This easy-to-read book presents an elementary yet comprehensive introduction to modern energy economics. Mathematical content is kept to a minimum, and advanced numerical concepts are placed in appendices. The two survey chapters are suitable for readers with little or no formal training in economics. Differing greatly from other energy textbooks, the book aims to provide the reader with an informed advantage. Principally intended as a textbook for undergraduate economics students, it can also be used for self-study or as a reference material.
The Political Economy of World Energy is an authoritative and wide-ranging study of the role of energy in the twentieth-century world economy. Expanding on his previous work on U.S. energy policy, John Clark reviews and analyzes political, institutional, social, and economic factors affecting world energy supplies and use from 1900 to 1980. Although oil now commands the major share of the world trade in energy, Clark also examines trade in coal, natural gas, and atomic energy. He explores not only policies and events in key energy-producing nations but also efforts of less-developed countries and non-energy-producing nations to become producers or to otherwise profit from or control the processing of raw fuels. Clark describes the constantly changing relationships between such leading industrial nations as the United States, Japan, and members of the European Community and such important energy producers as the U.S.S.R., Mexico, Venezuela, and the Persian Gulf states. After World War I, international trade in coal declined and that in oil and natural gas increased. Powerful multinational firms came to dominate the energy industry. As the United States, Japan, and Western Europe became increasingly dependent upon oil imports, producer nations attempted to manipulate resources for political gain. The oil price hikes of the 1970s plagued national economies, forcing some modification of the mix of energy resources and focusing somewhat greater attention on conservation and renewable energy sources. Modern energy systems were fundamental to urbanization, industrialization, and attendant sociopolitical changes throughout this century. Although the industrialized societies have not been entirely successful in controlling nuclear power and other new energy technologies, they have actively promoted their imperfect energy systems to poorer nations who lack technological expertise. Little attention has been devoted by either the capitalist economies or the command economies of the old Soviet bloc to the environmental effects of burning fossil fuels. For these and other reasons, Clark gives the leading capitalist and command economies low marks in energy management.
A volume on the political economy of clean energy transition in developed and developing regions, with a focus on the issues that different countries face as they transition from fossil fuels to lower carbon technologies.
This edited collection details and analyses the dramatic changes that the international political economy of energy has undergone in the past decade. This change began with the increasing assertiveness of Russia when the oil price rose above the $100 mark in 2008. This, combined with the rise of shale oil and gas, made the USA all but self-sufficient in terms of fossil fuels. The collapse of the oil price in 2014-15, Saudi Arabia’s new strategy of defending its market share and the increasingly tense and controversial relationship between the West and Russia all worked to further strengthen the geopolitical dimension of energy in Europe. The global result is a world in which geopolitics play a bigger part than ever before; the central question the authors of this volume grapple with is how the EU – and European small states – can deal with this. Chapter 4 of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com
Shows that economic concerns about jobs, costs, and consumption, rather than climate change, are likely to drive energy transition in developing countries.
Bringing together renewable energy and energy security, this book covers both the politics and political economy of renewables and energy security and analyzes renewable technologies in diverse and highly topical countries: Japan, China and Northern Europe.
Ever since the Industrial Revolution energy has been a key driver of world politics. From the oil crises of the 1970s to today’s rapid expansion of renewable energy sources, every shift in global energy patterns has important repercussions for international relations. In this new book, Thijs Van de Graaf and Benjamin Sovacool uncover the intricate ways in which our energy systems have shaped global outcomes in four key areas of world politics: security, the economy, the environment and global justice. Moving beyond the narrow geopolitical focus that has dominated much of the discussion on global energy politics, they also deftly trace the connections between energy, environmental politics, and community activism. The authors argue that we are on the cusp of a global energy shift that promises to be no less transformative for the pursuit of wealth and power in world politics than the historical shifts from wood to coal and from coal to oil. This ongoing energy transformation will not only upend the global balance of power; it could also fundamentally transfer political authority away from the nation state, empowering citizens, regions and local communities. Global Energy Politics will be an essential resource for students of the social sciences grappling with the major energy issues of our times.
Since 1992, the European Union has put liberalisation at the core of its energy policy agenda. This aspiration was very much in line with an international political economy driven by the neo-liberal (Washington) consensus. The central challenge for the EU is that the energy world has changed, while the EU has not. The rise of Asian energy consumers (China and India), more assertive energy producers (Russia), and the threat of climate change have securitized the IPE of energy, and turned it more 'realist'. The main research question is therefore: 'What does a liberal actor do in a realist world?' The overall answer as far as the EU is concerned is that it approaches energy challenges as a problem of market failure: imperfect competition on the supply side; inadequate supply of public goods on the demand side and in terms of infrastructure; and large externalities that arise both from non-energy events and from large-scale consumption of fossil fuels. A Liberal Actor in a Realist World assesses the changing nature of the global political economy of energy and the European Union's response, and the external dimension of the regulatory state. The book concludes that the EU's soft power has a hard edge, which is derived primarily from its regulatory power. This works best when it targets companies rather than governments, and it is more effective in the 'Near Abroad' than at the global level. This makes the EU emerge an actor in its own right in the global political economy of energy - a 'Regulatory Power Europe'.
