We estimate the gross margin that is earned from the supply of electricity to households in Ireland. Using half hourly electricity demand data, the system marginal price (also called the wholesale price) and the retail price of electricity, we analyse how the gross margin varies across customers...

We have modelled the market for new cars in Ireland with the aim of quantifying the values placed on a range of observable car characteristics. Mid-sized petrol cars with a manual transmission sell best. Price and perhaps fuel cost are negatively associated with sales, and acceleration and...

This paper investigates the economic implications of disruptions of one to ninety days to the supply of natural gas in Ireland. We assess the impact of a hypothetical gas supply disruption in both winter and summer in 2008 (with observed market characteristics) and in 2020 (with projected market...

The European Commission did not publish a cost–benefit analysis for its 2020 climate package. This paper fills that gap, comparing the marginal costs and benefits of greenhouse gas emission reduction. The uncertainty about the marginal costs of climate change is large and skewed, and estimates...

The areas of energy, water and food policy have numerous interwoven concerns ranging from ensuring access to services, to environmental impacts to price volatility. These issues manifest in very different ways in each of the three “spheres”, but often the impacts are closely related....

A claim has been that 97% of the scientific literature endorses anthropogenic climate change (Cook et al., 2013. Environ. Res. Lett. 8, 024024). This claim, frequently repeated in debates about climate policy, does not stand. A trend in composition is mistaken for a trend in endorsement....

We present a mixed-integer, linear programming model for determining optimal interconnection for a given level of renewable generation using a cost minimisation approach. Optimal interconnection and capacity investment decisions are determined under various targets for renewable penetration. The...

The EU proposal on greenhouse gas emission reduction has 28 targets for 2020: an EU-wide one for CO2 emissions covered by the European Trading System (ETS), and one target for non-ETS emissions per Member State. Implementation is more expensive than needed. I consider three alternative proposals...

In this paper, we carry out a meta-analysis of recent studies into the costs of greenhouse gas mitigation policies that aim at the long-term stabilisation of these gases in the atmosphere. We find the cost estimates of the studies to be sensitive to the stringency of the stabilisation target,...