2 emission were analyzed to better understand the fuel performance and CO2 mitigation strategies for each country. From our results, we suggest that the rapid growths of economy and vehicle ownership were the most important factors for the increased CO2 emissions, whereas population intensity contributed significantly to emission decrease. Energy conservation performance and CO2 mitigation in each country are strongly correlated with environmental pressure and economic driving force, except for Germany in 1993 and Taiwan during 1992–1996. To decouple the economic growth and environmental pressure, proponents of sustainable transport policy in Taiwan should focus on improving the operation and energy use of its highway transportation system by implementing an intelligent transportation system (ITS) with demand management, constructing an integrated feeder system, and encouraging the use of green transport modes.
Energy Policy.
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ABSTRACT: Electricity is essential in the economic development of a nation. Due to the rapid growth of economy and industrial development in Taiwan, the demand for use of electricity has increased rapidly. This study evaluates the power-generation efficiency of major thermal power plants in Taiwan during 2004–2006 using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. A stability test was conducted to verify the stability of the DEA model. According to the results, all power plants studied achieved acceptable overall operational efficiencies during 2004–2006, and the combined cycle power plants were the most efficient among all plants. The most important variable in this DEA model is the “heating value of total fuels”. Findings from this study can be beneficial in improving some of the existing power plants and for more efficient operational strategies and related policy-making for future power plants in Taiwan.
Energy Policy.
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ABSTRACT: In this study we use Divisia index approach to identify key factors affecting CO2 emission changes of industrial sectors in Taiwan. The changes of CO2 emission are decomposed into emission coefficient, energy intensity, industrial structure and economic growth. Furthermore, comparisons with USA, Japan, Germany, the Netherlands and South Korea are made to have a better understanding of emission tendency in these countries and to help formulate our CO2 reduction strategies for responding to the international calls for CO2 cuts. The results show that economic growth and high energy intensity were two key factors for the rapid increase of industrial CO2 emission in Taiwan, while adjustment of industrial structure was the main component for the decrease. Although economic development is important, Taiwan must keep pace with the international trends for CO2 reduction. Among the most important strategies are continuous efforts to improve energy intensity, fuel mix toward lower carbon, setting targets for industrial CO2 cuts, and advancing green technology through technology transfer. Also, the clean development mechanism (CDM) is expected to play an important role in the future.
Energy Policy.
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ABSTRACT: This study explores the inter-relationships among economy, energy and CO2 emissions of 37 industrial sectors in Taiwan in order to provide insight regarding sustainable development policy making. Grey relation analysis was used to analyse the productivity, aggregate energy consumption, and the use of fuel mix (electricity, coal, oil and gas) in relation to CO2 emission changes. An innovative evaluative index system was devised to explore grey relation grades among economics, energy and environmental quality. Results indicate that a rapid increase in electricity generation during the past 10 years is the main reason for CO2 emission increase in Taiwan. The largest CO2 emitting sectors include iron and steel, transportation, petrochemical materials, commerce and other services. Therefore, it is important to reduce the energy intensity of these sectors by energy conservation, efficiency improvement and adjustment of industrial structure towards high value-added products and services. Economic growth for all industries has a more significant influence, than does total energy consumption, on CO2 emission increase in Taiwan. It is also important to decouple the energy consumption and production to reduce the impacts of CO2 on economic growth. Furthermore, most of the sectors examined had increased CO2 emissions, except for machinery and road transportation. For high energy intensive and CO2 intensive industries, governmental policies for CO2 mitigation should be directed towards low carbon fuels as well as towards enhancement of the demand side management mechanism, without loss of the nation's competitiveness.
Energy Policy.
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ABSTRACT: Application of price mechanisms has been the important instrument for carbon reduction, among which the carbon tax has been frequently advocated as a cost-effective economic tool. However, blanket taxes applied to all industries in a country might not always be fair or successful. It should therefore be implemented together with other economic tools, such as emission trading, for CO2 reduction. This study aims to analyze the impacts of combining a carbon tax and emission trading on different industry sectors. Results indicate that the “grandfathering rule (RCE2000)” is the more feasible approach in allocating the emission permit to each industry sector. Results also find that the accumulated GDP loss of the petrochemical industry by the carbon tax during the period 2011–2020 is 5.7%. However, the accumulated value of GDP will drop by only 4.7% if carbon taxation is implemented together with emission trading. Besides, among petrochemical-related industry sectors, up-stream sectors earn profit from emission trading, while down-stream sectors have to purchase additional emission permits due to failure to achieve their emission targets.
Energy Policy.
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ABSTRACT: The grey forecasting model, GM(1,1) was adopted in this study to capture the development trends of the number of motor vehicles, vehicular energy consumption and CO2 emissions in Taiwan during 2007–2025. In addition, the simulation of different economic development scenarios were explored by modifying the value of the development coefficient, a, in the grey forecasting model to reflect the influence of economic growth and to be a helpful reference for realizing traffic CO2 reduction potential and setting CO2 mitigation strategies for Taiwan. Results showed that the vehicle fleet, energy demand and CO2 emitted by the road transportation system continued to rise at the annual growth rates of 3.64%, 3.25% and 3.23% over the next 18 years. Besides, the simulation of different economic development scenarios revealed that the lower and upper bound values of allowable vehicles in 2025 are 30.2 and 36.3 million vehicles, respectively, with the traffic fuel consumption lies between 25.8 million kiloliters to 31.0 million kiloliters. The corresponding emission of CO2 will be between 61.1 and 73.4 million metric tons in the low- and high-scenario profiles.
Energy Policy.
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ABSTRACT: Implementation of a carbon tax is one of the major ways to mitigate CO2 emission. However, blanket taxes applied to all industries in a country might not always be fair or successful in CO2 reduction. This study aims to evaluate the effects of carbon taxes on different industries, and meanwhile to find an optimal carbon tax scenario for Taiwan's petrochemical industry. A fuzzy goal programming approach, integrated with gray prediction and input–output theory, is used to construct a model for simulating the CO2 reduction capacities and economic impacts of three different tax scenarios. Results indicate that the up-stream industries show improved CO2 reduction while the down-stream industries fail to achieve their reduction targets. Moreover, under the same reduction target (i.e. return the CO2 emission amount to year 2000 level by 2020), scenario SWE induces less impact than FIN and EU on industrial GDP. This work provides a valuable approach for researches on model construction and CO2 reduction, since it applies the gray envelop prediction to determine the boundary values of the fuzzy goal programming model, and furthermore it can take the economic interaction among industries into consideration.
Energy Policy.
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Energy Policy. 38(5):2609-2609.
