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Article
Carbon capture and storage: Combining economic analysis with expert elicitations to inform climate policy
Climatic Change (2009)
  • Erin D Baker, University of Massachusetts - Amherst
  • Haewon Chon, University of Maryland - College Park
  • Jeffrey M Keisler, University of Massachusetts Boston
Abstract
The relationship between R&D investments and technical change is inherently uncertain. In this paper we combine economics and decision analysis to incorporate the uncertainty of technical change into climate change policy analysis. We present the results of an expert elicitation on the prospects for technical change in carbon capture and storage. We find a significant amount of disagreement between experts, even over the most mature technology; and this disagreement is most pronounced in regards to cost estimates. We then use the results of the expert elicitations as inputs to the MiniCAM integrated assessment model, to derive probabilistic information about the impacts of R&D investments on the costs of emissions abatement. We conclude that we need to gather more information about the technical and societal potential for Carbon Storage; cost differences among the different capture technologies play a relatively smaller role.
Keywords
  • Climate change,
  • Technology R&D,
  • Uncertainty,
  • Environmental policy
Publication Date
October, 2009
Publisher Statement
This is a prelimary version. It should be cited as: Climatic Change, Volume 96, Number 3 (2009), 379-408, DOI: 10.1007/s10584-009-9634-y Carbon capture and storage: combining economic analysis with expert elicitations to inform climate policy, Erin Baker, Haewon Chon and Jeffrey Keisler The published full text version is available through the following link: http://www.springerlink.com/content/p47m6x5242nh2338/
Citation Information
Erin D Baker, Haewon Chon and Jeffrey M Keisler. "Carbon capture and storage: Combining economic analysis with expert elicitations to inform climate policy" Climatic Change Vol. 96 Iss. 3 (2009)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/jeffrey_keisler/20/