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ItemElectricity infrastructure threats and policy response(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2018-11-08) McGrath, Jenna K. C.The overarching research question of this dissertation is how are policymakers responding to threats to the electricity grid? The database of attacks on the United States electricity system, created and analyzed in Chapter 2, underscores that targeted attacks have been a persistent threat for the electric grid for the past nearly 50 years. In recent years, attacks have become more sophisticated and coordinated. Given this development, Chapter 3 considers how policy makers have responded to grid attacks, focusing on a more recent timeframe of seventeen years and uses risk perception theory as a guide. The results of the regression time series analysis indicate that policymakers respond to malicious attacks on the grid in terms of federal funding and allocation to grid-related improvements. There is no response associated with disruptions caused by severe weather or human or technical failures. This suggests that policymakers are perceiving malicious attacks as a threat and are stating policy priorities to address this issue in the federal budget appropriations. In addition to funding for emergency response and funding for research, federal policy, utilities have proposed measures to improve grid security. Chapter 4 addresses the adequacy of this response. The effectiveness of current grid security standards are simulated when faced with actual attack scenarios as well as possible future attacks that become increasingly more sophisticated and threatening in nature. The simulations indicate that security upgrades involving improved lighting and visibility are not effective, while improved barriers are effective. More broadly, the limited effectiveness of the proposed security upgrades suggests that there is substantial scope for research and testing, and for consideration of how utilities are securing electric infrastructure assets. Chapter 5 considers critical infrastructure as a whole, evaluating federal emergency response and management across the different critical infrastructure sectors. Here, the goal is to determine how electricity sector response compares to the policy responses to the challenges and events impacting other sectors. Analysis across multiple large incidents affecting different components of critical infrastructure shows a largely linear and consistent relationship between the impact of a disaster in terms of both human health and cost, and the sum of the public sector funding and insurance response. Attacks on the U.S. electric grid are a continuing challenge, as demonstrated in Chapter 2. In line with the prevailing risk perception literature, the analysis in Chapter 3 indicates that malicious attacks on the electric grid receive a larger response, in terms of federal R&D funding, than natural disasters or failures. This study finds that threats to national security are a driver of policy priorities and actions to both repair and improve the electric grid. Federal and state governments as well as the utilities and private sector bear significant costs when attacks occur. As concluded in Chapter 4, utility efforts to increase security are not fully public, but those that can be evaluated have significant weaknesses. Across all infrastructures, Chapter 5 demonstrates that government and private insurance payments largely pay fully for the impact of each disaster, irrespective of cause or sector, with terrorist attacks receiving emergency response funding at the same level as accidents and natural disasters. Similarly, federal research and development funding related to grid security has remained largely steady, with increases in response to large incidents irrespective of cause.
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ItemSustainable transitions in energy and water systems(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2017-08-24) Burkhard, CarolineA Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) of Sustainable Transitions is applied to five case studies of technological and policy innovation in energy and water systems. The MLP framework analysis is supported by the policy and engineering literatures of participatory democracy, policy entrepreneurs, and system analysis. Each case study focuses on the subsystems of actors, policy institutions, and public participation in a sustainable transition. In three of the case studies, I develop system and econometric models to evaluate the value of distributed resources and their opportunities for deployment. When evaluating the actions on niche and intermediary actors and their strategies for sustainable transitions, this research suggests that scale may play a bigger role in the development of niche innovations and policies than simply an exploratory space to analyze the success of actors’ strategies. When evaluating the role of policy institutions, this research suggests that strong user preferences, supportive niche policies, and favorable economic landscapes can be insufficient to facilitate a regime change without qualitative changes to the regulatory models. When evaluating the role of the public, this research suggests that neither the niche nor the regime actors are consistently incorporating public participation. Combined, this dissertation speaks to the need for rigorous analytical work, the expansion of the definition of ‘value’ for these niche technologies, as well as the institutions and regulations which dictate how value is determined.
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ItemA holistic approach to address deforestation(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2017-05-19) Liu, WenmanThe establishments of property rights and collective actions are viewed as key strategies to support sustainable management of forests and other common pool resources. However, previous discussion of the theories either address property rights or collective actions as aggregated terms or omit the role of biophysical and socioeconomic conditions. It is not clear which property rights or collective actions are effective and under what biophysical and socioeconomic circumstance that they have effects. The dissertation analyzes how specific rights and collective actions affect deforestation in two studies based on separate sets of institutional data obtained from the World Resources Institute and International Forest Resources and Institutions. By integrating remote-sensing, census and site survey data, a wide range of multi-disciplinary variables are integrated with the institutional data from numerous locations worldwide. Elastic Net and LASSO statistical methods are used to select significant individual variables from a large number of predictors and their interaction terms without excessive loss of information. Statistical analysis methods including linear, generalized linear and truncated normal regression analyses and cross validation are used. Both studies lead to similar conclusions. The first study analyzes data from 28,208 community forests in Cameroon, Colombia and Mexico and indicates that the effects of the alienation rights (right to lease, right to collateralize, and right to sell) can be either positive, negative or have no correlation, when preventing deforestation and reducing deforestation are the concerns. Furthermore, the alienation rights’ effects vary across locations. The second study analyzes data from 162 sites in 15 countries and indicates that the specific collective actions and property rights perform differently, with respect to gross deforestation. The effects can be either positive, negative or show no correlation, depending on the local biophysical and socioeconomic conditions. The studies conclude that we should not assume property rights or collective actions would ultimately lead to desired forest outcomes under all local conditions. The potential effects of a specific right or action should be considered carefully, and location-based solutions developed in the local biophysical and socioeconomic context may be needed to address deforestation.