short run price and income elasticity of gasoline demand evidence from lebanon abstract we empirically estimate the demand for gasoline in the presence of multiple shifts caused by structural breaks using monthly data from lebanon covering the period 2000 m1 2010 m12 consistent with most studies in the literature our study reports that gasoline is price and income inelastic in the short run however when a single and multiple breaks are introduced the consumers responsiveness to gasoline price and income increase since both price and income elasticity are sensitive to structural changes a policy that pleads for a flat excise tax may not be optimal with respect to either the cyclical pattern of government revenues or the internalization of international environment standards

environmental efficiency evaluation of industry in china based on a new fixed sum undesirable output data envelopment analysis national natural science funds of china for innovative research groups 70821001 national natural science funds of china 70901069 71222106 71203186 research fund for the doctoral program of higher education of china 20133402110028 fundamental research funds for the central universities wk 2040150007 china scholarship council

a panel cointegration analysis of the demand for oil in the middle east this article applies recently developed panel unit root and panel cointegration techniques to estimate the long run income and price elasticities for oil in the middle east the results for the panel indicate that demand for oil is highly price inelastic and slightly income elastic in the middle east there is considerable variation in the results for the income variable across countries with the coefficient on the income variable statistically insignificant for several countries the coefficient on the price variable is statistically significant in all cases with the expected sign and the price elasticity is uniformly low while the results for the income variable differ across countries the results for the panel as a whole suggest that the demand for oil in the middle east is being driven largely by strong economic growth while consumers are largely insensitive to price changes

sustainability assessment of energy systems integrating environmental economic and social aspects abstract sustainable development of energy systems requires consideration of all three sustainability dimensions environmental economic and social current work presents a new decision support framework for facilitating this taking a life cycle approach the framework integrates the three sustainability dimensions to enable assessments at both technology and systems levels the framework comprises scenario analysis life cycle assessment life cycle costing social sustainability assessment and multi criteria decision analysis which are used to assess and identify the most sustainable energy options the application of the framework is illustrated on the example of future electricity supply in mexico eleven scenarios up to 2050 have been developed considering different technologies electricity mixes and climate change targets the results show that based on the 17 sustainability criteria used in this work the business as usual scenario mostly based on fossil fuels is unsustainable regardless of the preferences for different sustainability criteria this is mainly due to the high costs and environmental impacts associated with fossil fuels overall the most sustainable scenarios are those with higher penetration of renewables wind solar hydro geothermal and biomass and nuclear power these electricity pathways would enable meeting the national greenhouse gas emission targets by 2050 in a more sustainable way than envisaged by the current policy however some trade offs among the sustainability criteria are needed particularly with respect to the social impacts these trade offs can be explored easily within the decision support framework to reveal how different stakeholder preferences affect the outcomes of sustainability assessment thus contributing to more informed decision and policy making

multicriteria analysis vs externalities assessment for the comparative evaluation of electricity generation systems attributing costs to the environmental impacts of energy production and use could greatly assist in environmental planning because monetary values are capable of directly influencing energy decisions without changing the rules of the market despite the considerable progress made recently in the valuation of environmental externalities there is still an open debate about the reliability of the estimated damage costs this paper is aimed at comparing the external costs calculated for a number of power plants using different energy sources with the outcome of a multicriteria analysis where environmental impacts are expressed in physical terms or on a qualitative scale similarities and disparities in the obtained rankings are identified and clarified on the basis of the fundamental principles of the two approaches it is concluded that although external costs do not accurately reflect the traditional value system of individual decision makers they give suitable price signals and thus help in eliminating distortions of the current energy market

fuel consumption for road transport in the usa abstract this study provides both a historical analysis of fuel demand for road transport and an example of using econometric results for projections fuel consumption by all motor vehicles in the usa has been analysed by splitting total demand into passenger car truck and other demands distance travelled and fuel efficiency equations have been estimated for both the passenger car fleet and trucks an essentially five equation model has been constructed and used to simulate likely fuel demand patterns up to 1990

the demand for gasoline abstract sufficient time must be allowed to elapse to assess fully the response of gasoline demand to price changes hitherto empirical work on the subject has generally not examined the period beyond 1975 moreover the extant time series studies concentrate almost exclusively on the usa this study extends both the observation period and the country coverage a vehicle stock adjustment model is estimated via its reduced form without explicit consideration of the vehicle stock itself however the estimation procedure incorporates the structure by way of constraints on the parameters cross section analysis offers additional evidence concerning the truly long run price elasticity the results suggest that there is no need to resort to elaborate models to explain adequately gasoline demand gasoline demand exhibits a long run price elasticity near unity with time lags exceeding six years while there is tentative evidence that the duration of these lags is not fixed

improving rural electricity system planning an agent based model for stakeholder engagement and decision making abstract energy planners in regions with low rates of electrification face complex and high risk challenges in selecting appropriate generating technologies and grid centralization to better inform such processes we present an agent based model abm that facilitates engagement with stakeholders this approach evaluates long term plans using the cost of delivered electricity resource mix jobs and economic stimulus created within communities and decentralized generation mix of the system with results provided in a spatially resolved format this approach complements existing electricity planning methods e g integrated resource planning by offering novel evaluation criteria based on typical stakeholder preferences we demonstrate the utility of this approach with a case study based on a blank slate scenario which begins without generation or transmission infrastructure for the long term rural renewable energy plans of liberia west africa we consider five electrification strategies prioritizing larger populations deploying large resources creating jobs providing economic stimulus and step wise cost minimization through the case study we demonstrate how this approach can be used to engage stakeholders supplement more established energy planning tools and illustrate the effects of stakeholder decisions and preferences on the performance of the system

demand for gasoline in kuwait an empirical analysis using cointegration techniques abstract this paper estimates the demand for gasoline in kuwait for the period 1970 1989 using a cointegration and error correction model ecm it is found that gasoline demand is inelastic with respect to price in the short and long run and while it is elastic in the long run gasoline demand is inelastic with respect to income in the short run this suggests that gasoline demand response to income changes is higher in the long run than in the short run furthermore gasoline consumption adjusts towards its long run level with about 52 of the adjustment occurring in the first year

a multiple criteria decision making approach to manure management systems in the netherlands the intensification of livestock operations in the last few decades has resulted in an increased social concern over the environmental impacts of livestock operations and thus making appropriate manure management decisions increasingly important a socially acceptable manure management system that simultaneously achieves the pressing environmental objectives while balancing the socio economic welfare of farmers and society at large is needed manure management decisions involve a number of decision makers with different and conflicting views of what is acceptable in the context of sustainable development this paper developed a decision making tool based on a multiple criteria decision making mcdm approach to address the manure management problems in the netherlands this paper has demonstrated the application of compromise programming and goal programming to evaluate key trade offs between socio economic benefits and environmental sustainability of manure management systems while taking decision makers conflicting views of the different criteria into account the proposed methodology is a useful tool in assisting decision makers and policy makers in designing policies that enhance the introduction of economically socially and environmentally sustainable manure management systems

prioritizing sustainable electricity production technologies mcdm approach abstract economic technological social and political developments stressed the need for shifts in energy mix therefore it is important to provide a rationale for sustainable decision making in energy policy the aim of this paper is to develop the multi criteria decision support framework for choosing the most sustainable electricity production technologies given selection of sustainable energy sources involves many conflicting criteria multi criteria decision methods multimoora and topsis were employed for the analysis the indicator system covering different approaches of sustainability was established the analysis proved that the future energy policy should be oriented towards the sustainable energy technologies namely water and solar thermal ones it is the proposed multi criteria assessment framework that can constitute a basis for further sub regional optimization of sustainable energy policy

electricity planning and implementation in sub saharan africa a systematic review abstract universal electricity access is an important development objective and the focus of a number of key global un initiatives while robust electricity planning is widely believed to be a prerequisite for effective electrification to date no comprehensive overview of electricity planning research has been undertaken on sub saharan africa the world region with the lowest access rates this paper reviews quantitative and qualitative electricity planning and related implementation research considering each of the 49 sub saharan african countries the four regional power pools and the sub continent as a whole applying a broad understanding of electricity planning and a practical limit of 20 reviewed articles per country and region 306 relevant peer reviewed journal articles are included in this review a general classification scheme is introduced that classifies the planning literature along the addressed value chain depth number of different analysed criteria and number of evaluated decision alternatives the literature is found to be strongly clustered in a few countries with less than 5 identified relevant articles in 36 of the 49 countries the total amount of articles per year is clearly increasing over time addressing technology choice operation distribution and implementation analyses although including different high level criteria in analysing electricity systems is common the literature is only starting to use formalised multi criteria decision making mcdm tools the review indicates that 63 of relevant articles favour renewable energy technologies for their given problems frequently mentioned success factors for electrification in sub saharan africa include adequate policy design sufficient finance and favourable political conditions while considerable regional and methodological literature gaps are apparent the literature in this review identifies a rich and fruitful ground for future research to fill these gaps

a multicriteria approach to sustainable energy supply for the rural poor abstract despite significant progress in energy technology about two billion people worldwide particularly the poor in rural areas of developing countries have no access to electricity decision making concerning the most appropriate energy technology for supplying these areas has been difficult existing energy decision support tools have been useful but are mostly incomplete trade offs as well as impacts that can be positive or negative may emerge as a result of implementing modern forms of energy these can affect both community s livelihoods as well as the confidence of decision makers in relation to alternative technologies the paper discusses a newly designed multicriteria approach and its novel robustness analysis for selecting energy generation systems for the improvement of livelihoods in rural areas the proposed methodology builds upon a sustainable rural livelihoods framework to address multiple interactions and calculate trade offs aimed at boosting decision makers confidence in the selected technologies the methodology is tested via a case study in colombia

state gasoline consumption in the usa an econometric analysis abstract this paper examines the determinants of state gasoline consumption per household in the usa using pooled time series cross section data for the period 1966 1980 it was found that gasoline price fuel efficiency of vehicle stock percentage of population in metropolitan areas and non automobile transport modes have negative effects on consumption while per capita income number of vehicles non agricultural employment per household age 18 44 warm weather visits by out of state automobiles and share of buses and trucks have positive effects on consumption holding constant the size of vehicle stock and its fuel efficiency characteristics the short run price elasticity of gasoline was found to be 0 321 for the period 1966 1973 and 0 106 for the period 1974 1980 it was also found that gasoline demand experienced a temporary shift both in the intercept and in the price coefficient during the shortages of 1974 and 1979 and had undergone a permanent shift in the same parameters during the post embargo period

a decomposition of the price and income elasticity of the consumer demand for gasoline the authors specify and estimate a model of the short run demand for gasoline which allows them to decompose a consumer s gasoline demand elasticities into miles driven and driving efficiency components their model is estimated using detailed household survey data which allows direct focus on the short run holding both the household s automobile stock and demographic profile fixed among the most interesting results are 1 the data allow interesting insights to be drawn into the interrelationship between these important variables and household behavior with respect to gasoline consumption miles driven and driving efficiency 2 the gasoline demand behavior of one car and multi car households differ significantly from each other evaluated at overall sample means one car households have higher in absolute value price elasticites for gasoline miles driven and fuel efficiency demand conversely multi car households have higher in absolute value total expenditure elasticities for each category 3 for both one car and multi car households roughly 75 of the estimated price elasticity and roughly 80 of the estimated total expenditure elasticity of gasoline demand stem from the miles driven component the estimated fuel efficiency elasticities though smaller than their standard errors indicate that households respond to changes in prices and total expenditure levels not only by changing the number of miles theymore drive but also by changing the efficiency with which they drive them 23 references 3 tables less

demand for gasoline in the gcc an application of pooling and testing procedures the structure of gasoline demand in the gcc countries was analysed the aim was to estimate price and income elasticities both for the short and long run it was found that gasoline demand is inelastic with respect to both price and income for both the short and long run when gcc countries were divided into two groups based on their pricing policies it was found that the group with the free market approach and higher reliance on market forces gave larger price elasticities and smaller income elasticities in both the short run and long run

a multiple objective model to deal with economy energy environment interactions abstract an economy energy environment multiple objective model based on the linear structure of inter industry production linkages is presented axes of evaluation consistent with sustainable energy strategies economic growth social welfare and environmental friendliness are explicitly considered the aim of this study is to provide decision makers with a comprehensive model which allows to assess environmental burdens global warming potential and acidification potential with respect to changes in economic activities consistent with distinct policy measures

a literature based multi criteria evaluation of the eu ets abstract this article reviews the existing literature on the european union emission trading scheme eu ets focusing on empirical ex post research since the end of the first period 2007 the literature is presented through a multi criteria evaluation concerning environmental effectiveness despite over allocation during the first period abatement is estimated between 2 5 and 5 trade driven carbon leakage was not observed even if long term economic models predict divergent leakage estimates for certain at risk sectors the abatement target was likely to be below an economically efficient level but was reached in a fairly cost effective way even if free allocation gave rise to several distortional effects equity concerns were manifold and constitute a major drawback to the policy finally institutional feasibility can be considered positive in that the eu ets passed the european legislative process unlike the previously proposed eu wide carbon tax

the inclusion of social aspects in power planning a b s t r a c t this paper overviews previous research addressing the inclusion of the social dimension of sustainable development on power systems planning consequences of the recent energy policies and strategies are already being felt in developed countries power systems with the integration of rising quotas in renewable energy technologies however while the tools that aid decision making on power planning show that economic and environmental issues are easily quantifiable and thus modeled social concerns have been addressed in a less extensive and more subjective way implying in most cases expert participation on multi criteria decision aid techniques a survey of recent papers providing public perceptions on electricity generation technologies and projects is presented these papers were chosen and reviewed in order to present a representative array of methodologies that are used to assess social acceptance of technologies according to some of the reviewed papers this issue is suggested to be fundamental to increase project success as a conclusion stands the fact that further discussion is still needed in order to achieve solid agreement among experts over what are the positive and the negative drivers to social sustainability otherwise models will not be able to translate reality and improve it under this point of view

energy price reform in saudi arabia modeling the economic and environmental impacts and understanding the demand response abstract saudi arabia has regulated domestic energy prices for decades setting them below international market levels energy subsidies in saudi arabia are generally implicit because they lead to foregone revenues for the government low energy prices also encourage rapid energy demand growth and wasteful consumption while limiting incentives to invest in energy efficiency saudi arabia recently started to reform energy prices leading to large increases in gasoline and residential electricity prices in 2018 to measure the economic and environmental impacts of energy price reform we econometrically model gasoline and residential electricity demand using harvey s 1990 structural time series model our estimated equations reveal that gasoline demand and residential electricity demand in saudi arabia are strongly price and income inelastic despite the major reforms that were recently implemented our welfare analysis also shows that the energy price reforms in 2018 in gasoline and residential electricity respectively delivered welfare gains of 8 8 and 3 8 billion sar annually 2 3 and 1 0 billion us additionally our decomposition analysis reveals that these energy price reforms were the largest contributors to the observed decreases in gasoline and residential electricity consumption in 2018

do gasoline demand elasticities vary this paper answers questions concerning gasoline demand elasticity by analyzing periods that span both increasing and decreasing prices focusing on consumer decisions about the distance driven and the automobile size us data show that efficiency changes and reduced mileages account equally for short run elasticities while automobile efficiency accounts for 90 in the long run the analysis shows a consistency that makes it useful in projecting elasticities during market disruptions and over a broad span of economic conditions in other countries 38 references dck

the rapid growth of opec s domestic oil consumption abstract opec s domestic oil consumption has increased seven fold in 40 years to 8 5 million barrels per day mbd they consume almost as much oil as china this constitutes one fourth of their production such rapid growth in consumption 5 1 annually faster than their income growth of 3 1 will challenge opec s ability to increase their oil exports which are relied upon in long term world oil projections by the international energy agency iea us department of energy doe eia and british petroleum bp however these institutions assume unprecedented slowdowns in opec oil consumption to less than 2 in the future allowing them to project increases in opec oil exports with only modest increases in production we analyze 1971 2010 data econometrically with panel co integration methods we estimate that the income elasticity of consumption is about 1 for energy and oil this means that opec s energy and oil consumption will grow as rapidly as their income hence continued high growth rates for domestic oil consumption are more likely than the unprecedented slowdowns projected by iea doe eia and bp adding an extra 6 mbd of opec consumption in 2030 this will have major implications for opec production and export levels and for world oil prices

consumer choice on ecologically efficient water heaters marketing strategy and policy implications in japan abstract this study examines how consumers select ecologically efficient water heaters in japan energy conservation in household water heating is increasingly important for reducing an amount of co 2 emission because the share of water heating in household energy consumption is approximately 30 recently japanese households have widely used ecologically efficient electric heat pump water heaters eco cute or gas fired water heaters eco jozu the total number of such efficient water heaters sold in japan was more than 2 5 million at the end of 2008 this study investigates various factors and impacts of marketing strategy for promoting the appliances in japan we apply mixed and nested logit models to a disaggregated choice data on water heaters from 2004 to 2008 this study considers retail energy prices a government financial support and marketing activities as important factors for appliance selection in addition we consider consumers housing attributes such as floor space and age of building this empirical study finds two business implications one of the two implications is that an increase in an energy price may enhance a choice probability of eco cute and eco jozu because a price increase invites consumer s consciousness on energy conservation so that a cost reduction on energy consumption becomes essential in a use of the efficient appliances the other implication is that marketing activities especially by recommendations from sales representatives and or housing suppliers are important for consumer behaviors the other important findings are discussed in this study this business experience in japan is useful to the other countries where ecologically efficient water heaters are not popular at the current moment

use of multicriteria decision analysis methods for energy planning problems most decision making requires the consideration of several conflicting objectives the term multiple criteria decision analysis mcda describes various methods developed for aiding decision makers in reaching better decisions energy planning problems are complex problems with multiple decision makers and multiple criteria therefore these problems are quite suited to the use of mcda a multitude of mcda methods exists these methods can be divided in three main groups value measurement models goal aspiration and reference level models and outranking models methods from all of these groups have been applied to energy planning problems particularly in the evaluation of alternative electricity supply strategies each of the methods has its advantages and drawbacks however we cannot conclude that one method generally is better suited than the others for energy planning problems a good alternative might be to apply more than one method either in combination to make use of the strengths of both methods or in parallel to get a broader decision basis for the decision maker until now studies of mcda in energy planning have most often considered energy networks with only one energy carrier more advanced energy systems with multiple energy carriers have been neglected even though this field ought to be suitable for use of mcda due to its high complexity many decision makers and many conflicting criteria

how price inelastic is demand for gasoline in fuel subsidizing economies abstract in recent years governments that have historically subsidized domestic fuel consumption face an ever growing challenge in maintaining fuel subsidies and have embarked on subsidy reform this paper estimates the price and income elasticity of demand for gasoline in countries where fuel prices are government subsidized we make use of biennial panel road sector data for 32 countries over the 1998 2010 period and find demand for gasoline to be price inelastic both in the short run and long run we estimate the short run price and income elasticities at 0 05 and 0 16 and the long run price and income elasticities at 0 25 and 0 81 respectively it is our contention that concerned governments should play an active role in identifying and committing to a road map to progressively abandoning fuel subsidies they should also not be discouraged by relatively small consumption corrections in the short run a reduction in subsidies can eventually release considerable amount of resources for more crucial and potentially growth enhancing public services such as education and health

a soft computing based modified electre model for renewable energy policy selection with unknown information abstract in recent years the selection of suitable renewable energy policy is very significant issue that could affect on environment and economic development to address the issue some researchers have focused on choosing the best renewable energy alternative by utilizing the decision making analysis and fuzzy sets theory in this paper a new decision model based on modified elimination and choice translating reality electre is presented under a hesitant fuzzy environment for solving the multi attribute group decision making magdm problems in energy sector hesitant fuzzy set hfs is a powerful tool to cope with uncertainty in case of hesitant and incomplete information by considering some membership degrees for an energy alternative versus an evaluation criterion attribute under a set in this model a group of energy experts is provided to assess the potential alternatives among the conflicted attributes or criteria also the decision matrix and relative importance of each attribute are considered by linguistic terms that can be transformed to hesitant fuzzy elements in addition the relative importance of each energy decision maker dm or expert is computed by proposed hesitant fuzzy modified preferences selection index hf m psi method also the significance of attributes is determined by an extended maximizing deviation method which is motivated by hesitant fuzzy euclidean hausdorff distance measure in this regard opinions of each energy expert are applied to extend maximizing deviation method then weights of attributes and experts are considered in the proposed hesitant fuzzy modified electre hf m electre model in the proposed decision model the hesitant fuzzy effective outranking matrix may not help to rank the energy candidates thus the proposed soft computing approach takes account of the thresholds as indifference preference and veto for each attribute to compare the equivalent alternative finally two real case studies in developing countries on renewable energy policy selection problem are presented to indicate the suitability and feasibility of the proposed hf m electre model in imprecise situations

gasoline demand in the oecd an application of pooling and testing procedures abstract this study utilizes a pooled inter country data set finding the long run price elasticity falls in the range 0 55 to 0 9 depending on the choice of pooled estimators the estimators included the ols within and between country estimators plus five feasible gls estimators even allowing for a ten year distributed lag on price to reflect changes in auto efficiency characteristics the within country estimator yields appreciably more inelastic estimates than did the o s estimator which was heavily influenced by the between or inter country variation this difference raises intriguing questions for future research

is the lithuanian economy approaching the goals of sustainable energy and climate change mitigation evidence from dea based environmental performance index abstract even though lithuania has seen extensive social and political transformations there is still a gap in the literature on environmental performance of lithuanian economy specifically the environmental pressures stemming from economic activities have never been analysed in lines with the principles of production economics this paper therefore aims to estimate the environmental performance index epi for lithuanian economic sectors the paper presents the underlying trends in greenhouse gas emissions in lithuania the environmental performance index is estimated by employing the data envelopment analysis in the spirit of the hicks moorsteen indices the present analysis is based on the data from the world input output database specifically the environmental technology is defined in terms of the value added carbon and nitrous oxide emissions labour capital and energy results of the analysis imply that the analysed economic sectors can be grouped into the four clusters with respect to the mean epi and its rate of growth pulp paper and agricultural sectors fall into the best performing group featuring the highest mean epi and the highest growth rate petroleum production and air transport sectors are those featuring the lowest environmental performance therefore the latter sectors should be given an especial importance when developing strategies for increase in sustainability

multicriteria methods for resource planning an experimental comparison multicriteria decision making mcdm methods are widely used for comparing alternatives when there are multiple objectives for instance utilities use them for resource bidding externality quantification facility siting and resource planning there are many alternative methods differing in their ease of use validity results and appropriateness to resource planning several mcdm methods are compared in an experiment involving the choice of resource portfolio for seattle city light planners and interest group representatives applied direct weight assessment tradeoff weight assessment additive value functions and goal programming most of the participants concluded that mcdm methods could promote insight and confidence in decision making however the authors also confirmed the existence of method biases previously identified by psychologists no single method emerged as best thus application of two or more methods as consistency checks is recommended to guard against bias and to stimulate insight

data envelopment analysis for unified efficiency evaluation an assessment of regional industries in china abstract data envelopment analysis has recently gained popularity and attention in operational and environmental assessment a common feature of previous studies is decreasing an input vector to decrease the vector of undesirable outputs which is referred to as natural disposability however little research has considered how to increase the amount of capital input for clean production technology to decrease the amount of undesirable outputs in a data envelopment analysis framework which is referred to as managerial disposability thus this paper proposes an improved approach that considers measuring unified operational and environmental efficiency for managerial disposability and compares this approach with the one for natural disposability the proposed approach provides a positive strategy to reduce undesirable outputs and improve unified efficiency through increasing capital investment in clean production technology a case study of regional industries in china in 2006 2010 utilizing this approach is also presented the empirical study shows that the unified efficiencies of regional industries in china have relatively high scores for managerial disposability and increasing capital investment is vital to achieve sustainable development in clean production technology

review of grid tie micro generation systems without energy storage towards a new approach to sustainable hybrid energy systems linked to energy efficiency abstract this paper reviews the literature on the subject albeit approaching hybrid micro generation power systems from a systems thinking st and cybernetics standpoint viewing them as dynamically complex adaptive systems cas coupled with and supplying to a set of homes termed a sustainable block in a rural setting here homeostatic regulation hr and control play a vital role in reaching efficient equilibrium towards reconciling power supply and demand response management unlike most of the work reviewed in the literature the focus here is on supervisory control of grid connected micro generation systems without energy storage aiming towards building energy efficiency thriftiness and sustainability in energy consumption building on homeostatic control hc principles first introduced by f c schweppe in 1979 the paper explores the concepts of sustainability and sustainable hybrid energy systems shes applied to micro generation focusing on operational aspects rather than on socio economic environmental or regulatory ones a concrete theoretical model for building a shes is presented for a proposed grid connected renewable microgrid the model seeks to reconcile power supply and demand towards efficient equilibrium homeostasis proposing reward based criteria for controlling renewable electricity supply and consumption in rural communities in chile discussion and recommendations are also offered stating that energy sustainability es is essentially a systems issue and one where es is first and foremost a structural organizational and operational property which is in the very nature of the system itself it is built into it rather than explained by exogenous factors

gasoline demand the case of saudi arabia this paper specifies a partial adjustment model to estimate the demand for gasoline in saudi arabia for the period 1970 1985 it is found that the demand for gasoline is inelastic with respect to price in the short and long run as compared to other countries the kingdom s gasoline demand elasticities more closely resemble those of industrial countries

evaluating options for the future energy mix of japan after the fukushima nuclear crisis the fukushima nuclear accident in march 2011 has increased social and political reluctance to embrace nuclear power in japan and elsewhere the japanese government has thus been considering four possible future energy mixes including a nuclear free pathway and three others with 10 35 nuclear supply coupled with a larger proportion of renewable energy and fossil fuels to replace nuclear here we use multi criteria decision making analysis mcdma to assess the potential negative economic levelised cost of electricity and energy security environmental greenhouse gas emissions land transformation water consumption heated water discharge air pollution radioactive waste and solid waste and social safety issues impacts of the four proposed pathways to determine which scenario most holistically minimises adverse future outcomes the nuclear free pathway has the highest overall potential for adverse outcomes score 2 49 out of 3 and the 35 nuclear power supply option yielding the lowest negative impact score 0 74 without weightings despite some sensitivity to the choice of criterion weights our analyses demonstrate clearly that from an empirical perspective a nuclear free pathway for japan is the worst option to pursue we recommend that mcdma methodology we used for japan can be applied to other countries to evaluate future electricity generation scenarios

assessing the fuel poverty vulnerability of urban neighbourhoods using a spatial multi criteria decision analysis for the german city of oberhausen abstract tackling fuel poverty has become an increasingly important issue on many european countries political agendas consequently national governments local authorities and ngos have established policies and programmes to reduce the fuel poverty vulnerability of households however evaluations of such policies and programmes show that they barely reach those who are most in need the reasons for this failure are diverse and include fuel poverty measurement metrics local scale data availability and policy design this raises the question of how fuel poor homes can be more effectively identified and targeted to ensure that limited local and national budgets are used to benefit those who most need help area based approaches which pinpoint spatial units highly affected by fuel poverty due to their specific characteristics offer an opportunity for creating more tailored policies and programmes in this study the author developed a gis mcda multi criteria decision analysis using an ahp analytical hierarchy process and applied the approach to the german city of oberhausen the overall issue of fuel poverty was broken down into three vulnerability dimensions heating burden socio economic and building vulnerability the relative importance of fuel poverty criteria and the dimensions were evaluated by experts and an overall fuel poverty index was created to assess the relative fuel poverty vulnerability of 168 urban neighbourhoods the analysis offers insights into the spatial pattern of fuel poverty within a city and thus provides an opportunity to channel efforts towards households in those neighbourhoods most in need it also demonstrates that a trade off between ecological and social targets should be considered in the development of future policies for tackling fuel poverty

demand for oil products in the gcc countries abstract the purpose of this study is to estimate the price and income elasticities of oil products demand in the gcc countries annual data spanning the period 1970 1991 were fitted to a partial adjustment model to obtain the estimates the main finding of the study is that both price and income are relatively inelastic in the short run and there has been a great variation in these elasticities among fuels and cross country

energy management under policy and technology uncertainty energy managers in public agencies are subject to multiple and sometimes conflicting policy objectives regarding cost environmental and security concerns associated with alternative energy technologies making infrastructure investment decisions requires balancing different distributions of risks and benefits that are far from clear for example managers at permanent army installations must incorporate congressional legislative objectives executive orders department of defense directives state laws and regulations local restrictions and multiple stakeholder concerns when undertaking new energy initiatives moreover uncertainty with regard to alternative energy technologies is typically much greater than that associated with traditional technologies both because the technologies themselves are continuously evolving and because the intermittent nature of many renewable technologies makes a certain level of uncertainty irreducible this paper describes a novel stochastic multi attribute analytic approach that allows users to explore different priorities or weighting schemes in combination with uncertainties related to technology performance to illustrate the utility of this approach for understanding conflicting policy or stakeholder perspectives prioritizing the need for more information and making investment decisions we apply this approach to an energy technology decision problem representative of a permanent military base

generation expansion planning optimisation with renewable energy integration a review generation expansion planning consists of finding the optimal long term plan for the construction of new generation capacity subject to various economic and technical constraints it usually involves solving a large scale non linear discrete and dynamic optimisation problem in a highly constrained and uncertain environment traditional approaches to capacity planning have focused on achieving a least cost plan during the last two decades however new paradigms for expansion planning have emerged that are driven by environmental and political factors this has resulted in the formulation of multi criteria approaches that enable power system planners to simultaneously consider multiple and conflicting objectives in the decision making process more recently the increasing integration of intermittent renewable energy sources in the grid to sustain power system decarbonisation and energy security has introduced new challenges such a transition spawns new dynamics pertaining to the variability and uncertainty of these generation resources in determining the best mix in addition to ensuring adequacy of generation capacity it is essential to consider the operational characteristics of the generation sources in the planning process in this paper we first review the evolution of generation expansion planning techniques in the face of more stringent environmental policies and growing uncertainty more importantly we highlight the emerging challenges presented by the intermittent nature of some renewable energy sources in particular we discuss the power supply adequacy and operational flexibility issues introduced by variable renewable sources as well as the attempts made to address them finally we identify important future research directions