Synergetic conservation of water and energy in China's industrial sector: From the perspectives of output and substitution elasticities
Synergetic conservation of water and energy in China's industrial sector: From the perspectives of output and substitution elasticities
复制标题
中国工业部门节水与节能的协同：从产出和替代弹性的角度
DOI：
10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.110045
复制
发表时间：
2020
影响因子：
8.7
通讯作者：
Geng Yong
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Shao Shuai;Yang Zhenbing;Yang Lili;Zhang Xi;Geng Yong
中国的快速工业化引发了水和能源短缺问题。水资源与能源资源密不可分，协同节约这两种资源有利于中国的可持续发展。本文利用非均质随机前沿模型，测算了2004-2014年中国省级工业部门水、能产出弹性和替代弹性，旨在探讨如何通过识别水、能关系实现水、能资源协同节约。结果表明，在研究期间，以生产前沿面实际产出与理想产出之比衡量的中国工业部门总体技术效率出现了小幅下降。输出弹性（即，在大多数年份，水的单位投入变化引起的产出变化为正，而能源的单位投入变化引起的产出变化为负，表明水的投入增加对工业产出增长的贡献大于能源投入。水分和能量在大多数年份表现为互补关系，表明减少水分输入可以减少能量输入。因此，要实现节水与节能的协同，政府应根据不同省级工业部门的差异化生产特点，积极推进节水节能技术。特别是在水和能源互补的情况下，无论是节能还是节水的技术进步，都将有利于这两种资源的协同保护。
China's rapid industrialization has induced water and energy shortage issue. Since water and energy resources are inextricably connected, the synergetic conservation of these two resources is conducive to China's sustainable development. In this paper, using a heterogeneous stochastic frontier model, we estimate the output and substitution elasticities of water and energy in China's industrial sector at the provincial level during the period of 2004–2014, in order to explore how to achieve synergetic conservation of water and energy resources by identifying the water-energy nexus. The results show that in China's industrial sector, the overall technical efficiency measured by the ratio of actual output to the ideal output in production frontier experienced a slight decline during the research period. The output elasticity (i.e., the changes in output caused by per unit change in a certain input) of water remains positive, while that of energy is negative in most years, indicating that water input increase contributes to industrial output growth, rather than energy input. Water and energy show a complementary relationship in most years, suggesting that a decrease in water input can reduce energy input. Therefore, to achieve the synergetic conservation of water and energy, the government should actively advance water-saving and energy-saving technologies by taking account of the differentiated production characteristics of different provincial-level industrial sector. In particular, when water and energy are complementary, the technological progress for saving either energy or water will be conducive to the synergetic conservation of these two resources.