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on Energy Economics |
| By: | Jan Abrell; Clemens Gerbaulet; Franziska Holz; Casimir Lorenz; Hannes Weigt |
| Abstract: | The interdependence of electricity and natural gas is becoming a major energy policy and regulatory issue in all jurisdictions around the world. The increased role of gas fired plants in renewable-based electricity markets and the dependence on gas imports make this issue particular striking for the European energy market. In this paper we provide a comprehensive combined analysis of electricity and natural gas infrastructure with an applied focus. We analyze different scenarios of the long-term European decarbonization pathways sketched out by the Energy Roadmap 2050, and identify criteria related to electricity and/or natural gas infrastructure and the interrelation between both markets. |
| Keywords: | Europe, electricity markets, natural gas markets, networks |
| JEL: | L94 L95 C61 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1317&r=ene |
| By: | Lindback, Morten (Fondsfinans ASA); Osmundsen, Petter (UiS); Øglend, Atle (UiS) |
| Abstract: | . |
| Keywords: | Shale Gas; Oil Prices |
| JEL: | A10 |
| Date: | 2013–08–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:stavef:2013_005&r=ene |
| By: | Oskar Lecuyer (CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement [CIRAD] : UMR56 - CNRS : UMR8568 - École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales [EHESS] - Ecole des Ponts ParisTech - AgroParisTech); Adrien Vogt-Schilb (CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement [CIRAD] : UMR56 - CNRS : UMR8568 - École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales [EHESS] - Ecole des Ponts ParisTech - AgroParisTech) |
| Abstract: | Climate change mitigation requires to replace preexisting carbon-intensive capital with different types of cleaner capital. Coal power and inefficient thermal engines may be phased out by gas power and efficient thermal engines or by renewable power and electric vehicles. We derive the optimal timing and costs of investment in a low- and a zero-carbon technology, under an exogenous ceiling constraint on atmospheric pollution. Producing output from the low-carbon technology requires to extract an exhaustible resource. A general finding is that investment in the expensive zero-carbon technology should always be higher than, and can optimally start before, investment in the cheaper low-carbon technology. We then provide illustrative simulations calibrated with data from the European electricity sector. The optimal investment schedule involves building some gas capacity that will be left unused before it naturally depreciates, a process known as \textit{mothballing} or \textit{early scrapping}. Finally, the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) is a misleading metric to assess investment in new capacities. Optimal LCOEs vary dramatically across technologies. Ranking technologies according to their LCOE would bring too little investment in renewable power, and too much in the intermediate gas power. |
| Date: | 2013–08–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-00850680&r=ene |
| By: | Kang, Wensheng; Ratti, Ronald A. |
| Abstract: | Increases in the real price of oil not explained by changes in global oil production or by global real demand for commodities are associated with significant increases in economic policy uncertainty. Oil-market specific demand shocks account for 30% of conditional variation in economic policy uncertainty and 21.5% of conditional variation in CPI forecast interquartile range after 24 months. Positive shocks due to global real aggregate demand for commodities significantly reduce economic policy uncertainty. Structural oil price shocks appear to have long-term consequences for economic policy uncertainty, and to the extent that the latter has impact on real activity the policy connection provides an additional channel by which oil price shocks have influence on the economy. As a robustness check, structural oil price shocks are significantly associated with economic policy uncertainty in Europe and energy-exporting Canada. |
| Keywords: | Oil prices; policy uncertainty; structural VAR |
| JEL: | E31 E60 Q41 Q43 |
| Date: | 2013–04–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:49007&r=ene |
| By: | Kang, Wensheng; Ratti, Ronald A. |
| Abstract: | Oil price shocks and economic policy uncertainty are interrelated and influence stock market return. For the U.S. an unanticipated increase in policy uncertainty has a significant negative effect on real stock returns. A positive oil-market specific demand shock (indicating greater concern about future oil supplies) significantly raises economic policy uncertainty and reduces real stock returns. The direct effects of oil shocks on real stock returns are amplified by endogenous policy uncertainty responses. Economic policy uncertainty and oil-market specific demand shock account for 19% and 12% of the long-run variability in real stock returns, respectively. As a robustness check, (domestic) economic policy uncertainty is shown to also significantly influence real stock returns in Europe and in energy-exporting Canada. |
| Keywords: | Oil shocks; economic policy uncertainty; stock returns; structural VAR |
| JEL: | E44 E60 Q41 Q43 |
| Date: | 2013–02–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:49008&r=ene |
| By: | Adrien Vogt-Schilb (CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement [CIRAD] : UMR56 - CNRS : UMR8568 - École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales [EHESS] - Ecole des Ponts ParisTech - AgroParisTech); Guy Meunier (ALISS - Alimentation et sciences sociales - Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRA) : UR1303); Stéphane Hallegatte (SDN - Sustainable Developpment Network - The World Bank) |
| Abstract: | Climate mitigation is largely done through investments in low-carbon capital that will have long-lasting effects on emissions. In a model that represents explicitly low-carbon capital accumulation, optimal marginal investment costs differ across sectors. They are equal to the value of avoided carbon emissions over time, minus the value of the forgone option to invest later. It is therefore misleading to assess the cost-efficiency of investments in low-carbon capital by comparing levelized abatement costs, measured as the ratio of investment costs to discounted abatement. The equimarginal principle applies to an accounting value: the Marginal Implicit Rental Cost of the Capital (MIRCC) used to abate. Two apparently opposite views are reconciled. On the one hand, higher efforts are justified in sectors that will take longer to decarbonize, such as transport and urban planning; on the other hand, the MIRCC should be equal to the carbon price at each point in time and in all sectors. Equalizing the MIRCC in each sector to the social cost of carbon is a necessary condition to reach the optimal pathway, but it is not a sufficient condition. Decentralized optimal investment decisions at the sector level require not only the information contained in the carbon price signal, but also knowledge of the date when the sector reaches its full abatement potential. |
| Date: | 2013–08–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-00850682&r=ene |
| By: | Rösemann, Claus; Haenel, Hans-Dieter; Dämmgen, Ulrich; Poddey, Eike; Freibauer, Annette; Wulf, Sebastian; Eurich-Menden, Brigitte; Döhler, Helmut; Schreiner, Carsten; Bauer, Beate; Osterburg, Bernhard |
| Abstract: | In Europe, gaseous and particulate emissions from agriculture have been subject to both national and international regulations, as they adversely affect the energy dynamics of the atmosphere (physical climate), the formation of tropospheric and the destruction of stratospheric ozone, the amount of formation of secondary aerosols, terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems due to atmospheric inputs of acidity and nutrients (acidification and eutrophication), human health and welfare and reduce atmospheric visibility. These internation regulations (protocols etc.) are the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC5), the UNECE Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP6), and within the European Union the Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on national emission ceilings for certain atmospheric pollutants (NEC Directive7). The forementioned conventions require annual calculations of the emissions of the respective gases and air pollutants. The results have to be documented in an emission inventory and to be reported to the organisations in charge. The German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) is responsible for the entire German emission reporting. However, the sector “Agriculture” is dealt with under the aegis of the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection (BMELV). BMELV has charged the Institute for Climate-Smart Agriculture (AK) (the former Insitute of Agricultural Climate Research) of the Johann Heinrich von Thünen-Institut (TI) with the establishment of the annual agricultural emission inventory where only emissions from agricultural animal husbandry and from managed agricultural soils are regarded as agricultural emissions. -- Deutschland hat umfangreiche internationale Verpflichtungen zur Emissionsminderung für Treibhausgase und Luftschadstoffe übernommen. Hierzu gehören insbesondere im Rahmen der Vereinten Nationen die Konventionen zur Vermeidung und Verminderung weitreichender grenzüberschreitender Luftverunreinigungen (UNECE CLRTAP mit seinen acht Protokollen), die Klimarahmenkonvention (UNFCCC) und das Kyoto-Protokoll, im europäischen Kontext die Richtlinien zur Einhaltung nationaler Emissionsobergrenzen (NEC) sowie der europäische Beobachtungsmechanismus für Treibhausgasemissionen und die Umsetzung des Kyoto-Protokolls. Zur Erfolgskontrolle dieser Verpflichtungen sind jährlich detaillierte Inventare nationaler Emissionen zu berechnen und international zu berichten. Weitere Verpflichtungen bestehen zur Berichterstattung von anlagenbezogene Emissionsdaten, wie z. B. das europäische Schadstoffregister PRTR. Die Zielstellungen der internationalen Regelungen bestehen in der Vermeidung bzw. Verminderung der Effekte der Klimaänderung, Gewährleistung des Schutzes der Ozonschicht, Vermeidung von Versauerung und Eutrophierung in Ökosystemen, Bekämpfung der Entstehung von bodennahem Ozon, Reduzierung der Feinstaubbelastungen, Einhaltung von Luftqualitätsstandards, Vermeidung gefährlicher (toxischer) Luftbelastungen, Information der Öffentlichkeit über den Umweltzustand. Das im Februar 2005 in Kraft getretene Kyoto-Protokoll verbindet zusätzlich und erstmalig umweltstrategische Ziele und flexible ökonomische Instrumente (Emissionshandel sowie gemeinsame Projekte mit Entwicklungsländern bzw. entwickelten Industrienationen) als weiteren Weg, die Ziele der Verpflichtungen zu erreichen. Durch die damit erfolgte indirekte ökonomische und monetäre Bewertung der Emissionen sind weitere umfangreiche Anforderungen an die Genauigkeit der Emissionsermittlung gestellt. Diese bestehen in der Forderung nach Transparenz der Ermittlung und Berichterstattung, Vergleichbarkeit der Ergebnisse mit denen anderer Länder, Konsistenz der berichteten Emissionszeitreihen, Vollständigkeit der Einbeziehung aller Quellen und Senken in das Inventar sowie die Bestimmung der Genauigkeit der Emissionen. |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:jhtire:1&r=ene |
| By: | Mundaca, Luis; Mansoz, Mathilde; Neij, Lena; Timilsina, Govinda R |
| Abstract: | Transaction costs are major challenge to moving forward toward low-carbon economic growth, as new technologies or policies tend to have higher transaction costs compared with those in the business as usual situation. However, neither a well-developed theoretical foundation nor a consensus interpretation is available for those transaction costs in the existing literature. The definitions and therefore the estimations of transaction costs vary across existing studies. The wide variations in the estimates could be attributed to several factors such as the very definitions and scope of transaction costs considered in the studies, the methodology for quantifying these costs, the type and size of low-carbon technologies, and complexities involved in the transactions. Nevertheless, the existing literature converges on addressing market failures, such as lack of information, in developing regulatory and institutional capacity to enhance private sector confidence in energy efficiency business as a key means to help reduce the transaction costs of low-carbon technologies. |
| Keywords: | E-Business,Environmental Economics&Policies,Energy Production and Transportation,Economic Theory&Research,Debt Markets |
| Date: | 2013–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6565&r=ene |
| By: | Anna Belova; Wayne B. Gray; Joshua Linn; Richard D. Morgenstern |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact of environmental regulation on industry employment, using a structural model based on data from the Census Bureau’s Pollution Abatement Costs and Expenditures Survey. This model was developed in an earlier paper (Morgenstern, Pizer, and Shih (2002) - MPS). We extend MPS by examining additional industries and additional years. We find widely varying estimates across industries, including many implausibly large positive employment effects. We explore several possible explanations for these results, without reaching a satisfactory conclusion. Our results call into question the frequent use of the average impacts estimated by MPS as a basis for calculating the quantitative impacts of new environmental regulations on employment. |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:13-36&r=ene |