Browsing by Subject "Environmental Science, Policy, and Management"

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    Modeling the Response of Arctic Vegetation to Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Climate Change
    (2009-10-07) Cassidy, Emily
    An increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is contributing to planetary warming that is strongest over high latitude land areas of the Northern Hemisphere. Elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and strong warming have led to changes in vegetation distribution, permafrost depth, and snow cover, which significantly affect the interactions between terrestrial ecosystems and the climate through biophysical and biogeochemical processes. With a continued rise in greenhouse gas emissions and additional warming in the high latitudes, uncertainty exists as to how the Arctic biosphere will respond in the coming decades and whether Arctic ecosystems will remain a carbon sink or instead become a source of carbon to the atmosphere. Elevated carbon dioxide and climate change can affect vegetation growth through changing the assimilation of carbon dioxide and the respiration of carbon from the vegetation and soil. Using a dynamic global vegetation model (IBIS), potential changes in both the biophysical and biogeochemical processes of Arctic vegetation were analyzed to determine how future climate change and elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide may alter their functioning and ability to store carbon.
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    Renewable Energy Development by Electric Cooperatives: Indirect Uses of Federal Energy Tax Credits
    (2022-12-22) Gutenkauf, Gabriella;
    In this thesis, I look to understand how electric cooperatives develop renewable energy in a cost-effective manner, despite the inability to use popular financing methods such as the production tax credit and the investment tax credit. I also analyze how their current practices may be impacted by the addition of direct pay as a policy tool in the Inflation Reduction Act. Electric cooperatives provide energy to 56% of the nation’s landmass, specifically to rural communities that investor-owned utilities do not reach. The national push for decarbonization of the energy industry has put requirements such as renewable portfolio standards on utilities, demanding certain percentages of their portfolio to come from renewable energy. Electric cooperatives struggle with this development of renewable energy because their status as not-for-profit entities prevents them from utilizing federal investment and production tax credits. I conducted four interviews with the electric cooperatives Dairyland Power, Great River Energy, Hoosier Energy, and Old Dominion Electric Cooperative to understand their decision-making process in the development of renewable energy. I identified five key factors impacting this decision making: providing low-cost energy to members, size of staff and resources, membership in the National Renewables Cooperative Organization, project size, and interconnection concerns. I also found that cooperatives had mixed opinions on whether they were hoping to quickly begin using direct pay options once it was available. These findings show that it will be very important that any future policy tool, including direct pay, will need to ensure it still allows cooperatives to achieve their goal of providing the lowest cost of energy.