Energy Studies Review

Benchmarking the North American Atmospheric Fluidized Bed Industry

Jack Fuller et al. — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 13:34:56 PST

Benchmarking the North American Atmospheric

Fluidized Bed Industry

(abstract)

Atmospheric fluidized bed combustion (AFBC) boilers are a mature, well established, and valuable technology. Their fuel flexibility, combustion efficiency, and relatively low emission levels have seen them attract new interest in recent times. In order to ensure plant sustainability it is important for AFBC plant operators to maintain a high level of operational performance and plant efficiency. Benchmarking is a tool that can aid the attainment of superior performance and efficiency levels. It has widespread use throughout many industries and allows managers to gauge how their company performs relative to similar firms and identify areas that are in need of improvement. Sponsored by Council of Industrial Boiler Owners (CIBO), this paper presents a set of North American AFBC industry benchmarks for the year of 2009. Focusing on both circulating and bubbling bed boilers, the benchmarks are intended to enhance the industry’s overall efficiency and sustainability.

Further evidence on the time-varying efficiency of crude oil markets

Chaker Aloui et al. — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 13:34:54 PST

In this paper, we apply the rolling sample Shannon entropy and the Symbolic Time Series Analysis to evaluate the dynamic of weak-form efficiency of the crude oil markets. Daily closing spot prices data for two worldwide crude oil benchmarks (West Texas Intermediate and Europe Brent) are used with a time window of 4 years. Our main findings support evidence that the degree of efficiency of crude oil market is time-varying. Moreover, the WTI market appears to be less efficient than the Europe Brent. We finally show that the crisis 1997-1998 adversely affected the efficiency degree in crude oil markets. Overall, the findings have several important policy and investment implications.

The Role of Energy Commodities in Middle East Stock Market Integration

Muath Asmar et al. — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 13:34:52 PST

Given the importance of stock market integration as an indicator of portfolio benefits on the merits of global fund diversification, we test whether the integration of frontier stock market in Middle East (Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Oman) can be justified by the movement of energy commodities prices. Using the International capital asset pricing model (ICAPM) in the period January 1997–March 2010, our results indicate that there is a dynamic relationship between energy commodities in the long run. However, the sort linkages of Granger causalities show that only coal and oil Granger-cause market integration. As robustness check, this study investigates the integration of those markets into the European, Australasia, and Far East (EAFE), US, and UK stock markets. Using multivariate regression and after controlling for the size and trading liquidity, we found that there is significant relationship between energy commodities and market integration.

Crude oil futures traders: Who is watching whom?

Damir Tokic — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 13:34:47 PST

We test for the pair-wise Granger type causality between the net long positions of crude oil futures traders, as categorized by the CTFC. Our results leads us to conclude that: 1) the Swap Dealer category behaves as a speculator because it monitors (or causes) the changes in the net long positions of all other traders and trades accordingly; 2) the Producer/Merchant group behaves as a hedger because it makes the trading decisions without the influence of other traders, 3) the Money Manager group behaves as an investor because it’s always net long crude oil futures and makes the trading decisions without the influence of other traders, and 4) the Other Reportable and Nonreportable groups, which represent retail traders and smaller accounts, act mostly as noise traders. Thus, this study provides some support for the increased regulation of Swap Dealers under the Dodd-Frank Act and the Volcker rules.

ENERGY CONSUMPTION AND GDP REVISITED: A FRACTIONAL COINTEGRATION RELATIONSHIP FOR TURKEY

Burcu Kıran — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 12:30:36 PST

This paper investigates the relationship between energy consumption and GDP for Turkey over the period from 1960 through 2009 by using a fractional cointegration approach, which allows residuals to be fractionally integrated rather than stationary, with the classical cointegration approach based on I(0) stationarity or I(1) cointegrating relationships. The findings obtained from the Engle and Granger cointegration test indicate that there is no evidence of cointegration between energy consumption and GDP. On the other hand, the results of the fractional cointegration test give evidence of fractional cointegration which implies that deviations from the long run relationship shared by energy consumption and GDP take a long time to dissipate before reaching their equilibrium level.

THE EFFECTS OF URANIUM PRICE FLUCTUATIONS ON PRODUCTION, EXPLORATION EXPENDITURES AND RESERVES: VAR APPROACH

Sondès Kahouli — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 12:30:34 PST

The aim of this paper is to empirically analyse the effects of uranium price fluctuations, i.e. increase vs decrease, on uranium production, uranium exploration expenditures and uranium reserves. We apply a Vector Autoregression (VAR) approach which allows for both symmetric and asymmetric model specifications to simulate impulse-response functions (IRFs) and derive the forecasting error variance decomposition (VD).
Results give evidence that a uranium price increase induces an exploration expenditures increase and, to a lesser extent, a production increase. In contrast, no significant effect of uranium price fluctuations on uranium reserves can be supported. Results also give evidence of the presence of asymmetric aspects in the response of uranium exploration expenditures and uranium production to uranium price fluctuations. In fact, uranium exploration expenditures and uranium production seem to be more sensitive to uranium price increases than to uranium price decreases.

MEASURING LONG-TERM ENERGY SUPPLY RISKS: A G7 RANKING

Manuel Frondel et al. — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 12:30:33 PST

The security of energy supply has again become a similarly hot topic as it was during the oil crises in the 1970s, not least due to the recent historical oil price peaks. In this paper, we analyze the energy security situation of the G7 countries using a statistical risk indicator and empirical energy data for the years 1978 through 2010. We find that Germany's energy supply risk has risen substantially since the oil price crises of the 1970s, whereas France has managed to reduce its risk dramatically, most notably through the deployment of nuclear power plants. As a result of the nuclear phase-out decision of 2011, Germany's supply risk can be expected to rise further and to approach the level of Italy. Due to its resource poverty, Italy has by far the highest energy supply risk among G7 countries.

HOUSEHOLD PREFERENCES FOR TIME-OF-USE RATES IN THE PORTUGUESE ELECTRICITY MARKET

António Cardoso Marques et al. — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 12:30:31 PST

This paper contributes to the debate about peak-load pricing by making an analysis of the residential electricity market in Portugal. The results were built on techniques of logit regression complemented by quantile regression. We estimate the probability of choosing the Time-Of-Use electricity rate and the probability of reducing the Monthly Costs of Electricity by switching the rate for different consumer profiles. Factors such as consumer behaviour and knowledge are determinant when it comes to choosing differentiated rates. Our results suggest guidelines for defining policy measures that will promote an effective change in consumption periods and rate choices.

THE IMPACT OF THE EU EMISSIONS TRADING SYSTEM ON CO2 INTENSITY IN ELECTRICITY GENERATION

Anna Widerberg et al. — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:53:38 PDT

The primary objective of EU Emissions Trading System (EU-ETS) is to reduce CO2-emissions. We study the effect of the EU-ETS on CO2-intensity of Swedish electricity generation, using an econometric time series analysis on weekly data for the period 2004–2008. We control for effects of other input prices and hydropower reservoir levels. Our results do not indicate any link between the price of EU-ETS and the CO2-intensity. The most likely reasons to explain this is that emission reductions are generally cheaper in other sectors and that other determinants of fossil fuel use diminish the effects of the EU-ETS.

THE EFFECT OF OIL PRICE ON UNITED ARAB EMIRATES GOODS TRADE DEFICIT WITH THE UNITED STATES

Osama D. Sweidan et al. — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:53:36 PDT

We seek to investigate the effect of oil price on UAE goods trade deficit with the U.S. The current increase in the price of oil and the absence of significant studies in the UAE economy are the main motives behind the current study. Our paper focuses on a small portion of UAE trade, which is 11% of the UAE foreign trade, however, it is a significant part since the U.S. is a major trade partner with the UAE. The current paper concludes that oil price has a significant positive influence on real imports. At the same time, oil price does not have a significant effect on real exports. As a result, any increase in the price of oil increases goods trade deficit of the UAE economy. The policy implication of the current paper is that the revenue of oil sales is not used to encourage UAE real exports.