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This report discusses the energy policy in the United States that focuses on three major goals: assuring a secure supply of energy, Keeping energy costs low, and protecting the environment.

In the mid-1990s, China displayed the first flickers of interest in the Central Asian fuel and energy complex, which has been steadily growing since that time along with Beijing's interest in other spheres of the region's economy. In the latter half of the last decade of the 20th century, the project activities of China and Chinese companies in the Central Asian energy segment were concentrated in Kazakhstan's oil and gas sector. In the early 21st century, however, this interest began gradually spreading to the rest of the region to become diversified by the industry's branches. Today, China is showing a lot of interest in the oil and gas of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan and in the nuclear power production of the former. China is paying enough attention to the fuel and energy complexes of the rest of the region to promote its economic and political interests in each of the states and the region as a whole.

Time-inconsistency can arise when a government attempts to convince private sector to use a particular alternative energy (gas, green electricity.) rather than petroleum products. By introducing taxes and feed-in prices, a government would encourage firms and households to switch to an alternative energy rather than use petroleum products. However, even if a government is in favor of increasing alternative energy consumption, it can benefit from considerable financial resources resulting from petroleum product consumption. As a result of these conflicting issues, the private sector may not find the alternative energy policy credible, which prevents the government to implement a socially efficient policy

The nuclear meltdown in Fukushima has given renewed momentum to the anti-nuclear power movement across Europe. However, the degree of momentum varies greatly from country to country, and considering the geographically widespread consequences of a nuclear accident, it hardly appears optimal for one country to ban nuclear power while multiple nuclear power plants are still active in neighbouring countries. Even beyond the nuclear power dilemma, the economic and political externalities associated with energy policy are difficult to overstate. The contributions to this Forum look into the benefi ts expected from a comprehensive common energy policy for Europe and the problems which establishing such a policy would involve. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.

During the last half decade, energy policy reform has made its way to the top of the American policymaking agenda, driven by a groundswell of concern over environmental issues (primarily climate change), energy security issues, and the desire for a more efficient and reliable energy delivery system. This groundswell has produced some recent policy changes, but have not been enough to satisfy proponents of reform, who remain frustrated with the unwillingness of Congress to pass legislation aimed at fundamentally changing the way Americans produce and consume energy. This article examines the reasons why fundamental energy policy reform has been so challenging. ; The Kay Bailey Hutchison Center for Energy, Law, and Business

College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences; College of Science; Political Science Department; Atmospheric Science Department; Advisor: Dr. Shuang Zhao; Date: December 1, 2017; Pages: 24 p.

Chairman : Jay P. Rolison. ; Cover title. ; Mode of access: Internet.

For informing future energy policy decisions, it is essential to choose the correct social discount rate (SDR) for ex-ante economic evaluations. Generally, costs and benefits—both economic and environmental—are weighted through a single constant discount rate. This leads to excessive discounting of the present value of cash flows progressively more distant over time. Evaluating energy projects through constant discount rates would mean underestimating their environmental externalities. This study intends to characterize environmental–economic discounting models calibrated for energy investments, distinguishing between intra- and inter-generational projects. In both cases, the idea is to use two discounting rates: an economic rate to assess financial components and an ecological rate to weight environmental effects. For intra-generational projects, the dual discount rates are assumed to be constant over time. For inter-generational projects, the model is time-declining to give greater weight to environmental damages and benefits in the long-term. Our discounting approaches are based on Ramsey's growth model and Gollier's ecological discounting model ; the latter is expressed as a function of an index capable of describing the performance of a country's energy systems. With regards to the models we propose, the novelty lies in the calibration of the "environmental quality" parameter. Regarding the model for long-term projects, another innovation concerns the analysis of risk components linked to economic variables ; the growth rate of consumption is modelled as a stochastic variable. The defined models were implemented to determine discount rates for both Italy and China. In both cases, the estimated discount rates are lower than those suggested by governments. This means that the use of dual discounting approaches can guide policymakers towards sustainable investment in line with UN climate neutrality objectives.

This document provides information on where the country stands in the global context with respect to carbon emissions. It details the obligations that the country has to reduce its carbon emissions under the Kyoto Protocol and outlines some of the strategic steps that will be taken to accomplish this objective.

The integration of climate policy concerns in other policy areas, where decisions are taken that determine greenhouse gas emissions, is a prerequisite for effectively mitigating climate change. There are particularly strong interlinkages between energy policy and climate policy as the major part of greenhouse gas emissions is related to energy supply and use. In this paper we initially compile a set of seven indicators for assessing climate policy integration (political commitment, actors, functional overlap, time perspective, weighting and resources, policy instruments, and emission impact). We then apply the criteria for an appraisal of climate policy integration in EU energy policy during the last decade, i.e., we focus on CPI from a horizontal perspective. The focus of our research lies on strategic energy policy documents, on the one hand, and on the comparison of four key energy policy documents in the context of the 2016 Winter Package to existing legislation, on the other. Our results show that mitigation of climate change is a key objective in all energy policy documents analysed. Furthermore, EU legislative processes ensure a comprehensive involvement of all stakeholders. The energy policy objectives regarding renewable energy and energy efficiency are synergetic and reinforcing with climate policy. It has to be noted, however, that other energy policy documents, like the Energy Security Strategy, contain conflicting issues and the proposed recasts of existing legislation reduce preferential treatment for renewables.

Hungary is an extremely poor state in terms of energy resources; the energy policy of the country and the structure of energy resources used have been and are determined by the energy import dependence. After WWII, it could obtain its increased demand necessary to its extensive energyintensive industry established based on the Soviet model almost entirely from the Soviet Union. Hungary, just like other Central-European countries, tried to decrease its unilateral dependence on energy import linked to Russia through several measures in the past 25 years but these efforts achieved partial success only; the Russian energy import dependence of Hungary and of a large part of Central-Europe remained till the present days. The 'National Energy Strategy 2030' developed on the basis of the guideline, adopted in 2011, specified insurance of long-term sustainability, security and economic competitiveness as primary objective of the Hungarian energy policy. The Government intends to guarantee security of supply, to enforce environmental considerations and depending on the options of the country, to stand up for solving global problems through implementation of the strategy. The strategy intends to achieve the termination of the electricity import balance of the country until 2030 by this 'Nuclear-Coal-Green' scenario based on these three pillars.

The quest for a European energy policy has been at the heart of the European integration since World War II. Since the aftermaths of the two oil shocks, all attempts to create a Common Energy Policy failed so far. The paper seeks to identify why Europe needs to define a coherent and ambitious energy policy. It examines to what extent Europe today has the opportunity and the instruments to achieve a better solution towards an energy policy which balances the asymmetrical energy positions of the Member States and makes their decisions coherent in the internal and external fields of action. The new triangle of Lisbon-Moscow-Kyoto is at the basis of the European energy policy, combining the goal of competitiveness with energy security and sustainability. By focusing on the current EU proposals, mainly on the 2006 Commission Green Paper on competitive, secure and sustainable energy and the way ahead to an Energy Policy for Europe, it gives insight into the background of the Green Paper and the launch of a new integrated approach in EU policy making in the field of energy. ; Die Forderung nach einer gemeinsamen europäischen Energiepolitik ist seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg ein Kernthema der europäischen Integration. Seit den Nachwehen der beiden Ölschocks sind alle Versuche, eine gemeinsame Energiepolitik zu definieren, gescheitert. Der Beitrag identifiziert Gründe, wieso eine solche kohärente und ambitionierte gemeinsame Energiepolitik erforderlich ist. Er untersucht, inwieweit das heutige Europa die Chance und Instrumente besitzt, eine bessere Lösung zu finden, die es erlaubt, die asymmetrischen energiepolitischen Positionen der Mitgliedstaaten auszubalancieren und zu kohärenten Entscheidungen zu kommen. Grundlage hierfür ist das neue Zieldreieck Lissabon-Moskau-Kioto, das für eine Verbindung von Wettbewerbsfähigkeit, Versorgungssicherheit und Nachhaltigkeit steht. Der Beitrag stellt das Grünbuch der Kommission für eine wettbewerbliche, sichere und nachhaltige Energieversorgung vor und vermittelt Einblicke in den Entstehungshintergrund des Grünbuchs sowie des neuen integrierten Ansatzes europäischer energiepolitischer Entscheidungen.

International Relations' research has been particularly active in the past two decades when it comes to Russian energy policy. Although vast amounts of academic literature on energy issues associated with Russia have enriched the discipline, diversity on the level of theory is yet to blossom. Energy studies about Russia are still mainly characterized by realist, neorealist and geopolitical theories and that of the liberal tradition. This study aims at exploring new ways to examine Russian energy policy by employing a constructivist approach. Traditional theories in IR utilized within this thematic area place value on structure as the main driver for state interest formation expressed for example in the energy policy of a certain country. Structures and consequently state interests are seen as constant and independent from human action. In contrast, this research will view international relations from a different perspective and emphasize the role of agency in the production of different objects observable in world politics, such as Russian energy policy or an elementary ingredient of it, the Russian energy strategy. In the construction of the social reality of international relations, agency is performed by different kinds of actors. The current research will analyse the influence of an epistemic community in the formation of Russian energy policy. The main objective of the study is to see whether the epistemic communities approach by Peter Haas (1990/1992) and others will increase our understanding of energy policy-making. Epistemic community and its influence will be identified by examining the policy project of the Energy Strategy of Russia up to the period 2030. The research will also contemplate the usability of the theoretical tool in examining energy issues in general. The research phenomenon will be approached from a qualitative perspective by analysing the research material with (qualitative) content analysis. The empirical material of this study consists of expert interviews. Additionally, online sources and Russian academic writing on the subject were used. The results of the thesis indicate that the energy epistemic community significantly influences policy processes related to energy in Russia. Its action takes place on two levels. At the cognitive level, the community produces the scientific rationale of the energy policy and future projections on where it is going. In practise the epistemic community mainly influences the development of policy tools, such as legal acts, federal programmes and economic incentives. The results highlight the importance of epistemic communities in energy policy-making. In Russia, the community serves an instrumental purpose in validating different policy options and in producing the institutional substance of the country's energy policy. In conclusion, the epistemic communities approach offers fruitful insights to research concentrating on the dynamics of energy policy formation both in national and international contexts. Asiasanat: Energy policy, Russia, epistemic community, constructivism

The challenges of climate change and energy security, along with problems of fuel poverty and energy justice bring imperatives to create transitions in energy demand. Academic research and theory have begun to highlight the ways that government policies, strategies, and processes across wide-ranging areas of policy, from health to work and the economy, shape everyday practices with significant implications for energy demand. This brings focus on the role of governance in shaping energy demand far beyond what might traditionally be characterised as 'energy' policy. Situating these ideas in terms of relational geographical concepts of governance, this paper analyses qualitative interview data with actors involved in governing along with documentary material, to highlight four different ways in which non-energy related governance can have important implications for energy issues. The central contribution of the paper is to set out a distinctive analytic framework for making visible 'non-energy' policy impacts, which might otherwise be obscured within analysis. The article concludes reflecting on the implications of the analysis for rethinking the governance of energy demand to meet contemporary challenges.

This paper presents the energy policy of the Republic of Cyprus government controlled areas from 1960 till 2006. It describes the sectors of electricity, petroleum, natural gas and renewable energy sources. It also deals with the marine layers of oil and with environmental aspects. The energy policy of Cyprus is harmonized with that of the European Union according to its national obligations, having as its guidelines to secure competition in the market and to fulfill the energy needs of the country, with the least burden to the economy and to the environment. The future plans and targets of Cyprus related to its energy strategy are also presented. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.