The Economic and Environmental Consequences of Automobile Lifetime Extension and Fuel Economy Improvement: Japan's Case

Abstract

The present paper develops a structural decomposition analysis with cumulative product lifetime distributions to estimate the effects of both product lifetime shifts and energy efficiency changes on the embodied energy consumptions. The empirical analysis focuses on automobile use (ordinary passenger vehicles, small passenger vehicles, and light passenger vehicles) in Japan during the period 1990-2000. It reveals that the lifetime extension of existing old vehicles during the study period was more beneficial to the environment than purchasing new passenger vehicles with a relatively high fuel economy, because the lifetime extension empirically contributed to reducing the embodied energy consumption at the production and end-use stages. We also found that the energy-saving impact of a one-year lifetime extension was approximately 1.3 times larger than that of the most significant technological improvement in the electric power generation sector.

Macroeconomic Effects of EU Energy Efficiency Regulations on Household Dishwashers, Washing Machines and Washer Dryers

“…Additionally, another important aspect to be investigated could be the impacts of these regulations not only on the energy efficiency requirements, but also on the lifetime of the appliances. In fact, some papers demonstrate that an extension of the lifetime of durable goods has a positive effect on the overall lifecycle energy consumption and GHG emissions, as long as the production and end of life stages require less energy than the use phase [35][36][37][38]. Moreover, in a background of progressive greening and de-carbonization of the economy, the incentives behind energy efficiency policy are transforming.…”

Forecasting Replacement Demand of Durable Goods and the Induced Secondary Material Flows: A Case Study of Automobiles

“…We find that the economic modeling techniques developed by Kagawa and colleagues (, , , ) have the following three flaws. Supply of secondary materials after having been submitted to EOL treatments, such as dismantling, separation, and shredding, is not modeled. Demand of the secondary materials directly and indirectly required for final consumptions (e.g., household consumption and capital investment) is not modeled. Export of the secondary materials is not modeled well. …”

“…With this as motivation, a crucial point is to forecast the secondary material flows induced by the disposal of EOL products and replacement of durable goods (e.g., Van Schaik and Reuter 2004;Müller 2006;Müller et al 2006Müller et al , 2011Kagawa et al 2006Kagawa et al , 2008Kagawa et al , 2009Kagawa et al , 2011Geyer et al 2007;Hashimoto et al 2007;Wang et al 2007;Davis et al 2007;Hatayama et al 2010;Modaresi and Müller 2012;Pauliuk et al 2012). Van Schaik and Reuter (2004) provided a short overview of dynamic modeling techniques of the resource cycle of EOL products and proposed a comprehensive dynamic modeling technique including time-varying factors of changing product weights as well as elements and components in the product over time.…”

Integrating Dynamic Material Flow Analysis and Computable General Equilibrium Models for Both Mass and Monetary Balances in Prospective Modeling: A Case for the Chinese Building Sector

“…Several researchers attempted to further extend the dynamic MFA to explore life-cycle environmental impacts along with the development of in-use stocks 14,[34][35][36][37][38][39] using the level of in-use stocks as proxy for the housing, mobility, and production services in either static or dynamic models. However, a macroeconomic budget closure is missing in these dynamic MFA models, which means that these models could not capture an economy-wide monetary balance.…”