John A. "Skip" Laitner (born August 23, 1947) is an American-born economist, author and lecturer. He focuses on developing a more robust technology and behavioral characterization of energy efficiency resources for use in energy and climate economic policy models. [1]
Laitner leads a team of consultants, the Economic and Human Dimensions Research Associates [2] based in Tucson, Arizona. He is the past president of the Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences [3] (AESS), an independent interdisciplinary professional association in higher education. He is also a senior economic research fellow for the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA). [4]
Laitner is the former Director of Economic and Social Analysis for the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). [5] He previously served almost 10 years as a senior economist for Technology Policy for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He left the federal service in June 2006 to focus his research on developing a more robust technology and behavioral characterization of energy efficiency resources for use in energy and climate policy analyses and within economic policy models. He also provides technical support for a variety of local governments in the development of energy and climate profiles, especially as they positively shape and enhance long-term Sustainable Development Goals.
Laitner is the author of more than 320 book chapters, journal articles, and reports about environmental, energy, and economic policy. [6] His expertise includes benefit-cost assessments, behavioral assessments, resource costs and constraints, and the net employment and macroeconomic impacts of energy and climate policy scenarios. His research, building on the work of Robert U. Ayres and Benjamin Warr, examines links between energy efficiency and economic productivity. [7] In a new book chapter, Laitner provides a time series dataset that suggests the United States may be only 14 percent energy efficient, a level of inefficiency which could constrain the development of a more robust economy.
2012 to Present: Founder of Economic and Human Dimensions Research Associates, based in Tucson, Arizona, where he leads a team of consultants.
2006 to 2012: Director of Economic and Social Analysis for ACEEE. In that capacity, he was responsible for a range of benefit-cost assessments of energy policies as they affect both climate and energy policies and the macroeconomy, including energy prices, net employment, and gross domestic product (GDP) impacts. [8]
1997 to 2006: Senior Economist for Technology Policy within U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Atmospheric Programs. Laitner was responsible for analysis and development of policy options for a variety of energy, climate change, and air pollution problems. This focused on the analysis and assessment of climate change policy options designed to provide further understanding of the macroeconomic benefits of energy efficiency and renewable energy at the national and regional level through the better linking of technology costing models and macroeconomic or general equilibrium models. [9]
1985 to 1998: Founder and principal of the consulting group, Economic Research Associates. Clients included a variety of municipalities and state government agencies. [10]
1993 to 1995: Senior Economist and Program Manager for Energy Efficiency and Economic Development, a program initiated by ACEEE. The program focused on the macroeconomic and employment impacts of energy efficiency initiatives.
1983 to 1986: Chief of the Research Division for the Nebraska Energy Office.
1977 to 1983: Co-founder of the Community Action Research Group, an economic and legislative consulting firm based in Ames, Iowa, serving as both the Executive Director and the Director of Research.
Citation of Excellence: The 1997 paper co-authored with Dr. Stephen DeCanio, "Modeling technological change in energy demand forecasting: a generalized approach", [11] in Technological Forecasting & Social Change, Vol. 55, No. 3, received the ANBAR Electronic Intelligence Citation of Excellence, Highest Quality Rating. [12]
U.S. EPA Gold Medal Award: The U.S. EPA's highest honor for working with a team of economists that completed "complex and rigorous analysis of greenhouse gas mitigation options, leading to President Clinton's announcement of an aggressive climate change policy." March 1998. [13]
Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Champion: For policy and analytical work in support of development of combined heat and power (CHP) technologies over the last five years, the US Combined Heat and Power Association gave Laitner an award to acknowledge his contributions to the industry. September 2003. [14]
Macroeconomics is a branch of economics that deals with the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole. This includes national, regional, and global economies. Macroeconomists study topics such as output/GDP and national income, unemployment, price indices and inflation, consumption, saving, investment, energy, international trade, and international finance.
Ecological economics, bioeconomics, ecolonomy, eco-economics, or ecol-econ is both a transdisciplinary and an interdisciplinary field of academic research addressing the interdependence and coevolution of human economies and natural ecosystems, both intertemporally and spatially. By treating the economy as a subsystem of Earth's larger ecosystem, and by emphasizing the preservation of natural capital, the field of ecological economics is differentiated from environmental economics, which is the mainstream economic analysis of the environment. One survey of German economists found that ecological and environmental economics are different schools of economic thought, with ecological economists emphasizing strong sustainability and rejecting the proposition that physical (human-made) capital can substitute for natural capital.
Energy economics is a broad scientific subject area which includes topics related to supply and use of energy in societies. Considering the cost of energy services and associated value gives economic meaning to the efficiency at which energy can be produced. Energy services can be defined as functions that generate and provide energy to the “desired end services or states”. The efficiency of energy services is dependent on the engineered technology used to produce and supply energy. The goal is to minimise energy input required to produce the energy service, such as lighting (lumens), heating (temperature) and fuel. The main sectors considered in energy economics are transportation and building, although it is relevant to a broad scale of human activities, including households and businesses at a microeconomic level and resource management and environmental impacts at a macroeconomic level.
Energy conservation is the effort to reduce wasteful energy consumption by using fewer energy services. This can be done by using energy more effectively or changing one's behavior to use less service. Energy conservation can be achieved through efficient energy use, which has some advantages, including a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and a smaller carbon footprint, as well as cost, water, and energy savings.
In economics, the Jevons paradox occurs when technological progress increases the efficiency with which a resource is used, but the falling cost of use induces increases in demand enough that resource use is increased, rather than reduced. Governments, both historical and modern, typically expect that energy efficiency gains will lower energy consumption, rather than expecting the Jevons paradox.
Joseph J. Romm is an American researcher, author, editor, physicist and climate expert, who advocates reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming and increasing energy security through energy efficiency and green energy technologies. Romm is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2009, Rolling Stone magazine named Romm to its list of "100 People Who Are Changing America", and Time magazine named him one of its "Heroes of the Environment (2009)", calling him "The Web's most influential climate-change blogger".
Dale Weldeau Jorgenson was an American economist who served as the Samuel W. Morris University Professor at Harvard University. An influential econometric scholar, he was famed for his work on the relationship between productivity and economic growth, the economics of climate change, and the intersection between economics and statistics. Described as a "master" of his field, he received the John Bates Clark Medal in 1971, and was described as a worthy contender for the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
In energy conservation and energy economics, the rebound effect is the reduction in expected gains from new technologies that increase the efficiency of resource use, because of behavioral or other systemic responses. These responses diminish the beneficial effects of the new technology or other measures taken. A definition of the rebound effect is provided by Thiesen et al. (2008) as, “the rebound effect deals with the fact that improvements in efficiency often lead to cost reductions that provide the possibility to buy more of the improved product or other products or services.” A classic example from this perspective is a driver who substitutes a vehicle with a fuel-efficient version, only to reap the benefits of its lower operating expenses to commute longer and more frequently."
Efficient energy use, or energy efficiency, is the process of reducing the amount of energy required to provide products and services. There are many technologies and methods available that are more energy efficient than conventional systems. For example, insulating a building allows it to use less heating and cooling energy while still maintaining a comfortable temperature. Another method is to remove energy subsidies that promote high energy consumption and inefficient energy use. Improved energy efficiency in buildings, industrial processes and transportation could reduce the world's energy needs in 2050 by one third.
New classical macroeconomics, sometimes simply called new classical economics, is a school of thought in macroeconomics that builds its analysis entirely on a neoclassical framework. Specifically, it emphasizes the importance of rigorous foundations based on microeconomics, especially rational expectations.
In economics, the freshwater school comprises US-based macroeconomists who, in the early 1970s, challenged the prevailing consensus in macroeconomics research. A key element of their approach was the argument that macroeconomics had to be dynamic and based on how individuals and institutions interact in markets and make decisions under uncertainty.
In economics, a spillover is a positive or a negative, but more often negative, impact experienced in one region or across the world due to an independent event occurring from an unrelated environment.
Terry Barker is a British economist and former Director of the Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research (4CMR) part of the Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge. He is also a member of the Tyndall Centre, the Chairman of Cambridge Econometrics, and chairman of the Cambridge Trust for New Thinking in Economics, which is a charitable organisation with a mission to promote new approaches to solving economic problems.
The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization. Founded in 1980, ACEEE's mission is to act as a catalyst to advance energy efficiency policies, programs, technologies, investments, and behaviors in order to help achieve greater economic prosperity, and environmental protection.
Economics for Equity and the Environment Network (E3) is a network of economists doing applied research on environmental issues with a social equity focus. E3 is based in Portland, Oregon.
A Deep energy retrofit can be broadly categorized as an energy conservation measure in an existing building also leading to an overall improvement in the building performance. While there is no exact definition for a deep energy retrofit, it can be defined as a whole-building analysis and construction process, that aims at achieving on-site energy use minimization in a building by 50% or more compared to the baseline energy use making use of existing technologies, materials and construction practices. Such a retrofit reaps multifold benefits beyond energy cost savings, unlike conventional energy retrofit. It may also involve remodeling the building to achieve a harmony in energy, indoor air quality, durability, and thermal comfort. An integrated project delivery method is recommended for a deep energy retrofit project. An over-time approach in a deep energy retrofitting project provides a solution to the large upfront costs problem in all-at-once execution of the project.
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Marilyn A. Brown is a Regents' and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She joined Georgia Tech in 2006 after 22 years at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where she held various leadership positions. Her work was cited by President Clinton as providing the scientific justification for signing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. With Eric Hirst, she coined the term "energy efficiency gap" and pioneered research to highlight and quantify the unexploited economic potential to use energy more productively.
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CLASP is an international nonprofit organization which provides technical and policy support to governments worldwide and works to implement energy efficiency standards and labels (S&L) for appliances, lighting, and equipment. It specializes in publishing studies and analyses with relevance to S&L practitioners.