Group items tagged

This article describes how the UK government is heavily subsidising fossil fuel producers instead of prioritising and investing money in renewable sources of energy. Although it is essential to keep crude oil and fossil fuel prices low, as they are essential to many businesses, consumers and indeed the country itself, the G20, of which the UK is part of, has made a commitment to phasing out fossil fuels in favour of greener and more sustainable energy sources. 

This article shows how, since the meltdown of the Fukushima plant in 2011, the "want" of security (which is scarce) increased and gave energy problems to the country (energy is one of the most important scarce resources . Japan finds itself making decisions limited by the scarcity of energy, safety, time and technology. Should it take risks and stop spending money? Should it keep everybody safe and just go for the hydrocarbur plants? Should it simply invest on renewable energy plants? Should it take time and reaserch   Pietro

This article relates to subsidies since the government of Morocco has raised energy prices to save subsidy money that is needed for the International Monetary Fund requirements. Protests have been made from the government's junior partner party over the raise in price of energy. Higher taxes for energy will cause higher price for transportation for tourists and higher costs of production for agriculture. The government though, said they will return parts of the increase of energy prices for professional drivers to avoid a "snowball" effect on prices. But is the raise in price of energy due to the save of subsidy money rational for the country, looking upon the people's use of energy and the agriculture?

This article gives you an idea of how we get our energy today, and how we will be getting it in the upcoming years. It emphasizes mostly on water, as water is being used in Steam-driven coal plants in a large amount. These plants are increasing as they are more environmental friendly. This means that demand on water is increasing rapidly although water itself is a becoming very scarce. This High demand for this scarce very important natural resource raises many questions about how we would be able to survive in the long run.

This article is about efficiency, as the investments in energy efficiency programs created revenue and new jobs. Resources are not being wasted by inefficient use. The efficiency could also be related to economies of scale, since the firm is experiencing increasing returns to scale- every million dollars invested resulted in revenue and new jobs, and hence the work is becoming more efficient and may cause decreases in the long-run average costs.

This article talks about the economic implications of imposing a tax on carbon emissions and how this would affect the different social classes of society in different ways. The article makes specific reference to economic theory and the elements on elasticity.

Taxation almost always decrease the economic surplus and therefore it makes a decline in effectiveness. In this case, the energy companies will be the most affected group.

This article details how UK labour leader Ed Millaband's planned price ceiling on energy prices could actually be feasible despite widespread outcry from conservative party who claimed it would cause blackout. Interestingly the latter party are now planning a move of the their own, 0.75% cap on energy. The article displays a labour bias.

This article describes the devaluation of the fixed currency rate of Nigeria as a result of the decreased energy prices. Nigeria is an oil producing country and therefore earns a lot of its income through oil exports. Now that the prices of other energy has dropped, there is a lower demand for the Nigerian oil, leading to fewer exports. The Nigerian central bank has now devaluated its currency by 8.4 percent in the hope that the lower prices will encourage a greater demand for their oil exports.

This article details how competition in the shipbuilding market is promoting firms to strive to be both market and energy efficient. The article relates to the economic concepts of market efficiency and theories of competition and monopoly. It also briefly relates to the concepts of externalities of production too, discussing measures imposed by governments like fuel sulphur limits.

This article talks about how Ed Miliband wanted to cap the price on domestic fuel. His policy aimed at restricting how much people would have to spend on energy so as to improve their general purchasing power as well as reducing business costs. This affects the suppliers negatively as it will reduce their profits, however it might also increase consumer demand.

I found this article very interesting because it has to do with externalities and common goods. I think this article may be associated with the article "Trajedy of the Commons" which we read because instead of talking of men's overconsumption of grass lands, it talks about the overcosumption of the ocean's self-purifying system. Generally, when talking about production of electricity through fission power plants, there will be unusable waste that is highly harmful for men and the environment because it emits highly ionizing radiation. But producers of that energy simply throw that waste in the oceans and wash their hands of the problem. The cost of society for that energy is equal to the producer's cost plus the cost for that damage the nuclear waste does. The marginal social cost is greater then the marginal private cost. But since, in a free market, it the private who determines the quantity consumed, there will be too much nuclear electricity produced with respect to society. "too much" means that resources are not optimally allocated and therefore there is a market failure.

This article explains how production costs in India could have been cut if Coal India had kept prices lower. The article also tells us that the company has a monopoly on the industry and is state-run which has lead some people to criticise the government. The company has been accused of protecting its own interests by raising prices to cache its bank balance. 

This is an interesting artice that shows how solar phtovoltaic is taking over, reducing the demand of substitute sources of energy but mostly, increasing their elasticity. With PV on the market, more people will be ready to abandon coal or oil for this clean and durable energy source.

This article is about how the rising oil prices affect the companies that produce sugar. The article tells us that sugar is inelastic because of many factors, for example very few substitutes so by rising the prices of sugar in the market, it does not really affect the demand for it.

This article discusses the impact of oil imports on the Pakistani balance of payments. In Pakistan, each year approximately 5 billion dollars worth of oil is imported due to its heavy consumption, which has a large impact on their balance of payments. Their large number of imports gives them a negative balance of payments and therefore slow down economic growth and impacts other parts of the economy. In the article it is suggested that the Pakistani use domestic coal for power production rather than importing as much oil, which could half the amount of money spent on oil imports therefore reforming their balance of payments.

The article is about Greek firms that use offshoring to reduce the costs of production. They have been shifting production to countries like Bulgaria in a greater and greater extent. As the producers claim, they can spend only a third of their former costs in countries less developed than Greece.

This article says that in Britain, Shale wants to get a government grant on Fracking within the country. Shale will have to pay residents to leave the area but in return the revenue can be profitable

This article is simply about troubles with an alternative to one of the most worrying scarce resources - fossil fuels. Will we eventually have to find something else?

Yes indeed, you're right. I believe this is one of the most important factors among markets; in fact transport rests on it. Well, we still have some time and I'm full of hope scientists will strike a happy medium :)

This is an interesting article as it shows how most people and businesses aren't actively investing in Bio Fuels, a renewable source and instead continuing to settle for scarcer fossil fuels even as the price of petroleum rises sharply in many countries. I think it's a sad fact really that we aren't taking a more active role in protecting our planet from vast exploitation.

This article describes the scarcity of water in Pakistan due to a lack of organization and planning. It goes into detail about what causes the scarcity of water, what the current effect is on Pakistan, what effect it could have in the future, and some solutions to this problem.

This article talks about electricity prices in California and how they were controlled, which created a energy shortage in California. Further it talks about how price control is a problem.