the mineral economy a model for the shape of oil production curves abstract the production and the depletion of mineral resources and especially oil and fossil fuels has been an object of extensive predictive modeling these predictions are often derived from hubbert s model which is based on the fitting of the experimental data to a symmetric bell shaped curve although this model describes several historical cases in particular crude oil production in the lower 48 us states not all theoretical models for the mineral economy are based on symmetric curves also not much attention has been dedicated so far to the mechanisms which lead to such a behavior in particular scarce attention has been dedicated to the factors which may make the production curve asymmetric e g a decline in production more abrupt than the growth in the present paper the author uses a stochastic model to examine factors affecting these phenomena the results of the simulations indicate that the production curves of a non renewable resource may be asymmetric in dependence on factors such as the search strategy or the presence of technological improvements considering worldwide oil production the simulations indicate that the after peak downward slope might turn out to be considerably more steep than the upward slope something that could have unpleasant effects on the economy

natural resources curse or blessing are natural resources a curse or a blessing the empirical evidence suggests that either outcome is possible this paper surveys a variety of hypotheses and supporting evidence for why some countries benefit and others lose from the presence of natural resources these include that a resource bonanza induces appreciation of the real exchange rate deindustrialization and bad growth prospects and that these adverse effects are more severe in volatile countries with bad institutions and lack of rule of law corruption presidential democracies and underdeveloped financial systems another hypothesis is that a resource boom reinforces rent grabbing and civil conflict especially if institutions are bad induces corruption especially in nondemocratic countries and keeps in place bad policies finally resource rich developing economies seem unable to successfully convert their depleting exhaustible resources into other productive assets the survey also offers some welfare based fiscal rules for harnessing resource windfalls in developed and developing economies

guidelines for exploiting natural resource wealth the principles of how best to manage the various components of national wealth are outlined where the permanent income hypothesis the hotelling rule and the hartwick rule play a prominent role as far as managing natural resource wealth is concerned a case is made to use an intergenerational sovereign wealth fund to smooth consumption across generations a liquidity fund for the precautionary buffers to deal with commodity price volatility and an investment fund to park part of the windfall until the country is ready to absorb extra spending on domestic investment capital scarcity implies that a positive part of the windfall should be spent on domestic investment the conclusions highlight the political economy problems that will have to be tackled with these normative proposals for managing wealth the author 2014 published by oxford university press

how reasonable are oil production scenarios from public agencies according to the long term scenarios of the international energy agency iea and the u s energy information administration eia conventional oil production is expected to grow until at least 20

conceptualization of energy security in resource poor economies the role of the nature of economy abstract this paper studies how energy security is conceptualized in four resource poor advanced island economies singapore south korea japan and taiwan it is found that the energy security conceptualization of the four economies in effect returns to the very original and conventional one stable and reliable energy supply however these economies are different in the level of stability and reliability demanded why are they similar in energy security conceptualization whereas different in the level of stability and reliability demanded adopting documentation analysis comparative study and the varieties of capitalism theory we find that the nature of economy constitutes the decisive factor that shapes energy security conceptualization the coordinated market economies cmes are more concerned about energy supply disruption than the liberalized market economies lmes the paper demonstrates that despite numerous energy security concepts in the literature resource poor economies still adopt the original and conventional one in practice the findings suggest that security of supply is the top measure for resource poor economies to improve their energy security and creating a joint petroleum and lng market would be desirable for the four economies in this study

a techno economic and environmental assessment of long term energy policies and climate variability impact on the energy system abstract this paper examines the impact of climate variability and change cv c and energy policies on the future energy system in australia scenarios were developed to represent cv c impacts and policy options which were analysed with the long range energy alternative and planning system for the period 2010 2050 the results indicate that although energy demand is likely to increase threefold in the business as usual scenario cv c further increases demand to 150 petajoule a combined policy option involving modal shift and penetration of electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles results in a 49 53 decrease in transport fuel demand and emissions the economic analysis reveals a substantial decline in sales revenue and increase in generation costs due to cv c impacts higher renewable energy integration results in lower wholesale electricity prices across independent electricity markets cumulative cost benefit analysis indicates that economic benefits increase to us 4 9 trillion in an advanced renewable energy scenario emissions and energy consumed increased under climatic conditions but decreased after policy intervention ignoring the influence of cv c may result in underestimation of future energy demand and installed capacity in australia therefore energy and climate policies should consider long term economic benefits over short term system costs

expanding versus greening long term energy and emission transitions in mozambique abstract mozambique is rapidly emerging as one of the leading energy producers in africa we develop a comprehensive scenario analysis to review the energy revolution in mozambique like much of africa mozambique features a competition between development of its vast reserves of renewable energy and fossil fuels we assess the implied energy and emissions transitions as well as the potential impact of a range of sustainable policy options our analysis reveals an emerging energy dichotomy where a spectacular expansion of energy production goes together with an only gradual energy consumption transition we find that over time the share of modern renewable energy sources tends to marginalize in the energy production mix while remaining stable in the energy consumption mix about one third of the ghg emissions associated with energy production can be linked to energy export also we find that sustainable energy policies at the supply side lead to far higher cumulative emission reductions than demand side policies finally we show that even in the long run a complete ban on thermal electricity generation capacity in mozambique would by no means lead to shortages in the domestic electricity market but only slightly limit potential electricity export

scenario analysis on co2 emissions reduction potential in china s electricity sector abstract with the approach of the year 2012 a new round of international negotiations has energized the entire climate change community with this analyses on sector based emissions reduction and mitigation options will provide the necessary information to form the debate in order to assess the co2 emissions reduction potential of china s electricity sector this research employs three scenarios based on the long range energy alternative planning system leap model to simulate the different development paths in this sector the baseline scenario the current policy scenario and the new policy scenario seek to gradually increase the extent of industrial restructuring and technical advancement results imply that energy consumption and co2 emission in china s electricity sector will rise rapidly in all scenarios until 2030 triple or quadruple the 2000 level however through structural adjustment in china s electricity sector and through implementing technical mitigation measures various degrees of abatement can be achieved these reductions range from 85 to 350 million tons co2 per year figures that correspond to different degrees of cost and investment demand side management and circulating fluidized bed combustion cfbc ranked in order are employed prior to use to realize emissions reduction followed by supercritical plants and the renovation of conventional thermal power plants in the long term nuclear and hydropower will play the dominant role in contributing to emissions reduction it is also suggested that a self restraint reduction commitment should be employed to help contribute to the reduction of emission intensity an avenue that is more practical for china in light of its current development phase setting the year 2000 as the base year the intensity reduction target could possibly range from 4 2 to 19 4 dependent on the implementation effectiveness of various mitigation options

on the portents of peak oil and other indicators of resource scarcity economists have studied various indicators of resource scarcity but largely ignored the phenomenon of peaking due to its connection to non economic physical theories of resource exhaustion i consider peaking from the economic point of view where economic forces determine the shape of the equilibrium extraction path within that framework i ask whether the timing of peak production reveals anything useful about scarcity i find peaking to be an ambiguous indicator if someone announced the peak would arrive earlier than expected and you believed them you would not know whether the news was good or bad however i also show that the traditional economic indicators of resource scarcity price cost and rent fare no better and argue that previous studies have misconstrued the connection between changes in underlying scarcity and movements in these traditional indicators

risk return and equilibrium a revisit this paper reports the results of tests of the major implications of the two parameter capital asset pricing model the findings indicate that the relationship between stock returns and systematic risk contains important nonlinearities during 1935 82 these nonlinearities cannot be ascribed to previously documented anomalies related to firm size or january seasonality moreover the test results appear to be sensitive to the choice of the proxy for the market portfolio

analysis of energy embodied in the international trade of uk interest in the role embodied energy plays in international trade and its subsequent impact on energy security has grown as a developed nation the uk s economic structure has changed from that of a primary producer to that of a primary consumer although the uk s energy consumption appears to have peaked it imports a lot of energy embodied in international trade alongside the more obvious direct energy imports the uk has seen increasing dependency on imported fossil energy since the uk became a net energy importer in 2005 in this paper an energy input output model is established to calculate not only the amount of fossil energy embodied in uk s imports and exports but also the sector and country distributions of those embodied fossil energy the research results suggest the following uk s embodied fossil energy imports have exceeded embodied fossil energy exports every year since 1997 uk embodied energy imports through the so called made in china phenomena are the largest accounting for 43 of total net fossil energy imports if net embodied fossil energy imports are considered the gap between energy consumption and production in uk is much larger than commonly perceived with subsequent implications to the uk s energy security

recent development of energy supply and demand in china and energy sector prospects through 2030 abstract facing multiple pressures including its commitment to energy efficiency improvement the current worldwide recession and global warming concerns china is making great efforts to maintain its continuous economic growth and reduce pollutant emissions many policies to encourage investing in energy efficiency and renewable energy have been issued this article provides insights into the latest development of energy production energy consumption and energy strategic planning and policies in china and also describes the analysis carried out by the authors as part of the asian energy security project using the long range energy alternatives planning leap modeling tool of the impacts of implementing new and expected energy and environmental policies

sensitivity of the bank stock returns distribution to changes in the level and volatility of interest rate a garch m model abstract the objective of this paper is to employ the generalized autoregressive conditionally heteroskedastic in the mean garch m methodology to investigate the effect of interest rate and its volatility on the bank stock return generation process this framework discards the restrictive assumptions of linearity independence and constant conditional variance in modeling bank stock returns the model presented here allows for shifts in the volatility equation in response to the changes in monetary policy regime in 1979 and 1982 to be estimated arch garch and volatility feed back effects are found to be significant interest rate and interest rate volatility are found to directly impact the first and the second moments of the bank stock returns distribution respectively the latter also affects the risk premia indirectly the degree of persistence in shocks is substantial for all the three bank portfolios and sensitive to the nature of the bank portfolio and the prevailing monetary policy regime

interactions among energy consumption economic development and greenhouse gas emissions in japan after world war ii abstract the long term dynamic changes in the triad energy consumption economic development and greenhouse gas ghg emissions in japan after world war ii were quantified and the interactions among them were analyzed based on an integrated suite of energy emergy and economic indices the results quantitatively showed that two different energy strategy periods one before 1973 using new sources of higher quality energy and one after 1973 focused on improving the efficiency of energy generation methods could explain the linear increase in national economic development in japan over the 66 years from 1946 to 2011 japan benefited both ecologically and economically from importing fossil fuels which accounted for 8 7 of the nominal gdp of japan averaged over the entire study period the total environmental impacts of ghg i e co 2 ch 4 and n 2 o emissions measured by emergy decreased after 1997 and since 2009 they have remained lower than 76 of the emissions in 1990 even though no decrease in the global warming impact based on the weight of co 2 was observed emergy methods and energy systems models revealed aspects of the complicated interactions among energy consumption economic development and the potential environmental impact of ghg emissions which formerly had not been recognized

a vision on the opportunities policies and coping strategies for the energy security and green energy development in malaysia abstract energy security management remains a complex and fragmented interplay between the population growth urbanization economical development and the living environment today green technology application has been the prime contributor and an indispensable factor to preserve the long term reliability of energy supply this agenda has called for an integrated adaptive coordinated environmentally oriented and participatory approach to the protection of renewable resources malaysia endowed with its rich natural resources and diversity recognizes the need to adopt a sound developmental framework to transform the country s energy management landscape into a high quality and excellent level parallel to this development both government and non governmental organizations continue to advocate national efforts to explore alternative energy and improve the dynamic energy growth in a cost effective manner the plan espouses the establishment of ocean energy geothermal power hydropower wind power hydrogen fuel cell nuclear energy biodiesel and bioethanol processing industries the impetus is accompanied by the integration of environmental protection rules and boosted by the implementation of new energy policies the present work attempts to address the opportunities dynamic pressure and coping strategies of energy security and green energy development in malaysia the present and future outlooks of renewable and non renewable energy are elucidated besides the research breakthroughs and joint co operations for the promotion of green energy management are outlined

global oil gas depletion an overview abstract the world s production of conventional hydrocarbons will soon decline hydrocarbon shortages are inevitable unless radical changes occur in demand or in the supply of non conventional hydrocarbons the details are as follows global conventional oil supply is currently at political risk this is because the sum of conventional oil production from all countries in the world except the five main middle east suppliers is near the maximum set by physical resource limits should middle east suppliers decide to substantially curtail supply the shortfall cannot be replaced by conventional oil from other sources world conventional oil supply will soon be at physical risk the middle east countries have only little spare operational capacity and this will be increasingly called upon as oil production declines elsewhere large investments in middle east production if they occur could raise output but only to a limited extent a partial exception is iraq but even here there would be significant delays before prospects are confirmed and infrastructure is in place if demand is maintained and if large investments in middle east capacity are not made the world will face the prospect of oil shortages in the near term even with large investments resource limits will force middle east production to decline fairly soon and hence also global conventional oil production the date of this resource limited global peak depends on the size of middle east reserves which are poorly known and unreliably reported best estimates put the physical peak of global conventional oil production between 5 and 10 years from now the world contains large quantities of non conventional oil and various oil substitutes but the rapidity of the decline in the production of conventional oil makes it probable that these non conventional sources cannot come on stream fast enough to fully compensate the result will be a sustained global oil shortage for conventional gas the world s original endowment is probably about the same in energy terms as its endowment of conventional oil since less gas has been used so far compared to oil the world will turn increasingly to gas as oil declines but the global peak in conventional gas production is already in sight in perhaps 20 years and hence the global peak of all hydrocarbons oil plus gas is likely to be in about 10 or so years

renewable deployment in india financing costs and implications for policy india s ambitious goals for renewable energy raise many questions regarding the nature of investment required we conduct financial modeling of actual renewable projects in india and derive the following insights first the high cost of debt is the most pressing problem higher cost and inferior terms of debt in india may raise the cost of renewable energy by 24 32 compared to the u s second even if cost of debt goes down loan terms including short tenors and variable interest rates will become significant impediments given that they add 13 14 to the cost of renewable energy in india compared to the u s finally due to the high cost of debt policy lessons from the u s and europe which focus on finer instruments such as duration of revenue support revenue certainty investor risk perception and completion cost certainty are not likely to be as effective with potential impacts on the cost of renewable energy in the 3 11 range in fact we find that an interest rate subsidy which reduces the cost of debt reduces the overall subsidy burden by 13 16 this suggests that indian policymakers need to prioritize the provision of low cost long term debt and take a closer look at the successful efforts by china and brazil 2013 elsevier ltd

the robustness of risk return nonlinearities to the normality assumption in a recent study tinic and west 1986 empirically reexamine the risk return relationship posited by the traditional mean variance capm they find a positive nonlinear relationship between risk and return except during january when the market rewards bearing nonsystematic risk this study examines the hypothesis that nonnormality of re turn distributions may account for some of these anomalous results we compare shalit and yitzhaki s 1984 mean extended gini capm an equilibrium asset pricing relation that is independent of the form of the underlying asset distribution with the traditional capm our results indicate that the nonlinear risk return relationship and the size and january effects are robust to nonnormality of return distributions

oil exploration and perceptions of scarcity the fallacy of early success abstract it has been suggested that oil exploration may lead to false perceptions of decreasing scarcity we perform a simulation of the exploration process using bayesian updating the approach enables us to isolate the information effect on the success rate and also to quantify the subjective expectation of the total resource size the area under exploration consists of a number of regions which may differ in their oil content exploration is performed with the goal to maximize the expected success rate the resulting information about the distribution of oil and the total resource size is assumed public knowledge a number of scenarios with variations in the dimensions of the area under exploration the oil distribution and initial beliefs are considered the results indicate that the information effect on the success rate is significant but brief it might have a considerable impact on price but is an unlikely mechanism behind a long term declining price trend however the information effect on expectations is gradual and persistent since exploration is performed in regions where the expected success rate is the highest the historical success rate will not be representative of the area as a whole an explorer will tend to overestimate the total resource size thereby suggesting an alternative mechanism for false perceptions of decreasing scarcity a mechanism that could be called the fallacy of early success

the mineral economy how prices and costs can falsely signal decreasing scarcity abstract natural resource prices and costs of extraction have declined simultaneously with increasing quantities of extraction for a long time in a hotelling sense this indicates decreasing scarcity since low cost resources normally would be used first and quantities of extraction normally would decrease over time the main reason for the trend being opposite to hotelling characteristics is usually thought to be due to technological innovation however an alternative reason for decreasing costs and prices and increasing quantities of extraction may be due to georgescu roegen s georgescu roegen nicholas 1972 energy and economic myth in georgescu roegen nicholas ed energy and economic myths institutional and analytical economic essays published 1976 pergamon press new york pp 3 36 concept of bonanza where there is only the appearance of decreasing scarcity norgaard s norgaard r b 1990 economic indicators of resource scarcity a critical essay j environ econ manage 19 1 19 25 mayflower problem can be used to model an alternative neo classical approach to resource extraction and scarcity in this paper a model of resource exploration is developed where the explorer does not know total reserves of the resource base as he searches for and extracts the natural resource the explorer never entirely knows how big the resource base is but does gain information about the potential location of new reserves as discovery proceeds that reduces exploration costs the lower exploration costs can cause the price to fall over time until eventually scarcity of the resource causes the price to rise the true scarcity is only revealed towards the end of exhaustion the model shows that it is possible to have several years of increasing production simultaneous with lower prices and costs until a sudden intense price rise occurs with a huge cut in production when technology is able to cut costs and increase the reserve base the decline in prices and costs and the increase in production can last longer however even with better technology it is still possible for a sharp increase in price as long as demand is growing faster than technological innovation the problem is that the true size of the resource base is never known society does not know if technology is actually overcoming scarcity or not until demand for a resource outstrips supplies it is even possible for a price shock of incredible magnitude to surprise an economy within one or two years after a hundred years of declining prices and increasing production

energy models for demand forecasting a review abstract energy is vital for sustainable development of any nation be it social economic or environment in the past decade energy consumption has increased exponentially globally energy management is crucial for the future economic prosperity and environmental security energy is linked to industrial production agricultural output health access to water population education quality of life etc energy demand management is required for proper allocation of the available resources during the last decade several new techniques are being used for energy demand management to accurately predict the future energy needs in this paper an attempt is made to review the various energy demand forecasting models traditional methods such as time series regression econometric arima as well as soft computing techniques such as fuzzy logic genetic algorithm and neural networks are being extensively used for demand side management support vector regression ant colony and particle swarm optimization are new techniques being adopted for energy demand forecasting bottom up models such as markal and leap are also being used at the national and regional level for energy demand management

estimation of elasticities for domestic energy demand in mozambique abstract in mozambique households consume a mix of energy sources to satisfy their needs for lighting and cooking and for wealthier households other domestic necessities such as refrigeration the domestic energy mix depends on the prices of the sources and on the capability of the household to invest in the energy consuming appliances required to satisfy those needs based on data from a household survey carried out in mozambique during 2002 3 iaf this paper calculates the price and the income elasticities of demand for domestic energy using an econometric method developed by deaton the calculations are made for all households at the national level differentiating for urban and rural households and for the northern households of mozambique in the econometric formulation proxies for the ownership of energy appliances per household are used allowing a simple evaluation of the effects of asset ownership on the demand for energy own and cross price elasticities for five individual domestic sources are obtained low grade sources such as firewood and charcoal are less elastic elasticities of 0 41 and 0 28 respectively than candles kerosene and electricity respectively 0 88 0 79 and 0 60 income elasticities are respectively 0 45 0 32 0 93 0 84 and 0 69 placing firewood and charcoal as the less responsive to income variations and candles and kerosene as the most responsive we also comment on the factors influencing domestic energy transition

electricity demand supply analysis current status and future prospects for maharashtra india abstract the growth potential of any state is linked with infrastructure and electricity infrastructure is the most important parameter for economic growth maharashtra a prominent state in india consumes 12 per cent of india s electricity maharashtra s power sector is facing the electricity deficit and shortage since early 2005 on the other hand industrial and service sectors are rising in the state the present paper discusses electricity situational analysis of the state electricity demand analysis has been presented and comparison of state electricity demand vis a vis mumbai s demand state capital has been carried out for two years variation for monthly average demand for two years and load shedding have also been analyzed power supply situation analysis and analysis of major power suppliers have been carried out the state load distribution center data is used to depict the load variation for a typical day interventions needed to sustainably meet the growing demands are also discussed

demographic effects on residential electricity and city gas consumption in the aging society of japan abstract japan has been confronted with two demographic forces declining fertility rates and lengthening life spans which give rise to the increasing ratio of the elderly aging society the decline in population and the prevalence of nuclear families this study empirically analyzes the demographic effects on residential electricity and city gas consumption in japan our analysis presents the following main results first the aging of the society decreases the electricity demand but does not affect the city gas demand significantly second the decrease in population with the prevalence of nuclear families increases the electricity demand but decreases the city gas demand the direction of the demand for each alternative depends on the balancing of the first and second effects third the analysis also shows clear results about the own and cross price effects ongoing energy market reforms for price suppression would increase energy demand with possible substitutability between the two energy sources our case study of japan is also applicable to other countries that will have just started to experience the similar demographic pattern of an aging society with energy market deregulation

availability addiction and alternatives three criteria for assessing the impact of peak minerals on society abstract the concept of peaks in the production of natural resources has attracted attention in the area of energy production with concerns about peak oil driving recent research and investment in alternative sources of energy there are fundamental and important differences between a peak in the production of oil and peaks in the production of metalliferous minerals but in both cases production changes from easier and less expensive early in a resource s life to difficult and expensive as time progresses the impacts of this change in production circumstances require critical consideration in the governance of national and sub national mineral endowments this paper develops a framework for evaluating the impacts of changing patterns of mineral production the framework considers three criteria availability of a resource considering its geological characteristics and geographical distribution society s addiction to the resource its centrality and criticality to economic social and environmental systems and the possibility of finding alternatives whether the resource can be substituted or recovered an initial assessment against these criteria provides an overview of how a production peak might affect the production of minerals in australia and the impacts that this might have on the australian economy assessing important resources against these three criteria will be imperative in future considerations regarding the roles minerals and metals play as service providers in our economic social and environmental systems additionally this analysis should prompt a reassessment of the value of minerals beyond economic measures indicators derived from these criteria will inform strategies that can address future changes in production characteristics meeting challenges with strong governance and realising opportunities with proactive policy

a review on promoting share of renewable energy by green trading mechanisms in power system abstract in order to promote the development of renewable energy power generation many countries have issued corresponding policies meanwhile some green trading mechanisms have been implemented in power industry and this paper has mainly presented a review on promoting share of renewable energy by green trading mechanisms in power system with a focus on promotion effects of three mechanisms feed in tariff renewable portfolio standard and emission trading scheme apart from a review summaries comparisons and an outlook for future study are also presented our review suggests that feed in tariff and renewable portfolio standard can effectively increase the share of renewable energy power and lead to renewable resource diversity in addition emission trading also provides stimulus for development of renewable energy besides mitigation of carbon emission

energy security and renewable energy policy analysis of pakistan abstract sustainable energy supply is an important factor for continued economic growth of any society pakistan is among those developing countries which are facing severe shortages of energy now a days the current and past governments in the country have designed various energy policies to fulfill energy demands but could not fill the demand supply gap there has been a shortage of about 5000 mw of electrical supply during summer 2016 a policy for development of renewable energy was framed in 2006 which was aimed to supply sustainable energy to all consumers including those households which have not been supplied electricity and natural gas in rural and far flung areas the policy was extended for implementation in 2011 and is still in use the basis of this policy rests on energy security and self sufficiency social equity and economic benefits this study aims at analyzing renewable energy policy of pakistan and examining and finding the ways to secure energy supplies in future using leap four scenarios business as usual green pakistan nuclear and optimization have been developed to assess the validity of the energy plans the study concludes that green pakistan scenario employing renewable energy technologies having minimum operation and externality costs is the most suitable option in future

risk return and equilibrium an extension this study extends a recent empirical reexamination of the risk ret urn relationship by examining the possibility that an omitted size re lationship may account for the anomalous results h levy s generaliz ed capital asset pricing model provides the theoretical basis for incorporating the impact of firm size on expected return by examining the relative importance of unsystematic risk in pricing closely held securities compared to pricing widely held securities in so doing the empirical analysis also provides a test of an implication of the generalized capital asset pricing model two methodologies are used t o test the hypotheses empirically the results indicate that even thou gh size has a significant impact on the risk return relationship it apparently does not account for the anomalous results this implicati on is consistent under both methodologies copyright 1988 by the university of chicago

estimating coal production peak and trends of coal imports in china more than 20 countries in the world have already reached a maximum capacity in their coal production peak coal production such as japan the united kingdom and germany china home to the third largest coal reserves in the world is the world s largest coal producer and consumer making it part of the big six at present however china s coal production has not yet reached its peak in this article logistic curves and gaussian curves are used to predict china s coal peak and the results show that it will be between the late 2020s and the early 2030s based on the predictions of coal production and consumption china s net coal import could be estimated for coming years this article also analyzes the impact of china s net coal import on the international coal market especially the asian market and on china s economic development and energy security

electricity demand and supply scenarios for maharashtra india for 2030 an application of long range energy alternatives planning abstract forecasting of electricity demand has assumed a lot of importance to provide sustainable solutions to the electricity problems leap has been used to forecast electricity demand for the target year 2030 for the state of maharashtra india holt s exponential smoothing method has been used to arrive at suitable growth rates probable projections have been generated using uniform gross domestic product gdp growth rate and different values of elasticity of demands three scenarios have been generated which include business as usual bau energy conservation ec and renewable energy ren subsequent analysis on the basis of energy environmental influence and cost has been done in the target year 2030 the projected electricity demand for bau and ren has increased by 107 3 per cent over the base year 2012 and ec electricity demand has grown by 54 3 per cent the estimated values of green house gas ghg for bau and ec in the year 2030 are 245 2 per cent and 152 4 per cent more than the base year and for ren it is 46 2 per cent less sensitivity analysis has been performed to study the effect on the total cost of scenarios policy implications in view of the results obtained are also discussed

world oil production trend comparing hubbert multi cycle curves worldwide shale oil resources in the u s china russia poland and france could mean that potential world oil production could double or triple in the next few decades however not all of these new reserves may be as large or as productive as north dakota s bakken shale oil in addition reserves of shale oil look to be a lot less in relative terms than the reserves of shale gas as evidenced by the price of natural gas in the u s compared to the price of oil this suggests that the u s and world supplies of shale oil may be limited in this article we will look to attempt a different type of forecast for oil using a modified hubbert curve oil production forecast we look at possible world oil production trends rather than just u s oil production trends two interesting comparisons of the world oil production trend to other regional trends are the former soviet union s oil production trend and the u s oil production trend if we compare the current world oil production trend to those previous trends using indexation then we can get an idea of what may happen to world oil production in the future

comparing the innovation effects of support schemes for renewable electricity technologies a function of innovation approach abstract the aim of this paper is to provide a comparative assessment of the innovation effects of instruments which support the diffusion of renewable electricity technologies with a functions oriented technological innovation system perspective the paper provides a link between two major streams of the literature the functions of innovation systems and the literature on renewable electricity support schemes we show that when a functional perspective is adopted feed in tariffs are likely to be superior to other policy instruments quotas with tradable green certificates and tendering although they still need to be complemented with other instruments most importantly direct r d support furthermore those innovation effects are affected by the specific design elements of the instruments chosen

power sector investment risk and renewable energy a japanese case study using portfolio risk optimization method the conventional pricing mechanism used for electricity systematically hides huge investment risks which are embedded in the overall cost of production although consumers are often unaware of these risks they present a large financial burden on the economy this study applies the portfolio optimization concepts from the field of finance to demonstrate the scope of greater utilization of renewable energies re while reducing the embedded investment risk in the conventional electricity sector and its related financial burden this study demonstrates that re investment can compensate for the risks associated with the total input costs such costs being external volatilities of fossil fuel prices capital costs operating and maintenance costs and the carbon costs by means of example this case study shows that japan could in theory obtain up to 9 of its electricity supply from green sources as compared to the present 1 37 based on the utilization of a portfolio risk analysis evaluation explicit comparison of the monetary values of the investment risks of conventional and renewable energy sources shows that renewable energies have high market competitiveness the study concludes with a recommendation that as a business objective investors would benefit by focusing on electricity supply portfolio risk minimization instead of cost this could also inherently increase the supply of renewable energy in the market

an international assessment of energy security performance energy security has in recent years grown as a salient policy and political issue to better understand energy security and sustainability concerns this study s main objective is to present an energy security index which measures national performance on energy security over time based on three years of research involving interviews surveys and an international workshop this study conceptualizes energy security as consisting of the interconnected factors of availability affordability efficiency sustainability and governance it then matches these factors with 20 metrics comprising an energy security index measuring international performance across 18 countries from 1990 to 2010 it offers three case studies of japan top performer laos middle performer and myanmar w orst performer to provide context to the index s results it then presents four conclusions first a majority of countries analyzed have regressed in terms of their energy security second despite the near total deterioration of energy security a great disparity exists between countries with some clear leaders such as japan third tradeoffs exist within different components of energy security fourth creating energy security is as much a matter of domestic policy from within as it is from foreign policy without

opec and venezuelan oil production evidence against a cartel hypothesis abstract this study revisits the opec cartel hypothesis using a case study a test is conducted to see if venezuela has its production granger cause its opec quota or whether the opec quota for venezuela granger causes venezuelan production the results show both occur at different times in the short run opec s oil production quota for venezuela granger causes venezuelan production however shortly after cuts venezuela cheats on agreements suggesting a tit for tat oligopoly game which is not anti competitive in the long run we show that venezuelan oil production granger causes opec s quota for venezuela but not vice versa having venezuelan oil production granger cause opec quotas for venezuela in the long run suggests opec does not coordinate outputs as much as it reacts to them the evidence suggests venezuela is not a part of an opec anti competitive syndicate even though we show that venezuelan oil production is low an alternative explanation for why venezuela and possibly other opec members have low oil production outputs is that institutions and risk aversion not cartel participation is the cause a vector error correction model shows that there is no tendency for venezuelan oil production to converge to opec s quota for venezuela

biofuel developments in mozambique update and analysis of policy potential and reality abstract climate change rising oil prices and concerns about future energy supplies have contributed to a growing interest in using biomass for energy purposes several studies have highlighted the biophysical potential of biofuel production on the african continent and analysts see mozambique as one of the most promising african countries favorable growing conditions and the availability of land water and labor are mentioned as major drivers behind this potential moreover the potential of biofuel production to generate socio economic benefits is reflected in the government s policy objectives for the development of the sector such as reducing fuel import dependency and creating rural employment this article provides an overview of biofuel developments in mozambique and explores to what extent reality matches the suggested potential in the country we conclude that biofuel developments mainly take place in areas near good infrastructure processing and storage facilities where there is skilled labor available and access to services and goods moreover our analysis shows the need to timely harmonize current trends in biofuel developments with the government s policy objectives as the majority of existing and planned projects are not focusing on remote rural areas and in absence of domestic markets principally target external markets

the january size effect anomaly or risk mismeasurement 1986 the january size effect anomaly or risk mismeasurement financial analysts journal vol 42 no 6 pp 63 70

energy demand and supply energy policies and energy security in the republic of korea abstract the republic of korea rok has enjoyed rapid economic growth and development over the last 30 years rapid increases in energy use especially petroleum natural gas and electricity and especially in the industrial and transport sectors have fueled the rok s economic growth but with limited fossil fuel resources of its own the result has been that the rok is almost entirely dependent on energy imports the article that follows summarizes the recent trends in the rok energy sector including trends in energy demand and supply and trends in economic demographic and other activities that underlie trends in energy use the rok has been experiencing drastic changes in its energy system mainly induced by industrial supply security and environmental concerns and energy policies in the rok have evolved over the years to address such challenges through measures such as privatization of energy sector activities emphases on enhancing energy security through development of energy efficiency nuclear power and renewable energy and a related focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions the assembly of a model for evaluating energy futures in the rok rok2010 leap is described and results of several policy based scenarios focused on different levels of nuclear energy utilization are described and their impacts on of energy supply and demand in the rok through the year 2030 are explored along with their implications for national energy security and long term policy plans nuclear power continues to hold a crucial position in the rok s energy policy but aggressive expansion of nuclear power alone even if possible given post fukushima global concerns will not be sufficient to attain the rok s green economy and greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals

introducing mozleap an integrated long run scenario model of the emerging energy sector of mozambique since recently mozambique is actively developing its large reserves of coal natural gas and hydropower against this background we present the first integrated long run scenario model of the mozambican energy sector our model which we name mozleap is calibrated on the basis of recently developed local energy statistics demographic and urbanization trends as well as cross country based gdp elasticities for biomass consumption sector structure vehicle ownership and energy intensity we develop four scenarios to evaluate the impact of the anticipated surge in natural resources exploration on aggregate trends in energy supply and demand the energy infrastructure and economic growth in mozambique our analysis shows that until 2030 primary energy production is likely to increase at least six fold and probably much more this is roughly 10 times the expected increase in energy demand most of the increase in energy production is destined for export as a result mozambique may well become one of the leading global producers of natural gas and coal we discuss the opportunities and challenges that this resource wealth poses for the country

dynamics of final sectoral energy demand and aggregate energy intensity this paper proposes a regional and sectoral model of global final energy demand for the main end use sectors of consumption industrial commercial and public services residential and road transportation per capita demand is expressed as an s shaped function of per capita income other variables intervene as well like energy prices temperatures and technological trends this model is applied on a panel of 101 countries and 3 aggregates covering the whole world and it explains fairly well past variations in sectoral final consumption since the beginning of the 2000s further the model is used to analyze the dynamics of final energy demand by sector and in total the main conclusion concerns the pattern of change for aggregate energy intensity the simulations performed show that there is no a priori reason for it to exhibit a bell shape as reported in the literature depending on initial conditions the weight of basic needs in total consumption and the availability of modern commercial energy resources various forms might emerge

the long term forecast of taiwan s energy supply and demand leap model application abstract the long term forecasting of energy supply and demand is an extremely important topic of fundamental research in taiwan due to taiwan s lack of natural resources dependence on energy imports and the nation s pursuit of sustainable development in this article we provide an overview of energy supply and demand in taiwan and a summary of the historical evolution and current status of its energy policies as background to a description of the preparation and application of a long range energy alternatives planning system leap model of taiwan s energy sector the taiwan leap model is used to compare future energy demand and supply patterns as well as greenhouse gas emissions for several alternative scenarios of energy policy and energy sector evolution results of scenarios featuring business as usual policies aggressive energy efficiency improvement policies and on schedule retirement of taiwan s three existing nuclear plants are provided and compared along with sensitivity cases exploring the impacts of lower economic growth assumptions a concluding section provides an interpretation of the implications of model results for future energy and climate policies in taiwan

the policy implications of the different interpretations of the cost effectiveness of renewable electricity support abstract the cost effectiveness of support for renewable electricity is a main criterion to assess the success of policy instruments together with effectiveness the costs of support are also a source of significant concern for governments all over the world however significant confusion exists in the literature on the cost effectiveness of public support for renewable electricity while some authors define the concept of cost effectiveness as that which complies with the equimarginality principle many others including documents from relevant organisations european commission international energy agency intergovernmental panel on climate change define it as the lowest costs of support generally equating it with the minimisation of consumer costs the aim of this paper is to clarify the differences between both approaches and their policy implications regarding the choice of instruments and design elements it is shown that they partly overlap and that their policy implications clearly differ leading to very different policy prescriptions while the former favours technology neutral instruments and design elements the minimisation of consumer costs approach favours instruments and design elements which adjust support levels to the costs of the technologies

the japanese energy sector current situation and future paths abstract as the world s third leading economy and a major importer of fuels the choice of future energy paths and policies that japan makes in the next few years will have a significant influence on the energy security of the world as a whole and of the northeast asia region in particular in this article we describe the current status of and recent trends in the japanese energy sector including energy demand and supply by fuel and by sector we then discuss the current energy policy situation in japan focusing on policies related to climate change targets renewable energy development and deployment liberalization of energy markets and the evolution of the japanese nuclear power sector the final section of the article presents the structure of the japan leap long range energy alternatives planning software system dataset describes several alternative energy paths for japan with an emphasis on alternative paths for nuclear power development and ghg emission abatement and touches upon key current issues of energy policy facing japan as reflected in the modeling inputs and results

empowered evaluating japan s national energy strategy under the dpj administration abstract in august 2009 after 54 years of virtually unbroken rule japan s liberal democratic party ldp was ousted from power by the democratic party of japan dpj the dpj s campaign platform included a pledge to facilitate extreme reductions in greenhouse gas ghg emissions yet at the cop16 meeting in cancun japan announced that it would not accept further emission reduction targets without broader commitment from all nations this paper seeks to explain this dichotomy by employing a targeted stakeholder evaluation based on surveys with 321 japanese citizens to assess the extent to which influential stakeholder groups in japan supports a potentially costly transition to a low carbon energy infrastructure amidst severe economic challenges that the nation faces findings help explain japan s adversarial role in cop16 negotiations in cancun despite the stated ghg reduction ambitions of japan s current ruling party the analysis concludes that if the dpj does embrace aggressive co2 reduction targets in the future the strategic focus will likely mirror the former ruling party s energy policy of bolstering nuclear power generation capacity and promoting energy efficiency improvements while exhibiting lukewarm commitment to supporting capacity development in alternative sources of energy supply such as solar panels and wind turbines