In the midwestern United States, ethanol produced from corn is mixed with gasoline to meet clean air standards. Allocating land to produce clean fuel means taking away land from farming. We examine the use of a scarce fossil fuel that causes pollution but may be substituted by a clean fuel...

We determine the optimal exploitation time-paths of two energy resources, one being depletable and polluting, namely a fossil fuel, the other being renewable and clean. These optimal paths are considered along with the two following features. First, the cumulative atmospheric pollution stock is...

[fre] Bertrand Magné Michel Moreaux Stabilisation du climat et expansion nucléaire. Cet article présente les résultats d'un modèle de simulation dynamique d'allocation optimale des ressources énergétiques primaires. Nous étudions la viabilité du déploiement de la capacité nucléaire...

The purpose of this paper is to show that not taking into account clearing costs does not allow to describe correctly the cultivated land dynamics when food demand would require to devote to agriculture an increasing fraction of available land. We also show that the validity of the conclusions...

A well-known theorem by Herfindahl states that the low-cost nonrenewable resource must be exploited first. Consider resources that are differentiated only by their pollution content. For instance, both coal and natural gas are used to generate electricity, yet coal is more polluting. We show...

Fossil fuel use causes the atmospheric accumulation of carbon. The society, endowed with an alternative clean renewable energy, aims at keeping this pollution stock below a prescribed target. The use of an abundant and costly backstop shall follow the exhaustion of the polluting resource; in case...

We study how environmental regulation in the form of a cap on aggregate emissions from a fossil fuel (e.g., coal) interacts with the arrival of a clean substitute (e.g., solar energy). The cost of the substitute is assumed to decrease with cumulative use because of learning-by-doing. We show...