Biomass, a renewable energy source, has been viewed as “carbon neutral”—that is, its use as energy is presumed not to release net carbon dioxide. However, this assumption of carbon neutrality has recently been challenged. In 2010 two letters were sent to the Congress by eminent scientists...

On the one hand, wind power production is necessary for decarbonizing the electricity sector. On the other hand, we risk replacing one environmental problem with other environmental problems, that is, stopping climate change in exchange with increased loss of pristine land and biodiversity. The...

Negative environmental externalities associated with wind power plants depend on the physical characteristics of turbine installations and associated power lines and the geographical siting. We derive analytically an environmental taxation scheme for achieving the efficient spatial distribution...

Energy generated from land-based wind power is expected to play a crucial role in the decarbonisation of the economy. With the looming biodiversity and nature crises, spatial allocation of wind power cannot, however, any longer be considered solely a trade-off against local disamenity costs....

Electricity markets have typically been regulated all over the world. In Europe, UK and Norway have begun to deregulate their electricity markets. Several more countries will probably join them in the near future, for example Finland, Sweden and Spain. The objectives are twofold: to increase...

The welfare effects of introducing taxes on emissions of carbon dioxide is analysed within an empirical general equilibrium model of the Norwegian economy. A CO2 tax regime where we aim at stabilising the CO2 emissions at the 1990 emission level in 2020 is compared to a reference scenario...

Norway has abundant gas resources in the North Sea. The Norwegian gas production accounts for 2 percent of the world production and 17 percent of the European gas production. Despite huge gas production and resources, gas is not used for electricity generation in Norway. Excess capacity, cheap...

In this paper, we describe the approach to, and experience of, the deregulation and liberalisation of the Norwegian electricity sector from 1991. The Norwegian electricity market was subsequently integrated with the Swedish, Finnish and Danish markets to become the Nordic electricity market: the...

The experience of liberalized electricity markets' ability to allocate scarce energy resources has been mixed. In this paper, we analyze how liberalized markets allocate power in the short and long run through the interaction between the spot and end-user markets. We show that totally inelastic...