Talk:Energy economics/new

A nice start

The split from the unconventional Energy economics page is a good thing. Will try to contribute as time allows.

217.144.98.250 09:54, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note the "energy economics" and "energy economics/new" are identical. There is therefore no need to keep "energy economics/new". The old "energy economics" has disappeared, which is a good thing. Rtol (talk) 06:42, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Draft

This is a new start for the Energy economics article
For comments on the previous version see: Talk:Energy economics

Energy economics is a broad scientific subject area which includes topics related to supply and use of energy in societies. Due to diversity of issues and methods applied and shared with a number of academic disciplines, energy economics does not present itself as a self contained academic discipline. On the other hand the importance of energy in the economy and politics provides some cohesion to professional and scientific endeavors in energy economics. From the list of main topics of economics the following are most relevant to energy economics:

Energy economics draws heavily also on results of energy engineering, political sciences, geology, ecology etc. Recent focus of energy economics includes the following issues:

Climate change and climate policy
Risk analysis and security of supply
Sustainability
Energy markets and electricity markets - liberalisation, (de- or re-) regulation
Demand response
Energy and economic growth
Economics of energy infrastructure
Environmental policy
Energy policy
Energy derivatives
Forecasting energy demand
Elasticity of supply and demand in energy market
Energy elasticity measuring energy required to achieve GDP

Some institutions of higher education (universities) recognise energy economics as a viable career opportunity, offering this as a curriculum. There are numerous research departments, companies and professionals offering energy economics studies and consultations.

History

Energy related issues have been actively present in economic literature since the 1973 oil crisis. But when extended to include the ecological point of view the economics of energy resources have their roots much further back in the history. As early as 1865 W.S. Jevons expressed his concern about the eventual depletion of coal resources in his book The Coal Question (also here). One of the best known early attempts to work on the economics of exhaustible resources was made by H. Hotelling. As a result, he derived a price path to non-renewable resources, known as Hotelling's rule.

Key concepts

Analysis of a nation's or a world energy economy can be started from the corresponding energy balance, allowing one to visualise the flows of energy resources and their utilisation on a periodical (usually annual) basis.

However, one shall be aware that this level of analysis inherently misses the economic aspect of the energy problem, since all sources and uses of energy are expressed in physical units (usually quadrillion BTU's). The costs and the efficiency of various energy sources has to be accounted for separately.

Since energy policy planning and analysis is a long-term business, some kind of insight into the sustainability of different policy options is preferable. This implies forecasting of main energy and economic variables along several scenarios and establishing a consistent criterion for comparison among them.

Source and links

There are three journals of energy economics:

There are several other journals that regularly publish papers in energy economics:

There is also a handbook in three volumes.

Much progress in energy economics has been made through the model comparison exercises of the (Stanford) Energy Modeling Forum and the meetings of the International Energy Workshop.

IDEAS/RePEc has a list of energy economists and a ranking of the same.