Community Wealth Building (CWB) is a burgeoning international policy agenda for local economic development that seeks to enhance democratic ownership, retain the benefits of local economic activity and empower place-based economies and workers. Parallel to this, in the context of net zero transitions, there has been increasing interest in approaches to enhancing civil society and community ownership over local energy provision. However, in academic and practitioner debates, there has been very little interaction between these two strands of thinking and action on the need for radical change in current energy provision, particularly as part of a wider transformative change away from dominant neoliberal economic thinking, policies and structures.

In this Perspective, we explore the various ways in which synergies exist between CWB and energy transitions by considering two civil society approaches to transitions; namely, the Thousand Flowers transition pathway and research in Grassroots Innovations. We examine how community energy could be strengthened through CWB, by showing how the ideas within these two approaches respond to the five core principles of CWB. Promising future directions for research and practice are identified, including linking up CWB and just transitions strategies, a renewed focus on local financial innovation and the growing role of anchor institutions in supporting net zero transitions, particularly where CWB supports economic democracy transformations in new net zero economies.

Offshore wind energy is rapidly expanding, facilitated largely through auctions run by governments. We provide a detailed quantified overview of utilised auction schemes, including geographical spread, volumes, results, and design specifications. Our comprehensive global dataset reveals heterogeneous designs. Although most auction designs provide some form of revenue stabilisation, their specific instrument choices vary and include feed-in tariffs, one-sided and two-sided contracts for difference, mandated power purchase agreements, and mandated renewable energy certificates.

We review the schemes used in all eight major offshore wind jurisdictions across Europe, Asia, and North America and evaluate bids in their jurisdictional context. We analyse cost competitiveness, likelihood of timely construction, occurrence of strategic bidding, and identify jurisdictional aspects that might have influenced auction results. We find that auctions are embedded within their respective regulatory and market design context, and are remarkably diverse, though with regional similarities. Auctions in each jurisdiction have evolved and tend to become more exposed to market price risks over time. Less mature markets are more prone to make use of lower-risk designs. Still, some form of revenue stabilisation is employed for all auctioned offshore wind energy farms analysed here, regardless of the specific policy choices. Our data confirm a coincidence of declining costs and growing diffusion of auction regimes.

In January 2014, then British Prime Minister David Cameron declared that his government was ‘Going all out for Shale.’ In November 2019, during an election campaign, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative Government imposed a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing bringing to a halt industry hopes of developing shale gas in the UK. This paper explores what happened, integrating research employing a mixed methods research design including a review of the literature, expert interviews, household interviews, a series of nationally representative and local surveys, and a content analysis of political testimony. It starts with a brief history of the shale gas debate in the UK and social science research on the issue. It then examines the UK's Shale Gas landscape, and in particular energy policy failure, by considering three issues: first, the framing of the shale gas debate in the national Parliament, exploring the arguments for and against it; second, changing public perceptions and attitudes towards shale gas development; and third, the attitudes and lived experiences of the communities most affected by shale gas exploration activities. These three dimensions are combined to explain the UK Government's shale gas failure to-date. The paper concludes by identifying the lessons learnt from the Government's initial policy failure, both in relation to further shale gas exploration, but also for other technologies required for a future Net-Zero energy system.

Future retail electricity markets require development to accelerate the net-zero carbon transition. Adopting a customer-centric approach to market design is necessary to fully utilise smart grid technologies. In this perspective we postulate that empowering energy consumers to become an integral component of the smart grid will lead to heightened renewable energy deployment and network flexibility.

This paper summarises the major recommendations and conclusions of the third Forum of the European Network on Energy Research (ENER) which took place in June 2002 in Budapest. The major perceptions of this meeting as well as the most important conclusions and recommendations for energy policy makers are compiled in this summary. The statements compiled in the following represent a consensus within the ENER Network while on some questions differences in perception and analysis persisted. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Community energy has been proposed as a new policy tool to help achieve the transition to a low-carbon energy system, but the evidence base for this strategy is partial and fragmented. We therefore present new empirical evidence from the first independent UK-wide survey of community energy projects. Our survey investigates the objectives, origins and development of these groups across the UK, their activities and their networking activities as a sector. We also examine the strengths and weaknesses of these groups, along with the opportunities and threats presented by wider socioeconomic and political contexts, in order to improve understanding of the sector's potential and the challenges it faces. We highlight several key issues concerning the further development of the sector. First, this highly diverse sector is not reducible to a single entity; its multiple objectives need joined-up thinking among government departments. Second, its civil society basis is fundamental to its success at engaging local communities, and makes the sector quite distinct from the large energy companies these community groups are aiming to work alongside. There are inherent tensions and vulnerabilities in such a model, and limits to how much these groups can achieve on their own: consistent policy support is essential. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

Solar energy, including household and community based solar photovoltaic panels, is the fastest growing source of low-carbon electricity worldwide, and it could become the single largest source of renewable energy by mid-century. But what negative equity and justice issues may be associated with its adoption? What risks are being accelerated as solar energy grows exponentially in its deployment? In this study, we rely on a mixed methods research design involving household solar interviews (N = 24), site visits (N = 4 solar neighbourhoods), and a literature review to investigate four types of inequities associated with household solar adoption. We utilize a novel framework looking at demographic inequities (between groups), spatial inequities (across geographic scales), interspecies inequities (between humans and non-humans), and temporal inequities (across present and future generations). This framework enables not only the identification of multiple and often interlinked inequities; it also points the way towards how to make solar energy adoption more sustainable and just, with direct implications for solar business practices (and supply chains) as well as energy and climate policy.

Energy service business models (ESBMs) are potentially critical to reducing household energy demand and mitigating climate change. These models are predicated on a shift from the ‘throughput’ sale of energy commodities, towards providing ‘useful’ or ‘final’ energy services. However, the conceptual delineation of these models and their different variants remains opaque in the literature. In this paper, we seek to bring clarification to this issue through the identification of a typology of ESBMs. Through a series of 53 interviews and 7 stakeholder workshops we explore contemporary domestic ESBM examples in Europe. We find that while more basic energy supply contracts are commonplace, models which deliver energy saving performance or final energy services are rarer. We subsequently identify barriers to the adoption of these business models, before proposing 13 policy recommendations. We conclude that the ‘energy throughput orthodoxy’ which has governed liberalised energy markets will need to be challenged for these models to have a significant future impact.

The recast of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) provides an enabling framework for “Renewable Energy Communities” (RECs) that is being transposed into law by the 27 European Union Member States by June 2021. RECs are majority owned by local members or shareholders who are authorized to share energy within the community, offering the potential to unlock private investment and financing for renewable energy sources and provide social benefits. However, successful implementation and a just energy transition requires the coupling of technological solutions with more open decision making, based on sound analysis, knowledge of engineering, spatial planning, and social science. We argue that financing and ownership models that address renewable energy complementarity, spatial organization of resource potential, demographics, pushback from incumbents, and inclusion of traditionally marginalized groups, are common issues across all Member States that are crucial for the transposition of RED II and a just energy transition. This paper highlights the benefits and challenges of widespread development of RECs, and using examples from the pending transposition process provides policy advice for effective implementation of the RED II with respect to RECs.

In this empirical study, we explore the user acceptance of smart home technologies by asking: How do people perceive their opportunities and drawbacks? What factors shape their perceptions? What implications does this have for future energy savings, sustainability, and policy? Based on a mixed methods approach involving three focus groups (N = 18) and a nationally representative survey of adults (N = 1032) in the United Kingdom, we explore the demographics, preferences, and risks of smart home technology. We do this via the lenses of knowledge and adoption; energy and climate sustainability; and vulnerability and exclusion. We explore how different classes of people—adopters versus non-adopters, high-income versus low-income, women and men, old versus young—support or oppose smart home technologies, have different degrees of knowledge and misperceptions, and reveal very different perceptions about the practices enabled by smart homes. In doing so, we show at times compelling links between smart homes and energy consumption, and possible negative impacts to poverty, inclusion, and empowerment.

In the community of Zagtouli, close to Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou, lies West Africa's largest solar power plant. This is a 33 MW, on-grid, photovoltaic plant. Operational from late 2017, it produces electricity for Burkina Faso's public energy company, SONABEL. The electric grid built between the plant and Ouagadougou crosses Zagtouli in its middle: however, electricity connections throughout the community are markedly non-homogeneous. In particular, most of the southern half of Zagtouli suffers from a condition known in the literature as ‘under-the-grid’: namely, close to the grid but unable to connect to it. The benefits stemming from the presence of the nearby plant, therefore, remain unattainable for a large share of the local community. Drawing on an ethnographic investigation of energy practices and uses conducted in Zagtouli, we employ the theoretical framework of energy justice to analyse the connection between local justice issues and national electrification strategies. We claim that the national preference for on-grid, centralised plants may not adequately respond to the need for a more just local energy distribution; and that for peri-urban areas that are not planned to be fully connected to the grid in the short term, smaller-scale, decentralised solutions may be more appropriate to achieve full electricity access.

Projected benefits serve as the driving force behind hydrocarbon development. Such benefits are analysed in conjunction with the risks posed by proposed oil and gas activities, leading to an ostensibly rational decision on whether to proceed with the development. This article explores the ways and extent to which government policies aimed at supporting the oil and gas sector affect the outcomes of decision-making processes regarding new hydrocarbon projects. The article is premised upon a case study of the Russian Arctic and Subarctic. The study utilizes transcripts of key presidential meetings and speeches, as well as applicable programmatic policy statements, laws, and administrative regulations. The data is subjected to the complimentary and corroborative discourse and legal analyses. The article concludes that the dominance of benefits over risks in the policy discourse is particularly impactful in the decision-making process regarding new oil and gas development in Russia.

Decarbonisation policies often emphasise the uptake of new end-use technologies, seeing people as consumers of technologies with predictable impacts. In the UK, smart hybrid heat pumps (SHHP) have attracted policy interest as a technology potentially offering multiple benefits for home heat decarbonisation. This paper draws on domestication theory, a perspective that frames people as users who actively learn about technologies, to analyse interviews and observations with installers and users involved in the first UK trial of SHHP. This perspective reveals that users’ learning about SHHPs may erode part of the energy savings they offer and have implications for future technology uptake, including the trajectories of heat decarbonisation currently envisaged by policy makers. However, it also reveals opportunities for policy making to influence user learning, including paying closer attention to material elements such as radiator controls and space to air laundry alongside improved information provision. This could be supported by engaging with users as their learning emerges over time. Overall, the paper highlights the policy relevance of technology use as well as uptake and adds to calls for energy policy to think beyond information provision and economic incentives to engage with households, implying a less deterministic approach to policy making.

Smart home technologies refer to devices that provide some degree of digitally connected or enhanced services to occupants. Smart homes have become central in recent technology and policy discussions about energy efficiency, climate change, and innovation. However, many studies are speculative, lacking empirical data, and focus on costs and benefits, but not business models and emerging markets. To address these gaps, our study presents data from semi-structured expert interviews and a review of the recent literature. Although we draw from empirical data collected in the United Kingdom, we place our findings in the context of Europe because the UK has access to European markets for smart home technologies and platforms. Our sampling strategy included experts from Amazon, Microsoft, the International Energy Agency, government, academic, and civil society stakeholders. We identify a diversity of definitions associated with smart home technologies and draw from our data to discuss applications centred on digital connections, enhanced control, automation, and learning. We analyse fifteen distinct business models for smart home technologies, ranging from energy services and household data monitoring to assisted living, security and safety, and new advertising channels (among others). Our assessment ought to guide future innovation patterns, technology deployment, and policy activity relating to smart homes, especially insofar as they can deliver energy services more affordably or help meeting carbon mitigation priorities.

The current transformation of energy systems around the world is fundamentally a policy-driven process, unlike previous socio-technical transitions. This article focuses on the challenges of constructing forward-looking policies for sustainable energy transitions in the presence of powerful incumbent interests, through an in-depth study of how the emerging option of demand-side response (DSR) was incorporated into the Capacity Market (CM) for electricity in Great Britain over the period 2010 to 2014. Drawing on extensive documentation related to the development of the CM rules and interviews with participants and close observers of the process, the paper provides an unusually detailed assessment of the influence of companies with large electricity generation assets. The evidence presented supports the hypotheses that these companies had influence through deploying public facing strategies, that they had been able to draw on close networks of contacts and networks with senior policy makers, and that the latter had internalised the ideas and interests of the former. Despite counter-lobbying by DSR firms and non-governmental organisations, institutional arrangements gave major generators an advantage in terms of access. The paper concludes by recommending the establishment of independent bodies to propose policies and monitor the process of their development during energy system transformations

The rapid decarbonisation of heat remains a challenging energy and climate policy priority. In this study, after screening 461 global case studies, we examine four national household transitions in heat, and examine their implications for governance. These transitions were both rapid, involving transformations in heat provision in a short timeframe of 18 to 35 years; and deep, involving diffusion that collectively reached more than 100 million households and more than 310 million people. From 1995 to 2015, China stimulated industrial research with strong municipal and national targets and policies to the point where they saw adoption rates for solar thermal systems surpass 95% market penetration in many urban areas. From 1976 to 2011, Denmark blended small-scale decentralized community control with national standards and policies to promote district heating so it reached 80% of household needs. From 2000 to 2018, Finland harnessed user and peer-to-peer learning, and innovation, alongside national and European policies and incentives so that heat pumps reached almost a third of all homes. From 1960 to 1977, The United Kingdom coordinated a nationalized Gas Council and Area Boards with industry groups, appliance manufacturers, installers and marketing campaigns so that gas central heating reached almost half of all homes. These four rapid case studies share commonalities in polycentric governance, rooted in (1) equity, (2) inclusivity, (3) information and innovation, (4) ownership and accountability, (5) organizational multiplicity, and (6) experimentation and flexibility. The study affirms that designing the right sort of political and governance architecture can be just as salient as technical innovation and development.

Electric vehicles are perceived as a key alternate to internal combustion engine vehicles for a transition to a decarbonized society. However, this transition towards the electrification of transport has not made equal progress globally, and faced several impediments to consumer adoption of EVs across the Nordic region and beyond. While there has been a multitude of reasons provided in the literature, we aim to characterize the barriers that remain to electrification today, as well as their perceived interconnections and futures. To provide insight into this query, the authors conducted 227 semi-structured interviews with transportation and electricity experts from 201 institutions across seventeen cities in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. The qualitative results and consequent cluster analysis show that common barriers like range, price and charging infrastructure continue to persist, despite technological advancements over the recent years. At the same time, results also show that barriers are highly interconnected and are commonly connected to consumer knowledge and experience. The article concludes with a discussion of policy implications of the findings and potential future research.

Demand response is increasingly attracting policy attention. It involves changing electricity demand at different times based on grid conditions, which could help to integrate variable renewable generation and new electric loads associated with decarbonisation. Residential consumers could offer a substantial new source of demand-side flexibility. However, while there is considerable evidence that at least some residential users engage with at least some forms of demand response, there is also considerable variation in user engagement. Better understanding this variation could help to predict demand response potential, and to engage and protect consumers participating in demand response. Based on a systematic review of international demand response trials, programmes and surveys, we identify motivations for participation, and barriers and enablers to engagement including familiarity and trust, perceived risk and control, complexity and effort, and consumer characteristics and routines. We then discuss how these factors relate to the features of different demand response products and services. While the complexity of the evidence makes it difficult to draw unequivocal conclusions, the findings of this review could contribute to guide early efforts to deploy residential demand response more widely.

This paper analyzes the evolution of five electricity distribution companies in the Northeast of Brazil using technical and financial indicators. Three privatized and two public firms were analyzed between 1997 and 2008. The financial indicators are used as proxies for the capacity of the business to generate value for shareholders, while the technical indicators are used as proxies for service quality provided to consumers. We observed that the privatized firms had their financial indicators improved after privatization, increasing the value of the firm for the shareholders. However, there is no evidence that privatization affected the quality of service provided to consumers.

We propose reforming the Brazilian regulatory safety framework (BRSF) for offshore oil and gas production and drilling operations. Brazil has emerged as a leading offshore producer with extensive proven reserves yet to be exploited. However, the BRSF has not been updated since 2007, and there are now major concerns about the industry׳s safety, particularly after the BP Deepwater Horizon accident, along with the technical challenges due to extreme conditions under which Brazil׳s resources are located. Drawing on experiences from three leading offshore oil and gas producers (Norway, the UK, and the US), we recommend the adoption of three best practices: the UK׳s ‘safety case’ approach (where operators are expected to provide convincing and valid arguments that a system is sufficiently safe for a given application in a specific environment), Norway׳s ‘barrier management’ (evidence that there are at least two tested and independent barriers to avoid accidents) and greater investment in safety research and development, as suggested by the US׳s National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. We discuss implications for policy reform and how best practices can be applied within the Brazilian context.

The continuous development of onshore wind farms is an important feature of the European transition towards an energy system powered by distributed renewables and low-carbon resources. This study assesses and simulates potential for future onshore wind turbine installations throughout Europe. The study depicts, via maps, all the national and regional socio-technical restrictions and regulations for wind project development using spatial analysis conducted through GIS. The inputs for the analyses were based on an original dataset compiled from satellites and public databases relating to electricity, planning, and other dimensions. Taking into consideration socio-technical constraints, the study reveals 52.5 TW of untapped onshore wind power potential in Europe - equivalent to 1 MW per 16 European citizens – a supply that would be sufficient to cover the global energy demand from now through to 2050. The study offers a more rigorous, multi-dimensional, and granular atlas of onshore wind energy development that can assist with future energy policy, research, and planning.

This paper examines the trade-off between the economic gains to Great Britain (GB) from being integrated into the EU electricity market on the one hand and a loss of influence over policy and rule making on the other. The aim is not to predict how this trade-off will be resolved in practice, but rather to lay out what is at stake on both sides of the equation. Since the late 2000s the electricity market in GB has become increasingly integrated with continental European markets through market coupling and increasing interconnection capacity, with further integration expected up to the mid-2020s. Estimates of the economic benefits of this integration range up to the order of several £100 m to £1bn a year, representing the economic cost of a reversal of such integration. On the other hand, maintaining and expanding electricity market integration would require the acceptance of electricity policies and regulations made in European institutions in which UK actors would have little if any voice. An intermediate multilateral approach offering the possibility of retaining market integration with less cost in terms of influence is proposed.

Improving energy efficiency, de-carbonising heating and cooling, and increasing renewable microgeneration in existing residential buildings, is crucial for meeting social and climate policy objectives. This paper explores the challenges of financing this ‘retrofit’ activity. First, it develops a typology of finance mechanisms for residential retrofit highlighting their key design features, including: the source of capital; the financial instrument(s); the project performance requirements; the point of sale; the nature of the security and underwriting the repayment channel and customer journey. Combining information from interviews and documentary sources, the paper explores how these design features influence the success of the finance mechanisms in different contexts. First, it is shown that a low cost of capital for retrofit finance is critical to the economic viability of whole-house retrofits. Second, by funding non-energy measures such as general improvement works, finance mechanisms can enable broader sources of value that are more highly prized by households. Thirdly, mechanisms that reduce complexity by simplifying the customer journey are likely to achieve much higher levels of uptake. Most importantly we discuss how finance alone is unlikely to be a driver of demand for whole-house retrofit, and so instead should be viewed as a necessary component of a much broader retrofit strategy.

There is a long-standing debate over price vs. quantity approaches to supporting the deployment of renewable electricity technologies. In the context of a a recent shift from quantity to price-based support, the UK has also introduced a new form of budgetary framework, the Levy Control Framework (LCF). The introduction of the LCF has been very important for investors but has received relatively little attention in the academic literature. The paper gives an overview of the LCF, explores its effects on renewables policy, on consumers and on investor confidence arguing that an unintended consequence of its introduction has been to increase uncertainty, through interactions with underlying support mechanisms. A number of problems with the current scope and design of the LCF are noted. It is argued that the LCF is best understood as aimed at avoiding a political backlash against renewable support policy in a context where the benefits of such policy are concentrated economically and socially. The paper concludes by placing the LCF within a wider context of a shift towards greater budgetary control over renewable energy support policy across European countries.

Decarbonisation and innovation will change the affordability of different domestic energy services. This has the potential to alleviate vulnerability to fuel poverty, but it could create new injustices unless the risks are preempted and actively mitigated. In this paper, we ask: In what ways can emerging low-carbon innovations at the household scale complement, and complicate, achieving energy justice objectives? Drawing from four empirical case studies in the United Kingdom, the paper highlights different risks that come from different types of innovation required to tackle different decarbonisation challenges. More specifically, it assesses four particular household innovations—energy service contracts, electric vehicles, solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, and low carbon heating—selected for their fit with a typology of incremental vs. radical technology and modest vs. substantial changes in user practices. It shows how in each case, such innovations come with a collection of opportunities but also threats. In doing so, the paper seeks to unveil the “political economy” of low-carbon innovations, identifying particular tensions alongside who wins and who loses, as well as the scope and temporality of those consequences.

Progress on improving energy efficiency of UK homes has stalled in recent years and the question arises how much more potential for further energy savings exist across the housing stock. Whilst there are some high-level estimates of the potential for buildings energy efficiency in the UK, a more granular assessment is needed to understand exactly where this potential lies and what form it takes. Our analysis fills this gap. It is based on the best available evidence on the remaining potential for energy efficiency improvements within UK residential buildings. Using UK government criteria for investment appraisal, we demonstrate that there is a significant resource of untapped energy-saving opportunities in UK homes. Specifically, our estimates suggest that: one quarter of the energy currently used in UK households could be cost effectively saved by 2035; and this could increase to one half if allowance is made for falling technology costs and the wider benefits of energy efficiency improvements. However, these estimates are sensitive to the assumptions made about capital, energy and carbon costs, and capturing this potential will require both significant policy change and large-scale investment.

The recent academic literature contains a number of hypotheses, drivers, or explanations to reveal why electricity infrastructure isn’t being developed within sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in the 21st century. In this paper, we argue that this literature is misdirected, or at least incomplete, in how it approaches risk. We hypothesise that this lack of infrastructure development in the region reflects a dearth of investment due to the existence of excessive negative uncertainties or risks – as investment is a function of uncertainty and reward – but that the recent academic literature appears to not appreciate this. To make this argument, we chose a manageable sample of three African countries, which already had a notable body of academic literature concerning them: Kenya, Mozambique and Tanzania. Focusing on these countries, we then undertook a systematic review of 815 ‘peer reviewed’ papers published on the academic libraries of Scopus and/or the Web of Science on the topic of electricity, infrastructure, and risk over a five-year period to see how this literature evaluated the problem. Drawing from the most relevant 101 studies within that sample, we critically examine the methodological, conceptual, and empirical aspects of this literature.

This study contrasts two national solar home system (SHS) programs that relied on the same World Bank approach, but reached dramatically different results. The Energy Services Delivery Project (ESDP) in Sri Lanka was an exemplary renewable energy access program, successfully installing 21,000 off-grid SHSs alongside grid-connected mini-hydro capacity and off-grid village hydroelectric systems. It reached all of its targets ahead of schedule and below cost. By contrast, the Indonesia Solar Home System Project (ISHSP), which ran from 1997 to 2003, sought to reach one million rural Indonesians through the sales and installation of 200,000 SHSs. However, by project closing in 2003, less than five percent of the original sales target, or only 8,054 units, had been installed. The ESDP and ISHSP were the World Bank’s first foray into a “market-based renewable energy services provision model.” Based on original research interviews and field observation, the article finds that contrasting the two programs—one a success, the other a failure—offers lessons for energy and development practitioners, namely that effective programs are those that select appropriate technology, often with input from households themselves; they promote community participation and ownership; and they have robust marketing, demonstration, and promotion activities.

We estimate energy expenditure for the US and world economies from 1850 to 2012. Periods of high energy expenditure relative to GDP (from 1850 to 1945), or spikes (1973–74 and 1978–79) are associated with low economic growth rates, and periods of low or falling energy expenditure are associated with high and rising economic growth rates (e.g. 1945–1973). Over the period 1960–2010 for which we have continuous year-to-year data for control variables (capital formation, population, and unemployment rate) we estimate that, statistically, in order to enjoy positive growth, the US economy cannot afford to spend more than 11% of its GDP on energy. Given the current energy intensity of the US economy, this translates in a minimum societal EROI of approximately 11:1 (or a maximum tolerable average price of energy of twice the current level). Granger tests consistently reveal a one way causality running from the level of energy expenditure (as a fraction of GDP) to economic growth in the US between 1960 and 2010. A coherent economic policy should be founded on improving net energy efficiency. This would yield a “double dividend”: increased societal EROI (through decreased energy intensity of capital investment), and decreased sensitivity to energy price volatility.

This article makes the case for a new and ambitious research and governance agenda for energy demand reduction. It argues that existing ‘demand-side’ approaches focused on promoting technological efficiency and informed individual consumption are unlikely to be adequate to achieving future carbon emissions reduction goals; it points out that very little attention has so far been paid to the impacts of non-energy policies on energy demand; and it submits that a much fuller integration of energy demand questions into policy is required. It advances a general framework, supported by illustrative examples, for understanding the impacts of ‘non-energy’ policies on energy demand. It reflects on why these connections have been so little explored and addressed within energy research and policy. And it argues that, for all their current ‘invisibility’, there is nonetheless scope for increasing the visibility of, and in effect ‘mainstreaming’, energy demand reduction objectives within other policy areas. Researchers and policymakers, we contend, need to develop better understandings of how energy demand might be made governable, and how non-energy policies might be revised, alone and in combination, to help steer long-term changes in energy demand.

While the United States is poised to become a major exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), relatively little attention has been paid to greenhouse gas emission impacts from exporting US natural gas to Asia, a key likely destination. Using bounding scenarios of attributional lifecycle analysis, this study finds that the climate impacts of US exports to China, Japan, India, or South Korea could vary significantly, with annual global lifecycle emissions ranging from -88,000 metric tons CO2e to +170,000 metric tons CO2e per Bcf of exports. Exact emissions will depend on factors such as (a) the final end-use of the LNG, (b) domestic market impacts from increased natural gas prices in the U.S., (c) induced additional energy consumption in importing countries, and (d) methane leakage rates. Country specific GHG outcomes can differ from global GHG outcomes, with major implications for extraction and consumption based emissions accounting. The study’s results indicate the need for more robust consideration of the climate impacts of all energy exports in terms of country specific energy analyses, global climate regulations, and market uncertainty. Thus, how gas is governed becomes of critical importance, for it will determine whether LNG is a net sink or source of additional emissions.

Reliable empirical data on the siting characteristics and operational performance of wind farms are scarce. Knowing more about the technical characteristics of wind farms provides insight into the business mindset of wind farm developers, which can be useful for policymakers or researchers who are intent on designing policy in a way to optimize wind farm investment by creating better alignment between the investment patterns sought by developers and government support designed to attract investment. This study draws on a unique dataset from 32 wind farms, 20 onshore and 12 in forested areas with a total of more than 2.5 GW installed wind capacity to explore development patterns. The paper examines four hypotheses related to characteristics of wind farms in emerging markets and investigating how project delays and progressive technological enhancements shape wind farm development. In this paper, we explain these results and conclude by extracting lessons from this analysis for creating wind power policy better aligned with developers’ interests.

Scenario development is widely used to support the formation of energy policy, but many energy scenarios consider environmental interactions only in terms of climate change. We suggest that efforts to develop more holistic energy pathways, going beyond post hoc analysis of environmental and social implications, can usefully draw on environmental scenarios. A detailed content analysis of UK energy and environmental scenarios was therefore undertaken, with energy scenarios selected on the basis that they were recent, had a direct link to energy policy, and covered a range of scenario types. The energy scenarios rarely considered societal drivers beyond decarbonisation and focused on quantifiable parameters such as GDP, while the environmental scenarios provided a richer narrative on human behaviour and social change. As socio-economic issues remain fundamental to the success of energy policies, this is a key area which should be better addressed within energy scenarios. The environmental impacts of energy scenarios were rarely considered, but could have a significant bearing on the likelihood of pathway outcomes being realised. Fuller evaluation of the environmental interactions of energy systems is therefore required. Although the analysis focuses on the UK, some international scenarios show similar limitations, suggesting that the conclusions are more widely applicable.

Polycentric governance networks are on the rise in global energy and climate governance, but we know surprisingly little about their effectiveness. This paper analyzes the performance of four such transnational energy and climate governance networks. In the realm of sustainable energy, our cases are the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) and the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (GACC). In the climate sphere, we examine the effectiveness of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI). Using principles from governance and public administration about the effectiveness of institutions, we examine the extent to which four networks have contributed to improving governance outcomes in the spheres of climate and sustainable energy. Our evaluation focuses on the clarity of purpose, funding, institutional formality, efficacy,  and level of resilience of these networks. Some differences between the networks notwithstanding, we find that the transnational governance networks generally fail to meet the criteria about what constitutes an effective institution.  The paper concludes with a reflection on what could be done to enhance the performance of these governance networks.

Poverty, climate change and energy security demand awareness about the interlinkages between energy systems and social justice. Amidst these challenges, energy justice has emerged to conceptualize a world where all individuals, across all areas, have safe, affordable and sustainable energy that is, essentially, socially just. Simultaneously, new social and technological solutions to energy problems continually evolve, and interest in the concept of sociotechnical transitions has grown. However, an element often missing from such transitions frameworks is explicit engagement with energy justice frameworks. Despite the development of an embryonic set of literature around these themes, an obvious research gap has emerged: can energy justice and transitions frameworks be combined? This paper argues that they can. It does so through an exploration of the multi-level perspective on sociotechnical systems and an integration of energy justice at the model’s niche, regime and landscape level. It presents the argument that it is within the overarching process of sociotechnical change that issues of energy justice emerge. Here, inattention to social justice issues can cause injustices, whereas attention to them can provide a means to examine and potential resolve them.

Vehicle to Grid (V2G) holds the promise of cheap, flexible, and fast-responding storage through the use of electric vehicle batteries. Unfortunately, infrastructure, battery degradation and consumer awareness are only some of the challenges to a faster development of this technology. This paper offers a qualitative comparative analysis that draws on a subsample of 227 semi-structured interviews on electric vehicles with both transportation and electricity experts from 201 institutions and 17 cities within the Nordic region to discuss the reasoning and arguments behind V2G incentives and policy mechanisms. A frequency analysis of the most coded V2G responses favoured an update of the electricity market regulation – in particular in relation to electricity taxation and aggregator markets – and support for pilot projects. However, the analysis overall implies that V2G, in contrast to EVs, is a technology for the market and by the market. One that will develop on its own over time. More in-depth, our analysis shows the debates around V2G and how its perspective differs per country, pending available frequency capacity and flexible production (hydro power). The paper calls for a further development of flexible electricity markets, support for pilot projects, and attention to information and planning.

One of the key aspects of developing a regional renewable energy plan involves incorporating national renewable energy targets into provincial targets whilst including interim phase targets and technology targets. This paper proposes a renewable energy model based on national targets ‘decomposed’ into regional targets that incorporate technological processes and environmental conditions at the individual project level. At the project level, resource potential is allocated into individual projects based on the current technological level. The available resources and renewable energy generation of each project changes as the technology evolves and the environmental conditions change over time. The model can be adjusted according to actual needs of each region; thus policymakers can establish the respective targets for power, heating, oil and gas as well as renewable energy based on the regional context. Overall, the total national target can be decomposed into regional targets and technological targets. This paper proposes long-term regional development targets for renewable energy based on the total supply curve for renewable energy in different periods. Fujian province will be applied as an example to validate the target decomposition model of renewable energy targets of various regions and technologies in China. The model projected that the economic capacity of renewable energy generation in Fujian province for dam hydropower, offshore wind power, onshore wind power, photovoltaic power and waste incineration power is expected to reach 4748 MW, 4036 MW, 3581 MW, 2663 MW and 766 MW, respectively by 2025. The research result could have wider implications such as achieving GHG emissions reductions targets, addressing environmental concerns, providing high tech jobs within the region and contributing to energy security at the local and national level

To help answer questions about availability, accessibility, sustainability and other dimensions of energy security, the vulnerability approach concentrates the attention of policymakers on the assessment of risks associated with natural, technical, political and economic factors. This understanding, combined with a focus on energy services (e.g. lighting, heating, telecommunications, mobility, etc.) helps to prioritize actions to achieve the goal of energy security. This paper conceptualizes energy security as low vulnerability of vital energy systems and sustained provision of modern energy services. Taking Tajikistan as a case, this paper highlights key vulnerabilities including neglect of environmental conditions, insufficient energy production capacity, unreliable and expensive energy imports, dwindling power infrastructure causing technical and economic losses, inadequate transparency in the power sector, lack of regional cooperation in energy and water resources sharing, and inadequate financial resources to address these challenges. Three major proposals presented by the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, and the Government of Tajikistan to achieve energy security in Tajikistan are evaluated. Specifically, they lack a focus on energy services and therefore overlook people's socio-cultural context and appropriate energy needs. This paper highlights energy services as critical to people’s wellbeing and socio-economic development.

The UK has ambitious, statutory long-term climate targets that will require deep decarbonisation of its energy system. One key question facing policymakers is the role of natural gas both during the transition towards, and in the achievement of, a future low-carbon energy system. Here we assess a range of possible futures for the UK, and find that gas is unlikely to act as a cost-effective ‘bridge’ to a decarbonised UK energy system. There is also limited scope for gas in power generation after 2030 if the UK is to meet its emission reduction targets, in the absence of carbon capture and storage (CCS). Without CCS, a ‘second dash for gas’ while providing short-term gains in reducing emissions, is unlikely to be the most cost-effective way to reduce emissions, and could result in stranded assets and compromise the UK's decarbonisation ambitions. In such a case, gas use in 2050 is estimated at only 10% of its 2010 level. However, with significant CCS deployment by 2050, natural gas could remain at 50–60% of the 2010 level, primarily in the industrial (including hydrogen production) and power generation sectors.

Energy inefficiency in the building stock is a substantial contributor to climate change. Integrated energy service companies (IESCs) have a potentially important role in improving energy efficiency. This paper presents a qualitative analysis of the energy efficiency barriers in the Finnish building sector based on data from interviews with twelve IESCs. Taking a novel supply side perspective, we place IESCs at the centre of the emerging energy services business ecosystem to identify the barriers and hindering factors (real world illustrations of barriers). From this perspective, we also examine cause-effect relationships between the hindering factors and the actors. Hindering factors, reported by IESCs, were categorised under a revised barrier taxonomy consisting of economic market failures and economic market, behavioural, organisational and institutional barriers. The most salient hindering factors—lack of technical skills, disinterest in energy efficiency improvements and non-functional regulation—were analysed with respect to ecosystem actors causing and affected by these factors. Public actors have a key role in overcoming these barriers, for instance, by creating new possibilities for entrants to take part in decision-making, increasing the functionality and practicality of policies and by providing up-to date energy efficiency information.

his study presents the results of an investigation into the frequency in which four candidates of the 2016 United States Presidential Primary season communicated their political positions on climate change, and how they subsequently framed these stances in numerous contextual drivers alongside energy policies. A systematic content analysis of political debates, campaign speeches, and press statements reveals how Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, and Ted Cruz undertook in vote-seeking behaviour to create distinct stances on energy and climate issues. Results indicate not only partisan polarization, but also that stakeholder dynamics, control of communications and communication frequency are inter-dependent and reinforcing in generating differing climate positions. Institutional dynamics exacerbate these ‘logic schisms’ rather than providing a means of collective decision making. We test such climate discourse according to a typology of scientific, economic, national security, and moral frames. We also assess how particular frames morph over time, and are impacted by exogenous factors such as global climate change negotiations, national environmental crises (such as the Flint Water Crisis), and contestation over stranded assets and fossil fuel divestment. We find that political climate discourse must communicate to collective, bipartisan interests whilst avoiding politically divisive climate frames.

This article deals with the nexus between energy policymaking and ideology. The article builds and expands upon a theoretical social constructivist analytical strategy, or framework, put forth for the purposes of conducting energy policy analysis. It then addresses criticism that this strategy constitutes “postmodern mush” that has no place in energy analysis before concluding with a review of why social constructivism has a significant role to play in building consensus and enhancing understanding between competing energy policy perspectives. The main contribution made by this paper stems from application of this ontological construct to the analysis of policies targeting wicked energy problems. The study cuts to the core about how energy problems are defined, interpreted, communicated, planned for, and potentially implemented via policy. Put another way, our study offers a timely critique or a call for reconceptualizing the process and practice of energy policy itself.

Although social acceptance research has blossomed over the last decade, interdisciplinary studies combining market, socio-political and community aspects are scarce. We propose a novel integration of social science theory in which the belief systems or social representations held by key actors play a crucial role in fostering acceptance of novel technologies, and where a polycentric perspective places particular emphasis on ways that middle actors mediate processes of change between scales. We advance a methodological approach that combines qualitative and quantitative research methods and exemplify the framework by focusing on acceptance of renewable energy storage solutions to accommodate high levels of renewable energy deployment. A research agenda for the social acceptance of energy storage is proposed that sets out key research questions relating international, national and local levels. The outcome of such studies would not only lead to enhanced understanding of processes of social acceptance, but deliver important insights for policy and practice.

The Smart Meter Implementation Program (SMIP) lays the legal framework in the United Kingdom so that a smart gas and electricity meter, along with an in-home display, can be installed in every household by 2020. Intended to reduce national household energy consumption by 5-15%, the SMIP represents arguably the world’s largest and most expensive smart meter rollout. However, a series of obstacles and delays has restricted implementation, and progress has been far more sluggish than envisioned. To explore why, this study utilizes a mixed methods approach to investigate the socio-technical challenges facing the SMIP, with a strong emphasis on the “social” side of the equation. It first explains its two primary sources of data, a systematic review of the academic literature coupled with participant observation of seven major SMIP events in the UK during 2015-2016. It then offers a history of the SMIP rollout, including a summary of 67 potential benefits as well as the often-discussed technical challenges, before delving into pertinent non-technical challenges, specifically vulnerability as well as consumer resistance and ambivalence. The article argues that the dominant focus on technical problems may obscure societal issues that the implementation program must address. In doing so, the paper not only presents a critique of the UK’s implementation program for smart meters, it also offers a review of academic studies on consumer responses to smart meters, an analysis of the intersection between smart meters and other social concerns such as poverty or the marginalization of rural areas, and the generation of lessons for other smart meter programs.

Based on a mix of original archival research and an extensive review of the contemporary peer reviewed literature, this article reviews the history of the People’s Republic of China’s national energy policies since 1949. We divide this history into six phases: Emergence (1949–1957), Socialist construction (1958–1965), Turbulence (1966–1978), Reform (1979–2000), Contestation (2001–2014), and transition (2015-present). Over the whole history of more than sixty years, China’s energy production and consumption grew at a surprising speed, while energy intensity exhibited early fluctuations and a subsequent gradual decrease after the turbulence phase. In tracing this history, the article offers new historical and policy insights into the world’s largest developing country and a theoretical contribution to the role of the state in shaping economy and society through energy policy. The article lastly offers an in-depth exploration of how command-and-control style administrative intervention and low levels of market liquidity have had a prophylactic effect on innovation and competition.

Since 2006, as part of the transition to low-carbon technologies, UK energy policy has moved towards incentivising new nuclear power production. As a result, the UK has developed a (now delayed) strategy to deliver around 16 GW of new nuclear power by 2030. This policy context provides an opportunity to reflect not only on the material infrastructure needed to meet transition targets, but also on who is responsible for the energy justice implications of these decisions. Using data collected from 26 semi-structured interviews with NGO and policy representatives, this paper presents a case study of energy justice concerns surrounding the Hinkley Point Nuclear Complex in Somerset, focusing particularly on the highly controversial Hinkley Point C developments. The results emphasise the importance of considering not only instances of energy justice or injustice, but of attributing responsibility for them, a concept that has been largely overlooked in the energy justice literature. NGOs, government and business allocate responsibility differently in nuclear energy decision-making. We find that perceptions of responsibility are highly dependent upon the level of transparency in decision-making. This article is part of a Virtual Special Issue entitled 'Exploring the Energy Justice Nexus'.

This paper uses a business model framework to discuss how principles of energy justice - in particular, equitable distribution of costs and benefits, affordability, due process and greater participation in decision-making - can be embedded in business model innovations for energy, through social innovation. The paper discusses four cases at different scales (local, subnational, regional and global) to highlight opportunities for introducing principles of energy justice into the core of business models of companies. By doing so, the paper offers a critical perspective on the potential of business model innovation to be guided through a more broadly defined understanding of value enhanced by concepts of energy justice. The discussion of the four case studies— the Carbon Cooperative, Robin Hood Energy, RenEsco, and the Yansa Community Interest Company—highlights the importance of creating supportive wider environments for social and business model innovations, such as the development of skills, knowledge and social capital, through interventions coming from multiple levels and focused on different aspects of energy generation, supply and use (i.e. finance and technical implementation). Going against the grain of current policy, the study implies a shift away from upscaling innovations by taking them to the national scale, and towards creating supportive conditions for more local deals in different geographic locations.

This article explores how concepts from justice and ethics can inform energy decision-making and highlight the moral and equity dimensions of energy production and use. It defines “energy justice” as a global energy system that fairly distributes both the benefits and burdens of energy services, and one that contributes to more representative and inclusive energy decision-making. The primary contribution of the article is its focus on six new frontiers of future energy justice research. First is making the case for the involvement of non-Western justice theorists. Second is expanding beyond humans to look at the Rights of Nature or non-anthropocentric notions of justice. Third is focusing on cross-scalar issues of justice such as embodied emissions. Fourth is identifying business models and the co-benefits of justice. Fifth is better understanding the tradeoffs within energy justice principles. Sixth is exposing unjust discourses. In doing so, the article presents an agenda constituted by 30 research questions as well as an amended conceptual framework consisting of ten principles. The article argues in favor of “justice-aware” energy planning and policymaking, and it hopes that its (reconsidered) energy justice conceptual framework offers a critical tool to inform decision-making.

Using an inductive case study approach drawn from original interview data, this article investigates the innovation approaches among a sample of international energy companies, or corporate firms. It first presents a conceptual framework synthesized from the business studies, entrepreneurship, evolutionary economics, innovation studies, management science, organization studies, political science, and sociology literature. This framework suggests that corporate approaches to clean technology innovation will cut across the four dimensions of organizational multiplicity and stakeholder involvement, information sharing, coordination and control, and market orientation. It then explores how eight firms—the Algal Carbon Conversion Flagship and Aurora Algae (biofuel), DONG and Statoil (carbon capture and storage), Tesla and Volkswagen (electric vehicles), and Siemens and Vestas (offshore wind turbines)—approach clean technology development with “open innovation” attributes mixed with “closed” attributes. Although the study finds striking similarities among the particular approaches embraced by each corporate actor, it also notes that approaches are technology and firm specific, and the potential for different permutations leads to an almost endless number of possible stylistic combinations. The innovation profiles depicted also reveal conflict and competition among various stakeholders, the implication being that corporate innovation in the energy sector remains a conflicted, disjointed, and messy process.

Notable studies have suggested the potentiality of the WWII wartime mobilization as a model for climate change adaptation and/or mitigation. The argument being that we need a similar rapid and total shift in our industrial social and economic environment to prevent or at least address the pending impacts of climate change. This argument and these studies have inspired us to think with them on what it means to use the WWII war analogy as a security claim in energy and climate change debates. Here, we would like to use this opportunity to draw attention to some of the implicit dangers of a call to war in such discussions. Among others we observe, first, the absence of any attention to the actual mobilization policies, in terms of garnishing public support. Second, based on the insights from Critical Security Studies, we question the historical incongruence of the case study especially by comparing the perceived enemy in both cases. Lastly, building on that same security literature, we point to some undesirable and perhaps unintended consequences of the use of war analogies in climate change debates.

The five Nordic countries have aggressive climate and energy policies in place and have already emerged to be leaders in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Denmark is renowned for its pioneering use of wind energy, Finland and Sweden bioenergy, Norway hydroelectricity and Iceland geothermal energy. All countries aim to be virtually “fossil free” by 2050. This study explores the Nordic energy transition through the lens of three interconnected research questions: How are they doing it? What challenges exist? And what broader lessons result for energy policy? The study firstly investigates the pathways necessary for these five countries to achieve their low-carbon goals. It argues that a concerted effort must be made to (1) promote decentralized and renewable forms of electricity supply; (2) shift to more sustainable forms of transport; (3) further improve the energy efficiency of residential and commercial buildings; and (4) adopt carbon capture and storage technologies for industry. However, the section that follows emphasizes some of the empirical barriers the Nordic transition must confront, namely political contestation, technological contingency, and social justice and recognition concerns. The study concludes with implications for what such historical progress, and future transition pathways, mean for both energy researchers and energy planners.

Lovering and colleagues attempt to advance understanding of construction cost escalation risks inherent in building nuclear reactors and power plants, a laudable goal. Although we appreciate their focus on capital cost increases and overruns, we maintain in this critical appraisal that their study conceptualizes cost issues in a limiting way. Methodological choices in treating different cost categories by the authors mean that their conclusions are more narrowly applicable than they describe. We also argue that their study is factually incorrect in its criticism of the previous peer-reviewed literature. Earlier work, for instance, has compared historical construction costs for nuclear reactors with other energy sources, in many countries, and extending over several decades. Lastly, in failing to be transparent about the limitations of their own work, Lovering et al. have recourse to a selective choice of data, unbalanced analysis, and biased interpretation.

First-best climate policy is a uniform carbon tax which gradually rises over time. Civil servants have complicated climate policy to expand bureaucracies, politicians to create rents. Environmentalists have exaggerated climate change to gain influence, other activists have joined the climate bandwagon. Opponents to climate policy have attacked the weaknesses in climate research. The climate debate is convoluted and polarized as a result, and climate policy complex. Climate policy should become easier and more rational as the Paris Agreement has shifted climate policy back towards national governments. Changing political priorities, austerity, and a maturing bureaucracy should lead to a more constructive climate debate.

The UK market for energy service contracts is expanding, owing in part to the emergence of intermediaries for those contracts in different parts of the public sector. These intermediaries combine a legal framework for establishing contracts with an organisational framework that facilitates contract negotiation and execution. This paper examines the nature and operation of these intermediaries in more detail, including their achievements to date and their similarities and differences. It uses ideas from transaction cost economics to develop a theoretical model of the contracting decision and shows how intermediary organisations can lower the transaction costs incurred by both clients and contractors, thereby increasing the viability of contracting. The paper argues that intermediaries can play an important role in expanding the market for energy service contracts, and hence in delivering cost-effective energy efficiency improvements throughout the public sector.

With almost $1 billion in funding, Better Place was poised to become one of the most innovative companies in the electric mobility market. The system Better Place proposed had two novel prongs; first, to reduce the cost of batteries, and second, to reduce range anxiety, public infrastructure concerns, and long charging times. Yet, despite this seemingly strong combination, Better Place failed to make any progress in Denmark and Israel, the first two markets it operated in, and subsequently declared bankruptcy, selling off its collective assets for less than $500,000. Drawing from science and technology studies and the notion of “interpretive flexibility,” this paper posits several reasons to explain the failure of Better Place, including that Denmark is not as “green” as it seems nor is the Israeli market as attractive as believed, and that Better Place's solution to charging time and range anxiety resolved a psychological, not a functional, barrier of the general public to adopt electric vehicles. Before investigating these two reasons, the paper presents a short history of Better Place and explores the contours of its operations in Denmark and Israel. It then discusses why Better Place “failed” across both countries before concluding with implications for energy planning, policy, and analysis.

This paper investigates the role of emissions control in welfare maximization under fat-tailed risk about climate change. We provide a classification of fat tails and discuss the effect of fat-tailed risk on climate policy. One of the main findings is that emissions control may prevent the “strong” tail-effect from arising, at least under some conditions such as bounded temperature increases, low risk aversion, low damage costs, and bounded utility function. More specifically, the fat-tailed risk with respect to a climate parameter does not necessarily lead to an unbounded carbon tax. In this case, the basic principle of cost-benefit analysis maintains its applicability.

This study explores the socio-technical barriers to Solar Home Systems (SHS) in Papua New Guinea. The authors collected primary data through semi-structured research interviews conducted over the course of February 2010–April 2010. Respondents included government officials, financiers, planners, commercial distributors and companies, teachers and rural villagers in addition to members of civil society, academics, consultants, and trainers. These interviews were supplemented with site visits to Port Moresby, Goroka, and Madang, and field research in the villages of Akameku, Asaroka, Lufa, Kundiawa, Okifa, Simbu, and Talidig. The study draws from these interviews and visits to discuss four types of barriers. Technical barriers relate to substandard equipment and logistical problems. Economic barriers include high rates of poverty, misconceptions about the role of currency, and lack of financing. Political barriers include poor institutional capacity and a government commitment to fossil-fueled grid electrification. Social barriers encompass unrealistic expectations about what SHS can provide along with jealousy, theft, vandalism, and unfamiliarity with solar technology.

Carbon dioxide emissions continue to increase to the detriment of society in many forms. One of the difficulties faced is the imbalance between the competing aims of economics, politics and the environment which form the trilemma of energy policy. This article advances that this energy trilemma can be resolved through energy justice. Energy justice develops the debate on energy policy to one that highlights cosmopolitanism, progresses thinking beyond economics and incorporates a new futuristic perspective. To capture these dynamics of energy justice, this research developed an Energy Justice Metric (EJM) that involves the calculation of several metrics: (1) a country (national) EJM; (2) an EJM for different energy infrastructure; and (3) an EJM which is incorporated into economic models that derive costs for energy infrastructure projects. An EJM is modeled for China, the European Union and the United States, and for different energy infrastructure in the United Kingdom. The EJM is plotted on a Ternary Phase Diagram which is used in the sciences for analyzing the relationship (trilemma) of three forms of matter. The development of an EJM can provide a tool for decision-making on energy policy and one that solves the energy trilemma with a just and equitable approach.

In this article, we argue that assumptions and values can play a combative, corrosive role in the generation of objective energy analysis. We then propose six maxims for energy analysts and researchers. Our maxim of information asks readers to keep up to date on trends in energy resources and technology. Our maxim of inclusivity asks readers to involve citizens and other public actors more in energy decisions. Our maxim of symmetry asks readers to keep their analysis of energy technologies centered always on both technology and society. Our maxim of reflexivity asks readers to be self-aware of one's assumptions. Our maxim of prudence asks readers to make energy decisions that are ethical or at least informed. Our maxim of agnosticism asks readers to look beyond a given energy technology to the services it provides and recognize that many systems can provide a desired service. We conclude that decisions in energy are justified by, if not predicated on, beliefs—beliefs which may or may not be supported by objective data, constantly blurring the line between fact, fiction, and frames.

This study explores how Vestas and Siemens Wind Power manage technological innovation in the offshore wind power industry. It utilizes the concept of open and closed “research styles” to investigate how each company designs, constructs, and maintains offshore wind turbines. The article starts by summarizing three of the main innovation challenges facing the offshore wind sector—harsh conditions, capital intensity, and production bottlenecks—before it delves into the specific details about how Vestas and Siemens Wind Power approach turbine development. It divides this discussion into six distinct segments: resources and expenditures, stakeholder involvement and collaboration, testing and maintenance, control and knowledge management, adaptability of designs, and customization and marketing. The study finds that both Vestas and SWP, despite their corporate and cultural differences, utilize the same elements of closed and open styles. It lastly suggests that the notion of style itself may challenge certain assumptions held by scholars about managing the research and innovation process.

This paper critically screens 153 lifecycle studies covering a broad range of wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity generation technologies to identify 41 of the most relevant, recent, rigorous, original, and complete assessments so that the dynamics of their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions profiles can be determined. When viewed in a holistic manner, including initial materials extraction, manufacturing, use and disposal/decommissioning, these 41 studies show that both wind and solar systems are directly tied to and responsible for GHG emissions. They are thus not actually emissions free technologies. Moreover, by spotlighting the lifecycle stages and physical characteristics of these technologies that are most responsible for emissions, improvements can be made to lower their carbon footprint. As such, through in-depth examination of the results of these studies and the variations therein, this article uncovers best practices in wind and solar design and deployment that can better inform climate change mitigation efforts in the electricity sector.

This article examines four energy megaprojects, two in Europe and two in Asia. For each region, a large natural gas pipeline project and an international project involving solar power from the desert is studied. The natural gas projects are: the Nabucco project (in Europe) and the trans-ASEAN gas pipeline network (in Asia). The solar power from the desert projects are: Desertec (in Europe) and Gobitec (in Asia). The article probes explanations of megaproject failure along social, technical, economic, political, and psychological dimensions. We find that these projects, though they are very different in nature and pertain to different regions, all suffer from a similar set of problems: too many stakeholders and stakeholder fragmentation; cost overruns and the risk of accidents and attacks; massive externalization of costs to third party stakeholders; concentration of wealth and corruption; and inflated expectations and biased projections. We conclude by reflecting on lessons for not only the involved institutions and investors, but energy analysts and the public at large.

The Indian Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) launched the Village Energy Security Programme (VESP) in 2004 but discontinued it during the 12th Five Year Plan, starting in 2012, after a series of unexpected challenges. Planners structured the program so that a village energy committee (VEC) ran a decentralized village program involving biomass gasifiers, straight vegetable oil (SVO) systems, biogas plants, and improved cookstoves. This suite of technologies was intended to produce electricity and thermal energy to meet the “total energy requirements” of rural communities. At the end of January 2011, a total of 79 VESP projects were sanctioned in 9 states and 65 of these projects were fully commissioned, yet more than half were not operational. The MNRE envisaged that the VESP would provide energy services to eradicate poverty, improve health, reduce drudgery, enhance education, raise agricultural productivity, create employment, generate income, and reduce migration. However, VESP projects have had limited success, and the trials and tribulations of the VESP offers important lessons for policymakers launching rural energy programs in India and other developing economies.

How tangible are the costs of natural gas compared to the benefits of one of the fastest growing sources of electricity – wind energy – in the United States? To answer this question, this article calculates the benefits of wind energy derived from two locations: the 580 MW wind farm at Altamont Pass, CA, and the 22 MW wind farm in Sawtooth, ID. Both wind farms have environmental and economic benefits that should be considered when evaluating the comparative costs of natural gas and wind energy. Though there are uncertainties within the data collected, for the period 2012–2031, the turbines at Altamont Pass will likely avoid anywhere from $560 million to $4.38 billion in human health and climate related externalities, and the turbines at Sawtooth will likely avoid $18 million to $104 million of human health and climate-related externalities. Translating these negative externalities into a cost per kWh of electricity, we estimate that Altamont will avoid costs of 1.8–11.8 cents/kWh and Sawtooth will avoid costs of 1.5–8.2 cents/kWh.

This study assesses the factors responsible for the success and failure of renewable energy access programs in Bangladesh, China, Laos, Mongolia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea. Based on 441 research interviews over the course of four years, site visits to 90 renewable energy facilities, and focus groups with almost 800 community members in 10 countries, this study develops a series of overarching qualitative factors that correlate with programs that met their targets, sometimes ahead of schedule, and produced measurable benefits exceeding costs. The inverse of these factors is associated with programs that did not meet their targets, were behind schedule, and/or produced measurable costs exceeding benefits. It concludes by offering 10 lessons for energy analysts and development practitioners concerning appropriate technology, income generation, financing, political leadership, capacity building, programmatic flexibility, marketing and awareness, stakeholder engagement, community ownership, and technical standardization.

Denmark is arguably the most energy secure and sustainable country in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The country has reduced its dependence on foreign sources of energy to zero and become self-sufficient in its own energy production and use, offering important lessons for other nations around the world. This study explores the core of Denmark's successful approach: a commitment to energy efficiency, prolonged taxes on energy fuels, electricity, and carbon dioxide, and incentives for combined heat and power (CHP) and wind turbines. Through these commitments, the study shows how Denmark transitioned from being almost 100 percent dependent on imported fuels such as oil and coal for their power plants in 1970 to becoming a net exporter of fuels and electricity today. The country leads the world in terms of exportation of wind energy technology, with a hold on roughly one-third of the world market for wind turbines. It was able to phase out the use of virtually all oil-fired power plants in less than five years and implemented a progressive moratorium on future coal-fired power plants in the 1990s. Their most recent strategy seeks to achieve 30 percent of total energy supply from renewable energy by 2025.

Energy, whether from electricity, natural gas, heating oil, propane, kerosene, or wood, is essential for the well-being of many Americans, yet those who spend more than 10 percent of their income of energy services can be considered “fuel poor.” This study assesses the extent and severity of fuel poverty in Vermont. It analyzes energy burdens in Vermont by household income deciles, using data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. Approximately 71,000 people suffered from fuel poverty in Vermont in 2000, and in 2012 the number rose to 125,000, or one in five Vermonters. Startlingly, fuel poverty grew 76 percent during this period. Excess winter deaths, caused potentially by fuel poverty, kill more Vermonters each year than car crashes. The article then provides 12 policy recommendations based on a small sample of elite semi-structured research interviews. These include suggestions that the Vermont legislature better fund investments in weatherization among low-income households; that community groups and social service agencies scale up the training of energy efficiency coaches; that state agencies endorse improvements in housing efficiency and appropriate fuel switching; and that utilities and fuel providers offer extra assistance for disconnected households and allow for on-bill financing of efficiency improvements.

Twenty years since the Rio Summit, the global community is still struggling to develop a world with universal access to sustainable energy services. The discussion on energy and its linkages with sustainable development is at the heart of the debate in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This paper discusses the role of innovations in terms of partnerships and business models to enhance energy access, especially for those living at the so-called bottom of pyramid. The role of innovative energy options and policy choices that enable overall operationalization of energy access in developing countries as well as new forms of partnerships and innovative mechanisms that are based on established success, replicability and potential for scaling up has been examined through two case-studies, namely the Lighting a Billion Lives project and India's National Rural Electrification Programme. This paper suggests the need for new forms of public and private sector partnerships, especially the pro-poor ones that are effective in enhancing energy access.

This article argues that among all policy fields exhibiting externalities of a global scale, energy stands out on four dimensions: vertical complexity, horizontal complexity, higher entailed costs, and stronger path dependency. These structural attributes are at odds with contemporary key challenges of energy security, energy justice, and low carbon energy transition. With regard to the latter, energy governance challenges occur related to unclear levels of authority and weak resilience. This has implications for energy scholarship, specifically relating to the political economy of energy transitions, discussions about common pool resources, systems analysis, and other neighboring disciplines.

This communication discusses climate change adaptation efforts underway in Vanuatu. In particular, it uncovers why community-based approaches to adaptation are more likely to bear fruit than ones driven from the top-down at the national level. The authors make this claim based on early evidence that small-scale projects (a) support community ownership over adaptation, (b) provide ongoing technical learning lessons (c) relieve pressure from capacity constraints at national administrative bodies, and (d) expedite implementation by avoiding cumbersome multilateral procedures. The first section discusses its research methods and presents important characteristics of the Vanuatu economy, people and geography. The communication then moves on to discuss Vanuatu’s vulnerability to the effects of climate change. It specifically investigates on-going efforts to adapt to natural climatic hazards in Vanuatu. Early evidence and analysis reveals lessons salient for energy and climate policy.

While a growing amount of literature has recently emerged describing network governance, less attention has been paid to evaluating the actual performance of networks. Our paper looks at the challenges facing network governance for natural resources (primarily logging and forestry) and energy (primarily renewable energy and energy efficiency) in Asia. The paper investigates what network governance is, and what types of challenges networks have to tackle. It then develops a qualitative analytical framework to evaluate the effectiveness of networks consisting of five criteria: (1) clarity of roles and objectives among members, (2) having strong, independent, continual sources of funding, (3) institutional formality (having a permanent secretariat, budget, full time staff, etc.), (4) efficacy (ability to accomplish its mission and goals at the least possible cost); and (5) level of interdependency among members. Finally, we apply this framework to four case studies: the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Centre for Energy, Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP), ASEAN Regional Knowledge Network on Forests and Climate Change (FCC), and ASEAN Regional Knowledge Network on Forest Law Enforcement and Governance (FLEG). These cases illustrate effective (or ineffective) environmental and energy networks and the factors that are associated with network governance.

This short article defends the methods utilized in creating an energy security index. It explains why an energy security index is needed, and then justifies research interviews as a data collection tool. Next, it responds to the three strands of Professor Cherp’s critique before offering a few general conclusions for readers concerned about energy security.

Greater detail on the specific technological and planning challenges facing energy-deprived developing economies is required to improve energy policy making and development assistance practice. The current literature tends to highlight electricity services, and, to a lesser extent, clean cooking. This article calls for a closer look at mobility and mechanical power as essential energy services in addition to a refinement of the specific institutional arrangements needed to reduce energy poverty and deprivation. This article augments and refines arguments made by Morgan Bazilian and his colleagues in their viewpoint “More Heat and Light”.

This article explores the concept of energy security perceived and understood by a sample of government, business, civil society, and university stakeholders in India. Based on a literature review, the authors hypothesize what energy experts suggest energy security is for India. The article then tests these hypotheses through the use of a survey completed by 172 Indian respondents. The article begins by describing its methodology before summarizing the results of the literature review to distill seven working hypotheses related to energy security in India. These hypotheses relate to (1) security of energy supply, (2) equitable access to energy services, (3) research and development of new energy technologies, (4) energy efficiency and conservation, (5) self-sufficiency and trade in energy fuels, (6) nuclear power, and (7) the energy-water nexus. It then tests these hypotheses with our survey instrument before concluding with implications for energy policy in India and beyond.

The energy security conundrum – how to equitably provide available, affordable, reliable, efficient, and environmentally benign energy services – is a technology and policy challenge, perhaps unlike any other. The recent article on an energy security in the Asia Pacific by Vlado Vivoda is an excellent starting point for how to best capture the unique energy security challenges facing the region. This article builds on Vivoda’s work, but also points out some shortcomings with his analysis.

This article begins by defining energy services and identifying how they differ according to sector, urban and rural areas, and direct and indirect uses. It then investigates household energy services divided into three classes: lower income, middle income, and upper income. It finds that the primary energy technologies involved with low-income households involve a greater number of fuels and carriers, ranging from dung and fuelwood to liquefied petroleum gas and charcoal, but a fewer number of services. Middle-income households throughout the world tend to rely on electricity and natural gas, followed by coal, liquefied petroleum gas, and kerosene. These homes utilize energy to produce a much broader range services. The upper class or rich have access to the same energy fuels, carriers, and technologies as middle-income homes and families, but consume more energy (and more high luxury items). The study highlights how focusing on energy services reorients the direction of energy policy interventions, that energy services are neither uniform nor innate, and by noting exciting areas of potential research.

The Small Renewable Energy Power (SREP) Program was the premier policy mechanism implemented by the national government to promote small-scale renewable electricity in Malaysia from 2001 to 2010. However, it managed meet less than 3 percent of its original goal by 2005. This study investigates what happened. More specifically, using a qualitative semi-structured interview approach with data presented in a narrative format, it answers the following five questions: (1) What are the primary energy policy and security challenges facing Malaysia? (2) What were the drivers behind the SREP in Malaysia? (3) What were the major benefits arising from the SREP? (4) What were the significant challenges to implementation? (5) What lessons or insights does the SREP offer for the study of energy policy design and implementation more generally? We find that the SREP failed to achieve its targets due to capacity caps, a lengthy approval process, lack of monitoring, exclusion of stakeholders, and few (if any) pre-feasibility studies. Other factors explaining its poor performance include opposition from the national utility Tenaga Nasional Berhad and electricity tariffs unmatched with true production costs.

Using a case-study, inductive, narrative approach, this article explores the history, drivers, benefits, and barriers to the Bakun Hydroelectric Project in East Malaysia. Situated on the island of Borneo, Bakun Dam is a 204 m high concrete face, rock filled dam on the Balui River in the Upper Rajang Basin in the rainforests of Sarawak. Bakun Dam and its affiliated infrastructure could be the single largest and most expensive energy project ever undertaken in Southeast Asia. Based on data collected through site visits, original field research in Sarawak, and more than 80 research interviews, the article begins by teasing out the complex history and drivers behind the Bakun project before identifying a set of potential social, political, and economic benefits the project could deliver. It then delves into six sets of barriers in the technical, economic, political, legal and regulatory, social, and environmental realms. We find that Bakun illustrates how centralized energy megaprojects, while ostensibly championed for reasons of economies of scale and the ability to bring about transformational change in the shortest period of time, often fail to address broader development goals such as fighting energy poverty and improving the livelihoods of the local communities they are supposed to serve.

We thank Brathwaite et al. for starting a very useful debate about what role, if any, coal should play in future energy transitions. Expanding upon their piece, we question that a coal-based economy, in which energy production for both electricity and transport comes from coal, can meet the energy security needs of the United States and other countries.

Drawing from work on governance, this article explores four programs and policies that respond in some way to the challenges induced by climate change and modern energy use. Relying primarily on original data collected from research interviews and field research in seven countries along with four case studies, the article notes that polycentric approaches – those that mix scales (such as local/national or national/global), mechanisms (such as subsidies, tax credits, and mandates), and actors (such as government regulators, business stakeholders, and members of civil society) – can foster equity, inclusivity, information, accountability, organizational multiplicity, and adaptability that result in the resolution of climate and energy related problems. After explaining its case selection and research methods, defining climate and energy governance, and conceptualizing polycentrism, the study explores cases related to electricity supply in Denmark, ethanol production in Brazil, small-scale renewable energy in Bangladesh, and off-grid energy use in China. It concludes by highlighting how polycentrism may enhance effective climate and energy governance, but that further research is needed to fully substantiate that claim.

This article offers a critical review of eight tradable permit markets: water permits at Fox River, Wisconsin; the U.S. leaded gasoline phase-out; sulfur dioxide credits under the U.S. Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990; the Regional Clean Air Incentives Market (RECLAIM) for controlling ozone and acid rain in Southern California; renewable energy credit trading at the regional level in the United States; individual transferrable quotas for fisheries at the national level in New Zealand; carbon credits traded under the European Union-Emissions Trading Scheme; and carbon offsets permitted under the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol. By “critical” the article does not fully weigh the costs and benefits of each tradable credit scheme and instead identifies key challenges and problems. By “review” the author relied exclusively on secondary data from an interdisciplinary review of the academic literature. Rather than performing as economic theory suggests, the article shows that in many cases credit markets are prone to compromises in program design, transaction costs, price volatility, leakage, and environmental degradation. The article concludes by discussing the implications of these problems for those seeking to design more equitable and effective public policies addressing environmental degradation and climate change.

n 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.

This article investigates the barriers to energy efficiency at the residential sector within one province in China and explores patterns of household electricity consumption. The article presents the results of a survey questionnaire distributed to more than 600 households in Liaoning Province, field research at various Liaoning government agencies, and research interviews of Liaoning government officials to determine the efficacy of their energy efficiency efforts in China. It then investigates the extent that electricity consumers have taken advantage of energy efficiency opportunities relating to more efficient lights, water heaters, appliances, air-conditioners and heaters, and better energy-efficiency labels. The article also assesses the degree that electricity users have become more aware about electricity prices and their levels of consumption, and touches on the connection between rising levels of income and electricity use. It concludes by providing recommendations for how to improve efforts to promote conservation and reduce electricity load growth in Liaoning Province and beyond.

A dearth of available data on carbon emissions and comparative analysis between metropolitan areas make it difficult to confirm or refute best practices and policies. To help provide benchmarks and expand our understanding of urban centers and climate change, this article offers a preliminary comparison of the carbon footprints of 12 metropolitan areas. It does this by examining emissions related to vehicles, energy used in buildings, industry, agriculture, and waste. The carbon emissions from these sources—discussed here as the metro area's partial carbon footprint—provide a foundation for identifying the pricing, land use, help metropolitan areas throughout the world respond to climate change. The article begins by exploring a sample of the existing literature on urban morphology and climate change and explaining the methodology used to calculate each area's carbon footprint. The article then depicts the specific carbon footprints for Beijing, Jakarta, London, Los Angeles, Manila, Mexico City, New Delhi, New York, São Paulo, Seoul, Singapore, and Tokyo and compares these to respective national averages. It concludes by offering suggestions for how city planners and policymakers can reduce the carbon footprint of these and possibly other large urban areas.

This article documents that the hydrogen economy continues to attract significant attention among politicians, the media, and some academics. We believe that an explanation lies in the way that the hydrogen economy fulfills psychological and cultural needs related to a future world where energy is abundant, cheap, and pollution-free, a “fantasy” that manifests itself with the idea that society can continue to operate without limits imposed by population growth and the destruction of the environment. The article begins by explaining its research methodology consisting of two literature reviews, research interviews of energy experts, and the application of symbolic convergence theory, a general communications theory about the construction of rhetorical fantasies. We then identify a host of socio-technical challenges to explain why the creation of a hydrogen economy would present immense (and possibly intractable) obstacles, an argument supplemented by our research interviews. Next, we employ symbolic convergence theory to identify five prevalent fantasy themes and rhetorical visions—independence, patriotism, progress, democratization, and inevitability—in academic and public discussions in favor of the hydrogen economy. We conclude by offering implications for scholarship relating to energy policy more broadly.

This paper analyzes the socio-cultural, political and economic conditions prevalent during the inception of nuclear power programs in Japan and South Korea in order to identify commonalities which support nuclear power program expansion. The study identifies six factors as having a clear influence on supporting nuclear power development: (1) strong state involvement in guiding economic development; (2) centralization of national energy policymaking and planning; (3) campaigns to link technological progress with national revitalization; (4) influence of technocratic ideology on policy decisions; (5) subordination of challenges to political authority, and (6) low levels of civic activism. The paper postulates that insights from this study can be used to assess the propensity of nations which have the emergent capacity to support nuclear power development to actually embark on such programs.

This article conceptualizes the energy problems facing society from a global governance perspective. It argues that a notion of “global energy governance,” taken to mean international collective action efforts undertaken to manage and distribute energy resources and provide energy services, offers a meaningful and useful framework for assessing energy-related challenges. The article begins by exploring the concepts of governance, global governance, and global energy governance. It then examines some of the existing institutions in place to establish and carry out rules and norms governing global energy problems and describes the range of institutional design options available to policymakers. It briefly traces the role of a selection of these institutions, from inter-governmental organizations to summit processes to multilateral development banks to global action networks, in responding to energy issues, and points out their strengths and weaknesses. The article concludes by analyzing how the various approaches to global governance differ in their applicability to addressing the conundrums of global energy problems.

If renewable power systems deliver such impressive benefits, why do they still provide only 3 percent of national electricity generation in the United States? As an answer, this article demonstrates that the impediments to renewable power are socio-technical, a term that encompasses the technological, social, political, regulatory, and cultural aspects of electricity supply and use. Extensive interviews of public utility commissioners, utility managers, system operators, manufacturers, researchers, business owners, and ordinary consumers reveal that it is these socio-technical barriers that often explain why wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, and hydroelectric power sources are not embraced. Utility operators reject renewable resources because they are trained to think only in terms of big, conventional power plants. Consumers practically ignore renewable power systems because they are not given accurate price signals about electricity consumption. Intentional market distortions (such as subsidies), and unintentional market distortions (such as split incentives) prevent consumers from becoming fully invested in their electricity choices. As a result, newer and cleaner technologies that may offer social and environmental benefits but are not consistent with the dominant paradigm of the electricity industry continue to face comparative rejection.

This article explores the proposed multibillion dollar Trans-ASEAN Gas Pipeline (TAGP) network in Southeast Asia, focusing on the interests that have promoted the TAGP and why. Based on extensive field research, textual analysis of government reports, and more than 100 research interviews at government institutions, multilateral development banks, universities, consulting firms, energy companies, and nongovernmental organizations, this article assesses the challenges facing the TAGP in terms of promotion, implementation, and operation. It explores the genesis of the TAGP project and the drivers pushing Southeast Asian investment in natural gas, with a special emphasis on the development needs of the region. It also investigates the numerous technical, economic, legal, political, social, and environmental impediments to the TAGP project. The article concludes that the rhetoric of regional energy cooperation touted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) does not match its actual practice, and that in many cases discussions of regionalism and energy security are intended to obscure opportunistic thinking within individual countries.

This article explores the threats that wind farms pose to birds and bats before briefly surveying the recent literature on avian mortality and summarizing some of the problems with it. Based on operating performance in the United States and Europe, this study offers an approximate calculation for the number of birds killed per kWh generated for wind electricity, fossil-fuel, and nuclear power systems. The study estimates that wind farms and nuclear power stations are responsible each for between 0.3 and 0.4 fatalities per gigawatt-hour (GWh) of electricity while fossil-fueled power stations are responsible for about 5.2 fatalities per GWh. While this paper should be respected as a preliminary assessment, the estimate means that wind farms killed approximately seven thousand birds in the United States in 2006 but nuclear plants killed about 327,000 and fossil-fueled power plants 14.5 million. The paper concludes that further study is needed, but also that fossil-fueled power stations appear to pose a much greater threat to avian wildlife than wind and nuclear power technologies.

This paper explores both the promise and the possible pitfalls of the plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) concept, focusing first on its definition and then on its technical state-of-the-art. More originally, the paper assesses significant, though often overlooked, social barriers to the wider use of PHEVs (a likely precursor to V2G) and implementation of a V2G transition. The article disputes the idea that the only important barriers facing the greater use of PHEVs and V2G systems are technical. Instead, it provides a broader assessment situating such “technical” barriers alongside more subtle impediments relating to social and cultural values, business practices, and political interests. The history of other energy transitions, and more specifically the history of renewable energy technologies, implies that these “socio-technical” obstacles may be just as important to any V2G transition—and perhaps even more difficult to overcome. Analogously, the article illuminates the policy implications of such barriers, emphasizing what policymakers need to achieve a transition to a V2G and PHEV world.

Researchers for the electricity industry, national laboratories, and state and federal agencies have begun to argue that the country could face water shortages resulting from the addition of thermoelectric power plants, but have not attempted to depict more precisely where or how severe those shortages will be. Using county-level data on rates of population growth collected from the US Census Bureau, utility estimates of future planned capacity additions in the contiguous United States reported to the US Energy Information Administration, and scientific estimates of anticipated water shortages provided from the US Geologic Survey and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, this paper highlights the most likely locations of severe shortages in 22 counties brought about by thermoelectric capacity additions. Within these areas are some 20 major metropolitan regions where millions of people live. After exploring the electricity–water nexus and explaining the study's methodology, the article then focuses on four of these metropolitan areas – Houston, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; Las Vegas, Nevada; New York, New York – to deepen an understanding of the water and electricity challenges they may soon be facing. It concludes by identifying an assortment of technologies and policies that could respond to these electricity–water tradeoffs.

Based on extensive research interviews and supplemented with a review of the academic literature, this article assesses the best way to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency. It begins by briefly laying out why government intervention is needed, and then details the four most favored policy mechanisms identified by participants: eliminating subsidies for conventional and mature electricity technologies, pricing electricity accurately, passing a national feed-in tariff, and implementing a nationwide systems benefit fund to raise public awareness, protect lower income households, and administer demand side management programs. Drawing mostly from case studies in the United States, the article also discusses why these policy mechanisms must be implemented comprehensively, not individually, if the barriers to renewables and energy efficiency are to be overcome.

As currently discussed in political circles, oil independence is unattainable—lacking coherent meaning and wedding policymakers to the notion that they can never accomplish it. Contrary to this thinking, more than a dozen different sets of technologies and practices could increase domestic supply and reduce demand for oil to the point of making the US functionally independent from oil price shocks. However, achieving this goal demands concerted action to expand and diversify conventional domestic oil supplies, reduce overall demand in the transportation and buildings sector, and continue to develop alternative fuels. If policymakers undertook such actions today, the US could become oil independent by 2030.

This article screens 103 lifecycle studies of greenhouse gas-equivalent emissions for nuclear power plants to identify a subset of the most current, original, and transparent studies.

It begins by briefly detailing the separate components of the nuclear fuel cycle before explaining the methodology of the survey and exploring the variance of lifecycle estimates. It calculates that while the range of emissions for nuclear energy over the lifetime of a plant, reported from qualified studies examined, is from 1.4 g of carbon dioxide equivalent per kWh (g CO2e/kWh) to 288 g CO2e/kWh, the mean value is 66 g CO2e/kWh. The article then explains some of the factors responsible for the disparity in lifecycle estimates, in particular identifying errors in both the lowest estimates (not comprehensive) and the highest estimates (failure to consider co-products). It should be noted that nuclear power is not directly emitting greenhouse gas emissions, but rather that lifecycle emissions occur through plant construction, operation, uranium mining and milling, and plant decommissioning.

To avoid promoting technologies that merely produce incremental change, the US Department of Energy needs to establish a new organization designed to focus on transformational R&D projects. From its inception in 1977, the US Department of Energy (DOE) has been responsible for maintaining the nation's nuclear stockpile, leading the country in terms of basic research, setting national energy goals, and managing thousands of individual programs. Despite these responsibilities, however, the DOE research and development (R&D) model does not appear to offer the nation an optimal strategy for assessing long-term energy challenges. American energy policy continues to face constraints related to an overly rigid management structure and loss of mission within the DOE, layers of stove-piping within and between the national laboratories, and inadequate public and private funding for energy R&D. To address these concerns, an independent organization dedicated to transformative, creative energy R&D is required.

A combination of technical complexity, tight coupling, speed, and human fallibility contribute to the unexpected failure of large-scale energy technologies. This study offers a preliminary assessment of the social and economic costs of major energy accidents from 1907 to 2007. It documents 279 incidents that have been responsible for $41 billion in property damage and 182,156 deaths. Such disasters highlight an often-ignored negative externality to energy production and use, and emphasize the need for further research.

This paper examines the rationality of the price forecasts for energy commodities of the United States Department of Energy's (DOE), departing from the common assumption in the literature that DOE's forecasts are based on a symmetric underlying loss function with respect to positive vs. negative forecast errors. Instead, we opt for the methodology of Elliott et al. (2005) that allows testing the joint hypothesis of an asymmetric loss function and rationality and reveals the underlying preferences of the forecaster. Results indicate the existence of asymmetries in the shape of the loss function for most energy categories with preferences leaning towards optimism. Moreover, we also examine whether there is a structural break in those preferences over the examined period, 1997 – 2012

This paper looks at Energy Savings Obligations in the UK. More specifically, it discusses how the policy instrument changed over time and what the drivers of that change were. The UK was the first country in Europe that introduced obligations on suppliers to save energy at the customer end in 1994. Since then this policy changed rapidly and is now the principal instrument to deliver energy savings in the housing stock. The paper aims to answer three questions: First, how did the policy instrument change over time? Second, what were the key drivers of that change? Third, how did those pressures filter through the policy process and affect the energy savings obligations?

Much academic attention has been directed at analysing energy efficiency investments through the lens of ‘behavioural failure’. These studies have challenged the neoclassical framing of regulation which emphasises the efficiency benefits of price based policy, underpinned by the notion of rational individual self-mastery. The increasing use of a regulatory ban on electric lamps in many countries is one of the most recent and high profile flash points in this dialectic of ‘freedom-versus-the-state’ in the public policy discourse. This paper interrogates this debate through a study of electric lamp diffusion in Germany. It is argued that neoclassical theory and equilibrium analysis is inadequate as a tool for policy analysis as it takes the formation of market institutions, such as existing regulations, for granted. Further still, it may be prone to encourage idealistic debates around such grand narratives which may in practice simply serve those who benefit most from the status quo. Instead we argue for an evolutionary approach which we suggest offers a more pragmatic framing tool which focuses on the formation of market institutions in light of shifting social norms and political goals—in our case, progress towards energy efficiency and environmental goals.

Energy efficiency obligations (or white certificates) are increasingly used to reduce carbon emissions. While the energy efficiency obligations were originally intended as carbon reduction and not fuel poverty policies, due to recognition of the potential for regressive outcomes they often include provisions for vulnerable and low-income customers. Intuitively, reducing carbon emissions and alleviating fuel poverty seem to be two sides of the same coin. There are, however, considerable tensions between the two when addressed through energy efficiency obligations, particularly arising from the potentially regressive impacts of rising energy prices resulting from such obligations, but also the complexity of targeting fuel poor households and the implications for deliverability. Despite those tensions, the UK government decided to use energy efficiency obligations, the supplier obligation, as the main policy for reducing fuel poverty. In light of the proposals, this paper provides an analysis of the main tensions between carbon reduction and fuel poverty alleviation within energy efficiency obligations, outlines the fuel poverty provisions of the British Supplier Obligation, assesses its rules for identifying the fuel poor, and provides a critical analysis of the planned policy changes. Based on this analysis, alternative approaches to targeting fuel poverty within future supplier obligations are proposed.

Programmes supporting the installation of energy efficiency measures typically incur a cost in the form of subsidies as well as lost VAT income due to reduced energy consumption. Those costs are to some extent offset by the tax receipts and other revenue streams generated as a result of the activities promoted under the programme. In this paper we analyse the budgetary effects of energy efficiency programmes focusing on the example of solid wall insulation in the UK. Three distinct subsidy options have been defined and modelled for the purpose of this research including two policies with varying degrees of direct subsidy and a low interest loan scheme. Our analysis shows that a significant amount of the cost of a scheme funding solid wall insulation would be offset by increased revenues and savings. A loan scheme, due to the high leverage, achieves not only budget neutrality but generates additional revenue for the Exchequer.

Energy efficiency improvements by households lead to rebound effects that offset the potential energy and emissions savings. Direct rebound effects result from increased demand for cheaper energy services, while indirect rebound effects result from increased demand for other goods and services that also require energy to provide. Research to date has focused upon the former, but both are important for climate change. This study estimates the combined direct and indirect rebound effects from seven measures that improve the energy efficiency of UK dwellings. The methodology is based upon estimates of the income elasticity and greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity of 16 categories of household goods and services, and allows for the embodied emissions of the energy efficiency measures themselves, as well as the capital cost of the measures. Rebound effects are measured in GHG terms and relate to the adoption of these measures by an average UK household. The study finds that the rebound effects from these measures are typically in the range 5–15% and arise mostly from indirect effects. This is largely because expenditure on gas and electricity is more GHG-intensive than expenditure on other goods and services. However, the anticipated shift towards a low carbon electricity system in the UK may lead to much larger rebound effects.

This paper analyses the development of community energy in the UK by comparing it to Germany in relation to decentralisation, scales and ownership structures particularly of wind energy. Varying approaches to energy generation at the community scale provide interesting insights into the impact of policy innovation as well as the capacity of national energy frameworks to foster socially innovative engagement practices beyond the purely technological diffusion of innovations. By examining interactions between technological and social innovations with the help of a qualitative analysis, opportunities for potential generators not traditionally engaged in energy generation to tap into these innovation systems are analysed. This paper suggests that greater commitment to diversification beyond the implementation of policy measures such as the feed-in tariff is required to provide communities with the capacity to develop new generation practices in terms of scale and ownership. The UK in particular is struggling to protect these new generation practices which allow communities to derive benefits facilitated by specific energy policy measures according to their potential. It concludes by indicating areas where niche protection might need to be expanded if community energy is to play a greater role in the UK′s ambitious transition to a low-carbon economy.

The UK is committed to ambitious medium- and long-term climate change targets, including a commitment to an 80% reduction in emissions from 1990 levels by 2050. Whilst emissions have fallen significantly since 1990, further reductions will be increasingly difficult to achieve. The government has agreed carbon budgets to the late 2020s that are consistent with the long-term 80% target. However, increasing energy prices since the mid-2000s and the 2008 financial crisis have led to cracks in the political consensus in support of these budgets and targets.

This paper carries out an assessment of the feasibility of the UK's agreed low carbon pathway over the medium term, with a particular focus on the fourth carbon budget (2023–27). It analyses the uncertainties associated with the specific changes that may be necessary to comply with this carbon budget – including measures to decarbonise electricity, heat and transport. This analysis focuses on ‘instrumental’ uncertainties associated with specific areas of the energy system (e.g. the decarbonisation of heat in households) and ‘systemic’ uncertainties that tend to have more pervasive implications for the energy system as a whole (e.g. uncertainties associated with public attitudes). A framework is developed that sets out and analyses the key uncertainties under those two broad categories, in terms of their complexity and their potential impact on the fourth carbon budget. Through the application of this framework the paper also considers strategies to mitigate or manage these uncertainties, and which actors could help develop and implement these strategies.

A claim has been that 97% of the scientific literature endorses anthropogenic climate change (Cook et al., 2013. Environ. Res. Lett. 8, 024024). This claim, frequently repeated in debates about climate policy, does not stand. A trend in composition is mistaken for a trend in endorsement. Reported results are inconsistent and biased. The sample is not representative and contains many irrelevant papers. Overall, data quality is low. Cook׳s validation test shows that the data are invalid. Data disclosure is incomplete so that key results cannot be reproduced or tested.

This paper explores the ways in which clean energy is being governed in India. It does so in order to improve our understanding of the potential and limitations of carbon finance in supporting lower carbon energy transitions, and to strengthen our appreciation of the role of politics in enabling or frustrating such endeavors. In particular we emphasize the importance of politics and the nature of India's political economy in understanding the development of energy sources and technologies defined as ‘clean’ both by the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and leading international actors. By considering the broad range of institutions that exert formal and informal political influence over how the benefits and costs of the CDM are distributed, the paper highlights shortcomings in the narrow way in which CDM governance has been conceptualized to date. This approach goes beyond analysis of technocratic aspects of governance – often reduced to a set of institutional design issues – in order to appreciate the political nature of the trade-offs that characterize debates about India's energy future and the relations of power which will determine how, and on whose terms, they are resolved.

Offshore wind technology has recently undergone rapid deployment in the UK. And yet, up until recently, the UK was considered a laggard in terms of deploying renewable energy. How can this burst of offshore wind activity be explained? An economic analysis would seek signs for newfound competitiveness for offshore wind in energy markets. A policy analysis would highlight renewable energy policy developments and assess their contribution to economic prospects of offshore wind. However, neither perspective sheds sufficient light on the advocacy of the actors involved in the development and deployment of the technology. Without an account of technology politics it is hard to explain continuing policy support despite rising costs. By analysing the actor networks and narratives underpinning policy support for offshore wind, we explain how a fairly effective protective space was constructed through the enroling of key political and economic interests.

The extension of the Kyoto Protocol till 2020 has left uncertainty dominating the future of climate change negotiations. Meanwhile on-going debate on the variety of measures introduced by the Protocol demonstrate that there is no consensus among academics and policy makers on the efficacy of those measures. By focusing on a specific but extensive case-study, which encompasses the whole contribution of the clean development mechanism (CDM) to the Chinese electricity production sector, this paper aims to reflect upon the effectiveness of that mechanism during its originally planned lifetime (which was to be the end of 2012). The paper contributes to the international debate by offering a new evidence-based perspective on the efficacy of the CDM in a strategic sector of the most relevant non-Annex I country. The obtained empirical results can serve as evaluation instruments for both academics and policy makers involved in the elaboration of a new Protocol and its related mechanisms, while at the same time offering a stimulus for further analyses sharing similar objectives. The results reveal a new perspective on the Chinese electricity system's low-carbon transition, while prompting debate over the original efficacy of the CDM.

Concerns about climate change and energy security have been major arguments used to justify the recent return of nuclear power as a serious electricity generation option in various parts of the world. This article examines the recent public discussion in Finland, France, and the UK – three countries currently in the process of constructing or planning new nuclear power stations. To place the public discussion on nuclear power within the relationship between policy discourses and contexts, the article addresses three interrelated themes: the justifications and discursive strategies employed by nuclear advocates and critics, the similarities and differences in debates between the three countries, and the interaction between the country-specific state orientations and the argumentation concerning nuclear power. Drawing from documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews, the article identifies and analyses key discursive strategies and their use in the context of the respective state orientations: ‘technology-and-industry-know-best’ in Finland, ‘government-knows-best’ in France, and ‘markets- know-best’ in the UK. The nuclear debates illustrate subtle ongoing transformations in these orientations, notably in the ways in which the relations between markets, the state, and civil society are portrayed in the nuclear debates.

This paper investigates the economic implications of disruptions of one to ninety days to the supply of natural gas in Ireland. We assess the impact of a hypothetical gas supply disruption in both winter and summer in 2008 (with observed market characteristics) and in 2020 (with projected market characteristics). The cost of a natural gas outage includes the cost of natural gas being unavailable for heating and other purposes in the industrial and commercial sectors, lost consumer surplus in the residential sector, the cost of lost electricity in all sectors and lost VAT on the sale of gas and electricity. Ireland generates much of its electricity from natural gas and the loss of this electricity accounts for the majority of the cost of a natural gas outage. Losing gas-fired electricity would cost 0.1–1.0 billion euro per day, depending on the time to the week, the time of year and rationing. Industry should be rationed before households to minimise economic losses, but current emergency protocols do the opposite. If gas-fired electricity is unavailable for three months, the economic loss could be up to 80 billion euro, about half of Gross Domestic Product. Losing gas for heating too would add up to approximately 8 billion euro in economic losses. We also discuss some options to increase Ireland’s security of supply, and find that the cost is a small fraction of the avoided maximum damage.

We present a mixed-integer, linear programming model for determining optimal interconnection for a given level of renewable generation using a cost minimisation approach. Optimal interconnection and capacity investment decisions are determined under various targets for renewable penetration. The model is applied to a test system for eight regions in Northern Europe. It is found that considerations on the supply side dominate demand side considerations when determining optimal interconnection investment: interconnection is found to decrease generation capacity investment and total costs only when there is a target for renewable generation. Higher wind integration costs see a concentration of wind in high-wind regions with interconnection to other regions.

The European Commission did not publish a cost–benefit analysis for its 2020 climate package. This paper fills that gap, comparing the marginal costs and benefits of greenhouse gas emission reduction. The uncertainty about the marginal costs of climate change is large and skewed, and estimates partly reflect ethical choices (e.g., the discount rate). The 2010 carbon price in the EU Emissions Trading System can readily be justified by a cost–benefit analysis. Emission reduction is not expensive provided that policy is well-designed, a condition not met by planned EU policy. It is probably twice as expensive as needed, costing one in ten years of economic growth. The EU targets for 2020 are unlikely to meet the benefit–cost test. For a standard discount rate (3% pure rate of time preference), the benefit–cost ratio is rather poor (1/30)—so that benefits need to be very much higher, or costs very much lower than typically assumed to justify the 2020 targets. Only a very low discount rate (0% PRTP) would justify the 20% emission reduction target for 2020.

This paper for the first time systematically examines the heavydutygasturbine (HDGT) industry in the context of developing countries. It provides a comparative analysis of the HDGT industries in Iran, India and China. It contrasts their national strategies, the historical development of their technological capabilities, the similarities and differences in approach, the varying evolutionary paths and policy drivers and the reasons for their differing outcomes. This paper argues that a high level of state involvement is a prominent feature of HDGT industries in developing countries. It also argues that the development and evolution of the HDGT industries in these countries is closely interrelated with the countries’ national energy policies. It clarifies why such an advanced and sophisticated industry is a strategic choice in one country, while it is seen as an inferior choice in another

The empirical evidence from a growing body of academic literature clearly suggests that oil price increases and volatility dampen macroeconomic growth by raising inflation and unemployment and by depressing the value of financial and other assets. Surprisingly, this issue seems to have received little attention from energy policy makers.

In percentage terms, the oil–GDP effect is relatively small, producing losses in the order of 0.5% of GDP for a 10% oil price increase. In absolute terms however, even a 10% oil price rise—oil has risen at least 50% in the last year alone—produces GDP losses that, could they have been averted, would significantly offset the cost of increased RE deployment. This paper draws on the empirical oil–GDP literature, which we summarize, to show that (i) by displacing gas and oil, renewable energy investments can help nations avoid costly macroeconomic losses produced by the oil–GDP effect and, (ii) that these avoided losses represent a significant external macroeconomic benefit of such investments.

We show that a 10% increase in RE share avoids GDP losses in the range of $29–$53 billion in the US and the EU ($49–$90 billion for OECD). These avoided losses offset one-fifth of the RE investment needs projected by the EREC and half the OECD investment projected by a G-8 Task Force. For the US, the figures further suggest that each additional kW of renewables, on average, avoids $250–$450 in GDP losses, a figure that varies across technologies as a function of annual capacity factors. We approximate that the offset is worth $200/kW for wind and solar and $800/kW for geothermal and biomass. While we focus only on renewables, the GDP offset will apply in some measure to other non-fossil technologies including energy efficiency, DSM and nuclear. The societal valuation of non-fossil alternatives must reflect these avoided GDP losses, whose benefit is not fully captured by private investors. This said, we fully recognize that wealth created in this manner does not directly form a pool of public funds that is easily earmarked for renewables support.

Finally, the oil–GDP relationship has important implications for correctly estimating direct electricity generating cost for conventional and renewable alternatives and for developing more useful energy security and diversity concepts. We also address these issues

This paper investigates a neglected aspect of the transitions literature: the destabilisation of existing regimes and industries. It presents an analytical perspective that integrates four existing views on destabilisation and conceptualizes the process as a multi-dimensional and enacted phenomenon involving technical, economic, political, and cultural processes. This perspective is illustrated with two historical cases of the British coal industry (1913–1967, 1967–1997). These cases are also used to articulate five lessons regarding the overall destabilisation process and five lessons regarding the economic and socio-political environments of industries. The conclusion section translates the historical lessons into insights with relevance for the contemporary challenge of climate change and transitions to low-carbon energy systems.

Between 1989 and 2004, energy consumption for road freight in the UK is estimated to have increased by only 6.3%. Over the same period, UK GDP increased by 43.3%, implying that the aggregate energy intensity of UK road freight fell by 25.8%. During this period, therefore, the UK achieved relative but not absolute decoupling of road freight energy consumption from GDP. Other measures of road freight activity, such as tonnes lifted, tonnes moved, loaded distance travelled and total distance travelled also increased much slower than GDP. The main factor contributing to the observed decoupling was the declining value of manufactured goods relative to GDP. Reductions in the average payload weight, the amount of empty running and the fuel use per vehicle kilometre also appear to have made a contribution, while other factors have acted to increase aggregate energy intensity. The results demonstrate that the UK has been more successful than most EU countries in decoupling the environmental impacts of road freight transport from GDP. However, this is largely the unintended outcome of various economic trends rather than the deliberate result of policy.

Voluntary carbon offsets represent a growing share of the carbon market as a whole, and have the potential to contribute to meeting greenhouse gas emissions targets and reducing anthropogenic climate change. Certain offset project types may also deliver co-benefits including safeguarding or promoting biodiversity, supporting human development and poverty reduction, and enabling market and technology development in low-carbon sectors. These co-benefits might encourage consumers to participate in the voluntary offset market, depending on their effects both on consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for offsets and on implementation costs. However, the offset market is not yet sufficiently developed to give a clear indication of consumer WTP for offsets with varying attributes. This exploratory stated preference study therefore uses a choice experiment to estimate WTP for certified and uncertified offsets, with or without these specific co-benefits, in an aviation context. It is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to do so. Our results suggest that uptake of voluntary offsets may be encouraged by investing in projects with co-benefits and by emphasising those co-benefits to consumers. They also suggest that certification regimes will add value to offsets, helping compensate for increased costs, provided that consumers are made fully aware of them.

A practical mathematical programming model for the strategic fuel diversification problem is presented. The model is designed to consider the tradeoffs between the expected costs of investments in capacity, operating and maintenance costs, average fuel costs, and the variability of fuel costs. In addition, the model is designed to take the load curve into account at a high degree of resolution, while keeping the computational burden at a practical level.

The model is illustrated with a case study for Indiana's power generation system. The model reveals that an effective means of reducing the volatility of the system-level fuel costs is through the reduction of dependence on coal-fired generation with an attendant shift towards nuclear generation. Model results indicate that about a 25% reduction in the standard deviation of the generation costs can be achieved with about a 20–25% increase in average fuel costs. Scenarios that incorporate costs for carbon dioxide emissions or a moratorium on nuclear capacity additions are also presented.

Economic cost-benefit analysis of the costs of greenhouse gas emission abatement and climate change often points towards limited abatement. This note elucidates one reason why this result is obtained: the way in which the intangible damages are treated and the utility function is specified. On the basis of the DICE model, it is shown that by putting the intangible damages directly into the utility function, and by assuming them to grow with per capita income, the optimal reduction increases, and in the second case more than triples, compared to Nordhaus's original results.

Joint implementation is a hotly debated issue in the context of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC). The main argument for joint implementation is that, since it does not matter where greenhouse gas emissions are reduced (as these gases mix uniformly in the atmosphere), it is better to do it where abatement is cheapest. Many objections to joint implementation exist. Here we add one that argues against the uniform mixing property. Although in the long run the global climate is insensitive to the place where abatement is undertaken, in the short run the regional climate changes with the induced changes in the albedo. Indeed, reduction of the atmospheric load of sulphate aerosols and albedo changes associated with land cover change may well lead to accelerated warming in the region of abatement. This is undesirable as the rate of climatic change is a major determinant of the damage done. Hence, the discussion on joint implementation is further complicated.

Climate change is unique among the consequences of fossil fuel burning in its far reaching impact, both spatially and temporally. Earlier studies estimate the aggregated monetized damage due to climate change at 1.5 to 2.0% of world GDP (for 2 × CO2); the OECD would lose 1.0 to 1.5% of GDP; the developing countries 2.0 to 9.0%, according to these estimates. These figures are not comprehensive and highly uncertain. Newer studies increasingly emphasize adaptation, variability, extreme events, other (non-climate change) stress factors and the need for integrated assessment of damages. As a result, differences in impacts between regions and sectors have increased, the market impacts in developed countries tended to fall, and non-market impacts have become increasingly important. Marginal damages are more interesting from a policy point of view. Earlier estimates range from about US$5 to US$125 per tonne of carbon, with most estimates at the lower end of this range. These figures are based on polynomial functions in the level of climate change, but the rate of change may be equally important, as are the speed of adaptation, restoration and value adjustment. Furthermore, future vulnerability to climate change will be different from current vulnerability. On the whole, the market impacts fall (relatively) with economic growth while the non-market impacts rise (relatively) with growth.

Several issues relating to insurance and the damage costs of climate change are discussed. It is argued that the option of insuring climate change is severely limited because the associated damages are hardly quantifiable and little diversifiable; in addition, binding contracts are a problem on long time scales and in an international context. Hedging, consumption smoothing over time, precautionary investments and liability are not to be presented under the heading of insurance, not only because this unnecessarily and confusingly expands the traditional definition of insurance, but also because this could create a false sense of security. The impact of climate change on the profitability of the commercial insurance sector is not likely to be severe, as the insurance companies are capable of shifting changed risks to the insured, provided that they are properly and timely informed on the consequences of climate change.

A model of carbon dioxide emissions of the USA is presented. The model consists of population, income per capita, economic structure, final and primary energy intensity per sector, primary fuel mix, and emission coefficients. The model is simple enough to be calibrated to observations since 1850. The model is used to project emissions until 2100. Best-guess carbon dioxide emissions are in the middle of the IPCC SRES scenarios, but incomes and energy intensities are on the high side, while carbon intensities are on the low side. The confidence interval suggests that the SRES scenarios do not span the range of non-implausible futures. Although the model can be calibrated to reflect structural changes in the economy, it cannot anticipate such changes. The data poorly constrain crucial scenario elements, particularly energy prices. This suggests that the range of future emissions is wider still.

Under European Union proposals for CO2 emission reduction between 2013 and 2020, a Member State can transfer to another Member State the right to use its unused Clean Development Mechanism ("CDM") credits. The paper addresses three issues in relation to these CDM Warrants ("CDMW"). First, how should the Member State treat the CDMW in making decisions concerning emission reduction? The price of the property right is an important signal for a Member State in deciding the level of domestic abatement compared to trading in CDMWs. In other words, a shadow price for CDMWs should be used in formulating the emission strategy in order to determine whether or not a Member State is a buyer or seller of CDMWs. Second, what mechanism should be used to facilitate the exchange of CDMWs? The preferred mechanism depends on the market size, over which there appears to be some ambiguity: market intermediaries such as Over-the-Counter trades and exchanges are preferred if market size is small; auctions if the market size is large. Third, who should realise the value of CDMWs-the State, existing polluters, etc.? The value of CDMWs should accrue to the State.

The European Commission as a whole and a number of its Member States individually have adopted a stringent long-term target for climate policy, namely that the global mean temperature should not rise more than 2 °C above pre-industrial times. This target is supported by rather thin arguments, based on inadequate methods, sloppy reasoning, and selective citation from a very narrow set of studies. In the scientific literature on "dangerous interference with the climate system", most studies discuss either methodological issues, or carefully lay out the arguments for or against a particular target. These studies do not make specific recommendations, with the exception of cost-benefit analyses, which unanimously argue for less stringent policy targets. However, there are also a few "scientific" studies that recommend a target without supporting argumentation. Overall, the 2 °C target of the EU seems unfounded.

The EU has proposed four flexibility mechanisms for the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions in the period 2013-2020: (1) the Emissions Trade Scheme (ETS), a permit market between selected companies; (2) trade in non-ETS allotments between Member States; (3) the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to purchase offsets in developing countries; and (4) trade in CDM warrants between Member States. This paper shows that aggregate abatement costs fall as flexibility increases. However, limited flexibility creates rents so that increasing flexibility raises costs in some Member States. Costs are reduced more by the CDM than by non-ETS trade. The CDM warrants market reduces costs by a small amount only; market power is a real issue. However, the warrants market is obsolete in case there is non-ETS trade. The CDM leads to price convergence between the ETS and non-ETS market. There would be one price for carbon in the European Union if the proposed limits on CDM access are relaxed slightly.

The EU proposal on greenhouse gas emission reduction has 28 targets for 2020: an EU-wide one for CO2 emissions covered by the European Trading System (ETS), and one target for non-ETS emissions per Member State. Implementation is more expensive than needed. I consider three alternative proposals to reduce costs. In the Irish proposal, Member States can purchase ETS permits to offset excess non-ETS emissions. In the Polish proposal, Member States can sell excess non-ETS emissions in the ETS. In the Swedish proposal, Member States can trade their non-ETS allocations. I compare these alternatives to the default policy (no flexibility outside the ETS) and the cost-effective solution (full flexibility). I calibrate a simple model to the results of the EU impact assessment, which did not disclose all details and made odd assumptions. The non-ETS allocation exceeds the projected emissions for three Member States. The alternative flexibility mechanisms would be used to only a limited extent, but would cut the costs of meeting the target. The Swedish and Polish proposals come closest to the cost-effective solution because of the hot air. The Irish proposal performs best if there are negative surprises in either abatement costs or emissions. The Swedish proposal will become policy.

In this paper, we carry out a meta-analysis of recent studies into the costs of greenhouse gas mitigation policies that aim at the long-term stabilisation of these gases in the atmosphere. We find the cost estimates of the studies to be sensitive to the stringency of the stabilisation target, the assumed emissions baseline, the way in which the time profile of emissions is determined in the model, the choice of control variable (CO2 only versus multigas), the number of regions and energy sources in the model and, to a lesser degree, the scientific "forum" in which the study was developed. We find that marginal abatement costs of the stringent long-term targets that are currently considered by the European Commission are still very uncertain but might exceed the costs that have been suggested by recent policy assessments.

Terrestrial vegetation sinks have entered the Kyoto Protocol as offsets for anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, but ocean sinks have escaped attention. Ocean sinks are as unexplored and uncertain as were the terrestrial sinks at the time of negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol. It is not unlikely that certain countries will advocate the inclusion of ocean carbon sinks to reduce their emission reduction obligations in post-2012 negotiations. We use a simple model of the international market for carbon dioxide emissions to evaluate who would gain or loose from allowing for ocean carbon sinks. Our analysis is restricted to information on anthropogenic carbon sequestration within the exclusive economic zone of a country. We use information on the actual carbon flux and derive the human-induced uptake for the period from 1990 onwards. Like the carbon sequestration of business as usual forest management activities, natural ocean carbon sequestration applies at zero costs. The total amount of anthropogenic ocean carbon sequestration is large, also in the exclusive economic zones. As a consequence, it substantially alters the costs of emission reduction for most countries. Countries such as Australia, Denmark, France, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway and Portugal would gain substantially, and a large number of countries would benefit too. Current net exporters of carbon permits, particularly Russia, would gain less and oppose the inclusion of ocean carbon sinks.

The recent literature discusses optimal paths towards stabilization of atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. The differences in the impact of climate change between alternative scenarios have largely been ignored, however. This paper analyses these differences. Using a selection of plausible, yet speculative, models of climate change impact and a range of sensitivity analyses, it is shown that no stabilization path is unambiguously preferred to its alternative. The ambiguity originates both from the limited scientific knowledge and from ethical choices (eg time discount rate). However, over most of the assumption space explored here, there appears to be a preference for an earlier reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The best estimate of the additional impact caused by a delay of emission reduction is smaller than the cost savings, but uncertainties are too large to draw this conclusion with any certainty.

Customary international law has that countries may do each other no harm. A country violates this rule if an activity under its control does damage to another country, and if this is done on purpose or due to carelessness. Impacts of climate change fall under this rule, which is reinforced by many declarations and treaties, including the UNFCCC. Compensation for the harm done depends on many parameters, such as emission scenarios, climate change, climate change impacts and its accounting. The compensation paid by the OECD may run up to 4% of its GDP, far exceeding the costs of climate change to the OECD directly. However, the most crucial issues are, first, from when countries can be held responsible and, second, which emissions are acceptable and which careless. This may even be interpreted such that the countries of the OECD are entitled to compensation, rather than be obliged to pay. State responsibility could substantially change international climate policy.

One hundred and three estimates of the marginal damage costs of carbon dioxide emissions were gathered from 28 published studies and combined to form a probability density function. The uncertainty is strongly right-skewed. If all studies are combined, the mode is $2/tC, the median $14/tC, the mean $93/tC, and the 95 percentile $350/tC. Studies with a lower discount rate have higher estimates and much greater uncertainties. Similarly, studies that use equity weighing, have higher estimates and larger uncertainties. Interestingly, studies that are peer-reviewed have lower estimates and smaller uncertainties. Using standard assumptions about discounting and aggregation, the marginal damage costs of carbon dioxide emissions are unlikely to exceed $50/tC, and probably much smaller.

This paper estimates the value of short term lost load in the all island electricity market, which includes the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The value of lost load (VoLL) is the average willingness of electricity consumers to pay to avoid an additional period without power. VoLL is also known as the value of security of electricity supply and is inferred using a production function approach. Detailed electricity use data for the Republic of Ireland allows us to estimate the value of lost load by time of day, time of week and type of user. We find that the value of lost load is highest in the residential sector in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Our results can be used to advise policy decisions in the case of supply outages and to encourage optimum supply security. In the context of this study short term is taken to be a matter of hours rather than days or weeks.

Using a simple model designed for transparency but nonetheless calibrated to support the much-quoted damage estimates of the Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change, we demonstrate significant sensitivity of those results to assumptions about the pure rate of time preference, the time horizon, and the rates of risk and equity aversion used to compute certainty- and equity-equivalent annuities. Most importantly, we demonstrate enormous sensitivity to presumed constant regional vulnerability and underlying assumptions about adaptive capacity. Manipulation of any of these parameters one at a time across reasonable ranges can diminish damage estimates by as much as 84% or, in the case of extending the time horizon with the Review's low discount rate, increase damage estimates by 900%. We also confirm the usual result that limiting atmospheric concentrations to specific benchmarks above 400 ppm cannot eliminate all damages. Nonetheless, we applaud the Stern Review author team for reconfirming that the climate problem can be approached productively as an economic problem whose solutions can be explored with the tools of decision analysis. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

We examine the impact of recent tax reforms in Ireland on private car transport and its greenhouse gas emissions. A carbon tax was introduced on fuels, and purchase (vehicle registration) and ownership (motor) taxes were switched from engine size to potential emissions. We use a demographic model of the car stock (by age, size, and fuel) and a car purchase model that reflects the heterogeneous distribution of mileage and usage costs across various engine sizes. The model shows a dramatic shift from petrol to diesel cars, particularly for large engines. The same pattern is observed in the latest data on car sales. This has a substantial impact on tax revenue as car owners shift to the lower tax rates. The tax burden has shifted from car ownership to car use, and that the overall tax burden on private car transport falls. As diesel engines are more fuel efficient than petrol engines, carbon dioxide emissions fall modestly or, if we consider the rebound effect of travel costs on mileage, minimally. From the perspective of the revenue, the costs per tonne of carbon dioxide avoided are (very) high.

We study the effects of carbon tax and revenue recycling across the income distribution in the Republic of Ireland. In absolute terms, a carbon tax of €20/tCO2 would cost the poorest households less than €3/week and the richest households more than €4/week. A carbon tax is regressive, therefore. However, if the tax revenue is used to increase social benefits and tax credits, households across the income distribution can be made better off without exhausting the total carbon tax revenue.

The areas of energy, water and food policy have numerous interwoven concerns ranging from ensuring access to services, to environmental impacts to price volatility. These issues manifest in very different ways in each of the three "spheres", but often the impacts are closely related. Identifying these interrelationships a priori is of great importance to help target synergies and avoid potential tensions. Systems thinking is required to address such a wide swath of possible topics. This paper briefly describes some of the linkages at a high-level of aggregation - primarily from a developing country perspective - and via case studies, to arrive at some promising directions for addressing the nexus. To that end, we also present the attributes of a modelling framework that specifically addresses the nexus, and can thus serve to inform more effective national policies and regulations. While environmental issues are normally the 'cohesive principle' from which the three areas are considered jointly, the enormous inequalities arising from a lack of access suggest that economic and security-related issues may be stronger motivators of change. Finally, consideration of the complex interactions will require new institutional capacity both in industrialised and developing countries. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd.

Facing financial crisis, and in some cases deteriorating performance, developing countries are being recommended by the World Bank to privatize their electricity systems. While reform is necessary and private capital may help solve financial problems, the experience of privatization in the UK electricity system suggests that privatization in developing countries is unlikely to be accompanied by much competition. This in turn suggests a need not for a straightforward rolling back of the state in developing countries but rather the development of new forms of state activity both in organizing, and in the longer term regulating, the new, privatized institutional structure.

Human well-being and social welfare depend heavily on affordable access to energy services. Yet, the availability of energy to provide these services can be limited by scarce resources, environmental constraints and political instability, which is enhanced by competition for resources. The current system of providing energy services is insufficient to cope with these system limitations and is not sustainable for the future. One of the main tasks in this century, and in particular during the next few decades, will be to manage transition processes towards a sustainable energy system.

The aim of this paper is to explore the extent to which the construction of new nuclear power plants in the UK can safeguard or enhance energy security. The paper starts with a discussion of energy security, and breaks it down into four main categories of threat. These include threats due to fossil fuel scarcity and external disruptions, problems due to a lack of investment in infrastructure, threats due to technology or infrastructure failure, and risks due to domestic activism or terrorism. The paper then discusses one of the most common strategies put forward to improve securitythe promotion of diversity within energy systems. Following this, the paper assesses the potential for new nuclear investment to ameliorate security threats in each of the four categories introduced earlier in the paper. The paper concludes that whilst nuclear investment can help to mitigate some threats to UK energy security, the government's case for supporting this investment ignores some equally important security issues. As a result, the energy security case for nuclear power has not yet been made.

Within the polarised and contentious debate over future oil supply a growing number of commentators are forecasting a near term peak and subsequent decline in production. But although liquid fuels form the foundation of modern industrial economies, the growing debate on `peak oil has relatively little influence on energy and climate policy. With this in mind, the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) has conducted an independent, thorough and systematic review of the evidence, with the aim of establishing the current state of knowledge, identifying key uncertainties and improving consensus. The study focuses upon the physical depletion of conventional oil in the period to 2030 and includes an in-depth literature review, analysis of industry databases and a detailed comparison of global supply forecasts. This Communication summarises the main findings of the UKERC study. A key conclusion is that a peak of conventional oil production before 2030 appears likely and there is a significant risk of a peak before 2020.

Achieving the ambitious targets for renewable electricity generation in Europe will require harnessing a diverse range of energy sources, many of which are decentralised, small scale, and will be connected directly to the distribution networks. To control the two-way flows of electricity, the current passive network configurations will need to be replaced by active network management. This will require, in particular, innovations in intelligent IT-based network control. This paper draws on research on Large Technical Systems (LTS) and control systems in other sectors to analyse the evolution of electricity network control in western Denmark and the UK, since the Second World War. It concludes that lack of progress in network control has only recentlylargely because of the combined needs to provide greater reliability and green electricity within liberalised marketsemerged as a reverse salient that will prevent the further development of the LTS of electricity supply industry towards desired direction. Breaking the inertia in the LTS and its control systems will require determined government action to promote learning and collaborative search for solutions. The UK might well draw lessons from the Danish pragmatism in fostering innovation through targeted support to collaborative R&D efforts towards sustainability objectives.

World steam coal demand will be driven, for the next decade, by coal-capable power station capacity. Barring very large price changes, coal prices will be a less important determinant of demand, except in the smaller industrial market. The SPRU power plant data base, which also contains data on plant under construction, is used to establish likely year 2000 levels of coal demand inside and outside the OECD, and of traded coal demand. It is concluded that demand growth will be real but modest; price competition from international coal will put pressure on the European coal industries, including the UK's.

The determinants of industrial electricity demand are examined and it is found that more than 40% of demand growth in the period 1959¿1980 was caused by factors either unrelated or only indirectly related to growth in industrial output. Factors such as adjustments in industrial structure, technical change and the decline in self-generation of electricity were all important contributors to demand growth. Together with the methodological problems of using price as an explanatory variable, this suggests that those econometric approaches to demand forecasting for industrial electricity which rely solely on projections of industrial output and price are seriously defective. Output level and price are important in future demand, but current methods are not appropriate to capture their effect and more detailed sectoral work is required, which should take into account structural and technical change and developments in self-generation.

Economic cost-benefit analysis of the costs of greenhouse gas emission abatement and climate change often points towards limited abatement. This note elucidates one reason why this result is obtained: the way in which the intangible damages are treated and the utility function is specified. On the basis of the DICE model, it is shown that by putting the intangible damages directly into the utility function, and by assuming them to grow with per capita income, the optimal reduction increases, and in the second case more than triples, compared to Nordhaus's original results.

Beginning with William Stanley Jevons in 1865, a number of authors have claimed that economically justified energy-efficiency improvements will increase rather than reduce energy consumption. `Jevons Paradox is extremely difficult to test empirically, but could have profound implications for energy and climate policy. This paper summarises and critiques the arguments and evidence that have been cited in support of Jevons Paradox, focusing in particular on the work of Len Brookes and Harry Saunders. It identifies some empirical and theoretical weaknesses in these arguments, highlights the questions they raise for economic orthodoxy and points to some interesting parallels between these arguments and those used by the `biophysical school of ecological economics. While the evidence in favour of `Jevons Paradox is far from conclusive, it does suggest that economy-wide rebound effects are larger than is conventionally assumed and that energy plays a more important role in driving productivity improvements and economic growth than is conventionally assumed.

This paper examines the economic, environmental and distributional impacts of an idealised tradable white certificate (TWC) scheme and shows how the impacts are modified when the scheme operates in parallel with the EU emissions trading scheme (EU ETS). It uses simple graphical techniques to assess whether a TWC scheme will increase, decrease or have an ambiguous effect on electricity demand, wholesale and retail electricity prices, carbon emissions and investment in energy efficiency, paying particular attention to the interpretation of `additionality.

The need for diversity has been cited as a rationale for important recent investment decisions in the UK electricity supply sector. It is invoked as the principal argument for continuing major government intervention. Yet there exists no formal analytical basis for the concept. Why is diversity good? What is meant by 'diversification'? What is it that must be 'diversified'? What trade off should be struck between 'diversity' and other measures of performance? The resulting ambiguity causes confusion and is vulnerable to special pleading. Despite this, this paper argues that diversification offers a superior alternative to probabilistic approaches towards uncertainty and ignorance in electricity supply investments and proposes a formal analytical approach. A quantitative index of diversity is borrowed from information theory and used to derive a value for the government's implicit willingness to pay for diversity in the UK electricity supply mix. This is then applied in a pilot exercise to the problem of optimizing the diversity and financial performance of the supply portfolio. Although provisional, the results are relevant to the government's forthcoming Nuclear Review, particularly in assessing the relative levels of support for nuclear power and renewable energy.

Energy transitions to sustainability receive much interest in politics and science. Using a socio-technical and multi-level theory on transitions, this article draws important lessons from a long-term analysis of the Dutch electricity system. The article analyses technical developments, changes in rules and visions, and social networks that support and oppose renewable options. The article is multi-level because it looks at novel renewable energy technologies and structural trends in the existing electricity regime. The analysis shows that an energy transition, with roots in the 1960s and 1970s, is already occurring, but driven mainly by liberalisation and Europeanisation. Environmental aspects have become part of this ongoing transition, but do not form its main driver. Many barriers exist for a sustainability transition, but there are also some opportunities. A long-term analysis of renewable niche-innovation trajectories (wind, biomass, PV) provides lessons about socio-technical dynamics, problems and windows of opportunity.

The concept of evidence-based policy and practice (EBPP) has gained increasing prominence in the UK over the last 10 years and now plays a dominant role in a number of policy areas, including healthcare, education, social work, criminal justice and urban regeneration. But despite this substantial, influential and growing activity, the concept remains largely unknown to policymakers and researchers within the energy field. This paper defines EBPP, identifies its key features and examines the potential role of systematic reviews of evidence in a particular area of policy. It summarises the methods through which systematic reviews are achieved; discusses their advantages and limitations; identifies the particular challenges they face in the energy policy area; and assesses whether and to what extent they can usefully be applied to contemporary energy policy questions. The concept is illustrated with reference to a proposed review of evidence for a 'rebound effect' from improved energy efficiency. The paper concludes that systematic reviews may only be appropriate for a subset of energy policy questions and that research-funding priorities may need to change if their use is to become more widespread.

Within a broad study of the economic case for and against nuclear power, the paper contends that for the UK government as well as private investors to take it as a serious alternative to renewables or gas, it will need to achieve `ordinariness¿ (i.e. cease to be treated as a special case). This regrettably remains a rather distant prospect. The paper has been widely cited in the more recent public debate on nuclear power.

The empirical evidence from a growing body of academic literature clearly suggests that oil price increases and volatility dampen macroeconomic growth by raising inflation and unemployment and by depressing the value of financial and other assets. Surprisingly, this issue seems to have received little attention from energy policy makers.

In percentage terms, the oil–GDP effect is relatively small, producing losses in the order of 0.5% of GDP for a 10% oil price increase. In absolute terms however, even a 10% oil price rise—oil has risen at least 50% in the last year alone—produces GDP losses that, could they have been averted, would significantly offset the cost of increased RE deployment. This paper draws on the empirical oil–GDP literature, which we summarize, to show that (i) by displacing gas and oil, renewable energy investments can help nations avoid costly macroeconomic losses produced by the oil–GDP effect and, (ii) that these avoided losses represent a significant external macroeconomic benefit of such investments.

We show that a 10% increase in RE share avoids GDP losses in the range of $29–$53 billion in the US and the EU ($49–$90 billion for OECD). These avoided losses offset one-fifth of the RE investment needs projected by the EREC and half the OECD investment projected by a G-8 Task Force. For the US, the figures further suggest that each additional kW of renewables, on average, avoids $250–$450 in GDP losses, a figure that varies across technologies as a function of annual capacity factors. We approximate that the offset is worth $200/kW for wind and solar and $800/kW for geothermal and biomass. While we focus only on renewables, the GDP offset will apply in some measure to other non-fossil technologies including energy efficiency, DSM and nuclear. The societal valuation of non-fossil alternatives must reflect these avoided GDP losses, whose benefit is not fully captured by private investors. This said, we fully recognize that wealth created in this manner does not directly form a pool of public funds that is easily earmarked for renewables support.

Finally, the oil–GDP relationship has important implications for correctly estimating direct electricity generating cost for conventional and renewable alternatives and for developing more useful energy security and diversity concepts. We also address these issues.

China's growing demand for energy and its dependence on coal has seen its carbon emissions increase more than 50% since 2000. Within the debate about mitigating global climate change, there is mounting pressure for emerging economies like China to take more responsibility for reducing their carbon emissions within a post-2012 international climate change policy framework. For China, this leads to fundamental questions about how feasible it is for the country to shift away from its recent carbon intensive pattern of growth. This paper presents some general results of scenarios that have been developed to investigate how China might continue to develop within a cumulative carbon emissions budget. The results show how changes in the key sectors of the Chinese economy could enable China to follow four different low carbon development pathways, each of which complies with a cumulative emissions constraint. Each scenario reflects different priorities for governmental decision making, infrastructure investments and social preferences. Having compared the key features of each scenario, the paper concludes with some implications for Chinese government policy.

Increasingly, researchers and policy makers are confronting the challenge of restructuring energy systems into more sustainable forms. A [`]transition management' model, and its adoption in the Netherlands, is attracting attention. Starting from the socio-technical multi-level theory that informs [`]transition management', we analyse the [`]energy transition' project carried out by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. Despite considerable achievements, their approach risks capture by the incumbent energy regime, thereby undermining original policy ambitions for structural innovation of the energy system. This experience presents generic dilemmas for transitions approaches.

With anxieties about oil has come the recognition that uranium supplies are not inexhaustible and that, like oil, uranium poses problems of import dependence and cartelization. Debate on the long-term prospects for uranium supply and price has centred on the hypothetical, unanswerable question 'What additional uranium resources will ultimately be discovered and at what prices will they become available?'. The question is unasnwerable because the geological and cost uncertainties are too great. In this article the authors examine the structure, organization and operation of the international uranium market because they believe that in practical terms these factors will be a major influence on uranium availability

Applying the techniques of decomposition analysis we estimate the relative contribution of ten variables (termed 'key ratios') plus GDP to the change in UK road freight energy use over the period 19892004 inclusive. The results are best interpreted as an estimate of the percentage growth in energy consumption that would have resulted from the change in the relevant factor (e.g. length of haul) had the other factors remained unchanged. The results demonstrate that the main factor contributing to the decoupling of UK road freight energy consumption from GDP was the decline in the value of domestically manufactured goods relative to GDP. Over the period 19892004 this largely offset the effect of increases in GDP on road freight energy consumption. While the decline in domestic manufacturing was to some extent displaced by increases in imports, the net effect of these supply factors, together with shifts in the commodity mix, has been to reduce UK road freight energy consumption by 30.1%. The net effect on global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is likely to be somewhat less beneficial, since many freight movements associated with the manufacture of imported goods have simply been displaced to other countries

Fusion research policy has recently come under scrutiny, prompted by rising research costs and increasing doubt about the value of such long-term work. This paper reviews the basic principles of fusion, the research and development still required, the costs of research to date, justifications for it, and future policy options; and examines in broad terms some of the ways in which fusion can be and has been evaluated. Throughout, the emphasis is on the need to compare fusion on equal terms with those technological options with which it may compete, and in the context of different energy futures.

This paper compares and evaluates fourteen contemporary forecasts of global supply of conventional oil and provides some observations on their relative plausibility. Despite the wide range of modelling approaches used and multiplicity of assumptions made, it is shown that forecasts can be usefully compared along two dimensions, namely: shape of future production profile and assumed or implied ultimately recoverable resource of conventional oil. Other differences between forecasts are either secondary or are components of these two parameters. The paper shows how large differences in the assumed size of the resource make relatively little difference to the timing of a global peak in conventional oil production. It also examines the impact of rates of discovery, reserves growth and depletion on the forecast date of peak and shows how forecasts that delay this peak until beyond 2030 rest on assumptions that are at best optimistic and at worst implausible.

Electricity generation by individual households (known as micro-generation) is attracting an increasing amount of interest within government, industry and the research community. This paper focuses on the potential for micro-generation to contribute to a more active role for household energy consumers in the development and operation of the energy system. The paper applies the concept of energy service co-provision to aid an understanding of this more active role. It considers a number of alternative models for micro-generation investment that imply different kinds of co-provision by consumers and energy companies. The analysis focuses in particular on the economics of these models in the UK, the associated barriers to micro-generation investment, and the scope for overcoming these barriers through changes in fiscal rules. Having conducted this economic analysis, the paper concludes with a brief discussion of the wider implications of these models for consumer behaviour. In particular, it considers the impact of IT and control systems that might be employed to facilitate energy service co-provision that includes micro-generation.

Britain and Norway have been European pioneers in liberalising their electricity systems, but they have done so in very different ways. Both attempted to create a system in which the potentially competitive activities, generation and supply to final consumers, were opened up to market forces. However, Britain has liberalised by privatisation leaving generation largely concentrated in a few companies. Norway has maintained a dominant public ownership, but has sought to create a competitive environment through a decentralised production structure. The British ‘capitalist’ and the Norwegian ‘structuralist’ approaches both exhibit clear market oriented features, but with the dynamics placed respectively on the ownership side and on decentralised competition. Yet the two models are also reflections of two historical heritages. The differences in political style help to explain the more dramatic and controversial character of the British reform as compared to the rather pragmatic Norwegian process. The difference between the two reform models also has a bearing on their strengths and weaknesses. The Norwegian model, with its small scale municipal orientation is almost ideal for a competitive free trade market in a closed economy, but problematic in a larger international competitive context. For the British model the concentration and advanced capitalist ownership strategies create regulatory dilemmas, such as the current wave of takeovers, that are not easily handled.

High costs and extremely long and expensive R & D programmes have led to extensive involvement by governments in decisions concerning nuclear reactors. The authors examine the decision-making processes of the British nuclear industry, looking in particular at the history of the Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR). They conclude that both the institutional framework in which the decision was made and the decision itself give cause for concern. In particular the lack of public discussion and the dual role of the UKAEA as both prototype developer and technical adviser to the government make objective judgement difficult

This paper outlines a novel general framework for analysing energy diversity. A critical review of different reasons for policy interest reveals that diversity is more than a supply security strategy. There are particular synergies with strategies for transitions to sustainability. Yet despite much important work policy analysis tends to address only a subset of the properties of diversity and remains subject to ambiguity, neglect and special pleading. Developing earlier work, the paper proposes a more comprehensive heuristic framework, accommodating a wide range of different disciplinary and socio-political perspectives. It is argued that the associated multicriteria diversity analysis method provides a more systematic, complete and transparent way to articulate disparate perspectives and approaches and so help to inform more robust and accountable policymaking.

Based on Phase I of a UK-India collaborative study, this paper analyses two case studies of low carbon technologies¿hybrid vehicles and coal-fired power generation via integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC). The analysis highlights the following six key considerations for the development of policy aimed at facilitating low carbon technology transfer to developing countries: (1) technology transfer needs to be seen as part of a broader process of sustained, low carbon technological capacity development in recipient countries; (2) the fact that low carbon technologies are at different stages of development means that low carbon technology transfer involves both vertical transfer (the transfer of technologies from the R&D stage through to commercialisation) and horizontal transfer (the transfer from one geographical location to another). Barriers to transfer and appropriate policy responses often vary according to the stage of technology development as well as the specific source and recipient country contexts; (3) less integrated technology transfer arrangements, involving, for example, acquisition of different items of plant from a range of host country equipment manufacturers, are more likely to involve knowledge exchange and diffusion through recipient country economies; (4) recipient firms that, as part of the transfer process, strategically aim to obtain technological know-how and knowledge necessary for innovation during the transfer process are more likely to be able to develop their capacity as a result; (5) whilst access to Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) may sometimes be a necessary part of facilitating technology transfer, it is not likely to be sufficient in itself. Other factors such as absorptive capacity and risks associated with new technologies must also be addressed; (6) there is a central role for both national and international policy interventions in achieving low carbon technology transfer. The lack of available empirical analysis on low carbon technology transfer, coupled with the prominence of the issue within international climate negotiations, suggests an urgent need for further research effort in this area

Nuclear power has performed badly in recent years as a new investment everywhere except Japan and Korea. This has mainly been for orthodox financial and economic reasons. Among the factors contributing to this loss of competitiveness, persistently rising real capital costs have been particularly important. While the nuclear industry has believed it could control and reduce capital costs, increasing regulatory stringency has made designs more complex and correspondingly more costly. These cost increasing factors have far outweighed traditional cost reducing factors (like learning). The only lasting way to meet increasing stringency in safety at acceptably low cost is likely to be the development of new and simpler reactor designs.

This paper explores the barriers to energy efficiency in the construction of non-domestic buildings in the UK. The source of the barriers is argued to lie in the organisation of the construction industry, including the linear design process, the reliance on cost-based competitive tendering and the incentives placed upon different actors. The consequences include oversizing of equipment, reduced quality, neglect of whole life costs and lack of integrated design. Each of these problems can usefully be interpreted using concepts from the new institutional economics. While the barriers are well known to construction industry specialists, they are relatively neglected in the academic literature on energy policy. Furthermore, conventional policy measures such as building regulations leave these barriers largely untouched. The UK construction industry is currently undergoing a series of reforms which aim to change the relationship between different actors and to achieve improvements in product quality and productivity. While these reforms have the potential to address many of the barriers, the reform agenda makes practically no reference to sustainability. This paper argues that climate policy objectives must be integrated into the reform agenda if the UK is to begin the transition to a low carbon built environment.

Energy service contracting can provide a cost-effective route to overcoming barriers to energy efficiency. Energy service contracts allow the client to reduce operating costs, transfer risk and concentrate attention on core activities. However, the energy services model may only be appropriate for a subset of energy services and energy using organisations. A challenge for both business strategy and public policy is to identify those situations in which energy service contracting is most likely to be appropriate and the conditions under which it is most likely to succeed. Energy service contracting is a form of outsourcing. It will only be chosen where the expected reduction in the production cost of supplying energy services can more than offset the transaction cost of negotiating and managing the relationship with the energy service provider. Production costs will be determined by a combination of the physical characteristics of the energy system and the technical efficiency of the relevant organisational arrangements, including economies of scale and specialisation. Transaction costs, in turn, will be determined by the complexity of the energy service, the 'specificity' of the investments made by the contractor, the competitiveness of the energy services market and the relevant legal, financial and regulatory rules. This paper develops these ideas into a general framework that may be used to assess the feasibility of energy service contracting in different circumstances. The framework leads to a number of hypotheses that are suitable for empirical test.

Based on recent insights from the field of risk analysis, this paper examines some of the difficulties encountered in attempts to characterise the environmental effects of energy options as monetary 'externalities'. More than 20 different dimensions of environmental appraisal are identified and discussed in relation to the historic literature on risk assessment and a number of recent influential environmental valuation studies. A survey is conducted of the results obtained over more than a decade for the external environmental costs of electricity supply options. Theoretical and methodological criticisms are lent support by the finding that environmental valuation results vary over a very wide range of values, yielding a variety of rank orderings for the different generating options. In addition, the values derived for energy externalities are found to be vulnerable to the possible influence of a 'price imperative'. The paper concludes by pointing to approaches to the social appraisal of generating technologies which offer greater transparency, rigour and accessibility in addressing plural and intrinsically subjective value judgements concerning the different forms and dimensions of environmental effects.

The areas of energy, water and food policy have numerous interwoven concerns ranging from ensuring access to services, to environmental impacts to price volatility. These issues manifest in very different ways in each of the three “spheres”, but often the impacts are closely related. Identifying these interrelationships a priori is of great importance to help target synergies and avoid potential tensions. Systems thinking is required to address such a wide swath of possible topics. This paper briefly describes some of the linkages at a high-level of aggregation – primarily from a developing country perspective – and via case studies, to arrive at some promising directions for addressing the nexus. To that end, we also present the attributes of a modelling framework that specifically addresses the nexus, and can thus serve to inform more effective national policies and regulations. While environmental issues are normally the ‘cohesive principle’ from which the three areas are considered jointly, the enormous inequalities arising from a lack of access suggest that economic and security-related issues may be stronger motivators of change. Finally, consideration of the complex interactions will require new institutional capacity both in industrialised and developing countries.

Beginning with William Stanley Jevons in 1865, a number of authors have claimed that economically justified energy-efficiency improvements will increase rather than reduce energy consumption. 'Jevons Paradox' is extremely difficult to test empirically, but could have profound implications for energy and climate policy. This paper summarises and critiques the arguments and evidence that have been cited in support of Jevons' Paradox, focusing in particular on the work of Len Brookes and Harry Saunders. It identifies some empirical and theoretical weaknesses in these arguments, highlights the questions they raise for economic orthodoxy and points to some interesting parallels between these arguments and those used by the 'biophysical' school of ecological economics. While the evidence in favour of 'Jevons Paradox' is far from conclusive, it does suggest that economy-wide rebound effects are larger than is conventionally assumed and that energy plays a more important role in driving productivity improvements and economic growth than is conventionally assumed. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This paper seeks to provide an accessible introduction to the relevance to energy policy of a fundamental insight from the policy sciences. This concerns the role that the linguistic framing of policy problems and solutions can play in sustaining the dominance of existing policy positions. The paper introduces a discourse perspective to understanding the policy process and uses it to analyse four central goals pursued in energy policy: access, security, efficiency and environmental acceptability, drawing on examples from UK policy documents. It introduces readers to how, as well as requiring technical and economic solutions, a transition to a low carbon energy system will also require a 'reframing' of energy policy problems and solutions in a way that either connects with, or overrides the powerful discourses that shape energy policy today.

This article attempts to summarise the complex, wide ranging and unresolved debate within the economics literature on the possibility of decoupling economic growth from energy use. It explores the difference between neo-classical and ecological economic worldviews and highlights how the ecological economic approach attempts to ground its analysis within the physical limits implied by the laws of thermodynamics. Once these laws are accounted for, the possibility of decoupling economic growth from energy use seems more limited than neo-classical economics implies. Analysis of empirical evidence also demonstrates that observed improvements in GDP/energy use ratios in the USA are better explained by shifts towards higher quality fuels than by improvements in the energy efficiency of technologies. This implies a need to focus on decarbonising energy supply. Furthermore, where energy-efficiency improvements are attempted, they must be considered within the context of a possible rebound effect, which implies that net economy-wide energy savings from energy-efficiency improvements may not be as large as the energy saved directly from the efficiency improvement itself. Both decarbonising energy supply and improving energy efficiency require the rapid development and deployment of new and existing low-carbon technologies. This review therefore concludes by briefly outlining areas of economic thought that have emerged as a result of engagement between economists and experts from other disciplines. They include ecological, evolutionary and institutional economics, all of which can make policy-relevant contributions to achieving a transition to a low-carbon economy.