Publications

2024:

Daniel, Lea  J., King, Carey W., Tuttle, David P., and Paxton, William A, Computational Tool for Analysis of Vehicle-to-Home as Home Backup Solution During Power OutagesEnergy Reports, Volume 11, June 2024, p. 1472-1486 (online link).

Delannoy, Louis and Auzanneau, Matthieu and Andrieu, Baptiste and Vidal, Olivier and Longaretti, Pierre-Yves and Prados, Emmanuel and Murphy, David J. and Bentley, Roger and Carbajales-Dale, Mik and Raugei, Marco and Höök, Mikael and Court, Victor and King, Carey and Fizaine, Florian and Jacques, Pierre and Heun, Matthew Kuperus and Jackson, Andrew and Guay, Charles and Aramendia, Emmanuel and Wang, Jianliang and Le-Boulzec, Hugo and Hall, Charlie, Emerging Consensus on Net Energy Paves the Way for Improved Integrated Assessment Modeling, Energy and Environmental Science, 2024 (online link).  [Preprint available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4500020 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4500020]

 

2022:

Xavier, Alexandre C., Scanlon, Bridget R., King, Carey W. , and Alves, Aline I. New Improved Brazilian Daily Weather Gridded Data (1961-2020), International Journal of Climatology, 42 (16), 8390-8404, 2022 (article online).   Supplemental file explains how to download and interpret the data in NetCDF format.

 

King, Carey W.  Interdependence of Growth, Structure, Size and Resource Consumption During an Economic Growth CycleBiophysical Economics and Sustainability, volume 7, Article number: 1, 2022 Free online access: website link and pdf.

BLOG SUMMARY (summarizing insights)

VIDEOS explaining the results of this HARMONEY paper:

  1. September 2022, Fields Institute, Workshop on Impacts of Climate Change on Economics, Finance, and Insurance: Video Link
  2. May 2022, Presentation to Institute for New Economic Thinking at Oxford:  Video link

 

Souto, Laiz; Yip, Joshua; Wu, Wen-Ying; Austgen, Brent; Kutanoglu, Erhan; Hasenbein, John; Yang, Zong-Liang; King, Carey W.; Santoso, Surya (2022) Power system resilience to floods: Modeling, impact assessment, and mid-term mitigation strategiesInternational Journal of Electrical Power & Energy Systems, Volume 135, February 2022, 107545, website link.

 

2021:

King, Carey W., Rhodes, Joshua D., Zarnikau, Jay, et al. (2021) The Timeline and Events of the February 2021 Texas Electric Grid Blackouts, a report of the Energy Institute, University of Texas at Austin, online pdf and website link.

King, Carey W., Interdependence of Growth, Structure, Size and Resource Consumption During an Economic Growth Cycle, arXiv pre-print, online link.

Beal, Colin M. and King, Carey W., The zero-emissions cost of energy: a policy conceptProgress in Energy, 3 (2), 023001, 2021 online link.

A flow diagram explaining the zero-emissions cost (ZEC) of energy calculation.

King, Carey W. The Economic Superorganism: Beyond the Competing Narratives on Energy, Growth, and Policy, Springer, 2021.

 

Kawai, Eiji and King, Carey W. “Spending on Household Energy Relative to Household Income in United States: A summary of Data in the Residential Energy Consumption Surveys, 1993-2015, Discussion Paper No. 3, Energy Infrastructure of the Future study, February 2021, Energy Institute, University of Texas at Austin.    Click here to download codes and data used for this white paper.

 

2020:

King, Carey W., An Integrated Biophysical and Economic Modeling Framework for Long-Term Sustainability Analysis: the HARMONEY ModelEcological Economics, 169, March 2020, 106464, online link.    An earlier version as USAEE Working Paper No. 19-388 is available at SSRN.

BLOG SUMMARY

VIDEOS explaining the results of this HARMONEY paper:

  1. December 2019, System Dynamics Society Economics Special Interest Group: Video Link
  2. November 2018, Southern Economic Association Conference:  Video link

HARMONEY MODEL CODE: The two model codes used for the simulations in the paper are open-source, coded in the R language, and available on Mendeley.

The share of GDP going to wages decreases once (1) per capita energy consumption stagnates in the U.S. (in the 1970s) and (2) per capita resources consumption stagnates in the HARMONEY model.

 

 

Feng, Jingxuan, Feng, Lianyong, Wang, Jianliang, and King, Carey W. Evaluation of the onshore wind energy potential in mainland China—Based on GIS modeling and EROI analysis. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 152, January 2020, 104484: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.104484.

 

2018:

Rodriguez, Renata del G., Scanlon, Bridget R., King, Carey W., Scarpare, Fabio V., Xavier, Alexandre C., and Pruski, Fernando F., Biofuel-water-land nexus in the last agricultural frontier region of the Brazilian CerradoApplied Energy, 2018, 231, 1330-1345, online link.

Feng, Jingxuan, Feng, Lianyong, Wang, Jianliang, and King, Carey W. Modeling the Point of Use EROI and Its Implications for Economic Growth in ChinaEnergy, 2018, 144, 232-242: online link.

King, Carey W. and Rhodes, Joshua D. A Lack of Systematic Thinking Keeps America from Staying Great, Energy Institute Commentary, January, 2018: online link.

 

2017:

King, Carey W. Delusions of Grandeur in Building a Low-Carbon FutureEarth Magazine, August 2017, 32-37, online link.

Xavier, Alexandre C., King, Carey W., Scanlon, Bridget R. An update of Xavier, King and Scanlon (2016) daily precipitation gridded data set for the Brazil, Proceedings of the 18th Brazilian Symposium on Remote Sensing, May 28-31, 2017, Santos, São Paulo, Brazil. Conference Paper: online link.  Data Available: see Data page of this website.

Fares, Robert L. and King, Carey W. “Trends in transmission, distribution, and administration costs for U.S. investor-owned electric utilities,Energy Policy, 2017, 105 (June 2017), 354-362., doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2017.02.036.  Journal paper: online link.  Data: Underlying FERC Form1 data are available via OpenEI (for data from 1994-2019).

Figure. The average annual spending, per customer, on transmission, distribution, and administrative costs in U.S. investor-owned utilities (IOUs).

 

Rhodes, Joshua D., King, Carey, Gülen, Gürcan, Olmstead, Sheila M., Dyer, James S., Hebner, Robert E., Beach, Fred C., Edgar,Thomas F., Webber, Michael E.. “A geographically resolved method to estimate levelized power plant costs with environmental externalities,” Energy Policy, 2017, 102 (March 2017), 491-499, doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2016.12.025.  View paper free online here (link), or download pdf: pdficon_small link.  A corrigendum (correction) was completed in 2018 (see here).

This paper is also a white paper as part of the Energy Institute at UT-Austin’s Full Cost of Electricity study.

Interesting graphic using data from this study to compare to other studies on levelized cost of electricity (LCOE):

snl-energy-2017-lcoe-comparison-across-differnet-groups-figure

[Graphic: Lucas Bifera, S&P Global Market Intelligence, January 06, 2017, Levelized cost of energy survey shows wind, natural gas cementing economic edge]

 

2016:

Sanders, Kelly T and King, Carey W., “Integration of Water and Energy Sustainability,” Chapter 13 of Sustainability Water Management and Technologies: Sustainable Water Management, Volume I, Editor, Daniel H. Chen, Taylor & Francis/CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 2016.

 

King, Carey W.  Information Theory to Assess Relations Between Energy and Structure of the U.S. Economy Over Time. Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, 2016, 1 (2), 10. doi: 10.1007/s41247-016-0011-y.  See journal page for article, and view paper free online here and here, or download a pre-print draft: pdficon_small link.

Watch a presentation discussing results of this paper (skip to 23:36 if you don’t want to view background material that provides context for the results): presentation link

Read a more extensive blog discussing the interpretation of this paper.

This paper describes the changing structure of the United States’ (U.S.) domestic economy by applying information theory-based metrics to the U.S. input-output (I-O) tables from 1947 to 2012. The findings of this paper have important implications for economic modeling in that the paper helps explain how fundamental shifts in resources costs relate to economic structure and economic growth.

redundancy-and-equality_intermediate37Figure caption: After 2002, when energy, food, and water sector costs increased after reaching their low point, the direction of structural change of the U.S. economy reversed trends indicating that money became increasingly concentrated in fewer types of transactions.

 

King, Carey W. and Carbajales-Dale, Michael. Food-energy-water metrics across scales: project to system level, Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 2016, 6 (1), 39-49 (article link).

Xavier, Alexandre C., King, Carey W. and Scanlon, Bridget R. Daily gridded meteorological variables in Brazil (1980-2013), International Journal of Climatology, 2016, 36 (6), 2644–2659  (article online).      Supplemental and README file to help understand the structure of the data.  Direct link to data (login required; access is free): https://utexas.box.com/Xavier-etal-IJOC-DATA.   See Data Downloads page for access to data and supplementary material.

King, Carey W.  Make Austin Wealthy, a White Paper for the City of Austin “rethink Austin: For a Bright Green Future” campaign, 2016Paper download.

 

2015:

Cook, M. A., King, C. W., Davidson, F. T. & Webber, M. E. Assessing the impacts of droughts and heat waves at thermoelectric power plants in the United States using integrated regression, thermodynamic, and climate models, Energy Reports, 2015, 1, 193-203 (article online).

King, Carey W., Maxwell, John P., and Donovan, Alyssa. Comparing world economic and net energy metrics, Part 1: Single Technology and Commodity PerspectiveEnergies, 20158, 12949-12974 (article online and as pdficon_small PDF).  SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION: Excel file with calculations, and pdficon_small PDF with explanation of methods.

King, Carey W., Maxwell, John P., and Donovan, Alyssa. Comparing world economic and net energy metrics, Part 2: Total Economy Expenditure PerspectiveEnergies, 2015, 8, 12975-12996 (article online and as pdficon_small PDF).  SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION: Excel file with calculations, and pdficon_small PDF with explanation of methods.

King, Carey W.  Comparing world economic and net energy metrics, Part 3: Macroeconomic Historical and Future PerspectivesEnergies, 2015, 8, 12997-13020 (article online and as pdficon_small PDF).  SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION: Excel file with calculations, and pdficon_small PDF with explanation of methods.

King, Carey W, The Rising Cost of Resources and Global Indicators of Change, American Scientist, 103 (6), November/December, 2015 (article online and as pdficon_small PDF).

Chaianong, Aksornchan, and King, Carey W.  An Analysis for Promoting Residential-scale Solar Photovoltaic (PV) in Bangkok, Thailand. Poster at the 33rd USAEE/IAEE North American Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, October 25-28, 2015,  pdficon_small PDF.

 

2014:

Libra, Jesse, King, Carey; Xavier, Alexandre; and Scanlon, Bridget. “Biofuel Expansion in the Ivinhema Basin: Model Development” Poster at the 2014 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, San Francisco, CA, December 15-19, 2014.  Poster as JPG

King, C. W. (2014)  A Systems Approach for Investigating Water, Energy, and Food
Scenarios in East-Central Maui, 
a report to the Ulupono Initiative.  See Full ReportExecutive Summary and Appendix.

This report seeks to inform actions for Hawaii’s sustainable water use in agriculture on East Maui using a systems approach. Ulupono commissioned this report to address the following questions:
• Is the current use of energy and water for agriculture sustainable?
• Do we have enough water to meet society’s goals of increased local food and renewable energy production without causing unintended consequences?
• How much food and electrical and fuel energy can we produce from the East Maui watershed
while sustainably stewarding our water resources?
• What are the impacts to the broader Maui water and energy systems?

 

Wallis, P., Ward, M., Pittock, J., Hussey, K., Bamsey, H., Denis, A., Kenway, S., King, C., Mushtaq, S., Retamal, M. & Spies, B. The water impacts of climate change mitigation measures. Climatic Change, 125, 209-220, 2014 (article online).

This paper discusses the water consumption implications for various greenhouse gas mitigation measures in Australia. 

 

King, C. W. Matrix method for comparing system and individual energy return ratios when considering an energy transition. Energy, 72, 254-265, 2014 (article online).

This paper discusses how to calculate energy return ratios (ERR) of a system (e.g., electric grid) using energy-focused life cycle assessment.  The example in the paper calculates the system-wide ERRs for a ‘transition’ from a fossil to renewable electricity system.

 

Vincent C Tidwell, Barbara D Moreland, Katie M Zemlick, Barry L Roberts, Howard D Passell, Daniel Jensen, Christopher Forsgren, Gerald Sehlke, Margaret A Cook, Carey W King, and Sara Larsen. Mapping water availability, projected use and cost in the western United StatesEnvironmental Research Letters9 064009, 2014. Abstractpdficon_small PDF.

Donovan, A. and King, C. W.  Trends in Country and Global Energy Industry Own Use and Production between 1960-2010. Poster at the 37th  2014 International Association for Energy Economics Conference, New York, NY, June 15-18, 2014pdficon_small PDF

Sanders, K. T., Blackhurst, M. F., King, C. W. and Webber, M. E. The Impact of Water Use Fees on Dispatching and Water Requirements for Water-Cooled Power Plants in Texas. Environmental Science & Technology, 48 (12), 7128-7134, 2014 (online).

Thermal Front Cover

King, Carey W. (ed.) (2014) Thermal Power Plant Cooling: Context and Engineering, New York, NY, ASME Press, ISBN 978-0-7918-6025-0.  Purchase and browse table of contents at ASME: here.

 

 

 

King, Carey W., On Relating US and UK Energy Expenditures (net energy), Debt, and Interest Rates, 37th 2014 International Association for Energy Economics Conference, New York, NY, June 15-18, 2014.  pdficon_small PDF

Cook, Margaret A., King, Carey, and Webber, Michael. “Impacts of Temperature Thresholds on Power Generation in the Upper Mississippi River Basin under different Climate Scenarios,” paper IMECE2014-38908 in Proceedings of the ASME 2014 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition IMECE 2014 November 14-20, 2014, Montreal, Canada.

 

2013:

King, Carey W., Principles for Protecting Freshwater Resources and Biodiversity during a Low-Carbon Energy Transition, a report written for The Nature Conservancy, 2013pdficon_small PDF (also see discussion via The Nature Conservancy website here, and the Global Water Forum here.)

King, Carey W, Gülen, Gürcan, Cohen, Stuart M, and Nuñez-Lopez, Vanessa, The system-wide economics of a carbon dioxide capture, utilization, and storage network: Texas Gulf Coast w/ pure CO2–EOR flood, Environmental Research Letters, 8,  034030, 2013.   Online Abstract     pdficon_small PDF       Video Abstract

Cook, Margaret A, King, Carey W., and Webber, Michael E., “Implications of Thermal Discharge Limits on Future Power Generation in Texas,” paper IMECE2013-65110, Proceedings of the ASME 2013 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition, IMECE 2013, November 15-21, San Diego, California USA.

Grubert, Emily A., King, Carey W., and Webber, Michael E., “Maui’s Complicated Relationship with Water,” Earth Magazine, August 2013.

King, C.W., Stillwell, A.S., Twomey, K.M., and Webber, M.E., Coherence between water and energy policies, Natural Resources Journal, 53 (1), 2013, 117-215.  pdficon_small PDF

Sanders, Kelly T., King, Carey W., Stillwell, Ashlynn S., and Webber, Michael E., Clean Energy and Water: Assessment of Mexico for Improved Water Services and Renewable Energy, Environment, Development and Sustainability, 15 (5), 2013, 1303-1321 .  Abstract here.

Shao, Xiuzhu and King, Carey W, Analysis of GHG emissions from Travis County Landfills from 2010 to 2030, a report to the City of Austin Office of Sustainability, August 2013.  pdficon_small PDF

Yan, Y.E., Tidwell, V.C., King, C.W., and Cook, M.A., 2013, “Impact of future climate variability on ERCOT thermoelectricity power generation”, ANL/EVS/R-13/2, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL. This report is available, at no cost, at http://www.osti.gov/bridge.  or  pdficon_small PDF.

2012:

Beal, Colin M., Stillwell, Ashlynn S., King, Carey W., Cohen, Stuart M., Berberoglu, Halil, Bhattarai, Rajendra P., Connelly, Rhykka, Webber, Michael E., Hebner, Robert E., Energy Return on Investment for Algal Biofuel Production Coupled with Wastewater Treatment, Water Environment Research, 84 (9), 2012, 692-710; doi: 10.2175/106143012X13378023685718.  pdficon_small  PDF

Beal, Colin M., Hebner, Robert E., Webber, Michael E., Ruoff, Rodney S., Siebert, A. Frank, and King, Carey W., Comprehensive Evaluation of Algal Biofuel Production: Experimental and Target Results, Energies, 5 (6), 2012:1943-1981, doi:10.3390/en5061943.  Abstract here pdficon_small  PDF

Baldick, Ross; Webber, Michael, and King, Carey, 2012, Techno-economic Modeling of the Integration of 20% Wind and Large-Scale Energy Storage in ERCOT by 2030, DE-EE0001385, available May 6, 2013  pdficon_small PDF.

 

2011:

King, C. W. and Hall, C. A. S. Relating financial and energy return on investment. Sustainability, 3 (10) 2011, 1810-1832; doi:10.3390/su3101810. Abstract here pdficon_small  PDF

— Discussed in The Economist, April 21-27, 2012, Buttonwood: “Feeling Peaky”

Henshaw, Philip F., King, Carey, and Zarnikau, Jay. System Energy Assessment (SEA), Defining a Standard Measure of EROI for Energy Businesses as Whole Systems. Sustainability, 3(10), 2011, 1908-1943; doi:10.3390/su3101908. Abstract here.  pdficon_small PDF

Alhajeri, N. S., Donohoo, P., Stillwell, A. S., King, C. W., Webster, M. D., Webber, M. E. & Allen, D. T. (2011) Using market-based dispatching with environmental price signals to reduce emissions and water use at power plants in the Texas grid. Environmental Research Letters, 6, 044018 doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/6/4/044018. Abstract here.  pdficon_small PDF

Tammy M Thompson, Carey W. King, David T. Allen, Michael E Webber. Air quality impacts of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in Texas: evaluating three battery charging scenarios. Environmental Research Letters 6, 2011 024004 doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/6/2/024004. Abstract here.  pdficon_small PDF

Stuart M Cohen, Hannah L Chalmers, Michael E Webber, and Carey W King. Comparing post-combustion CO2 capture operation at retrofitted coal-fired power plants in the Texas and Great Britain electric gridsEnvironmental Research Letters 6, 2011 024001 doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/6/2/024001. Abstract here.  pdficon_small PDF

Stillwell, A. S., C. W. King, M. E. Webber, I. J. Duncan and A. Hardberger. The Energy-Water Nexus in Texas. Ecology and Society 16 (1): 2, 2011. Online text  pdficon_small PDF

 

2010: 

King, C. W. Energy intensity ratios as net energy measures of United States energy production and expenditures. Environmental Research Letters 5, 2010 044006 doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/5/4/044006. Abstract here.  pdficon_small PDF

– – – Awarded the “Rosenfeld Plaque” and Selected as a “Highlight of 2010” for Environmental Research Letters – – –

Stillwell, A. S., King, C. W., and Webber, M. E. Desalination and Long-Haul Water Transfer as a Water Supply for Dallas, Texas: A Case Study Of The Energy-Water Nexus In Texas, Texas Water Journal. 2010, 1 (1), 33-41. Abstract here.  pdficon_small PDF

King, Carey W., Webber, Michael E., and Duncan, Ian J. The Water Needs for LDV Transportation in the United States. Energy Policy. 2010, 38 (2), 1157-1167, DOI: 101016/j.enpol.2009.11.004.  Abstract here.

King, C., Zarnikau, J., and Henshaw, P. Defining a standard measure for whole system EROI combining Economic “top-down” and LCA “bottom-up” accounting.  Paper ES2010-90414. Proceedings of the ASME 2010 4th International Conference on Energy Sustainability, Phoenix, AZ, May 17-22, 2010. pdficon_small PDF

 

2008:

King, Carey W. and Webber, Michael E. Water Intensity of Transportation. Environmental Science and Technology. 2008, 42 (21), 7866-7872; (Policy Analysis) DOI: 10.1021/es800367m.  Abstract here.  pdficon_small PDF , and online link.

King, Carey W. and Webber, Michael E. The Water Intensity of the Plugged-In Automotive Economy. Environmental Science and Technology. 2008, 42 (12), 4305-4311; (Article) DOI: 10.1021/es0716195. Abstract here.  pdficon_small PDF

– – – Recognized as most downloaded paper in 1st Qtr 2008 for ES&T – – –

2005:

King, C.W., Campbell, M.I., Beaman, J. J., and Sreenivasan, S. V. Synthesis of Multistable Linkage System using an Optimization Approach. Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization. 2005, 29, No. 6, pp. 477-487.

 

2004:

King, C., Beaman, J. J., Sreenivasan, S. V., and Campbell, M. Multistable Equilibrium System Design Methodology and Demonstration. Journal of Mechanical Design, 2004, 126, No. 6, pp. 1036-1046.