Resources and Energy最新文献

A methodology is developed to assess the size of potential regional markets for natural gas and the resulting gas delivery infrastructure costs to be incurred in serving these markets, including distribution, transmission, storage and other operating costs. Its application to the New England region suggests that the optimal penetration strategy must involve new customers located in metropolitan areas endowed with distribution lines, and particularly large industrial and electric utility customers. However, connecting communities in remote, low-density rural areas, is, in mot cases, economically unfeasible. The results also suggest that price discrimination favoring residential customers is widespread, pointing to the need for changes in cost allocation and pricing practices.

An increase in the real price of energy will have both direct and indirect effects on the composition of activities with different energy intensities. Of the two effects, the direct one is the most intuitive. It is usually presumed to reduce participation in energy-intensive activities, e.g., reducing vehicle miles driven. We show that the direction of the (income-compensated) substitution effect is not known unambiguously but instead depends upon the energy intensities of the activities as well as the utility function. Then focusing upon the two-activity case, we show that (1) greater input substitution within each activity decreases this shift between activities, and (2) value-added measures of output are likely to bias the true substitution between activities. Under some conditions, an increase in the energy price can actually result in an apparent shift towards the more energy-intensive activity when measured in terms of value added.

Integrated resource planning is a new way for electric utilities and state regulatory commissions to cost-effectively meet future energy-service needs. As part of this process, many utilities prepare long-term plans that integrate demand-side programs into the utility's mix of resources. This paper discusses guidelines for the preparation and review of utility reports on their resource plans, focusing on the technical competence of the underlying analysis. Load forecasts, demandside resources, supply resources, integration of resources, and treatment of uncertainty are discussed.

This paper assesses the effect of geological, economic, and political factors on oil production in the lower 48 states between 1947 and 1985 with a new method that combines curve fitting and econometric models. The results account for most of the variation in annual rates of oil production and are consistent with new lower estimates of recoverable oil supply. The collapse in oil prices now reinforces downward pressure on production that is exerted by the physical depletion of inexpensive sources of oil. The subsequent decline in production may push the US to greater levels of import dependence than prevailed prior to previous price increases.

Heterogeneity of natural conditions is an important phenomenon in many extractive industries. We study the effects of natural conditions as measured by the width of the coal seam on the short-run demand for labor for underground mines in Eastern Kentucky. Natural conditions have an important influence on labor demand in two ways: the employment of the mine, given it operates, and the probability of the mine being open. We find that marginal mines on thinner seams are more likely to open and close periodically in response to changes in market conditions. The Heckman sample selection correction method is used to correct the labor demand equation for the bias induced by the endogenous open-close behavior. The estimated price and wage elasticities are larger in absolute value once the opening and closing of mines is taken into account. Thus, forecasts of changes in labor demand due to changes in market conditions will understate the acutal changes if they are based on samples of open mines or fail to incorporate mines' opening and closing behavior.

The relationship between the time path of equilibrium prices and scarcity rents in the case of exhaustible resources depends on the nature of the extraction cost function. This paper examines the characteristics of the resource price path and scarcity rents when the extraction cost function is increasing and convex - a shape that seems to predominate in empirical work, especially in the case of oil. Scarcity rents eventually decline and the competitive price path inflects at the point where the scarcity rents stop rising. The theory is illustrated by using realistic cost and demand estimates from the oil industry.

The development histories of approximately 200 each iron and copper mine openings in the non-centrally-planned-economies from the mid-1800s through the mid-1980s are analyzed to determine the role of exploration in mineral supply. The research shows that approximately 75 percent of the iron mines and 50 percent of the copper mines opened since World War II do not result from the prompt development of new discoveries. The mine openings result from the reevaluation of mineralization or orebodies that are previously recognized, which become economic under changed technologic or market conditions. Although the incentive for exploration is normally the expectation that high-profit deposits exist to be found, the supply of new mines does not depend critically on whether such high-profit deposits are discovered. Studies that predict scarcity of resources arising from the failure of exploration to uncover new, highprofit deposits thus do not adequately explain the mineral supply process.

The classical Hotelling model was traditionally applied to a static world with perfect certainty. The present note, on the contrary, examines the effects of random changes in the parameters of the Hotelling model on the optimal decisions regarding the depletion of an exhaustible resource. Under the assumption of risk neutrality of the mining firm, we have found that precautionary motives work not only with respect to the randomness of the reserves, which were shown in previous studies, but also with respect to all other parameters that are involved in the determination of the equilibrium path of prices.

The extent to which state governments consider both allocative issues (pollution, congestion and wear and tear on the highways) and distributive issues (the effect on tax shares of oil producers, trucking interests and non-drivers) in the setting of gasoline taxes is examined. Standard tests of regression coefficients indicate that both the distributive and allocative issues are important. Statistical comparisons of residuals from simulations indicate that the hypothesis that governments adjust taxes systematically cannot be rejected, but that the hypothesis that taxes are set randomly or capriciously can be rejected with high confidence. The estimates can be used to calculate the value of pollution reduction implicit in gasoline tax policy.