"Producers and Consumers in EU E-Commerce Law by John Dickie, Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2005 (ISBN 1-841-13454-6)"

Book Review

Ireland's Innovation Performance: 1991-2005

In this paper we use data from the five waves of the Irish Innovation Panel (IIP) to profile the innovation performance of manufacturing plants in Ireland and Northern Ireland over the period 1991 to 2005. Despite considerable public sector investment on both sides of the border levels of innovation activity have remained broadly similar throughout this period although somewhat different trends are evident in Ireland and Northern Ireland. In terms of product innovation for example, the proportion of manufacturing plants making product changes has increased 5 per cent in Ireland and just over 7 per cent in Northern Ireland. In terms of process innovation a decline of almost 7 per cent in Ireland has been accompanied by a 7 per cent increase in Northern Ireland. These trends provide some evidence of convergence in innovation performance over the 1991 to 2005 period. This is evident in the narrowing gap between the proportion of product innovators in Ireland and Northern Ireland, convergence in the proportion of plants undertaking process innovation and in terms of the increasingly similar proportions of sales derived from innovative products. Looking in more detail at the determinants of manufacturing innovation emphasises the importance of R&D and backwards supply chain linkages as sources of new knowledge for innovation. Other external linkages prove less important suggesting the value of policy initiatives designed to promote knowledge sharing. We also find a significant negative innovation effect from legislative restrictions on plants’ product innovation. Public support for both product and process innovation are having positive effects on innovation outputs at the level of the individual plant. Future research interest centres on the contrast between this strong positive result at firm level and the more modest increases in innovation among the population of firms in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Quantifying the Energy & carbon emissions implications of a 10% electric vehicles target

EU Directive 2009/28/EC on Renewable Energy requires each Member State to ensure 10% of transport energy (excluding aviation and marine transport) comes from renewable sources by 2020 (10% RES-T target). In addition to the anticipated growth in biofuels, this target is expected to be met by the increased electrification of transport coupled with a growing contribution from renewable energy to electricity generation. Energy use in transport accounted for nearly half of Ireland’s total final energy demand and about a third of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in 2007. Energy use in transport has grown by 6.3% per annum on average in the period 1990 – 2007. This high share and fast growth relative to other countries highlights the challenges Ireland faces in meeting ambitious renewable energy targets. The Irish Government has set a specific target for Electric Vehicles (EV) as part of its strategy to deliver the 10% RES-T target. By 2020, 10% of all vehicles in its transport fleet are to be powered by electricity. This paper quantifies the impacts on energy and carbon dioxide emissions of this 10% EV target by 2020. In order to do this an ‘EV Car Stock’ model was developed to analyse the historical and future make-up of the passenger car portion of the fleet to 2025. Three scenarios for possible take-up in EVs were examined and the associated energy and emissions impacts are quantified. These impacts are then compared to Ireland’s 10% RES-T target and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets for 2020. Two key findings of the study are that the 10% EV target contributes 1.7% to the 10% RES-T target by 2020 and 1.4% to the 20% reduction in Non-ETS emissions by 2020 relative to 2005.