British Columbia’s electricity grid is comprised primarily of hydroelectric generating assets. The ability to store water in reservoirs is a significant advantage for the province allowing it to import from Alberta when prices are favourable. Alberta, has a heavily fossil-fuel based electricity portfolio, but has seen substantial growth in its wind energy capacity. However this variable energy technology impacts the province’s grid operations. Wind energy is both variable and uncertainty. However, wind energy in Alberta can be stored via BC’s reservoir systems. In this paper, we examine the extent that drought impacts the both overall operating costs as well as the cost of reducing CO2 emissions. We model the Alberta and BC interconnected grids varying both the impact of the drought and the transmission capacity between the provinces. We determine that storing wind energy leads to an overall cost reduction and that emission costs are between $20 and $60 per tonne of CO2.
Abstract Conventional wisdom holds that monetary compensation for positive transboundary externalities will promote conservation of resource amenities. We demonstrate that, in the case of elephant conservation, international transfers may also result in strategic behavior by host countries, with adverse implications for global welfare and in situ stocks.
This study indicates that it is important to take into account what happens in other markets when evaluating the social costs of government agricultural programs. However, indirect benefits (costs) accruing in other markets are only to be measured if those markets are distorted (P ≠ MC). An empirical application from supply management in Canadian agriculture is provided. The results suggest that, if other markets are ignored, the social costs of supply restrictions may be overestimated by 50 percent. This is quite a large relative error indeed if one is interested in evaluating public policy from a social welfare standpoint.
A mathematical programming model is used to examine the impact of carbon taxes on the optimal generation mix in Alberta’s electrical system. The model permits decommissioning of generating assets with high CO2 emissions and investment in new gas, wind and, in some scenarios, nuclear capacity. Although there are interties between Alberta and the U.S. and Saskatchewan, the focus is on the one to British Columbia, as wind energy can potentially be stored in reservoirs behind hydroelectric dams. Storage can also smooth out the net load facing nuclear facilities. In the model, a carbon tax facilitates early removal of coal-fired capacity, which is replaced by low-emissions gas plants. It is only when the carbon tax exceeds $80/tCO2 that wind enters the system, although wind is displaced by nuclear power if that option is permitted. Despite high upfront costs, nuclear outcompetes wind primarily because wind requires a great deal of gas capacity that is not needed with nuclear energy. While wind alone could lower CO2 emissions by two-thirds, nuclear can reduce them by more than 90%.
In this paper, a farm‐household utility maximising model which incorporates the time of both the farm operator and his wife is developed. The model is then used to estimate the off‐farm labour supply of the operator and his wife, and develop policy recommendations concerning further increases in off‐farm labour participation by farmers and their wives. A Heckman procedure is employed to test for sample selectivity bias. The results suggest that the supply of off‐farm labour is inelastic for men but quite responsive to the estimated shadow wage for women.
Due to economic and population growth farmland and to a lesser extend other undeveloped areas are under pressure in the urban-rural fringe in British Columbia, Canada. The objectives of this paper are to determine if residential property values near Victoria, BC include open-space premiums for farmland or parks or both, and to determine if using assessed values instead of market prices of the property result in the same findings. We estimate a SUR (Seemingly Unrelated Regression) model with two hedonic pricing equations, one with actual market values as the dependent variable and one with assessed property values, and compare the resulting estimates of shadow prices for open space amenities. Furthermore, we take account of spatial autocorrelation and combine Method of Moment estimates of the spatial parameters in both equations.
