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Research

Trading One Waste for Another? Unintended Consequences of Fly Ash Reuse in the Indian Electric Power Sector”

Archana Ghodeswar and Matthew Oliver (Job Market Paper)

Industrial ecology (IE) involves utilizing industrial waste by-products as productive inputs, thereby reducing both internal and external costs associated with waste disposal. This paper examines the direct effects of implementing such a strategy in a polluting industry—namely, the coal-fired electric power sector in India, where IE policy promotes reuse of the waste by-product ‘fly ash’ as a substitute input in other industries. I first develop a simple theoretical model to gain insight and to derive testable hypotheses applicable to specific empirical setting. I then provide empirical support for the model’s predictions by exploiting plant-level variation in fly ash utilization. Results indicate greater reuse of fly ash increases the quantity of coal used in power generation, reduces the quality of coal used, and increases plant-level carbon emissions. These results suggest the potential benefits of an IE policy—e.g., reduced waste disposal costs—may be offset by unanticipated increases in other external costs, particularly if not accompanied by supplementary regulation of other forms of pollution.

 

“Estimating Fiscal Arrangement of Electricity Business on Growth of a Nation”

Archana Ghodeswar and  Usha Nair-Reichert

In the past decade, many economists have been curious about how electricity affects economic growth, and they have found unidirectional and bi-directional causality between electricity use and growth factors. In this paper, I identify the impact of financial constraints on the performance of electricity utilities and further how these performance factors through electricity sales impact growth factors of a developing country. My concern centers around the areas of investment in energy businesses responsible for maximizing the ability of a country to produce goods and services. By analyzing the data from India, we estimate the areas in which financial investments will improve utilities' performance in terms of revenue growth and loss reduction. 

Research Paper(s) in Progress)

“Energy economics of Internet of Things (IoT): Analysis of survey data from Ireland”

Archana Ghodeswar

I research the intersection of energy and the environment with the help of “big data, obtained as an extensive survey carried out in Ireland by the Commission of Energy Regulation(CER), Ireland. My work-in-progress in this area is an empirical approach to studying convenient human interaction with modern devices. I analyze smart gas meter and smart electricity meter survey data from Ireland to identify energy savings in this research. My goal is to estimate the investment required for each household using smart devices to reduce its carbon footprint by each year.

“Consumer dynamics and responsiveness to the adoption of new technology in the State electricity sector”  

Archana Ghodeswar, Usha Nair-Reichert, and Anjali Thomas Bohlkhen

Our research interest focusses on the demand side of the energy business. Electricity consumers’ willingness to accept technological advancements in receiving the energy service is studied since a period. Our analysis includes randomized control study based on extensive survey in a State in India before and after the adoption of smart meter technology for low tension consumers. There seems a gap between intention to adapt new technology for services offered and consumer behaviors. We study energy consumer’s response when smart meter technology for the consumer end energy metering is adopted by the energy supplier. The proposed research is part of a funded project and is significant because each person is an energy consumer, and the collective response of consumers can put huge impact to the energy. We test the hypothesis that consumers become aware and more proactive after external initiative of adapting new technology. 

"The environmental equity impacts of power plant air pollution: A case study in Georgia, USA." 

Archana Ghodeswar and Valerie M. Thomas

Coal power plants in Georgia have implemented various emission reduction initiatives since 2007. Consequently, coal power plant carbon emissions have decreased.  Health benefits are expected for residents of Georgia due to improved air quality. However, the distribution of environmental justice by demographics, such as race, age, gender, and income, remains underexplored.
By combining spatial analysis and health data, we hope to uncover how environmental justice impacts certain groups of people by reducing respiratory diseases. In addition, we wish to determine what share of health equity is accounted for by race, age, income, and gender.

 

“Impact of societal factors on under five years child mortality across different caste groups in India”

 Preshit Ambade, Archana Ghodeswar, Dr.Smita Pakhale et.al.The under-five mortality rate (U5MR) is reducing in India as also in most of the other countries. However, the U5MR is high as compared to most of the neighboring developing countries. The U5MR in some States in India and specifically for a certain socio-economically backward population (scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST)) is still high. Our study has a goal to estimate the most influential socio-economic determinants to impact U5MR for the historically backward population. We use the publicly available National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data for four phases in all 640 districts in India comprising demographic and socio-economic variables. In addition to considering access to clean energy sources, unlike in past research, we include pollution variables due to coal power plants, transportation, meteorological data, and “Night Light Data” from SHRUG as identification of quality of electricity services. We use Bayesian Model Average analysis to understand the contribution of each predictor variable across the time frame. A multivariate Poisson regression model and a binary logistic regression model are used to observe that the U5MR is decreasing across all groups but the gap between the SC/ST population and the Non-SC/ST population is consistent. Our study finds that one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) number 3 of reducing U5MR is being achieved, the SDG number 10 of reducing inequalities within the country is far-fetched.

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