This book examines the economics of natural resource markets and pricing, as well as the field of natural resource economics in general. It presents the key contributions to this field of research, including the pioneering works and contemporary studies. The book highlights the basic principles and ideas underlying theoretical models of resource pricing. The models considered in the book underline the fundamental determinants of resource prices and the economic nature of rents for non-renewable and renewable resources. Besides the classical theory of exhaustible resource economics, the book includes several issues that are of high importance for global economic growth, such as the transition to alternative energy and the economics of climate change. The authors also consider the issues of commodity pricing and a resource cartel's activity that are relevant to the world oil market. The book provides analytical solutions illustrated with numerical examples. It allows an intuitive understanding of the subject and the model inferences through graphical illustrations and an informal introduction. It, therefore, is a must-read for everybody interested in a better understanding of resource prices, resource markets, and resource economics.

The world is currently undergoing an historic energy transition, driven by increasingly stringent decarbonisation policies and rapid advances in low-carbon technologies. The large-scale shift to low-carbon energy is disrupting the global energy system, impacting whole economies, and changing the political dynamics within and between countries. This open access book, written by leading energy scholars, examines the economic and geopolitical implications of the global energy transition, from both regional and thematic perspectives. The first part of the book addresses the geopolitical implications in the world's main energy-producing and energy-consuming regions, while the second presents in-depth case studies on selected issues, ranging from the geopolitics of renewable energy, to the mineral foundations of the global energy transformation, to governance issues in connection with the changing global energy order. Given its scope, the book will appeal to researchers in energy, climate change and international relations, as well as to professionals working in the energy industry.

This book presents new research on policy innovations that promote the development of the circular water economy. In contrast to the linear economy, the circular water economy promotes the reduction of water consumption, reuse of water, and recovery of resources from wastewater to not only increase resilience to climate change but also to reduce greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the provision of water and wastewater-related services. Providing a series of in-depth case studies of important locations in differing climates around the globe that have implemented a variety of policy innovations to develop the circular water economy, this book is a valuable resource for water and resource conservation managers, policymakers, international companies and organisations interested in the circular economy, environmental NGOs, researchers, as well as graduate and undergraduate students. * Systematically reviews policy innovations to develop the circular water economy * Illustrates how leading locations from around the world have developed the circular water economy to increase resilience to climate change while reducing emissions * Provides 'best practices' for other locations around the world aiming to implement the circular water economy

Airports serve an essential role in domestic and international travel, facilitating the origination, termination, and connections of air flights. Airport services enhance regional, national, and global connections, increasing the mobility of people worldwide and enhancing local and regional economies. Although there is a large amount of literature that examines airline costs and productivity, consumer welfare from air travel, and the influence of economic regulation of airline services, there is much less literature that examines airports. This is important, as airport operations play a critical role in influencing airline travel. This volume examines the role that airports play in economic development and land values, the regulation and economic efficiency of airports, airport pricing and competition, and the role played by airports in influencing airline operations and networks.

This is an open access book. This edited volume discusses topics in environmental economics with a focus on sustainability, conservation, and responsible resource management. Written in memory of Peter Berck, Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, the chapters expand upon his insights about the connections between human activities and the natural world.  The volume includes a selection of research on agriculture, energy, forestry, fisheries, land use, recycling, and conservation – all parts of the broad question of how natural resources can meet human needs while avoiding environmental degradation. Written from a 21st century perspective, with concerns about climate, renewable energy, biodiversity, and sustainable development, this volume will be of interest to researchers and students of agricultural and resource economics.

This book aims to incorporate an emerging successful business model, i.e., sharing economy, into energy markets, thus digging out the potential merits and applications in multi-energy sectors. With the core idea "access over ownership", sharing economy enables the collaborative consumption of idle resources through advanced information and communications technology. One critical challenge is to identify different market participants' occupation while accordingly designing pricing mechanisms. This book begins with an overview about the recent development of sharing economy in energy fields, and summarizes two energy market-related issues that sharing economy can hopefully address. One is how to quantify a marginal generator's contribution and thereby elicit truthful bidding under information asymmetry condition. The other is how to distinguish renewable and distributed energy resources' contribution and thus incentivize efficient aggregation considering increasing scale and uncertainty. Then sharing economy mechanisms are proposed and designed from a game theory perspective. On this basis, the following chapters thoroughly investigate the specific problems in spot markets, multi-area markets, renewable energy aggregation and energy systems integration. Additionally, the benefits brought by sharing economy are evaluated in terms of regional market bidding and transmission expansion deferral. Finally, the information and communications technologies related to sharing economy are modeled and analyzed. Hopefully, this book can greatly benefit the readers who are interested in energy economics and engineering.

The book interprets nature and the environment as a scarce resource. It offers a theoretical study of the allocation problem and describes different policy approaches to the environmental problem. The entire spectrum of the allocation issue is studied. The author incorporates several economic approaches, including neoclassical analysis, the public goods approach and optimization theory. The different aspects of environmental allocation are studied in the context of a single model that is used throughout the book. The sixth edition includes new sections on ethical aspects of environmental evaluation, and international emission trading and biodiversity.

This book presents peer-reviewed articles from the 1st International Conference on Dam Safety Management and Engineering (ICDSME 2019), organized by the Malaysian National Committee on Large Dams (MYCOLD), Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB), Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID) and Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN). With the theme "resilient dams for resilient communities," the conference highlighted the latest developments in the area and provided a platform for researchers and professionals to exchange ideas and to address dam safety and engineering issues with the environment in mind. The topics covered included, but was not limited to, best practices in dam safety, reservoir management, dam health monitoring, risk assessment, emergency management and sustainable dams.

Dieses Buch enthalt eine Auswahl wesentlicher Publikationen von Otto Rentz. Die Themenschwerpunkte seiner Arbeit und damit der Publikationen liegen in den Gebieten Produktion, Operations Research, Umweltschutz, nachhaltiges Wirtschaften und Energiewirtschaft. Das Buch gibt damit einen Uberblick uber das vielfaltige Werk des Autors, die von ihm untersuchten Probleme, der angewandten Methoden und der erzielten Ergebnisse. "

'Inspiring. [...] Crammed with lively interviews and grounded examples' Ashish Kothari, founder of Kalpavriksh Permaculture is an environmental movement that makes us reevaluate what it means to be sustainable. Through innovative agriculture and settlement design, the movement creates new communities that are harmonious with nature. It has grown from humble origins on a farm in 1970s Australia and flourished into a worldwide movement that confronts industrial capitalism. The Politics of Permaculture is one of the first books to unpack the theory and practice of this social movement that looks to challenge the status quo. Drawing upon the rich seam of publications and online communities from the movement as well as extensive interviews with permaculture practitioners and organisations from around the world, Leahy explains the ways permaculture is understood and practiced in different contexts. In the face of extreme environmental degradation and catastrophic climate change, we urgently need a new way of living.

This book provides insight into how governments are using a variety of innovative fiscal and non-fiscal instruments to develop circular economies with significant economic and environmental benefits. It emphasises the urgent need for these circular economies and to move away from our current, linear model that has led to environmental degradation, volatility of resource prices and supply risks from uneven distribution of natural resources. Natural Resource Management and the Circular Economy illustrates how governments have promoted the development of an economy that can provide substantial net material savings; mitigate price volatility and supply risks; and improve ecosystem health and long-term resilience of the economy. Through a series of case studies, it details the various innovative policy instruments which can be utilised, including regulations; market-based instruments; incentives; research and innovation support; information exchanges; and support for voluntary approaches. The book also proposes a series of best practices for different countries, both developed and developing, who are implementing their circular economy.

This book addresses the gaps in undergraduate teaching of partial equilibrium analysis, providing a general equilibrium viewpoint to illustrate the assumptions underlying partial equilibrium welfare analysis. It remains unexplained, at least at the level of general economics teaching, in what sense partial equilibrium analysis is indeed a part of general equilibrium analysis. Partial equilibrium welfare analysis isolates a market for a single commodity from the rest of the economy, presuming that other things remain equal, and measures gains and losses by means of consumer surplus. This is a money metric that is supposed to be summable across individuals, recommending policy that maximizes the social surplus. But what justifies such apparently uni-dimensional practise? Within a general equilibrium framework, the assumption of no income effect is presented as the key condition, and substantive general equilibrium situations in which the condition emerges are presented. The analysis is extended to the case of uncertainty, in which the practice adopts aggregate expected consumer surplus, and scrutinizes when such practice is justified. Finally, the book illustrates partial equilibrium as an institutional artifact, meaning that institutional constraint induces individuals to behave as if they are in partial equilibrium. This volume forms an important contribution to the literature by researching why this disparity persists and the implications for economics education.

This book provides a brief history of the notion of development and related policies. Readers will find an overview of the main development notions and debates from 1950 to the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals. The author argues that sustainable development is equal to empowerment within a specific historical setting; development is a dialectic relationship between people's empowerment and the existing social and economic structures. The book examines some well-known growth theories from Harrod in 1939 to contemporary debates views about the role of the state and the market. Some major structural changes are also examined from economic growth in Asia to international finance: the author contends that contemporary issues on development can be better understood with the help of the founding fathers of economics, from the Mercantilist era to Marx. They help to understand the difficult relationship between development and market forces within different models of social and economic reproduction. The author contends that the main development challenge is that of building a global partnership in a system with enormous differences in economic powers and offers some examples of how to re-balance the existing economic powers particularly in trade and finance.

Biofuels for a More Sustainable Future: Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment and Multi-criteria Decision Making provides a comprehensive sustainability analysis of biofuels based on life cycle thinking and develops various multi-dimensional decision-making techniques for prioritizing biofuel production technologies. Taking a transversal approach, the book combines life cycle sustainability assessment, life cycle assessment, life cycle costing analysis, social life cycle assessment, sustainability metrics, triple bottom line, operations research methods, and supply chain design for investigating the critical factors and key enablers that influence the sustainable development of biofuel industry. This book will equip researchers and policymakers in the energy sector with the scientific methodology and metrics needed to develop strategies for viable sustainability transition. It will be a key resource for students, researchers and practitioners seeking to deepen their knowledge on energy planning and current and future trends of biofuel as an alternative fuel.

Energy poverty, one of the major challenges facing the global energy system, has drawn wide attention from the international community and academia. As the largest developing country in the world, China faces a number of challenges in understanding and resolving the problem of energy poverty. Energy Economics: Understanding and Interpreting Energy Poverty in China presents a succinct overview of research on China's Energy Poverty as studied by the Center for Energy & Environmental Policy Research (CEEP), Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT). Based on the analytical framework of energy economics, the book summarizes and refines international energy assessment methods, builds China's energy poverty measurement and comprehensive evaluation criteria, and evaluates China's energy poverty from the perspective of time and space. It goes on to analyze the impact of solid fuel use on urban and rural residents' health, and review the relationship between energy poverty and economic development, clean energy development and energy poverty, as well as climate change and energy availability. Finally, it summarizes policies and actions to eliminate energy poverty. This book will provide essential scientific support for researchers and policy makers dealing with energy poverty.

A celebrated international bestseller that exposes the ticking time-bomb underneath our new technological order. The resources race is on. Powering our digital lives and green technologies are some of the Earth's most precious metals - but they are running out. And what will happen when they do? The green-tech revolution will reduce our reliance on nuclear power, coal, and oil, but by breaking free of fossil fuels, we are setting ourselves up for a new dependence - on rare metals like cobalt, gold, and palladium. These are essential to electric vehicles, wind turbines, and solar panels, as well as our smartphones, computers, tablets, and other technologies. But we know very little about how rare metals are mined and traded, or their environmental, economic, and geopolitical costs - until now.

This book explores the evolving roles of energy stakeholders and geopolitical considerations, leveraging on the dizzying array of planned and actual projects for solar, wind, hydropower, waste-to-energy, and nuclear power in the region. Over the next few decades, favorable economics for low carbon energy sources combined with stagnant oil demand growth will facilitate a shift away from today's fossil fuel-based energy system. Will the countries of the Middle East and North Africa be losers or leaders in this energy transition? Will state-society relations undergo a change as a result? It suggests that ultimately, politics more so than economics or environmental pressure will determine the speed, scope, and effects of low carbon energy uptake in the region. This book is of interest to academics working in the fields of International Relations, International Political Economy, Comparative Political Economy, Energy Economics, and International Business. Consultants, practitioners, policy-makers, and risk analysts will also find the insights helpful.

This book provides readers with cutting-edge techniques that can be applied to energy and environmental economics. Further, it highlights the effects that both globalization and economic growth have on the environment. In addition to offering a broader perspective on the relationship between environmental pollution, energy consumption and economic growth, the book studies the relationship between economic growth and environmental damage by drawing on the theoretical hypothesis of the Environmental Kuznets Curve. The book presents new econometric techniques and innovative approaches to the study of the energy economy. Accordingly, it can be used to help analyse the current state of the energy economy, the environment and globalization, and can serve as a theoretical reference manual for doctoral students and academics seeking new analytical techniques.

There are few innovations that have the potential to revolutionize commerce and have evolved so quickly that there remain significant misunderstandings about their operation, opportunity, and challenges as has Bitcoin in the dozen years since its invention. The potential for banking, transacting, and public recording of important records is profound, but can be displacing if not done with appropriate care, and is downright dangerous if certain pitfalls are not noted and avoided. Among other things, this book proves the existence of a Bitcoin dilemma that challenges the conventional wisdom which mistakenly asserts the incredibly intensive energy consumption in Proof-of-Work cryptocurrency mining will be remedied by more efficient mining machines or sustainable power sources. It shows for the first time within a well-specified economic model of Bitcoin mining that the recent runup in electricity consumption has a simple and inevitable explanation. For a coin with almost completely inelastic supply and steadily increasing demand, the conditions for accelerating electricity demand is consistent with economic theory and may well characterize the future of Bitcoin. The book also demonstrates the counterintuitive result that improvements in mining efficiency, in terms of electricity consumption per terahash of processing power, or decreases in electricity costs as cheaper sustainable energy is diverted to this industry, merely exacerbates the acceleration of energy consumption because of a prisoner's dilemma arms-race-to-the-bottom. The book proposes policy solutions to mitigate this Bitcoin dilemma but note that the mobility of industry capacity which needs but a ready supply of electricity and an Internet connection frustrates local regulation and warrants global solutions. The incredible opportunities of this industry will only be realized if our regulators, legislators, entrepreneurs, and general public garner a more complete and objective understanding of this and other Proof-of-Work mining techniques. The book provides this broader perspective based on the author's research as an economist, his position as a director of a large regional bank, his understanding as a technologist and as an environmental and sustainability researcher, and his public policy experience as a mayor who has also written books and articles about public policy and public finance.

This book gathers the latest advances, innovations, and applications in the field of environmental and construction engineering, as presented by international researchers and engineers at the 2nd International Conference on Efficient Production and Processing, held on February 25-26, 2021. It covers highly diverse topics, including use of secondary raw materials in construction technologies; urban waste management logistics; use of recycled materials in road construction; safety and security in waste handling; food science and agriculture; waste and water treatment; and environmental economics. The contributions, which were selected by means of a rigorous international peer-review process, highlight numerous exciting ideas that will spur novel research directions and foster multidisciplinary collaborations.

This edited collection brings together leading theoretical and applied research with the intent to design a sustainable global financial future. The contributors argue that our world cannot move toward sustainability, address climate change, reverse environmental degradation, and improve human well-being without aligning the financial system with sustainable development goals like those outlined by the United Nations. Such a system would: a) be environmentally and socially responsible; b) align with planetary boundaries; c) manage natural resources sustainably; d) avoid doing more harm than good; and e) be resilient and adaptable to changing conditions. The overarching theme in this collection of chapters is a response to the worldwide, supranational sustainable finance discussions about how we can transition to a new socio-ecological system where finance, human well-being, and planetary health are recognized as being highly intertwined.

Current political discourse emphasizes the globalized nature of security threats, and focusing on Latin America, this book identifies local complexities of Human Security. From Human to Post Human Security in Latin America provides a fresh look to some acute problems regarding human security in Latin America: human rights and dignity, water, food and health insecurities. These problems are persistent and constitute human security threats in the near future. In this book, each chapter studies a critical social problem in Latin America and analyzes it from the human security perspective, providing examples that illustrate the critical state in which Latin America is found regarding environmental security and providing a comparative perspective to give a wider view of these issues. Now security threats are truly global; given the limits of the international community and the nation state to solve these issues, it is necessary to revisit the most acute problems that the planet faces from a more comprehensive perspective. This is essential reading for professionals in the field of policy making, practitioners with a need of a conceptual support, and those interested in human security in Latin America from a Latin American perspective.

Twenty-First Century India is the first study of India's development giving a fully integrated account of population and development. It is built on new projections of the population for fifty years from the Census of 2001. India's population then had already passed 1 billion. Twenty-five years later it will exceed 1.4 billion, and will almost certainly pass 1.5 billion by mid-century. The projections incorporate for the first time both inter-state migration and the role of HIV/AIDS. They also show India's urban future, with close to half a billion urban inhabitants by the year 2026. The implications of this population growth are then traced out in a range of modelling and analytical work. Growing numbers are found to complicate the task of achieving widespread education in a number of India's states, while other states are already experiencing declines in their school-age population. Demographic growth also contributes to poverty, and increasing divergence in social conditions among the states. As population growth slows in the country overall, the labour force continues to grow relatively fast, with difficult consequences for employment. But national economic growth could be accelerated by the 'demographic bonus' of the declining proportion of dependents to workers in the population. The book is reasonably optimistic about India's food prospects: the country can continue to feed itself. It can also enjoy higher levels of energy use, manufacturing, and modern forms of transport, while experiencing less chemical pollution. India's cities can become cleaner and healthier places to live. Perhaps the most difficult environmental issue, and the one most strongly related to population growth, is water. Some states also face severe pressures on common property resources. A policy chapter concludes the book. India's future problems are large, but in principle manageable. However, whether the country will actually achieve sustainable development for all is another matter.

The study group Environmental Standards' established in 1987 as an expert panel of the German Academy of Sciences and Technology in Berlin compiled this book on setting environmental standards that has been literally written and authorized by all group members. The group consisted of eleven individuals representing the following disciplines: physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, law, psychology, and sociology/economics. Firstly, Environmental Standards summarizes the state of the art in each discipline with respect to the topic of environmental standards, limited to one major case study: the effects of ionizing radiation. Within the subject of ionizing radiation and its impacts, the book intends to provide a complete and accurate picture of the various health impacts and environmental problems. Second, this volume provides guidelines for a desirable procedure that would guarantee the inclusion of all scientific data and reasoning but would also assure the incorporation of social costs, cultural values and individual preferences in the decision making process. The study includes a section that describes an analytic framework for collective decision making under uncertainty and a section on institutional innovations necessary to implement a procedure for integrating scientific input and rational decision making. The procedural suggestions are focused around a new environmental institution that is empowered to initiate and promulgate new standards on the basis of a present process of linking scientific data with social values and preferences. The volume represents a rare example of integrating the natural and social sciences and developing consistent and complete procedural guidelinesfor standard setting in a democratic society.

Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC): A Manual provides a comprehensive summary of the EKC, summarizing work on this economic tool that can analyze environmental pollution problems. By enabling users to reconcile environmental and economic development policies, Environmental Kuznets Curve studies lend themselves to the investigation of the energy-growth and finance-energy nexus. The book obviates a dependence on outmoded tools, such as carrying capacity, externalities, ecosystem valuation and cost benefit analysis, while also encouraging flexible approaches to a variety of challenges.