Institutional inertia and US energy policy: The case of clean coal technology

Miscellaneous · Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1991

OSTI ID:7192136

Omabegho, S

This study employs methods of institutional and policy analysis to produce the factors affecting CCT choice in the US political economy. It examines the joint efforts of the federal government and the utility, coal and equipment manufacturing industries to promote CCT as a supply option that is economically and environmentally responsive to the needs of the society. CCT is evaluated in the context of long-standing institutional and policy commitments that have shaped the American energy system. This analysis locates utility decision making regarding CCT within the ideological and institutional contexts of American energy policy. American policy has assumed that the nation's energy needs are best met by cheap and abundant fuel supplies. The national clean coal technology strategy, established in 1984 with the passage of the Clean Coal Technology Authorization Act (P.L. 98-473), is an example of energy policy by government-business partnership. This study concludes that the adoption of CCT does not represent a new era of environmentally responsive energy policy initiatives. Rather, it represents a regime maintenance strategy to preserve an American energy culture based on an ideal of abundance.

• Research Organization: Delaware Univ., Newark, DE (United States)
• OSTI ID: 7192136
• Resource Relation: Other Information: Thesis (Ph.D.)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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