Abstract: This is the first academic paper that reviews the economic, policy, and technology history of shale gas development in the United States. The primary objective of the paper is to answer the question of what led to the shale gas boom in the United States to help inform stakeholders in those countries that are attempting to develop their own shale gas resources. This paper is also a case study of the incentive, process, and impact of technology innovations and the role of government in promoting technology innovations in the energy industry. Our review finds that government policy, private entrepreneurship, technology innovations, private land and mineral rights ownership, high natural gas prices in the 2000s, and a number of other factors all made important contributions to the shale gas boom.

Abstract: Policy and entrepreneurial communities are increasingly promoting innovation by using prizes but their distinguishing features remain inadequately understood. Models of patents treat winning a patent as winning a prize; other models distinguish prizes primarily as public lump-sum (re)purchase of a patent. We examine advantages of prizes based on the ability to customize rewards, manage competition, generate publicity, and cover achievements otherwise not patentable. We compare prizes to patents using a model based first on whether the procuring party knows its needs and technology, its needs but not its technology, or neither. The second factor is the risk that the investment in research will prove profitable, where the greater the risk, the more the procuring party should share in it through ex ante cost coverage or payment commitment. The model suggests a framework that may be extended to cover other means of technology inducement, including grants, customized procurement, and off-the-shelf purchase.

Abstract: Regulators often seek to promote the use of improved, cleaner technology when new investments occur; however, technology mandates are suspected of raising costs and delaying investment. We examine investment choices for electricity generation under a strict emissions rate performance standard requiring the installation of carbon capture and storage (CCS) on fossil-fired plants. We compare the strict standard with a flexible one that imposes a surcharge for emissions in excess of the standard. A third policy allows the surcharge revenue to fund later CCS retrofits. Analytical results indicate that increasing flexibility leads to earlier introduction of CCS, lower aggregate emissions and higher profits. We test this using multi-stage stochastic optimization, with uncertain future natural gas and emissions allowance prices. Under perfect foresight, the analytical predictions hold. With uncertainty, these predictions hold most often but we find outcomes that contradict the theory. In some cases, investments are delayed to enable the decisionmaker to learn additional information.

Abstract: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included more than $90 billion in strategic clean energy investments intended to promote job creation and promote deployment of low-carbon technologies. In terms of spending, the clean energy package has been described as the nation’s “biggest energy bill in history.” To provide a preliminary assessment of the Recovery Act’s clean energy package, this paper reviews the rationale, design, and implementation of the act. The paper surveys the policy principles for clean energy stimulus and describes the process of crafting the clean energy package during the 2008–2009 Presidential Transition. Then, the paper reviews the initial employment, economic activity, and energy outcomes associated with these energy investments and provides a more detailed case study on the Recovery Act’s support for renewable power through grants and loan guarantees. The paper concludes with lessons learned.

Abstract: This paper analyzes how fossil fuel-producing countries can counteract climate policy. We analyze the exhaustion of oil resources and the subsequent transition to a backstop technology as a strategic game between the consumers and producers of oil, which we refer to simply as OECD and OPEC, respectively. The consumers, OECD, derive benefits from oil, but worry about climate effects from carbon dioxide emissions. OECD has two instruments to manage this: it can tax fuel consumption and decide when to switch to a carbon-neutral backstop technology. The tax reduces climate damage and also appropriates some of the resource rent. OPEC retaliates by choosing a strategy of price discrimination, subsidizing oil in its domestic markets. The results show that price discrimination enables OPEC to avoid some of the adverse consequences of OECD’s fuel tax and its switch to the backstop technology by consuming a larger share of the oil in its own domestic markets. Our results suggest that persuading fossil exporters to stop subsidizing domestic consumption will be difficult.

Abstract: Since the energy crisis in the 1970s and later the growing concern for climate change in the 1990s, policymakers at all levels of government and around the world have been enthusiasticallysupporting a wide range of incentive mechanisms for electricity from renewable energy sources (RES-E). Motivations range from energy security to environmental preservation to green jobs and innovation, and measures comprise an array of subsidies to mandates to emissions trading. But do these policies work together or at cross-purposes? To evaluate RES-E policies, one must understand how specific policymechanisms interact with each other and under what conditions multiple policy levers are necessary. In this article, we review the recent environmental economics literature on the effectiveness of RES-E policies and the interactions between them, with a focus on the increasing use of tradable quotas for both emissions reduction and RES-E expansion.

Abstract: The risk of losing income and productive means due to adverse weather can differ significantly among farmers sharing a productive landscape and is, of course, hard to estimate or even “guesstimate” empirically. Moreover, the costs associated with investments in adaptation to climate are likely to exhibit economies of scope. We explore the implications of these characteristics on Costa Rican coffee farmers’ decisions to adapt to climate change, using a framed field experiment. Despite having a baseline of high levels of risk aversion, we still found that farmers more frequently chose the safe options when the setting is characterized by unknown risk (that is, poor or unreliable risk information). Second, we found that farmers, to a large extent, coordinated their decisions to secure a lower adaptation cost and that communication among farmers strongly facilitated coordination.