How do Public Demonstration Projects Promote Green‐Manufacturing Technologies? A Case Study from China

Zhou, Yuan; Xu, Guangyue; Minshall, Tim; Liu, Peng

doi:10.1002/sd.1589

Cited by 54 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…This free-rider problem creates weak incentive for companies to fund demonstrations (Hartley and Medlock 2017). Furthermore, even though incentives for private investment are weak, governments are often hesitant to fund these investments (Weyant 2011, Zhou et al 2015, in part due to the scales of the investment required (Lupion and Herzog 2013), a mixed track record of success (Anadon and Nemet 2014), and to some extent due to perceptions that they will be 'picking winners' (Cohen and Noll 1991). This problem, known as the technology 'valley of death' results in an abundance of promising technologies that never become tested in commercial markets because they fail to attract sufficient investment to prove their reliability.…”

Section: Demonstrationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Negative emissions—Part 3: Innovation and upscaling

Nemet

Callaghan

Creutzig

et al. 2018

Environ. Res. Lett.

282

241

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We assess the literature on innovation and upscaling for negative emissions technologies (NETs) using a systematic and reproducible literature coding procedure. To structure our review, we employ the framework of sequential stages in the innovation process, with which we code each NETs article in innovation space. We find that while there is a growing body of innovation literature on NETs, 59% of the articles are focused on the earliest stages of the innovation process, 'research and development' (R&D). The subsequent stages of innovation are also represented in the literature, but at much lower levels of activity than R&D. Distinguishing between innovation stages that are related to the supply of the technology (R&D, demonstrations, scale up) and demand for the technology (demand pull, niche markets, public acceptance), we find an overwhelming emphasis (83%) on the supply side. BECCS articles have an above average share of demand-side articles while direct air carbon capture and storage has a very low share. Innovation in NETs has much to learn from successfully diffused technologies; appealing to heterogeneous users, managing policy risk, as well as understanding and addressing public concerns are all crucial yet not well represented in the extant literature. Results from integrated assessment models show that while NETs play a key role in the second half of the 21st century for 1.5 • C and 2 • C scenarios, the major period of new NETs deployment is between 2030 and 2050. Given that the broader innovation literature consistently finds long time periods involved in scaling up and deploying novel technologies, there is an urgency to developing NETs that is largely unappreciated. This challenge is exacerbated by the thousands to millions of actors that potentially need to adopt these technologies for them to achieve planetary scale. This urgency is reflected neither in the Paris Agreement nor in most of the literature we review here. If NETs are to be deployed at the levels required to meet 1.5 • C and 2 • C targets, then important post-R&D issues will need to be addressed in the literature, including incentives for early deployment, niche markets, scale-up, demand, and-particularly if deployment is to be hastened-public acceptance. Chen C and Tavoni M 2013 Direct air capture of CO 2 and climate stabilization: a model based assessment Clim. Change 118 59-72 Cheng N, Fürth M, Johnson M C, Tay Z Y, Shenoi R A and Wilson P A 2013 Engaging the community with a 'green town' concept Energy Procedia 37 7337-45 Choi S, Drese J H, Eisenberger P M and Jones C W 2011 Application of amine-tethered solid sorbents for direct CO 2 capture from the ambient air Environ. Sci. Technol. 45 2420-7 Coffman D M and Lockley A 2017 Carbon dioxide removal and the futures market Environ. Res. Lett. 12 015003 Cohen L R and Noll R G 1991 The Technology Pork Barrel (Washington: Brookings) Cohen W M, Goto A, Nagata A, Nelson R R and Walsh J R 2002 R&D spillovers, patents and the incentives to innovate in Japan and the United States Res. Policy ...

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Section: Demonstrationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Negative emissions—Part 3: Innovation and upscaling

Nemet

Callaghan

Creutzig

et al. 2018

Environ. Res. Lett.

282

241

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For each project we calculate the total project cost and the public and private sector shares of those costs. (Rai et al, 2010;Herzog, 2011;Zhou et al, 2015). Upscaling however involves overcoming obstacles (Rosenberg and Steinmueller, 2013) and consequently takes considerable time (Wilson, 2012).…”

Section: Coding Of Case Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In climate change, policies are central to those markets (Taylor et al, 2003;Zhou et al, 2015), thus credibility in those policies is also central (Rai et al, 2010;Finon, 2012). But it is striking how many demon-stration programs confronted markets that involved negative shocks around the time that projects came on-line-we see it in synfuels, biofuels, and solar thermal electricity (Figure 9), and CCS ( Figure 10).…”

Section: Robust Demand Pullmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Valley of Death, the Technology Pork Barrel, and Public Support for Large Demonstration Projects

2016

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractMoving non-incremental innovations from the pilot scale to full commercial scale raises questions about the need and implementation of public support. Heuristics from the literature put policy makers in a dilemma between addressing a market failure and acknowledging a government failure: incentives for private investments in large scale demonstrations are weak (the valley of death) but the track record of governance in large demonstration projects is poor (the technology pork barrel). We reassess these arguments in the literature, particularly as to how they apply to supporting demonstration projects for decarbonizing industry. Conditions for the valley of death exist with: low appropriability, large chunky investments, unproven reliability, and uncertain future markets. We build a data set of 511 demonstration projects in nine technology areas and code characteristics for each project, including timing, motivations, and scale. We argue that the literature and the results from the case studies have five main implications for policy makers in making decisions about demonstration support. Policy makers should consider: 1) prioritizing learning, 2) iterative upscaling, 3) private sector engagement, 4) broad knowledge dissemination, and 5) making demand pull robust.

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“…They require less expertise in other engineering fields, are easier to assemble, require less logistics, and catching up on technological processes is faster [44]. The complexity of PV technology makes reverse engineering easier than it is for WP technology.…”

Section: Industrial Technology Characteristics and Technology Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the sense, these latecomer economies attempt to catch up through acquiring the production equipment, and based on which they learn manufacturing know-hows (or tacit knowledge) by doing, using, and interactions [42,43]. However, in recent years, the appearance of emerging industries may causes changes [44]. Emerging industries are being pushed by revolutionary science and technologies, rather than manufacturing tacit know-hows [45].…”

Section: The Three Dimensions Of International Knowledge Flowsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing the International Knowledge Flow of China’s Wind and Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Industries: Patent Analysis and Implications for Sustainable Development

2018

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Climate-relevant technologies, like wind and solar energy, are crucial for mitigating climate change and for achieving sustainable development. Recent literature argues that Chinese solar firms play more active roles in international knowledge flows, which may better explain their success in international markets when compared to those of Chinese wind firms; however, empirical evidence remains sparse. This study aims to explore to what extent and how do the international knowledge flows differ between China's wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) industries? From a network perspective, this paper develops a three-dimensional framework to compare the knowledge flows in both explicit and tacit dimensions: (i) inter-country explicit knowledge clusters (by topological clustering of patent citation network); (ii) inter-firm explicit knowledge flow (patent citation network of key firms); and, (iii) inter-firm tacit knowledge flow (by desktop research and interviews). The results show that China's PV industry has stronger international knowledge linkages in terms of knowledge clustering and explicit knowledge flow, but the wind power industry has a stronger tacit knowledge flow. Further, this study argues that the differences of global knowledge links between China's wind and solar PV industries may be caused by technology characteristics, market orientation, and policy implementation. This suggests that these industries both have strong connections to global knowledge networks, but they may involve disparate catch-up pathways that concern follower-modes and leader-modes. These findings are important to help us understand how China can follow sustainable development pathways in the light of climate change.

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How do Public Demonstration Projects Promote Green‐Manufacturing Technologies? A Case Study from China

Cited by 54 publications

References 23 publications

Negative emissions—Part 3: Innovation and upscaling

Negative emissions—Part 3: Innovation and upscaling

The Valley of Death, the Technology Pork Barrel, and Public Support for Large Demonstration Projects

Comparing the International Knowledge Flow of China’s Wind and Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Industries: Patent Analysis and Implications for Sustainable Development

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