Oil and the political economy of energy

The key issues concerning oil exploitation are still open for discussion: there is no agreement about where we presently stand in the world oil extraction curve, what is its exact shape, and how far can oil price grow before it changes irreversibly the world economy and consumer behavior. The paper proposes an alternative scenario to the Hubbert's bell-shaped model of oil exploitation, based on more realistic assumptions regarding political agendas in oil-exporting countries and consumer behavior dynamics in oil-importing countries. Under this scenario, the joint impact of markets and public policy in oil importing countries together with “resource pragmatism” policy in oil-exporting countries allows for a less steep oil supply curve with a much fatter tail compared to the Hubbert's model.     

Factors influencing future oil and gas prospects in the Arctic

The article explores oil and natural gas development in the Arctic. While several commentators have argued that an increase in Arctic petroleum production in the years to come will follow directly from an increased demand for energy, our study finds that oil and natural gas production in the Arctic is dependent on a range of variables. By using climate-driven changes as a baseline, we examine spill-over effects and conditions that are important for further Arctic hydrocarbon production. Using the available literature from different scientific fields, this article provides a broad and nuanced perspective on the much debated question of whether or not the Arctic will become a region driven by oil and gas production.     

Strategic position and development prospects of nuclear energy in China

By analyzing the challenges of China’s energy supply, an excellent perspective of nuclear power development in the country has been described. Taking into account the near-, mid-, and long-term development requirements, a comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable nuclear power program is proposed. Thus, our national nuclear industry can not only catch up with the world’s advanced level in proper time, but also possess enough stamina for sustainability.     

Perceptions,realities, concession—What is driving the integration of European energy policies?

Today's European energy policy is characterised by national approaches portraying it as one of the least successful areas of integration despite its importance for our everyday life. This exploratory study presents a new way in analysing the approaches and processes operative in this area. It introduces a new dimension of policy evaluation, the role of national energy majors, and proposes its utilisation in the increasingly important method of using indexes for energy supply security. By doing so, the relevance of perceptions of energy supply security for energy policy integration is highlighted, pointing at the concessions necessary to overcome the integratory deadlock. The indexes proposed in this paper can provide insights for policy-makers and researchers into the ongoing integration process and the crucial importance energy business plays therein. Finally, the exploratory methodology developed in this essay can be employed in various other policy areas to classify, discover and analyse policy directions.     

Recommendations for implementation of energy strategy of the Republic of Croatia

The Energy Strategy of the Republic of Croatia was adopted by the Croatian Parliament in 2009 for the period until 2020 in order to harmonize national energy goals with goals and time framework of strategic documents of the European Union. The adoption of the Energy Strategy Implementation Program with associated measures is still in process. The goal of the Strategy was to create sustainable energy system that will make a balanced contribution to the security of energy supply, competitiveness and environmental protection in Croatia. In this paper an overview of the energy production, final energy consumption and planned development of energy infrastructure is given. The intention of the paper was to research and stress out the abilities and opportunities of Croatian energy system and to give recommendations for Energy Strategy implementation and practical realization of planned energy infrastructure projects for improvement of security of energy supply and competitiveness of energy system of the Republic of Croatia.     

Job retention in the British offshore sector through greening of the North Sea energy industry

For the case of the UK there are currently three ways of obtaining energy from sea areas, namely from wind, tides and waves. A methodology was developed to determine the future size of the offshore renewable industry based on the concept of employment factor, or the number of people required to maintain each unit of electricity production. An assessment was made of the decline in the number of people employed in oil related jobs in the North Sea and the gap that this could create in the UK's economy unless this pool of offshore expertise could find an alternative employment in the renewable sector. The paper will also investigate the effect of gradually transforming the UK's oil and gas sector into offshore renewables. If this was to happen by 2050 the UK offshore renewable industry could produce between 127 and 146 TWh of electricity, equivalent to around 57–66% of the current energy consumption in the country.     

Current status and prospects of marine renewable energy applied in ocean robots

The power supply for ocean robots has always been an important issue since it has a fatal influence on the endurance of these vehicles. However, the marine renewable energy (MRE) has huge potential and can provide the possibility to solve this problem between essential endurance and finite energy in ocean robots. This paper starts with brief introduction of marine energy resource and ocean robots and presents significance of improving ocean robots' endurance, through comparison of their performance characteristics. MRE applied in ocean robots developed or under development, including energy conversion and driving principle, is reviewed, such as solar, wind, tides, waves, thermal energy, etc. Many challenges and difficulties are also discussed in energy exploitation and utilization related to ocean robots. Finally, the prospect for the future development of related technologies is proposed in this paper.     

The Rimini Protocol an oil depletion protocol: Heading off economic chaos and political conflict during the second half of the age of oil

Knowledge of petroleum geology defines the size of the World's oil and gas resources, but the reporting of reserves is grossly unreliable. Discovery has been in decline for many years, meaning that production must soon also fall. The decline of oil will have a severe impact on the modern economy which has become dependent on it. Accordingly, a Protocol to match demand against the falling supply, as imposed by Nature, is urgently needed to lessen world tensions and achieve an orderly transition.     

Wind energy and assessment of wind energy potential in Turkey

In this study, the potential of wind energy and assessment of wind energy systems in Turkey were studied. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the wind energy potential and future wind conversion systems project in Turkey. The wind energy potential of various regions was investigated; and the exploitation of the wind energy in Turkey was discussed. Various regions were analyzed taking into account the wind data measured as hourly time series in the windy locations. The wind data used in this study were taken from Electrical Power Resources Survey and Development Administration (EIEI) for the year 2010. This paper reviews the assessment of wind energy in Turkey as of the end of May 2010 including wind energy applications. Turkey's total theoretically available potential for wind power is around 131,756.40 MW and sea wind power 17,393.20 MW annually, according to TUREB (TWEA). When Turkey has 1.5 MW nominal installed wind energy capacity in 1998, then this capacity has increased to 1522.20 MW in 2010. Wind power plant with a total capacity of 1522.20 MW will be commissioned 2166.65 MW in December 2011.     

Price and prospects for oil : Carrying the burden of excess capacity in the 1980s and beyond

The continuing decline in world oil prices will not be halted in the short term, and prospects for the long run are not encouraging. There is a problem of unprecedented gravity in the surplus capacity of the oil industry. A glut of 10 million bbl/day of crude oil remains unsold, the cohesion of the OPEC cartel is becoming more strained, and a sizeable proportion of refinery plant has been taken off-stream. The basic difficulty is that high interest rates have curbed international capital formation and depressed demand. Upward pressures on the US dollar have been created by the deficit on US domestic and external accounts, and have retarded the recovery of the global economy. Today the cost of money exceeds the factor price of oil, and the market is highly unstable. The devastating costs of carrying surplus capacity are likely to survive through the 1980s.     

当前储能市场和储能经济性分析

储能在未来电网以及可再生能源的应用中将起到至关重要的作用.它的应用范围涉及发电、传输、分配乃至终端用户.本文简要分析并总结了储能市场的经济性,重点阐述了储能应用的主要瓶颈问题——成本.通过分析与计算,确定了储能产品的目标成本,并且以材料创新及以历史上光伏产业规模效应的经验曲线为参考分析了能够降低储能成本的可行途径.储能应用市场将为传统能源结构带来根本性的变化,给社会经济带来巨大的福利,它的应用势在必行.但是,要实现储能的大规模应用还有诸多艰巨的任务与挑战,其中最重要的是要降低储能系统的成本,而实现这个目标需要多方面的共同努力.     

Renewable energy in India: Historical developments and prospects

Promoting renewable energy in India has assumed great importance in recent years in view of high growth rate of energy consumption, high share of coal in domestic energy demand, heavy dependence on imports for meeting demands for petroleum fuels and volatility of world oil market. A number of renewable energy technologies (RETs) are now well established in the country. The technology that has achieved the most dramatic growth rate and success is wind energy; India ranks fourth in the world in terms of total installed capacity. India hosts the world's largest small gasifier programme and second largest biogas programme. After many years of slow growth, demand for solar water heaters appears to be gaining momentum. Small hydro has been growing in India at a slow but steady pace. Installation of some of the technologies appears to have slowed down in recent years; these include improved cooking stoves (ICSs) and solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. In spite of many successes, the overall growth of renewable energy in India has remained rather slow. A number of factors are likely to boost the future prospects of renewable energy in the country; these include global pressure and voluntary targets for greenhouse gas emission reduction, a possible future oil crisis, intensification of rural electrification program, and import of hydropower from neighbouring countries.     

The political economy of energy regulation in OECD countries

This paper examines the effect of government ideology, political factors and globalization on energy regulation in electricity and gas industries using the bias-corrected least square dummy variable model in a panel of 23 OECD countries over the period of 1975–2007. We find that left-wing governments promote regulation in gas and electricity sectors. Also, less politically fragmented institutions contribute to deregulation of gas and electricity industries. Long tenures of incumbent government have limited impact on regulation in electricity sector, while it is associated with an increase in regulation of gas sector. Further, we find that higher political constraints and more globalized countries lead to deregulation in electricity and gas sectors. We discover that economic and social integration are the forces that promote deregulation in the gas industry, whereas political integration advance deregulation in the electricity industry. We emphasize that political economy factors are important determinants of energy regulation.     

知识经济时代中的建筑节能新观念

论述了知识经济为人类的可持续发展寻求了一条可行途径。分析了建筑节能的关键是要在观念上、技术上以及管理上建立有持续创新能力的创新体系。从这些观点出发,就我国建筑节能技术的发展提出了建议．     

EU's external energy governance: A multidimensional analysis of the southern gas corridor

The major objective of this paper is to apply a multidimensional lens to the European Union's (EU's) vision to the yet to be establish Southern Gas Corridor. I will argue that, the EU's natural gas vision towards the Caspian basin is based not only on bringing additional gas volumes to the EU markets in order to ensure physical security of supply. It is rather multidimensional external governance geared, firstly, towards absorbing all the actors along the whole value chain in to the EU's common energy regulatory framework and shifting energy provision from a bilateral political domain onto a multilateral market domain. Secondly, it is a process of diffusion of norms and values into the governance system of the energy partners.     

Wind energy in the world: Reality and prospects

This report presents an overview of the various aspects of the use of wind energy for the production of electricity with special regard to: available resources; the state-of-the art of the technology; the worldwide wind energy applications; the present situation and foreseeable development of the world wind energy market in the next two decades; the economics of wind-generated electricity. Possible restraints to and benefits from wind plant integration in utility systems are also considered.     

Fuzzy TOPSIS method for ranking renewable energy supply systems in Turkey

Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) techniques are gaining popularity in energy supply systems. The aim of this paper is to develop the multi-criteria decision support framework for ranking renewable energy supply systems in Turkey. Given the selection of renewable energy supply systems involves many conflicting criteria, multi criteria decision methods (Fuzzy TOPSIS) were employed for the analysis. The Interval Shannon's Entropy methodology was used to determine weight values of the criteria. In this study, α = 0.1, 0.5 and 0.9 values based sensitivity analysis were performed. Three α-cutting levels were identical to the sequence of alternatives. According to result, the first criterion in preference ranking of renewable energy sources in Turkey is the Amount of Energy Produced, followed by the ranking systems Land use, Operation and maintenance cost, Installed capacity, Efficiency, Payback period, Investment cost, Job creation, and Value of CO₂ emission. Thus the multi-criteria analysis showed that the Hydro Power Station is determined to be the most renewable energy supply system in Turkey. Additionally, the Geothermal Power Station, Regulator and Wind Power Station are determined to be the second, third and fourth, respectively. The government of Turkey should invest, in order of priority, in these systems. The government should also evaluate the projects, which are related to these renewable energy resources.     

Productive energy in the US economy

In this paper, methods of separation of primary work _EP$E_{\mathrm{P}}$, which is needed to provide the genuine work of production equipment, from the total amount of primary energy E$E$ are proposed. Direct estimates of primary work of production equipment _EP$E_{\mathrm{P}}$ on the base of available data for the US economy for the 20th century are compared with alternative evaluations of the same quantity calculated from time series for consumption of labour and primary energy. The relationship among primary energy E$E$, primary work of production equipment _EP$E_{\mathrm{P}}$, and genuine work of production equipment P$P$ (productive energy) is considered. The results allow one to estimate coefficient of efficiency of primary work of production equipment.     

Wind energy status and its assessment in Turkey

The increase in negative effects of fossil fuels on the environment has forced many countries, especially the developed ones, to use renewable energy sources. Currently the fastest developing energy source technology is wind energy. Because wind energy is renewable and environment friendly, systems that convert wind energy to electricity have developed rapidly. Wind energy is an alternative clear energy source compared to the fossil fuels that pollute the lower layer of atmosphere. Because wind energy will be used more and more in the future, its current potential, usage, and assessment in Turkey is the focus of this study.     

A hydrogen economy and its impact on the world as we know it

An assortment of governmental, technological, environmental, and economic factors has combined to spur renewed interest in alternatives to petroleum, and especially in hydrogen. While there is no clear consensus on the viability of the technology, governments and corporations alike have vigorous hydrogen research programs. The result is that hydrogen may stand on the verge of becoming a true successor to oil. A transition from oil to hydrogen would alter familiar global economic and political structures in profound ways. The ramifications will influence developed and developing nations, oil importers, and exporters alike. New alliances among governments, corporations, and other groups may challenge existing notions of governance. Although a hydrogen-based economy may be decades away, the vision for it requires near- and mid-term thinking to manage the transition smoothly. Further, hydrogen is only a metaphor; any change from the current oil economy will entail dramatic changes to the global status quo that must be planned for now.