We employ Monte Carlo analysis to determine the distribution of returns for various electricity generation technologies. Costs and revenues for each technology are calculated by means of a unit commitment and economic dispatch algorithm at hourly resolution. This represents a considerable...

This timely Handbook reviews many key issues in the economics of energy and climate change, raising new questions and offering solutions that might help to minimize the threat of energy-induced climate change.

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...