. Using the example of coal-fired power plants, our numerical exercise examines the impacts of increasing a hypothetical …

Our main message is that it is optimal to use less coal and more oil once one takes account of coal being a backstop …-only phase, a less-steeply rising carbon tax during the intermediate phase where oil and coal are used alongside each other and … the following coal-only phase, and a flat carbon tax during the final renewables-only phase. The “laissez-faire” outcome …

Optimal climate policy is studied. Coal, the abundant resource, contributes more CO2 per unit of energy than the … exhaustible resource, oil. We characterize the optimal sequencing oil and coal and departures from the Herfindahl rule …. “Preference reversal” can take place. If coal is very dirty compared to oil, there is no simultaneous use. Else, the optimal …

, implemented at the end of a three-year cycle in which contracts are generally revised, was (a) the joint outcome of negotiations …

contracts and organisation. This trend has been driven by the fact that rising costs over many years have put profitability …