SAGE is actively assessing environmental impacts of energy use and exploring new opportunities to meet global energy demand. These activities build on ongoing research in air quality, climate change, land use, agriculture, and public health to help inform energy decision-making at the state, national, and international levels. Energy activities at SAGE tie closely into the Energy Analysis and Policy (EAP) Graduate Certificate Program offered through the Nelson Institute, the UW Energy Institute, and the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative (WBI).

P.I.s

• Dr. Greg Nemet, hired under the Energy Systems and Policy Cluster, evaluates policies to promote energy technology innovation and a range environmental/energy policy issues. He is active in the EAP Certificate program, and teaches energy policy classes in the LaFollette School of Public Policy and the Nelson Institute.

• Dr. Carol Barford assesses potential energy-crop production and broader issues in land use, farm economy, and energy.

• Dr. Tracey Holloway, hired under the Energy Systems and Policy Cluster, addresses environmental impacts of energy use, especially related to air quality and climate.

• Dr. Chris Kucharik's work focuses on sustainable biofuel production, and links between biofuels, climate, and food production. In the context of biofuels and bioenergy, his group is affiliated with the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), supporting sustainability science research related to biofuel feedstocks derived from agricultural landscapes.

• Dr. Jonathan Patz examines the health impacts of energy strategies in an effort to design win-win solutions for health, energy, climate, and air quality.

Students & Post-Docs

Erica Bickford, Maggie Grabow, Diana Husmann, Matt Johnston, Matt Luedke, Marc Mayes, Mitch Myhre, Dr. Anjali Sauthoff

Ongoing Projects

Assessing Carbon Neutrality and Ecology of Different Biofuel Cropping Systems in the Midwest U.S. – Kucharik is collaborating with colleagues in the Department of Agronomy (Randy Jackson, Josh Posner) to better understand how a shift to new cropping systems or rotations may impact carbon balance across the Midwest, as well as ecosystem structure and functioning. The work is part of the Sustainability Science Team (Thrust 4) of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), funded through the U.S. Department of Energy. Studies of net ecosystem exchange, plant phenology, greenhouse gas fluxes, and soil carbon pool changes at the field scale (near the UW Agricultural Research Station at Arlington) will be used to help parameterize and validate ecosystem modeling tools designed to scale-up across the Midwest.

CAQE – Climate, Air Quality, and Energy – A collection of intersecting projects addressing how energy use trade-offs will affect both climate and air quality, especially in the Upper Midwest. Collaboration between Holloway, Nemet, and Paul Meier (Director, Energy Institute). CAQE researchers will evaluate how electricity generation trade-offs will effect both climate and air quality, how expanded railway service could reduce freight emissions, and how biofuels and other short-term strategies could reduce emissions from heavy-duty vehicles. Funding from Wisconsin Focus on Energy and UW CFIRE.

Estimating the Appropriability of Learning by Doing – This study uses data on wind power production to empirically examine the main economic justification for public subsidies of emerging energy technologies: that stimulating demand for them generates cost reductions by providing producers with opportunities for learning by doing (Nemet).

Impacts of Biofuel-Driven Changes in Land Use and Land Cover on Flows of Water, Carbon and Nutrients to Freshwaters – Kucharik is collaborating with co-investigators of the North Temperate Lakes Long Term Ecological Research project to study how the changing distribution of croplands affect nutrient flux to freshwaters and the cycling of C in the terrestrial-aquatic system, as well as how alternative biofuel feedstocks other than corn grain might impact water quality, carbon sequestration, and climate regulation. The Agro-IBIS model is being used across the Yahara Lakes watershed in southern Wisconsin to address these questions. Funding is provided by the National Science Foundation.

Impact of Greenhouse Gas Policy for Wisconsin Energy Consumers – Greg Nemet leads a scenario planning modeling exercise examining the impact of uncertain future climate policy on Wisconsin energy consumers. The goal of the project is to identify high-impact combinations of policy implementation choices.

PLUTO – Projecting the Impact of Land Use and Transportation on Future Air Quality. Ongoing collaboration between Holloway and Prof. Brian Stone (GA Tech) evaluating how "smart growth" strategies affect air quality on urban and regional scales. Funding from U.S. EPA.

Stochastic Optimization of Technology Policy for Low-Carbon Energy – Ongoing work of Greg Nemet with collaborators at U. Massachusetts identifying how to allocate public resources between R&D and demand subsidies to induce improvements in emerging energy technologies.

Triple-Win Biking Project – Patz and students evaluating health/fitness, air quality, and climate benefits associated with increased bicycle use in Madison, Wisconsin, as a model for developing healthy urban areas worldwide.

Wisconsin Farm Biomass and the Carbon Economy – Analysis of potential energy-crop production on Wisconsin farms. Collaboration between Barford and student, Holloway, and Nemet. This work uses climate, remote sensing and census data sets in a Monte Carlo framework to define ranges of potential energy-crop production, and develop feasible ways to reduce farm risk via biomass production. Funding from Wisconsin Focus on Energy.

Closely Related Publications

Donner S.D., and C.J. Kucharik (2008). Corn-based ethanol production compromises goal of reducing nitrogen export by the Mississippi River. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105: 4513-4518. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0708300105.

Gibbs, H.K., M. Johnston, J.A. Foley, T. Holloway, C. Monfreda, N. Ramankutty, and D. Zaks. (2008). Carbon payback times for crop-based biofuel expansion in the tropics: the effects of changing yield and technology. Environmental Research Letters 3 (July-September 2008) 034001 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/3/3/034001. (Article)

Johnston, M., and T. Holloway (2007). A global comparison of national biodiesel production potentials. Environ. Sci. Technol. 41 (23), 7967–7973 10.1021/es062459k. (Article) (supplemental materials)

Johnston, M., J.A. Foley, T. Holloway, C. Kucharik, and C. Monfreda (2009). Resetting global expectations from agricultural biofuels. Environmental Research Letters 4, 014004. (Article) (supplemental materials) (M3 cropland datasets)

Nemet, G.F. (2009) "Interim monitoring of cost dynamics for publicly-supported energy technologies" Energy Policy 37(3): 825-835.

Nemet, G.F. and D.M.Kammen (2007) "U.S. energy R&D: declining investment, increasing need, and the feasibility of expansion" Energy Policy 35(1): 746-755.

Updated: 11/17/09

SAGE is a Research Center of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

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