Publications

How coal fueled global growth and slowed energy productivity gains in the early 21st century

Jorge Blazquez

It is common for decision makers and media to conflate the oil price with the price of energy. High crude oil prices are taken as signals of energy scarcity. By contrast, and perhaps misleadingly, low crude oil prices are perceived…

Blazquez, Jorge

Coal: Modeling a complex fuel source

Coal represented 30% of worldwide primary energy consumption in 2013 and would become the most consumed fuel through 2040, under the International Energy Agency (IEA) Current Policies Scenario. However, even in countries with policies designed to curb its supply and…

Energy transitions policy: What matters most

KAPSARC’s research into energy transitions asks why transitions take longer and cost more than policymakers anticipate. Our focus is on the dynamics of the supply chains supporting new fuels and technologies as they penetrate sectors previously occupied by fossil fuels.

Energy productivity: From policy goal to reality

Energy productivity, at the national level, has emerged as a valuable indicator for a number of reasons. It accommodates economic growth, linking energy use to gross domestic product. It is more than conceptually tied to energy efficiency; seen by policymakers…

Crude and Refined Oil Products Markets: Transient Shocks or Secular Change?

The map of world oil flows is changing. It is not only the flows of crude oil that have been affected by surging US light tight oil production, but product flows are also undergoing significant change. Whether these trends will…

China’s Sustainable Fuel Strategies

KAPSARC’s China Research Project is investigating the policy-economic nexus that underpins the growth and evolution of China’s energy economy. This workshop investigated one of the major emerging trends of China’s energy transformation: the development of sustainable fuel use.

The KAPSARC Energy Policy Database: Introducing a Quantified Library of China’s Energy Policies

Brian Efird, Philipp Galkin

Government policy is a critical factor in the understanding of energy markets. Governments create constraints and incentives that drive behavior through policy. In turn, these behaviors have fundamental impacts on the functioning of markets. Despite the critical role of policy,…

Efird, Brian

Galkin, Philipp

Energy for Water

Energy for water was chosen because it has received less attention in discussions on water and energy, which to date have focused largely on how water is required in the production of different energy resources. Water and energy form a…

Drivers of Transportation: Measuring the Impact of Policy on Adoption of Alternative Fuel Vehicles

The effects of fuel economy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards continue to reverberate through the automotive industry as governments attempt to reduce tailpipe emissions. Manufacturers are developing alternative fuel powertrains and more efficient internal combustion engines in order to…

Why build energy models as MCPs? An economic perspective

Frederic Murphy, Axel Pierru

The discipline of microeconomics focuses on the outcomes of the actions of economic agents, where economic agents can be individuals as producers and consumers or organizations that deliver goods or services. Microeconomists have developed a collection of models to understand…

Murphy, Frederic

Pierru, Axel

The Dynamics of China’s Energy Economy

The growth of its economy means that the People’s Republic of China ranks at the top of many energy related league tables. It produces and consumes roughly 50% of the world’s annual coal demand, while also being the largest importer…

Government intervention in the micro-economy: Modeling the interventions

The challenges of energy policy are multiplying, particularly as climate change has become a feature of the discourse around the world. There is no single policy tool that addresses all elements of the energy trilemma – securing affordable, reliable, and…

Drawing from the best: Approaches to modeling China’s energy economy

KAPSARC and the U.S. Energy Information Administration jointly convened a working group meeting on June 3, 2014 in Beijing on modeling the Chinese energy economy. This introduced the different models and methods currently being pursued by different stakeholders and so…

Managing China’s energy productivity potential: what lessons for policy makers

Nicholas Howarth

Maximizing the economic welfare extracted from the energy system is a key priority for all governments. This can be measured by a country’s energy productivity. Perhaps nowhere else in the world is this issue more salient than in China. China…

Howarth, Nicholas

Changing Competitive Landscape: Transition Policy’s Blind Spots

Shahad Albardi, Jorge Blazquez, Amro Elshurafa, Nora Nezamuddin

For the past two to three decades, and particularly in the wake of the Great Recession, clean energy transitions have been sold as a three-for-the-price-ofone policy: creating “green collar” jobs to get the unemployed back to work, using domestic resources…

Albardi, Shahad

Blazquez, Jorge

Elshurafa, Amro

Nezamuddin, Nora

Energy productivity: aligning global agendas

The well-established link between economic growth and energy usage presents a conundrum for policymakers that can be resolved by focusing on energy productivity to promote greater societal welfare. Energy productivity focuses attention on how energy resources can be put to…

Policy Support for Energy Transitions: Where is Public Money Best Spent?

Considerations for the effective allocation of public funding in support of energy transitions require an appreciation of the success and failure of policy instruments in achieving balanced energy transitions. Understanding the impact of structural changes in supply chains of both…

The impact of oil price volatility on welfare in the kingdom of saudi arabia: Implications for public investment decision-making

Energy Journal

Since real oil price is positively correlated with real consumption and domesticincome in Saudi Arabia, a risk premium needs to be considered when assessingthe net present value of oil-related public investment projects. For projects generatingadditional oil exports, this risk premium…

Axel Pierru, Walid Matar

Banning the bulb: Institutional evolution and the phased ban of incandescent lighting in Germany

Energy Policy

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…

Nicholas Howarth

Lowering Saudi Arabia’s fuel consumption and energy system costs without increasing end consumer prices

Walid Matar, Frederic Murphy, Axel Pierru, Bertrand Rioux

Saudi Arabia aims to reduce the growth of its energy demand. This paper outlines an approach that could help the country to reduce substantively its current fuel consumption and could result in a net economic gain without increasing current end…

Matar, Walid

Murphy, Frederic

Pierru, Axel

Rioux, Bertrand