peak oil and energy policy a critique energy policy has frequently been based upon assumptions about future oil prices at the end of the 1970s it was assumed oil prices would continue to rise now a similar assumption pervades policy design this article critiques the peak oil hypotheses which lie behind these forecasts and policy beliefs and considers that from a climate change perspective the challenge is too much not too little fossil fuel reserves the coming of shale gas its fungibility with oil via the electrification of transport along with technological advances in increasing the depletion rates of existing wells and new reserves together undermine that assumption that rising oil prices will rapidly make renewable and other low carbon technologies cost competitive without subsidies the paper suggests indexing carbon prices to the oil price infrastructure investment strategic storage and a focus on market failures provides a superior approach to energy policy rather than relying on forecasts of oil prices and picking winners

renewable energy policies and initiatives for a sustainable energy future in malaysia abstract effective policies and incentive on renewable energy re is critical to promote low carbon economy and society in the future re was first introduced in the country s energy mix through the fifth fuel policy which was formulated under the eighth malaysia plan 2001 2005 to reduce dependency on fossil fuel and to address the rising global concern on climate change this paper addresses the re progress and achievement over the past 10 years and discusses the key policies for re programmes funding schemes and incentives that has been introduced by the government of malaysia to develop and promote the utilisation of re the recent re mechanisms under the tenth malaysia plan 2011 2015 will also be highlighted

review on malaysia s national energy developments key policies agencies programmes and international involvements this paper aims to present a review on malaysia s national energy developments by looking at various angles in terms of renewable energy and energy efficiency energy demand and consumption by sectors are presented as well as the fuel mix in electricity generation key energy policies implemented from the incorporation of malaysia s national oil company petronas in 1974 until the national green technology policy 2009 and a future policy will be addressed the roles of key players as well as important agencies in energy development are briefly presented key programmes in energy development such as malaysian industrial energy efficiency improvement project small renewable energy power programme and building energy efficiency programme are discussed as well as successful initiatives from the programmes malaysia s international involvements towards reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon emissions especially montreal protocol and kyoto protocol are highlighted as a conclusion malaysia is aware of its role in formulating its national energy development policies sensitive towards the country s development towards the environment and utilization of energy resources as well as conscientious and responsive towards the call for sustainable development in promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency

feed in tariff outlook in malaysia this paper aims to present the feed in tariff fit outlook in malaysia which is in the process of being enacted through a renewable energy re policy by the government of malaysia gom a brief in policies leading towards the re policy and the potential of each re sources under fit mechanism have been discussed the successful utilisation of re source in electricity generation and the fit implementation globally are positive indicators to implement fit in malaysia potentials of fit on biomass biogas and solid waste energy are currently very promising in malaysia but it is solar energy which is predicted to be the main re of the future surpassing all other res

the effect of informal care on work and wages cross sectional evidence in the united states finds that informal caregivers have less attachment to the labor force the causal mechanism is unclear do children who work less become informal caregivers or are children who become caregivers working less using longitudinal data from the health and retirement study we identify the relationship between informal care and work in the united states both on the intensive and extensive margins and examine wage effects we control for time invariant individual heterogeneity rule out or control for endogeneity examine effects for men and women separately and analyze heterogeneous effects by task and intensity we find modest decreases 2 4 percentage points in the likelihood of working for male caregivers providing personal care female chore caregivers meanwhile are more likely to be retired for female care providers who remain working we find evidence that they decrease work by 3 10hours per week and face a 3 percent lower wage than non caregivers we find little effect of caregiving on working men s hours or wages these estimates suggest that the opportunity costs to informal care providers are important to consider when making policy recommendations about the design and funding of public long term care programs

publics knowledge attitudes and behavioral toward the use of solar energy in yemen power sector abstract this paper presents the information of the public s views on the solar energy use in yemen it examines the public knowledge of attitudes and behavioral intentions that include the variables willingness to pay willingness to change and willingness to invest and then compare them a personal interview with 348 urban household and 258 rural household was performed the descriptive statistics chi square for independence odds ratios mann whitney and kruskal wallis tests were the statistical tools employed in the analysis the results showed that the citizens in both areas have a moderate level of knowledge about renewable energy resources the benefits and drawbacks of solar energy use in the power sector and the solar power technologies despite that they have highly positive attitudes towards the use of renewable energy particularly solar energy and its technologies they also accept to engage in the renewable energy activities which aim to improve the quality of the electrical service provided in the country the findings also indicate 66 55 7 and 78 4 of urban citizens are willing to pay to change and to invest compared to 70 55 4 and 75 6 of rural citizens the place of residence factor affected significantly the citizens knowledge level about renewable energy wind biomass and geothermal energy renewable energy resources the drawbacks of solar energy use in the power sector and the solar power technologies it also affected significantly the citizens attitudes towards the use of solar power technologies at home the implications for the policymakers are that elevating the knowledge and awareness of the citizens by formal and informal education and enacting effective supportive policies assists in encouraging the citizens to use renewable energies in their daily lives would lead to achieve the country s renewable energy targets for 2025

competitive auction mechanisms for the promotion renewable energy technologies the case of the 50 mw photovoltaics projects in cyprus abstract there are a range of policy frameworks and support mechanisms to promote the penetration of renewable energy technologies into the energy mix assembled by the governments and regulatory bodies around the world the three dominant and most common support schemes that have also been implemented within the eu and proven successful in the past include the competitive auctions the feed in tariff scheme fit and tradable green certificates tgcs this study reviews the use of the competitive auction mechanism for the promotion of power generation from renewable energy technologies the process of the specific policy instrument as well as its pros and cons are introduced successful and failed case studies from countries that have already incorporated this mechanism into their renewable energy technologies development policies are also presented among these cases is the cyprus auction procurement for the licensing of 50 mw of photovoltaic power plants conducted in january 2013 which is thoroughly elaborated in this paper the timeline of the bids is presented and the auction winner strategy is tracked and examined a discussion is also presented on the feasibility of the awarded projects eventually the entire auction procurement procedure is evaluated to expose the defects of the mechanism and to offer some recommendations for the viability of the process

malaysia s renewable energy policies and programs with green aspects malaysia as a developing country and a member of the association of southeast asian nations asean is looking into inexhaustible and repeatable alternative energy sources such as solar wind mini hydro and biomass the estimated gdp at 2010 is 15 385 per capita and the economic and industrial growth of the country implies that energy demand is growing very fast in addition the growing prices of fossil fuels and greenhouse gas ghg emissions make inevitable renewable energy solutions for the country geographically malaysia is located in a region of tropical and humid climate which provides easy access to a variety of renewable energy sources the government of malaysia has initiated renewable energy policies to encourage industries and individuals to employ renewable energy powered systems in power applications this paper first gives a brief overview of the current status of renewable energy in malaysia then it provides the energy policies specifically the renewable energy policies in malaysia in section 2 the renewable energy programs are reviewed in section 3 the building energy efficiency program with green aspect is provided in section 4 lastly the conclusion and forecasts of this paper are

comorbidities and the willingness to pay for health improvements we show that the willingness to pay for health improvements increases with the severity and probability of occurrence of comorbidities this result which is obtained under mild restrictions on the shape of the utility function has important implications for cost benefit studies applied to health care in particular it implies that the discrimination of the elderly believed to be implicit in cost benefit analysis is less of a problem than commonly thought

analyzing the functional dynamics of technological innovation systems a scheme of analysis various researchers and policy analysts have made empirical studies of innovation systems in order to understand their current structure and trace their dynamics however policy makers often experience difficulties in extracting practical guidelines from studies of this kind in this paper we operationalize our previous work on a functional approach to analyzing innovation system dynamics into a practical scheme of analysis for policy makers the scheme is based on previous literature and our own experience in developing and applying functional thinking it can be used by policy makers not only to identify the key policy issues but also to set policy goals

malaysia energy strategy towards sustainability a panoramic overview of the benefits and challenges sustainable energy supply is essential for actualizing malaysia s vision to become a high income country the current power production and demand trends show that malaysia has a reserve margin that will only last for the next few years this calls for further investment research and development in the country s power sector in order to meet the ever increasing energy demand the government s diversification policy and power sector expansion plan emphasizes on the incorporation of renewable energy sources ress and other less co2 emitting sources like nuclear into the national energy mix however the environmental ramifications of this policy should be part of any future expansion plan of national grid this paper presents a panoramic overview of the malaysian energy sector the energy policy revolution and the power sector expansion strategy towards secure sustainability we want to bring into focus the benefits and challenges of malaysia s power sector expansion plan with the aim of stimulating further discussion and research on the environmental ramifications of the plan

clean energy and international oil oil has been the world s dominant fuel for more than 50 years substitution of oil for power generation and heating has progressed since the 1970s but substitution of oil in transport remains elusive this paper examines the progress of clean energy and compares the unfolding co evolution of technologies markets and institutions with what we know about substitution of oil and technological paradigm shifts while the rhetoric in favour of clean energy is strong technologies policies and supportive infrastructure investments are still in a formative stage the transformative process will evolve over the next 10 20 years and change irreversibly the demand dynamics for oil although decline in the demand for oil is not imminent the impact of the clean energy transition on international oil is evident even now high oil prices accelerate commitment policies and market prospects for clean energy options and speed up the market readiness of substitutes for oil while 20 years appears a long time for the development and scale up of alternatives to oil it is a short period in the context of the required paradigm shift for international oil it is well within the time frame for resource rent optimization strategic planning and investment decisions high cost resource developers need to be aware copyright 2011 oxford university press

feed in tariff mechanisms for large scale wind power in china abstract in recent years with the large scale and centralized development of the wind power industry in china wind power curtailment has become increasingly serious in order to promote wind power consumption in china this paper designs four kinds of feed in tariff fit mechanisms a double track fit mechanism based on a ratio a time of use benchmarking tariff mechanism a net back pricing mechanism based on the inter provincial wind power consumption market and an fit mechanism based on negotiation then we establish a benefit distribution model to analyze the wind power stakeholders benefits finally based on the four kinds of fit mechanisms and the benefit distribution model we propose the best fit mechanisms for the various electricity market circumstances in china in order to provide a reference to formulate wind fit to promote the consumption of wind power and to advance the sustainable development of renewable energy in developing countries

who will care employment participation and willingness to supply informal care the impact of informal care responsibilities on the willingness and ability of caregivers to undertake paid employment has been the subject of a number of studies in contrast the effect of employment status on willingness to undertake informal care has been less well explored this paper concentrates on this less studied direction of causality using the data provided by 15 waves of the british household panel survey we find that employment participation and earnings both impact negatively on willingness to supply informal care this evidence has implications for health and social care policy since informal care has been shown to be a significant substitute for formal long term care

technology policy and global warming why new policy models are needed or why putting new wine in old bottles won t work in recent years the threat of global climate change has come to be seen as one of the most serious confronting humanity to meet this challenge will require the development of new technologies and the substantial improvement of existing ones as well as ensuring their prompt and widespread deployment some have argued that the urgency of the situation requires a manhattan project or an apollo program this paper examines why such a policy model is inappropriate arguing that the nature of the policy context for confronting climate change necessitates a different kind of technology policy than that for building an atomic bomb or for achieving a manned lunar landing instead it seeks to draw lessons from three sectors that seem to be more pertinent and where government technological development and deployment programs have been pursued with some success in the united states namely agriculture biomedical research and information technology it compares and contrasts these with the policies pursued with regard to the first two of these sectors in the united kingdom the paper concludes by drawing out the implications for the design of policies supporting technological development and innovation to address the problem of global climate change

escaping carbon lock in this article explores the climate policy implications of the arguments made in understanding carbon lock in unruh 2000 which posited that industrial countries have become locked into fossil fuel based energy systems through path dependent processes driven by increasing returns to scale carbon lock in arises through technological organizational social and institutional co evolution culminating in what was termed as techno institutional complex tic in order to resolve the climate problem an escape from the lock in condition is required however due to the self referential nature of tic escape conditions are unlikely to be generated internally and it is argued here that exogenous forces are probably required

solar photovoltaic in malaysia the way forward abstract this paper examines solar photovoltaic pv in malaysia first it analyzes the current energy demand in malaysia and discusses some of the national policies and the installations of solar pv in urban and rural areas in the country next the general feed in tariff fit scheme is explained indicating its potential as one of the investment options for malaysians finally the loan financing option for solar pv is presented providing examples that have been implemented in other countries as well as explaining the green technology financing scheme gtfs for companies and the proposed soft loan scheme for individual households in malaysia it also analyses the impact of the proposed interest rate to household consumers in malaysia in terms of total profit net present value and internal rate of return it is found that the fit scheme could potentially help in increasing renewable energy penetration particularly for solar pv to provide upfront capital for solar pv installation it is shown that the gtfs is a good financial source for companies while for individual home owners a soft loan facility from banking institutions is a feasible source if the interest rate is 5 or less

an evaluation of the installation of solar photovoltaic in residential houses in malaysia past present and future abstract this paper examines solar energy development in malaysia particularly in relation to the installation of solar photovoltaic pv in residential houses it analyzes the past activities related to solar energy in malaysia in terms of research and developments r ds the implementations used as well as the national policies for the past 20 years which have pushed the installation of pv in the country the feed in tariff fit scheme is discussed showing comparative cost benefit analysis between the pv installation in houses in the united kingdom uk and malaysia and with other investment schemes available in malaysia to investigate the awareness of renewable energy policies and incentives a preliminary survey of the public opinion in malaysia has been carried out and an evaluation of public willingness to invest in the fit scheme by installing the pv on their houses is presented the cost benefit analysis shows that the proposed fit programme is capable of generating good return on investment as compared to the one in the uk but the return is lower than other investment tools the survey suggests that most malaysians are unaware of the government s incentives and policies towards renewable energies and are not willing to invest in the fit scheme

bivariate risk attitudes informal care and saving abstractthe article examines choices of saving and caregiving for informal caregivers who will face uncertainty in health status of elderly parents the caregivers have a general form of utility with two attributes wealth and parental health informal care will substitute for future need of formal care when parents are in good health the article first studies the optimal levels of saving and of caregiving and the link between them comparative statics results depending on partial risk aversion or correlation attitude are then presented these results concern the effects of changes in the opportunity cost of caregiving the share of expected bequest the health status and the interest rate the analysis is also extended to investigate the role of cross prudence imprudence in wealth when a background health risk is introduced

sustainable energy transitions in emerging economies the formation of a palm oil biomass waste to energy niche in malaysia 1990 2011 the economic development in emerging economies in southeast asia has significantly increased the use of fossil fuel based energy this has severe implications for global climate change and against this background scholars within the sustainable transition tradition have taken an interest in addressing how transitions towards more sustainable development pathways in this region may be achieved this paper contributes to the abovementioned literature by examining the conducive and limiting factors for development and proliferation of a palm oil biomass waste to energy niche in malaysia during the period 1990 2011 rising oil prices strong pressure on the palm oil industry from environmental groups and a persisting palm oil biomass waste disposal problem in malaysia appear to have been conducive to niche proliferation and on top of this national renewable energy policies and large scale donor programmes have specifically supported the utilisation of palm oil biomass waste for energy however in spite of this the niche development process has only made slow progress the paper identifies reluctant implementation of energy policy rise in biomass resource prices limited network formation and negative results at the niche level as the main factors hindering niche development

a critical review of china s rapidly developing renewable energy and energy efficiency policies renewable energy and energy efficiency reee policies have far reaching implications for energy security climate change economic competitiveness pollution and human livelihood for these reasons reee has become a national priority for the chinese government particularly since 2005 this paper aims to critically review china s reee policies in six sectors electricity industry transportation buildings and local government in addition to examining the progress china has made in the development and implementation of reee policies this review also identifies limitations and room for improvement finally five policy recommendations are presented

a meta analysis of the price elasticity of gasoline demand a sur approach abstract automobile gasoline demand can be expressed as a multiplicative function of fuel efficiency mileage per car and car ownership this implies a linear relationship between the price elasticity of total fuel demand and the price elasticities of fuel efficiency mileage per car and car ownership in this meta analytical study we aim to investigate and explain the variation in empirical estimates of the price elasticity of gasoline demand a methodological novelty is that we use the linear relationship between the elasticities to develop a meta analytical estimation approach based on a seemingly unrelated regression sur model with cross equation restrictions this approach enables us to combine observations of different elasticities and thus increase our sample size furthermore it allows for a more detailed interpretation of our meta regression results the empirical results of the study demonstrate that the sur approach leads to more precise results i e lower standard errors than a standard meta analytical approach we find that with mean short run and long run price elasticities of 0 34 and 0 84 respectively the demand for gasoline is not very price sensitive both in the short and the long run the impact of a change in the gasoline price on demand is mainly driven by responses in fuel efficiency and mileage per car and to a slightly lesser degree by changes in car ownership furthermore we find that study characteristics relating to the geographic area studied the year of the study the type of data used the time horizon and the functional specification of the demand equation have a significant impact on the estimated value of the price elasticity of gasoline demand

a new global deal on climate change a global target of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations at between 450 and 550 parts per million carbon dioxide equivalent ppm co2e has proven robust to recent developments in the science and economics of climate change retrospective analysis of the stern review 2007 suggests that the risks were underestimated indicating a stabilization target closer to 450 ppm co2e climate policy at the international level is now moving rapidly towards agreeing an emissions pathway and distributing responsibilities between countries a feasible framework can be constructed in which each country takes on its own responsibilities and targets based on a shared understanding of the risks and the need for action and collaboration on climate change the global deal should contain six key features i a pathway to achieve the world target of 50 per cent reductions by 2050 where rich countries contribute at least 75 per cent of the reductions ii global emissions trading to reduce costs iii reform of the clean development mechanism to scale up emission reductions on a sectoral or benchmark level iv scaling up of rd v an agreement on deforestation and vi adaptation finance

measuring global gasoline and diesel price and income elasticities abstract price and income elasticities of transport fuel demand have numerous applications they help forecast increases in fuel consumption as countries get richer they help develop appropriate tax policies to curtail consumption help determine how the transport fuel mix might evolve and show the price response to a fuel disruption given their usefulness it is understandable why hundreds of studies have focused on measuring such elasticities for gasoline and diesel fuel consumption in this paper i focus my attention on price and income elasticities in the existing studies to see what can be learned from them i summarize the elasticities from these historical studies i use statistical analysis to investigate whether income and price elasticities seem to be constant across countries with different incomes and prices although income and price elasticities for gasoline and diesel fuel are not found to be the same at high and low incomes and at high and low prices patterns emerge that allow me to develop suggested price and income elasticities for gasoline and diesel demand for over one hundred countries i adjust these elasticities for recent fuel mix policies and suggest an agenda of future research topics

on insuring and caring for parents long term care needs when adult children are financially responsible for their parents they can take considerable interest in the amount of their parents long term care ltc insurance in this paper we look at the optimal levels of ltc insurance and of informal care and at the link between these two decisions when the child who provides informal care is also the decision maker with regard to ltc insurance interestingly results differ depending on the degree of both parental and child altruism and indicate either complementarity or substitutability between insurance and informal care in particular we show in the presence of child altruism that insurance stimulates the offer of informal care contrary to the case where the insurance decision is made by the elderly parent we also investigate how exogenous shocks with respect to the opportunity cost of informal care initial wealth levels and bequests modify simultaneously the optimal level of insurance and informal care

renewable energy in five south east asian countries review on electricity consumption and economic growth abstract the present study is an archival statistical overview of the possibility of renewable energy production in five south east asian countries and their economic capacity the five south east asian countries under review are the philippines thailand malaysia indonesia and singapore all of which have a combined population of 420 million this number is a little less than the population of 25 european countries these five countries have created a large market in the world and have enjoyed significant economic growth in recent years tropical climate in the region facilitates the potential for using clean and green energies this article clarifies the effective relation between energy capacities and economic indices in these countries and analyzes the results using a survey the paper shows that despite the shortage of energy in these countries brought by their fast economic growth the share of renewable energy in energy production is constantly declining and more reliance is still placed on fossil fuels for energy production

evolutionary approaches for sustainable innovation policies from niche to paradigm fostering technological innovation is considered as an important element of policies towards sustainable development in the past 10 years evolutionary policy approaches have been increasingly advocated for several reasons they seem well equipped to underpin sustainable innovation policies they focus on dynamics of change and their drivers they allow for a substantive perspective on technologies beyond mere input output relations taking into account trajectories and different characteristics of innovation and they are able to describe circumstances under which established technologies might persist even when they are to some extent inferior to their new competitors lock in however the policy effectiveness of evolutionary approaches in cases in which radical or systemic changes are involved is not yet proven in this paper we assess the theoretical rationale instrumental aspects and the coping with policy constraints of three evolutionary policy approaches which have also been used in empirical studies strategic niche management transition management and time strategies each approach has its strengths and specific problems and all three have to be further developed and tested out but they hold promise for contributing to non incremental change with economic and environmental benefits by shaping processes of variation selection and retention with the outcomes feeding back into policy they may also be used in other areas in which innovation direction is important for instance health care or food

world crude oil and natural gas a demand and supply model abstract this paper examines world markets for crude oil and natural gas over the period 1918 1999 it analyzes the time series properties of output and prices and estimates demand and supply elasticities during 1918 1973 and 1973 1999 oil and gas prices were stable during the first period they became volatile afterwards reflecting deep changes in the market structure following the oil shock in 1973 demand price elasticities were too low however demand income elasticities were high supply price elasticities were also too low the elasticity estimates help to explain the market power of the oil producers and price volatility in response to shocks and corroborate elasticity estimates in energy studies