Search results

The social acceptance of wind energy is increasingly conditioning the Italian Government and regions to authorize the construction of these plants. The proposal of offshore wind farm in the south-west of Sardinia has raised many perplexities both from the marine environmental point of view and from concern about increasing the electricity production in a region that already exports electricity to the peninsula. The purpose of this study is to evaluate what are the factors that most affect the coastal residents’ acceptability of an offshore wind farm.

The data is based on a Sardinia-wide in-person survey with about 512 participants in the period between May and June 2023. Respondents were selected randomly from five different locations in Carloforte region. Multiple regression analysis investigates the factors that influenced acceptability to construction and development of offshore wind power plant. Four independent variables were selected in the regression models such as (i) interest towards wind energy, (ii) attitude towards renewable energy production, (iii) perceived regional energy policy and (iv) attitude towards offshore wind farm. The dependent variables are the rates of coastal local residents’ acceptance of offshore wind farm for respondents in five coastal towns.

Fishermen and summer tourism operators’ respondents expressed significant reluctance to accept the new project because they perceive a strong risk of environmental impact on both tuna fishing and marine recreational activities in the vicinity. The distance between the turbines at sea and local residents along the coast and surrounding small islands does not have an influence to accept wind energy. The energy policy of the Region of Sardinia, which is perceived by respondents as an expansive energy policy in the production of electricity that exceeds their needs, not being accompanied by a scenario of reducing that from fossil fuels, is the variable that led about 70% of respondents to express a negative opinion towards this project.

A potential problem associated with the survey is that local response produced sample selection bias. The proportion of respondents with secondary education and no school certificate is quite high. It is possible that respondents who provided valid questionnaires were more low-educated and therefore, the sample may be biased towards lower-educated people. While this does not invalidate the results of this study, it is important to note that the sample was on average less educated than the overall population in Italy. In addition, people with lower incomes were more likely to complete the questionnaires; the results are more representative of a portion of the population with incomes below the national average.

Results showed how coastal communities are in favour of wind energy within their island, but not within a marine protected area that is considered unique for its beauty and marine ecosystem. Wind energy developers should, before submitting a proposal for an offshore wind farm project, consider among other things the long approval time and understand the activities carried out by local communities and their attachment to those places. Politicians and developers should develop a coherent energy transition policy based on a long-term vision of zero emissions, because according to the findings of this study, it was the regional energy policy that is the most controversial reason for residents to reject the project.

The contribution of this study is to fill a part of the research gap linking to ongoing energy transitions. In particular, this study analysed for the first time in Italy the acceptability level of an offshore renewable energy project considering the environmental implications and risks in the fragile marine ecosystem of Carloforte waters. This study also made it possible to analyse the impact of the regional energy policy on the acceptability of residents towards the development of offshore wind farms, which is scarcely discussed in the literature.

The authors propose to estimate a varying coefficient panel data model with different smoothing variables and fixed effects using a two-step approach. The pilot step estimates the varying coefficients by a series method. We then use the pilot estimates to perform a one-step backfitting through local linear kernel smoothing, which is shown to be oracle efficient in the sense of being asymptotically equivalent to the estimate knowing the other components of the varying coefficients. In both steps, the authors remove the fixed effects through properly constructed weights. The authors obtain the asymptotic properties of both the pilot and efficient estimators. The Monte Carlo simulations show that the proposed estimator performs well. The authors illustrate their applicability by estimating a varying coefficient production frontier using a panel data, without assuming distributions of the efficiency and error terms.

The purpose of the article is to identify relevant criteria for decision support in the implementation of waste-to-energy (WtE)-based systems.

The methodology is a simple case study with a qualitative approach. Five experts involved in the project of a thermoelectric power plant qualitatively evaluated, on a Likert scale, a decision model with 15 indicators derived from recent studies. The research object was the first stage of a project to implement a thermoelectric plant employing municipal solid waste (MSW) in southern Brazil.

The study identified 15 criteria supporting the decision-making process regarding WtE implementation for MSW in a mid-sized city in southern Brazil. The study identified that compliance with MSW legislation, compliance with energy legislation, initial investment and public health impact are the most influential criteria. The study offered two models for decision processes: a simplified one and a complete one, with ten and fifteen indicators, respectively.

The study concerns mid-sized municipalities in southern Brazil.

Municipal public managers have now a methodology based on qualitative evaluation that admits multiple perspectives, such as technical, economic, environmental and social, to support decision-making processes on WtE technologies for MSW.

MSW management initiatives can yield jobs and revenues for vulnerable populations and provide a correct destination for MSW, mainly in developing countries.

The main originality is that now municipal public decision-makers have a structured model based on four constructs (technical, economic, environmental and social) deployed in 15 indicators to support decision-making processes involving WtE and MSW management.

The paper aims at addressing the following research questions: does institutional quality improve countries' environmental efficiency? And which pillars of institutional quality improve countries' environmental efficiency?

By specifying a directional distance function in the context of stochastic frontier method where GHG emissions are considered as the bad output and the GDP is referred as the desirable one, the work computes the environmental efficiency into the appraisal of a production function for the European countries over three decades.

According to the countries' performance, the findings confirm that high and upper middle-income countries have higher environmental efficiency compared to low middle-income countries. In this environmental context, the role of institutional quality turns out to be really important in improving the environmental efficiency for high income countries.

This article attempts to analyze the role of different dimensions of institutional quality in different European countries' performance – in terms of mitigating GHGs (undesirable output) – while trying to raise their economic performance through their GDP (desirable output).

1. The paper aims at addressing the following research question: does institutional quality improve countries' environmental efficiency?

2. We adopt a directional distance function in the context of stochastic frontier method, considering 40 European economies over a 30-year time interval.

3. The findings confirm that high and upper middle-income countries have higher environmental efficiency compared to low middle-income countries.

4. The role of institutional quality turns out to be really important in improving the environmental efficiency for high income countries, while the performance decreases for the low middle-income countries.

The paper aims at addressing the following research question: does institutional quality improve countries' environmental efficiency?

We adopt a directional distance function in the context of stochastic frontier method, considering 40 European economies over a 30-year time interval.

The findings confirm that high and upper middle-income countries have higher environmental efficiency compared to low middle-income countries.

The role of institutional quality turns out to be really important in improving the environmental efficiency for high income countries, while the performance decreases for the low middle-income countries.

This study aims to explore the diverse sources of electricity generation (coal, natural gas, oil and hydroelectricity) and their respective associations with economic growth and environmental quality.

This study uses static panel data analysis with a random effects model for six selected ASEAN countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Filipina, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar) from 1994 to 2014.

This study reveals that economic growth in six selected ASEAN countries is enhanced by electricity generation from all sources, while the contribution of electricity production from hydroelectricity remains the largest and strongest. There is no environmental impact of electricity production from hydroelectric, whereas fossil fuel-based electricity production emits carbon dioxide, with coal sources being the largest contributor, followed by natural gas and oil.

Based on the results, these six ASEAN countries should invest more in hydropower projects, reduce the coal mix in power generation and promote clean coal technology to improve economic efficiency and environmental sustainability.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no research has examined the relationship between electricity production, environmental quality and economic growth in Southeast Asian nations. Therefore, the outcome of this study is expected to provide insightful results to supplement the framing and implementation of national and collective regional strategies for sustainable electricity generation in ASEAN countries.

This study aims to examine the links between carbon emissions, electric vehicles, economic growth, energy use, and urbanisation in 15 countries from 2010 to 2020.

This study adopts seminal panel methods of moments quantile regression with fixed effects to trace the distributional aspect of the relationship. The reliability of methods is confirmed via fully modified ordinary least squares coefficients.

This study reveals that fossil fuel use, economic activity, and urbanisation negatively impact environmental quality, whereas renewable energy sources have a significant positive long-term effect on environmental quality in the selected panel of countries.

The main limitation of this study is the generalisability of the findings, as the study is confined to a limited number of countries, and focuses on non-renewable and renewable energy sources.

Finally, this study proposes several policy recommendations for decision-makers and policymakers in the 15 nations to address climate change, boost sales of electric vehicles, and increase the use of renewable energy sources.

This study calls for a comprehensive transition towards green energy in the transportation sector, enhancing economic growth, fostering employment opportunities, and improving environmental quality.

In this study, the impact of access to electricity on poverty reduction for Botswana is examined using the annual data from 1990 to 2021. The study was motivated by the need to establish if access to electricity could be a panacea on poverty reduction in Botswana. Given that the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals deadline is fast approaching, and Botswana being one of the signatories, is expected to end poverty in all its forms – Goal 1. Establishing the role that electrification plays in poverty alleviation, helps in refocusing Botswana’s poverty alleviation strategies on factors that have high impact on poverty. The main objective of this study, therefore, is to investigate the relationship between poverty alleviation and access to electricity in Botswana.

The study uses the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to investigate the nature of the relations. Two poverty proxies were used in this study namely, household consumption expenditure and life expectancy.

The study found access to electricity to reduce poverty in the long run and in the short run, regardless of the poverty measure used. Thus, access to electricity plays an important role in poverty alleviation and Botswana is recommended to continue with the rural and urban electrification initiatives.

The study explores the impact of access to electricity on poverty reduction in Botswana, a departure from the current studies that examined the same relationship using energy consumption in general. This is on the back of increasing dependence of economic activities on electricity as a major source of energy.