Survival of the greenest: evolutionary economics and policies for energy innovation

Abstract

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713682447Survival of the greenest: evolutionary economics and policies for energy innovation Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. RESEARCH ARTICLESurvival of the greenest: evolutionary economics and policies for energy innovation JEROEN C. J. M. VAN Abstract This paper aims to explore the possible contribution of evolutionary economics to environmental policy-making, in particular with respect to innovations in energy technology. Evolutionary economics offers insights into the mechanisms that underlie innovations, structural changes and transitions, therefore making it of great value in framing policies aimed at stimulating environmental innovations and transitions to sustainable development. The paper identifies 'bounded rationality', 'diversity', 'innovation', 'selection', 'path dependency and lock-in', and 'co-evolution' as the main concepts in evolutionary economics. These concepts are subsequently used to formulate guidelines for designing energy innovation policies. We evaluate current Dutch policies related to energy technologies against this background and examine the development of three particular energy technologies within the adopted evolutionary economics framework, namely fuel cells, nuclear fusion, and photovoltaic cells. We conclude that in order to incorporate the core concepts of evolutionary economics, governmental technology policies should focus more on the diversity of technologies, strategies and businesses, rather than on economic efficiency as the key goal. It is further found that evolutionary concepts conflicting with traditional growth objectives are rarely incorporated in Dutch energy innovation policies.

Optimal diversity: Increasing returns versus recombinant innovation

“…Not surprisingly, this scares away many firms, politicians and voters, and instead many of these argue in favor of reaping short-term benefits by investing predominantly in energy conservation, capture and storage of CO 2 , and combined-heat-and-power. The latter options, however, run the risk of leading to a reinforcement of the fossil fuel economy, thus making an escape or 'un-locking' of it increasingly difficult (Geels 2002, van den Bergh et al 2006. It seems that investors and politicians are hesitant to exchange fairly certain short-term costsavings for diversity with uncertain (but nevertheless likely) long-term economic and environmental benefits.…”

“…It seems that investors and politicians are hesitant to exchange fairly certain short-term costsavings for diversity with uncertain (but nevertheless likely) long-term economic and environmental benefits. As a result, it is pretty sure that choices currently made in this area are not optimal from a long-term social welfare angle (van den Bergh et al 2006, van den Bergh 2007.…”

Negative incentives and sustainability in the amazonian logging industry

“…Based on a dynamic of scale returns and better appropriation of this technology through its learning, the concept considers the processes of historical formation as relevant, such that when considering that technological evolution within a given trajectory generally presents a high degree of irreversibility, it is possible to think that in these trajectories, there is usually a lock-in or a diffi culty of moving away from the dominant technological regime, such as that of CL in this article. Thus, the more specifi c implication of trajectory dependence for the present work is that of technological lock-in (Dosi;Nelson, 1994;Van Den Bergh et al, 2006).…”

“…They act based on routines, heuristics (usually a method created aiming at the solution of a certain type of problem), and their past experiences. Such an assumption would also respond through the dynamics of preference change, such that policy efforts aimed at encouraging the highest degree of sustainability in the industry may not be effi cient owing to a lack of effort in disseminating relevant information for purchasing decisions by consumers (who are unknown a priori) (Faber;Frenken, 2009;Van Den Bergh et al, 2006).…”

Incorporating social context and co-evolution in an innovation diffusion model—with an application to cleaner vehicles

“…It tends to be used for any two or more variables that are (partly) dependent on each other, and so becomes a new term for all interaction phenomena. In this paper we follow the stricter definition of Van den Bergh et al (2006), who state that co-evolution denotes to processes where two variation and selection processes, comprising two or more populations or systems, interact or mutual interfere.…”