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Publication Number: CEC-500-2006-053
Abstract:
This report investigates how government actions induce innovation-the overlapping activities of invention, adoption and diffusion, and learning-by-doing-in two climate-relevant environmental technologies: selective catalytic reduction (SCR) for nitrogen oxide (NOX) control from power plants, and wind power. The technology and history of government actions relevant to each case are reviewed, along with related market developments. Then analyses of public R&D funding, patents, expert interviews, conference proceedings, and experience curves are applied to each case. Results for SCR indicate that: the lack of stringency in federal regulation can focus inventive activity along certain technology pathways, to the exclusion of more promising ones; leadership in California can create a niche market-and related incentives for invention and opportunity for learning from operating experience-for technologies that cannot gain a foothold in the rest of the country; and utility deregulation tends to inhibit collaboration that can foster innovation. Results for wind power indicate that: government actions can be very successful in incentivizing investment in environmental technologies and beginning a new industry that will then have the opportunity to learn from operating experience; when federal commitment to a nascent technology is unpredictable (hefty tax credits are allowed to expire, public R&D is slashed), there is a disincentive for commercially relevant inventive activity, as measured by patents; performance-based standards such as state Renewable Portfolio Standards appear to foster a more stable market, and consequent incentives for innovation, than do tax credits; and government plays an important role in fostering knowledge transfer.
Author(s): Margaret Taylor, Dorothy Thornton, Gregory Nemet, Michael Colvin Commission Division: Technology Systems Division - R&D, PIER (500)
Office/Program: PIER: Public Interest Energy Research
PIER Program Area: Climate Change
Date Report Completed: August 2006
Date On Line:
08/25/2006
Acrobat PDF File Size: 120 pages,
1,800 kilobytes**
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