This article compares the advantages and limits of the two main methods used in the literature to model oil production: the technical Hubbert approach and the economic Hotelling approach. We argue that the technical approach can be nested in the economic approach by showing that a technical or...

The role of unconventional resources (e.g., oil sands and extra-heavy oil) is anticipated to increase in the global oil market. Although we are facing a scarcity of conventional (low cost) oil resources, unconventional oil resources might manage (for a period of time) to supply constraints in...

The energy industry is facing substantial challenges that require innovation to be fostered. Nevertheless, levels of R&D investment and innovation remain quite low in comparison with other sectors. In this paper we analyse the main drivers of R&D investment and obstacles to innovation in the...

The offshore wind power generation market is currently experiencing growth rates on a global scale and investments exceeding several billion euro are being made. From a welfare economic point of view there is a non-trivial economic trade-off between offshore generation costs and the visual...

If financial markets manage risk to personal consumption efficiently, it should be the case that energy bills that vary directly with aggregate personal consumption can be made both lower and less volatile at cost, since doing so is effectively making payments when aggregate consumption is high,...

We show that the oil market has become closer to \one great pool," in the sense that price differentials between crude oils of different qualities have generally become smaller over time. We document, in particular, that many of these quality-related differentials experienced a major structural...

Japan's natural gas industry is reliant on imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) that normally requires regasification prior to consumption. Unbundling of the industry has not been enforced and while some local distribution utilities purchase gas via pipelines that is regasified by the seller,...

We examine the role that maximum demand charges (MDCs) can play in avoiding the death spiral that some utilities may otherwise face as the distributed generation (DG) of electricity proliferates. We find that MDCs generally secure gains for consumers that do not undertake DG, and often secure...

We investigate how the effects of market structure changes and mergers in restructured electricity markets depend on the level of forward contracting. Following Bushnell, Mansur, and Saravia (2008), we develop a Cournot model of Alberta's wholesale electricity market that incorporates firms'...

We analyze the effects of electricity market mergers in an environment where firms endogenously choose their level of forward contracts prior to competing in the wholesale market. We apply our model to Alberta's wholesale electricity market. Firms have an incentive to reduce their forward...