Energy Law & Policy eJournal最新文献

{"title":"Bitcoin’s Energy Consumption and Social Costs in Relation to its Capacity as a Settlement Layer","authors":"Lennart Ante, Ingo Fiedler","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3910778","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3910778","url":null,"abstract":"Bitcoin runs on energy. The decentralized network’s amount of energy consumption has resulted in multifaceted discussions about its efficiency and environmental impact. To put Bitcoin’s energy consumption into perspective, we propose to relate (a) the energy consumption in TWh and (b) resulting social costs in the form of carbon emissions to the Dollar value settled on the Bitcoin network. Both metrics allow to relate and quantify the capacity of Bitcoin as a settlement layer to the network’s energy consumption and resulting carbon emissions, or social costs. We find that in early 2021 Bitcoin (a) settles between $2,333 and $7,555 for each Dollar spent on energy and (b) that, on average, a Dollar settled on the Bitcoin blockchain causes in social costs between 0.007% and 0.01%, depending on the estimated energy consumption converted into the costs of carbon emissions. These results help to assess the efficiency, cost and sustainability of Bitcoin and may allow a comparison of Bitcoin with existing settlement base layers such as Fedwire or gold.","PeriodicalId":388507,"journal":{"name":"Energy Law & Policy eJournal","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116532052","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Propertizing Environmental Attributes","authors":"K. Wyman, A. Minelli","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3910039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3910039","url":null,"abstract":"Tangible environmental resources such as land and water have been the object of property rights and traded in markets for millennia. In a development largely unnoticed by legal scholars, technology now allows a new class of environmental resources that are much harder to see and touch to be measured, and potentially sold—environmental attributes. Some of these resources have already been partially packaged into property rights for sale by some governments and private actors, such as actual and avoided carbon emissions, and the environmental benefits of renewable power and electric cars. Other resources, such as avoided water use, remain unpropertized. Trading environmental attributes can help to achieve important societal objectives, such as decarbonizing the energy system, although there are also criticisms of using markets for these goals. This article emphasizes that property rights need to be created in environmental attributes if policymakers and private actors wish to enlist markets to achieve societal goals. The article explains the steps involved in creating property rights in environmental attributes. Drawing on the approaches already used to create property rights in some of these attributes, the article identifies a menu of options for establishing property rights in attributes that currently can be measured and those that technology will allow to be isolated in the future. In addition, it applies this menu to recommend a first in time rule for establishing property rights in avoided electricity use from energy efficient appliances and other energy saving measures, a prominent example of the newer class of environmental attributes. A resource that policymakers have been seeking to harness for decades, energy efficiency is currently traded in some jurisdictions and trading could expand if the rules for initially allocating energy efficiency were clarified.","PeriodicalId":388507,"journal":{"name":"Energy Law & Policy eJournal","volume":"275 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133132771","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Transición energética en España e integración de fuentes de energías no convencionales (Energy Transition in Spain and Integration of Non-Conventional Energy Sources)","authors":"John Garcia Rendon","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3525010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3525010","url":null,"abstract":"La politica energetica alemana ha sido, sin duda, un referente a nivel mundial en lo relativo a energias renovables. Con la implementacion de la Ley de energias renovables (Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz) en 2000, el 36% del consumo bruto de electricidad en 2018 provino de fuentes renovables. Ademas, las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero cayeron en 328 millones de toneladas entre 1990 y 2016, al pasar de 1264 a 936 mill ton de CO2. No obstante, esto tambien ha incrementado el costo de las restricciones, en 2017, alcanzo un nuevo record de 1400 millones de euros y el precio al consumidor final se incremento sustancialmente, siendo uno de los mas altos de la Union Europea, pero ya han venido reduciendose, conforme ha reducido el costo de las nuevas tecnologias. Aun asi, el consenso de la sociedad, es que vale la pena pagar esos sobrecostos. Por tanto, es importante conocer el programa de transicion energetica que ha vivido Alemania y sus efectos, el cual es el objetivo de este paper.","PeriodicalId":388507,"journal":{"name":"Energy Law & Policy eJournal","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132432478","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Fuentes renovables no convencionales y redes inteligentes en Brasil y Chile (Non-Conventional Renewable Sources and Smart Grids in Brazil and Chile)","authors":"Gustavo Adolfo López, Alex F. Pérez-Libreros, J. Arbeláez, Silvia Chaparro, John Garcia Rendon","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3524995","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3524995","url":null,"abstract":"Este paper presenta los avances que han tenido en fuentes de energias renovables no convencionales y redes inteligentes dos de los mercados que mas han avanzado en Latinoamerica sobre el tema, Brasil y Chile. Brasil igual que Colombia depende en gran medida del agua para generar energia, lo que ha implicado deforestacion y emisiones de gases efecto invernadero y, por tanto, en anos recientes ha hecho esfuerzos para fomentar el crecimiento de la generacion de energia solar y eolica. En 2015 se posiciono como el octavo pais a nivel mundial con generacion eolica y en 2017 se construyo la central mas grande de energia solar fotovoltaica, con una capacidad instalada de 1097 MW. Por su parte Chile, en la estrategia nacional de energia 2012-2030, sus dos pilares principales de esta estrategia son el incremento en las energias renovables no convencionales, en 2019 del total de la capacidad instalada, el 18% fue en eolica y solar, y el enfasis en la eficiencia energetica.","PeriodicalId":388507,"journal":{"name":"Energy Law & Policy eJournal","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127703080","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Our Climate Moment Is Now! (Or How to Change the Story to Save Our World)","authors":"Rebecca M. Bratspies","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3436832","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3436832","url":null,"abstract":"The Trump Administration has expressed its intention to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement. However, may of the states and cities that together make up the United States have declared that they \"are still in.\" This draft chapter for a forthcoming book by the Environmental Law Collaborative for the Environmental Law Institute discusses some of the steps that state and local decision-makers have taken toward deep decarbonization, and suggests that a zero-carbon future is attainable despite federal intransigence.","PeriodicalId":388507,"journal":{"name":"Energy Law & Policy eJournal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128656391","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Energy Emergencies vs. Manufactured Crises: The Limits of Federal Authority to Disrupt Power Markets","authors":"Sharon B. Jacobs, Ari Peskoe","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3420970","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3420970","url":null,"abstract":"Because genuine emergencies demand a swift and decisive response, several federal laws consolidate limited emergency control over the energy industry in the Department of Energy (DOE) or the President, temporarily empowering them to override existing law and order actions inconsistent with the contracts, prices, or protocols that govern the industry’s day-to- day operations. These authorities, however, are narrow, as befits the nature of emergency response. Congress had specific types of threats in mind and limited the authorities granted to those needed to respond to a crisis. The relevant statutes outline the conditions under which federal actors may assert emergency powers and enumerate those powers with specificity. Since early 2017, the current Administration has flirted with invoking these powers to bail out coal-fired power plants. This paper examines statutes that provide federal agencies or the President with emergency powers over energy assets, including a law related to “defense critical materials�? that is discussed in a leaked Administration document that purports to justify a bailout. We answer three key questions about these federal laws: 1) What conditions allow DOE to declare an “emergency�? or to otherwise invoke these statutes? 2) What powers does DOE have under these statutes to alleviate emergency conditions or to respond to national security threats? And, 3) When do these statutory authorities expire once invoked? We conclude that these statutes do not provide the authority this Administration seeks to prop up economically failing coal plants. We first outline the extensive frameworks in place to ensure the reliability of the electric grid. Then we survey the statutory authorities available to respond to grid emergencies. Finally, we detail the Trump Administration’s proposals to support coal-fired generation and explain why the emergency statutes are a poor fit for these efforts.","PeriodicalId":388507,"journal":{"name":"Energy Law & Policy eJournal","volume":"86 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132605138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Using Emissions Trading Schemes to Reduce Heterogeneous Distortionary Taxes: the Case of Recycling Carbon Auction Revenues to Support Renewable Energy","authors":"Claire Gavard, S. Voigt, A. Genty","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3309093","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3309093","url":null,"abstract":"While emissions trading schemes are developed by nations to mitigate their greenhouse gas emissions, behavioural studies have shown that the political and public acceptability of these market-based instruments depends on the way the associated revenues are used. One option the general public approves of is to use them to support renewable energy. If this consists in reducing a pre-existing electricity levy that heterogeneously applies to the various sectors of the economy, the reduction of this distortionary tax thanks to the carbon revenues results in general equilibrium effects that may have unequal sectoral impacts. This is what we examine in the case of the European Union. With a modelling approach including a detailed disaggregation of European sectors, we find that using auction revenues from the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to support electricity generation from renewable sources results in a 2% rise in electricity demand in the whole economy due to the reduced electricity levy that electricity consumers have to pay to support renewable energy. This results in a 1.8% ETS carbon price increase. The carbon constraint for the non-ETS sectors is 5.9% looser as a consequence of the larger electricity use by these sectors. While the energy intensive sectors generally benefit from electricity levy exemptions, we observe that, due to the energy and ETS price increase, the combination of these exemptions and of the use of carbon auction revenues to support renewable energy makes the ETS sectors worse off than if carbon revenues are transferred to households. In aggregate, the recycling option analysed here results in a GDP gain due to its impacts on the non-ETS sectors, the reduction of the electricity levy and associated distortionary effects.","PeriodicalId":388507,"journal":{"name":"Energy Law & Policy eJournal","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116414596","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Independence, Regulatory Competences and the Accountability of National Regulatory","authors":"S. Lavrijssen","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3285747","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3285747","url":null,"abstract":"National regulatory authorities (NRAs) play a key role in supervising and regulating competition in the energy markets and for realizing the transition to a low carbon energy system in the European Energy Union. They have to ensure that energy (service) markets can develop and that consumers can reap the benefits by having a real choice between competing alternatives for renewable energy supply and/or demand response contracts. Current European provisions require that NRAs should be sufficiently independent from politics and from market parties to ensure that they can exercise their powers in a consistent and effective way. Also, the discretionary (regulatory) powers of the NRAs– including establishing tariffs and the conditions for access to energy systems – have been greatly expanded and will continue to expand after the adoption of the Clean Energy Package. Furthermore, EU law has strengthened and institutionalized the former rather informal cooperation between the national authorities by establishing an European agency, namely, the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators. However, recent reports show that Member States are reluctant to grant adequate discretionary powers and independence to NRAs. This reluctance can be traced back to the fundamental question; to what extent are the European independence requirements consistent with national constitutional principles, such as the democracy principle and the principle of legality? In the Netherlands, for example, these principles tend to be interpreted in a strict way preventing the delegation of broad discretionary powers to independent authorities. This contribution argues that the European development of the creation of independent NRAs with discretionary powers may be reconciled with the interpretation of national constitutional principles, provided that the exercise of powers is subjected to adequate European and national checks and balances. By looking at other sectors, such as the supervision of the General Data Protection Regulation, some suggestions are provided as to how these checks and balances may develop to ensure an effective and impartial functioning of national energy regulatory authorities in the Energy Union.","PeriodicalId":388507,"journal":{"name":"Energy Law & Policy eJournal","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127853050","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Energy Price Reform in China","authors":"Zhongxiang Zhang","doi":"10.22459/CYRD.07.2018.25","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22459/CYRD.07.2018.25","url":null,"abstract":"The Chinese leadership has determined to assign the market a decisive role in allocating resources. To have the market to play that role, getting the energy prices right is crucial because this sends clear signals to both producers and consumers of energy. While the overall trend of China’s energy pricing reform since 1984 has been moving away from the prices set by the central government in the centrally planned economy and towards a more market-oriented pricing mechanism, the pace and scale of the reform differ across energy types. This article discusses the evolution of price reforms for coal, petroleum products, natural gas, electricity and renewable power in China, and provides some analysis of these energy price reforms, in order to have the market to play a decisive role in allocating resources and help China’s transition to a low-carbon economy.","PeriodicalId":388507,"journal":{"name":"Energy Law & Policy eJournal","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129220470","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Balancing Public Values During the Energy Transition - How Can German and Dutch DSOs Safeguard Sustainability?","authors":"Marga G. Edens, S. Lavrijssen","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3179372","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3179372","url":null,"abstract":"Distribution of electricity constitutes an essential link in the energy sector value chain for which Distribution System Operators (DSOs) bear the responsibility. While executing that role, DSOs are expected to take into consideration public values, such as the availability, affordability and sustainability of the infrastructure they manage.","PeriodicalId":388507,"journal":{"name":"Energy Law & Policy eJournal","volume":"75 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133417774","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}