Gund Affiliate, Adjunct Professor, Rubenstein School for the Environment and Natural Resources

Robert Herendeen's research interests include energy consumption, quantitative analysis of environmental issues, and environmental bookkeeping. Trained as a physicist, he has conducted economic input-output analyses to determine resource requirements and other impacts of consumption, following the parallels between economic and ecological systems and analysis of perturbed ecosystems.

At the Gund, Bob writes about barriers to effective energy policy and how to surmount them. He serves on the Board of Commissioners of the Burlington Electric Department.  His projects cover details of energy accounting principles and net energy of energy-conserving retrofit construction. Past projects include studies on "Energy Cost Of Living", fairly allocating effects of energy/carbon taxes, and mathematics of trophic cascades in ecosystems.

Publications

PUBLICATIONS AT UVM:

  • Herendeen, R. 2019. Does “100% renewable” trump concern for spatial impacts? Energy Policy 130:304-310. 
  • Herendeen, R. 2015. Net energy's effect on the price of energy and other goods and services.  Ecological Economics 109:142-149.
  • Herendeen, R. 2012.  Review of Hall, C., and K. Klitgaard, “Energy and the Wealth of Nations: Understanding the Biophysical Economy”, Springer.  BioScience 62:691-192.
  • Shammin, Md. R., R. Herendeen , M. J. Hanson, and E. J. H. Wilson. 2010.  A multivariate analysis of the energy intensity of sprawl versus compact living in the U.S. for 2003.  Ecological Economics 69:2363-2373
  • Herendeen, R 2009.  Ecological network analysis, energy analysis.  In S. E. Joergensen, ed., Ecosystem Ecology, pp. 64-75, Elsevier.

SELECTED PRIOR PUBLICATIONS:

  • Herendeen, R. 1998.  Ecological Numeracy: Quantitative Analysis of Environmental Issues.  331 pp.  John Wiley and Sons.
  • Herendeen, R.  1995.  A unified quantitative approach to bottom-up:top-down and trophic cascade hypotheses.  Journal of Theoretical Biology 176:13-26.   
  • Herendeen, R., and F. Fazel.  1984.  Distributional aspects of an energy conserving tax and rebate.  Resources and Energy 6:277-304.
  • Bullard, C. W., and R. Herendeen.  1975.  Energy costs of goods and services.  Energy Policy 3:263-278.  Reprinted in Thomas, ed.  Energy Analysis.  Westview Press, 1977.

Areas of Expertise and/or Research

Energy’s role in supporting all consumption, the role of efficiency in energy policy

Education

  • PhD, Physics, Cornell University
  • BS, Physics, Rensselear Polytechnic Institute

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