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Monday, January 30, 2017

California Energy Efficiency Exceptionalism?

The NY Times has published a touching obituary for Dr. Arthur Rosenfeld.  A physicist by training, Dr. Rosenfeld championed energy efficiency for the state of California.  Below, I present a typical "Rosenfeld Curve".  This graph highlights that California's energy consumption per-capita diverged from the rest of the nation's starting in 1975.  Dr. Rosenfeld argued that California policy deserves the credit for this differential trend.  Dr. Arik Levinson has argued that this claim is sharply over-stated.


Image result for rosenfeld curve california


My own work has studied energy consumption in California focused on

1. The residential sector;

Dora L. Costa & Matthew E. Kahn, 2010. "Why Has California's Residential Electricity Consumption Been So Flat since the 1980s?: A Microeconometric Approach," NBER Working Papers 15978, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

2.  The Commercial Sector

Kahn, Matthew E. & Kok, Nils & Quigley, John M., 2014. "Carbon emissions from the commercial building sector: The role of climate, quality, and incentives," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 1-12.

3.  The Industrial Sector

 Kahn, Matthew E. & Mansur, Erin T., 2013. "Do local energy prices and regulation affect the geographic concentration of employment?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 105-114.

4.  The transportation Sector

 Glaeser, Edward L. & Kahn, Matthew E., 2010. "The greenness of cities: Carbon dioxide emissions and urban development," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 404-418, May.

    An interesting point relates to urban land use zoning. California's per-capita energy consumption could be even lower if there was less restrictive coastal zoning.  If developers could build more high rises in the cool part of the state (such as Santa Monica and Berkeley) then more people would live in the cooler part of the state in smaller housing units that need less air conditioning and that are closer to public transit. The net result would be a lower average electricity consumption per-person.

    It is the case that the state's manufacturing base has sharply shrunk over time due to labor, environmental regulations and higher energy prices.  This is a theme of my 2013 paper cited above.

    In my own work, I have not attempted to "add up" these different pieces to see how much of the Rosenfeld curve can be explained by them.  This is a strength of Arik's paper.