[Editors] MIT sees acceleration in U.S. greenhouse emissions

[Elizabeth Thomson]

MIT News Office
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room 11-400
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA  02139-4307
Phone: 617-253-2700
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www

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MIT sees acceleration in U.S. greenhouse emissions

--Technology not the magic bullet for cutting fossil fuels

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For Immediate Release
MONDAY, NOV. 19, 2007
Contact: Elizabeth A. Thomson, MIT News Office -- Phone: 617-258-5402  
-- Email: thomson at mit.edu

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--U.S. greenhouse gas emissions could grow more  
quickly in the next 50 years than in the previous half-century, and  
technological change may cause increased emissions rather than  
control them, according to a new study by an MIT economist and his  
colleague.

What's more, technology itself cannot be relied on as the most  
efficient tool for reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions or solving  
the global energy crisis, said Professor Emeritus Richard Eckaus of  
the MIT Department of Economics and his co-author, Ian Sue Wing, of  
Boston University.

Their paper, "The Implications of the Historical Decline in U.S.  
Energy Intensity for Long-Run CO2 Emission Projections," was  
published in the November issue of Energy Policy. In it, the pair  
portray the changing interplay among technology, energy use and CO2  
emissions based on a simulation of the U.S. economy.

"We found that, in spite of increasing energy prices, technological  
change has not been responsible for much reduction in energy use, and  
that it may have had the reverse effect," said Eckaus, who with Sue  
Wing is also affiliated with the Joint Program on the Science and  
Policy of Climate Change at MIT.

The researchers studied the periods 1958 to 1996 and 1980 to 1996 and  
projected from 2000 to 2050. Based on their findings from the past 50  
years, and adjusting for a more realistic expectation for  
technological changes, they found that the rates of growth for energy  
use and emissions may accelerate from the historical rates of 2.2  
percent and 1.6 percent, respectively.

“The rates of growth could be higher by a half percent or more, which  
becomes significant when compounded over 50 years,” Eckaus says.

Eckaus acknowledged it has become counter-intuitive to question  
technology's potential to solve the energy problem. But U.S.  
steelmaking illustrates how fossil fuel consumption can increase  
along with technological change: Steelmakers' furnaces are now  
electrical, reducing coal use at the plant. But coal generates some  
of the electricity that powers the factory furnace, resulting in more  
CO2 emissions.

"The net savings in this case comes from the use of scrap steel  
instead of iron ore, not from new furnace technology," Eckaus said.

"There is no 'a priori' reason to think technology has the potential  
for reducing energy use while meeting the tests of economics. It's  
politically unappetizing in the U.S., but in Europe, gas costs six  
dollars a gallon. Make energy more expensive: People will use less of  
it," Eckaus said.

A former consultant to the World Bank, Eckaus has been an adviser on  
economic policy to Egypt, India, Mexico and Portugal, among other  
countries; he advocates policies to control both energy use and CO2  
emissions.

This work was supported by grants from the US Department of Energy  
and a fellowship from the Harvard Kennedy School.

The paper can be accessed online at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/ 
science/journal/03014215

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Written by Sarah Wright, MIT News Office