Energy Economics and Policy FS09

Details (Vorlesungsverzeichnis) 351-0514-00L

Prof. Thomas F. Rutherford

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Grades

As indicated in the syllabus, grades in this class are based on homework (20%), term paper (30%) and final exam (50%) marks.  A PDF file indicating student markets for these three categories has bee uploaded here.  N.B. This file is only accessible for users at ETH or with VPN accounts.

Term paper assessments and feedback have been provided at www.TurnItIn.com.  Final examination papers may be viewed in my office beginning in early September.

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N.B. Firefox works more reliably with this web page.  See note below regarding how to set options for Internet Explorer.

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The course syllabus

Important dates:

• Homework  (computational economics with Excel) -- assigned on 18 March and due on April 1. This assignment was originally due on March 24, but several students identified a bug in the reported value of embodied carbon for imports.  As a result, the assignment due date has been extended by one week.  The assignment is provided on the second page of the workbook which is provided in .xls (Excel 2003) and .xlsm (Excel 2007)  formats.  
  
• Term paper (see below) --(i) assignment details provided on 11 March, (ii) first draft due on 8 April,  (iii) first draft markups will be available on-line (at www.turnitin.com) on Friday, May 1, (iv) final draft due Wednesday, 20 May, (v) graded papers returned at the final examination on 3 June 2009.
  
• Final examination  -- 3 June 2009, 1-3pm, HG G3.

Guest lectures:

• Wednesday, March 4, 2009: Edgar Hertwich, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, on the concept of embodied carbon.
• Wednesday, April 29, 2009: Auke Lont from Statnett, the Norwegian National Grid company.

Lecture notes and podcasts: 

• Lecture 1: Energy Analysis, Economics and Policy (pdf, podcast)
• Lecture 2: Competitive Markets (pdf, podcast)
• Lecture 3: Carbon Footprint and Embodied Carbon -- Guest Lecture by Edgar Hertwich (pdf, podcast)
• Lecture 4: Economic modeling with Excel and Details on the Term Paper (pdf, podcast).   The Excel model developed in class is available here.
• Lecture 5: Coal Markets, Embodied Carbon and Energy-Economy Data (pdf, podcast).
• Lecture 6: The End of Oil (pdf, podcast)
  
• Lecture 7: Monopoly and Oligopoly (pdf, ppt, ppt, podcast)
  
• Lecture 8: Energy-Economy Modeling (pdf, podcast)
• Lecture 9: Natural Gas Markets (pdf, podcast)
• Lecture 10: Electricity Markets in Norway -- Guest Lecture by Auke Lont (pdf, podcast)
• Lecture 11: Electricity Markets: Regulatory Challenges in Norway, California and Switzerland. (pdf, pdf, podcast)
  
• Lecture 12: Energy Poverty and Carbon Emissions in China (pdf, podcast)
  
• Lecture 13: Integrated Assessment and Climate Policy (pdf, podcast)
  
• Lecture 14: Final Examination Review (pdf, podcast)
  

Reading Assignments:

• Lecture 1: Dahl, Chapter 1.  Roberts, Chapters 1 and 2.
  
• Lecture 2:  Pindyck and Rubinfeld, Chapter 2 (Analysis of Competitive Markets). Varian, Chapter 16 (Equilibrium),
• Lecture 3: Embodied carbon -- Peters and Hertwich, "CO2 Embodied in International Trade with Implications for Global Climate Policy"
  
• Lecture 4: Doing applied microeconomics with Excel -- an introduction to working with pivot tables in Excel.
• Lecture 6: Oil Markets -- Kennedy and Al-Qahtani
• Lecture 7: Varian, Chapters 24 and 27
• Lecture 9: Dahl, Chapters 7, 10 and 11.
  
• Lecture 11:  Dahl, Chapters 4 and 5
• Lecture 13: Nordhaus and Wietzman (also, a recent paper by Stern).
  

References:

Carol A. Dahl, International Energy Markets: Understanding Pricing, Policies, and Profits, ISBN 0-87814-799-3, PennWell Books.

Deirdre N. McCloskey, Economical Writing, 2nd edition, ISBN 1-57766-06303, Waveland Press, Inc.

Paul Roberts, The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World, ISBN 0-618-23977-4, Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin.

Hal R. Varian, Intermediate Microeconomics. 7th edision, ISBN 0-393-92862-4, Norton (from Rutherford's intermediate microeconomics class)

Robert S. Pindyck and Daniel L Rubinfeld, Microeconomics, Sixth Edition, ISBN 0-13-191207-0, Pearson / Prentice Hall.  (from Fillipini's microeconomics principles class)

IEA country reports for Switzerland for 2003 and 2007 are provided here as background reading for students working on Swiss energy-economy issues.  (The password for the 2007 document is "sive97".)

IEA energy balances data are provided here in a format suitable for Excel 2007, and it is here in a format suitable for Excel 2003 or earlier.  To understand these data, see the following documents: Energy Statistics Manual, OECD Balances Documentation.

GAMS modeling language is a one-click install and can be obtained here.  A GAMS version of the multiregional input-output carbon content model is provided here.

Saxe

Homework:

• Term paper (10-15 pages, double-spaced): The writing assignment will provide students with an opportunity to improve their English writing skills and to carry out independent analysis of an issue related to course material.  Topic examples will be provided.  Students will learn the basics of writing economic papers.  The paper is returned with feedback for students to re-write for a second submission.  The grade will be based on the quality of the final paper and the level to which suggested improvements were used by the student.  Details of the ETH policy related to plagiarism is provided here.  We will follow guidelines for citation style which have been developed at Reed College and can be found here.  These are based on the Chicago Manual of Style.  Gabriella Lods recommends this Duke document as a useful introduction to the writing of papers in economics.
  

• A small home assignment will be provided to clarify methods of analysis and the application of course ideas with data.  Addtionally, participation in the in-class exercise and in the lectures will count towards the final course assessment. 

Student Papers 2009

The student papers 2009 can be found here, the abstracts are here.

Swiss Association of Energy Economists

A student chapter of the Swiss Association of Energy Economists has recently been founded at ETH.  Information is provided here.

Using Microsoft Internet Explorer

If you want to use IE 7 with the course web page you need to configure your security settings:

1. Go to Tools and then Internet options.
2. Click on the advanced tab and scroll down to the security section.
3. Look for an option: warn about certificate address mismatch and uncheck that.

Now you will be able to access those sites without getting annoying warnings about certificates and so forth.
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