Why did OPEC not cut oil production in the wake of 2014's price fall? This study aims at aiding the mostly qualitative discussion with quantitative evidence from computing quarterly partial market equilibria Q4 2011 -Q4 2015 under present short-term profit maximisation and different competition setups. Although the model performs reasonably well in explaining pre-2014 prices, all setups fail to capture low prices, which fall even beyond perfect competition outcomes. This result is robust with respect to large variations in cost parameters. Rejecting present short-term profit maximisation, as well as a qualitative discussion of Saudi Arabian politics and the shale oil revolution, lead to the conclusion that the price drop of 2014-16 was most plausibly the result of an attempt to defend market shares and to test for shale oil resilience, besides being fuelled by other factors such as rising competitiveness of alternative technologies. Although shale oil might have increased competition permanently (as supported by model results), the agreement of December 2016 should not be misunderstood as an OPEC defeat.
Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public.
We compare prominent global energy scenarios of organisations and companies. We supplement the analysis with four own scenarios, which were derived from structured analytic techniques in combination with a numerical global energy and resource market model (Multimod). Our study provides three central contributions: (i) a compact survey of selected outlooks with meta characteristics (conceptual nature, numerical framework, qualitative elaboration) and quantitative energy system indicators at the global and regional (Europe, Asia-Pacific region, North America) level; (ii) numerous observations from a verbal analysis intended to stimulate future research; and (iii) the discussion of our own outlook. Among other conclusions, we find that scenarios essentially carrying forward current policies and/or trends lead to future worlds that do not meet the 2°C target of the Paris Agreement. Interestingly, there are both normative and exploratory scenarios reaching the Paris Agreement, and there is no consensus between outlooks on how to attain low-emission futures towards 2050. Some scenarios rely on a very strong role of renewables, others on a substantial role of negative emission technologies with fossil fuel use, yet others on assuming decreasing energy demand. There is a strong variation between outlooks with respect to transparency on scenario generation, modelling approach, and data. We argue that, in addition to transparency, the actual inclusion of a qualitative analysis of drivers and storylines helps ensure the political, social and technological feasibility of scenarios.
Swarm grids are an emerging approach for electrification in the Global South that interconnects individual household generation and storage to a small electricity network for making full use of existing generation capacities. Using a simulation tool for demand, weather, and power flows, we analyse the potential of an AC swarm grid for a large preelectrified village in rural Yemen. Service quality and financial indicators are compared to the cases of individual supply and a centralised micro grid. While the swarm grid would, in fact, improve supply security from currently 12.4 % (Tier 2) to 81.7 % (Tier 3) at lower levelised costs, it would be inferior to the micro grid in both service (Tier 4) and costs. This is mainly driven by the large pre-installed fossil-fuel generator and storage capacities in our case study. However, this situation may be representative for other relevant locations. Under these conditions, a swarm grid poses the danger to create (possibly-undesired) incentives to invest in diesel generators, and it may fail to support prosumerism effectively. Nevertheless, the swarm's evolutionary nature with the possibility for staggered investments (e.g. in smaller yet complementary groups of consumers) poses a central advantage over micro grids in the short-term alleviation of energy poverty.
Climate change and biodiversity loss trigger policies targeting and impacting local communities worldwide. However, research and policy implementation often fail to sufficiently consider community responses and involve them. We present the results of a collective self-assessment exercise for eight case studies of communications regarding climate change or biodiversity loss between project teams and local communities. We develop eight indicators of good stakeholder communication, reflecting the scope of Verran (2002)'s concept of postcolonial moments as a communicative utopia. We demonstrate that applying our indicators can enhance communication and enable community responses. However, we discover a divergence between timing, complexity, and (introspective) effort. Three cases qualify for postcolonial moments, but scrutinizing power relations and genuine knowledge co-production remain rare. While we verify the potency of various instruments for deconstructing science, their sophistication cannot substitute trust building and epistemic/transdisciplinary awareness. Lastly, we consider that reforming inadequate funding policies helps improving the work in and with local communities.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.