While the relations between climate variables and sectoral water demand have been well established in the literature, few studies have attempted to quantify changes in urban water usage with climate change. Concentrating on the city of Hamilton, New Zealand, we investigate possible water use and...

A new method of presenting the potential for conservation is discussed. Supply curves of conserved energy provide a consistent accounting framework for assessing diverse conservation measures. They also permit simple comparison of conservation measures among themselves and with conventional...

The combined energy consumption of US televisions and videocassette recorders was about 40TWh per year in 1998, corresponding to 3.6% of national residential electricity consumption. The average household television energy consumption was about 310kWh per year, 23% of which was used while the...

The rapidly changing energy situation has led to new analyses of energy conservation from both physical and economic perspectives. A physics perspective suggests that the technical prospects for improved efficiency remain very great. An economics perspective suggests that conserved energy may be...

We compared Home Energy Rating Systems (HERS) ratings and actual utility billing data for about 500 houses in four states. We found that HERS can, on average, predict annual energy cost accurately. However, on an individual house basis the agreement between predicted energy cost and actual...

About 18% of all U.S. residential electricity, or 1600 kWh/yr per household, is used for miscellaneous appliances. Such appliances include waterbeds, dehumidifiers, television sets, well pumps, and clocks. The saturations, stocks, and electricity use for 35 appliances within the miscellaneous...

As part of its acid rain program, the U.S. EPA has established a system of tradable SO2 emission allowances. The regulations also permit electric utilities to earn emission allowances through conservation programs. The utility may verify the savings with “Conservation Verification Protocols...

Energy related Principal–Agent (PA) problems cause inefficient combinations of investment, operating costs, and usage behavior. The complex market structure of the trucking industry contributes to split incentives because entities responsible for investments in energy efficiency do not always...

Comparison of nine conservation supply curves for electricity shows that fully implementing a series of energy efficiency measures will result in annual saving of 734 billion kWh (BkWh). This is 45 percent of 1989 U.S. building sector electricity use of 1627 BkWh and represents a $29 billion...

Local governments can have a large effect on carbon emissions through land use zoning, building codes, transport infrastructure investments, and support for transportation alternatives. This paper proposes a climate policy instrument - city carbon budgets - that provides a durable framework for...