Publications

The Prospects for Coal-fired Power Generation in Saudi Arabia

Axel Pierru, Walid Matar

Almost all of Saudi Arabia’s electric power generation is fueled by oil and gas. Plans for future capacity envisage nuclear and renewables supplementing this mix and freeing up oil for other revenue-generating opportunities. Coal-fired generation has been promoted in some…

Pierru, Axel

Matar, Walid

Multidimensional Bargaining Using KTAB

Brian Efird, Imtenan Al-Mubarak, Lama Yaseen

This paper (Multidimensional KTAB) is a technical discussion paper designed as a follow on to An Introduction to the KAPSARC Toolkit for Behavioral Analysis using one-dimensional spatial models (Unidimensional KTAB). It extends the original framework of KTAB to explain the…

Efird, Brian

Al-Mubarak, Imtenan

Yaseen, Lama

Comparing Renewables Support Policies: Quantifying the Trade-Offs

Jorge Blazquez, Nora Nezamuddin

Policies to support wind energy development are most effective when they deliver power at the lowest cost per unit of added capacity and per unit of delivered electricity. Our analysis uses real Spanish onshore wind project data to identify which…

Blazquez, Jorge

Nezamuddin, Nora

Quantifying the impact of coal on global economic growth and energy productivity in the early 21st century

Economics and Policy of Energy and the Environment

Two intriguing circumstances have characterized the behavior of energy markets in the first years of 21st Century: a sharp increase in oil prices without a clear impact on real economic activity and a relative stagnation of energy productivity after 30…

Tarek Atalla, Jorge Blazquez

Measurement of energy efficiency based on economic foundations

Energy Economics

Energy efficiency policy is seen as a very important activity by almost all policy makers. In practical energy policy analysis, the typical indicator used as a proxy for energy efficiency is energy intensity. However, this simple indicator is not necessarily…

Lester C. Hunt

The embodied energy in trade: What role does specialization play?

Energy Policy

Many industrialized countries are net importers of embodied energy and emissions, while many developing countries are net exporters. We examine the role of specialization in driving these trade patterns by conducting a spatial index decomposition analysis on the embodied energy…

Anwar Gasim

The Economics of Energy Vulnerability

The economic vulnerability of an economy to energy disruptions is traditionally viewed through the lens of price shocks. This ‘energy vulnerability’ is driven by the energy mix, the infrastructure and the supply chain resilience that an economy enjoys.

Environmental externality of coal use in China: Welfare effect and tax regulation

Applied Energy

This study employs a multi-regional input-output model at the provincial level to evaluate the environmental costs of coal burning in China in 2007, in terms of its damages from climate change externality. According to the results, the contributions of central-west…

Chen Zhan-Ming, Liu Yu-Lin, Leo Lester

Economic Impacts of Debottlenecking Congestion in the Chinese Coal Supply Chain

Philipp Galkin, Frederic Murphy, Axel Pierru, Bertrand Rioux

China’s coal industry grew at unprecedented rates during the first decade of the 2000s in order to support equally unprecedented economic growth. In that type of environment, it is impossible for the capacities of every link in the supply chain…

Galkin, Philipp

Murphy, Frederic

Pierru, Axel

Rioux, Bertrand

Beyond the ‘Green Economy’: China’s Path to Sustainability

While developed economies plan their transition from a ‘brown economy’ to a ‘green economy’, China is embarking on its journey directly to the ‘golden economy’—a future in which energy, water and land use are harmonized with social and economic needs,…

Macroeconomic Challenges for Eastern Africa

Fakhri Hasanov, Fred Joutz, Baltasar Manzano

Recent natural resource discoveries in Eastern Africa provide an enormous opportunity to boost economic development. However, success is not inevitable and the causes of failure have been extensively researched during recent years. This paper summarizes the challenges that can beset…

Hasanov, Fakhri

Joutz, Fred

Manzano, Baltasar

Has Coal Come to a Fork in the Road?

Coal’s future depends on politics and technology. The world currently seems divided between the OECD members—attempting to phase coal out of their energy mix—and much of the rest of the world that is torn between access to cheap energy and…

A Framework for Comparing the Viability of Different Desalination Approaches

Bertrand Rioux

Most renewable powered desalination schemes are hybrids that displace fossil fuel power when renewable power is available. Their economic viability depends only on whether the renewable power source can generate electricity more cheaply than the fuels that it displaces. The…

Rioux, Bertrand

Natural Gas: Entering the New Dark Age

Even the most aggressive decarbonization forecasts of the International Energy Agency (IEA) foresee a growing role for natural gas in 2040. Industry players forecast a role for gas as the fuel of choice, whether as a destination or a bridge…

Asian Premium or North Atlantic Discount: Does Geographical Diversification in Oil Trade Always Impose Costs?

Shahad Alarenan, Frederic Murphy, Ziyad Alfawzan, Nader AlKathiri

It is popularly believed that importers of oil diversify their suppliers to achieve security of supply and that exporters diversify their customer base to achieve security of demand. However, this diversification comes at a cost, compared with buying from or…

Alarenan, Shahad

Murphy, Frederic

Alfawzan, Ziyad

AlKathiri, Nader

Reforming the Role of State-Owned Enterprise in China’s Energy Sector: An Analysis of Collective Decision-Making Processes Using the KAPSARC Toolkit for Behavioral Analysis (KTAB)

Brian Efird, Imtenan Al-Mubarak, Lama Yaseen

What are the prospects for reform of the Chinese energy sector? This question is the subject of much debate both inside and outside China. Since coming to power in November 2012, China’s new government has issued a series of statements…

Efird, Brian

Al-Mubarak, Imtenan

Yaseen, Lama

Crude Oil Markets in 2015: The Battle for Market Share

Since the OPEC meeting on November 27, 2014, world attention has focused on the U.S. shale oil producers, their financiers and how quickly they will throttle back their production due to low oil prices. U.S. producers are now considered by…

The Challenges of Developing Eastern Africa’s Natural Resources

The discovery of significant oil and gas reserves in Eastern Africa provides a major opportunity for boosting economic development in the region. In developing these reserves, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda have the chance to rapidly transform their economies and…

Economic modelling of energy services: Rectifying misspecified energy demand functions

Energy Economics

Although it is well known that energy demand is derived, since energy is required not for its own sake but for the energy services it produces – such as heating, lighting, and motive power – energy demand models, both theoretical…

Lester C. Hunt

Efficient Industrial Energy Use: The First Step in Transitioning Saudi Arabia’s Energy Mix

Walid Matar, Axel Pierru, Frederic Murphy, David Wogan, Bertrand Rioux

External observers worry about whether Saudi domestic consumption of oil will crowd out exports. This is based on simple extrapolations which suggest that in a little more than 20 years Saudi Arabia may become a net importer of hydrocarbon fuels.…

Matar, Walid

Pierru, Axel

Murphy, Frederic

Wogan, David

Rioux, Bertrand