FT: Big Oil: From black to green

From the FT: Big Oil: From black to green

Despite pressure to develop renewables, many energy majors see more money in traditional markets

Highlighting the different attempts of big oil companies to diversify to green energy, with a distinct difference apparently between European and US companies.

Read on here

New OxCARRE Research: Stranded assets, the social cost of carbon, and directed technical change: Macroeconomic dynamics of optimal climate policy

New OxCARRE research from

Frederick van der Ploeg ([ox.ac.uk], OxCARRE) and Armon Rezai ([wu.ac.at], WU - Vienna University of Economics and Business)

Stranded assets, the social cost of carbon, and directed technical change: Macroeconomic dynamics of optimal climate policy

Abstract

The tractable general equilibrium model developed by Golosov et al. (2014), GHKT for short, is modified to allow for stock-dependent fossil fuel extraction costs and partial exhaustion of fossil fuel reserves, a negative impact of global warming on growth, mean reversion in climate damages, steady labour-augmenting technical progress, specific green technical progress driven by learning by doing, population growth, and a direct effect of the stock of atmospheric carbon on instantaneous welfare. We characterize the social optimum and derive simple rule for both the optimal carbon tax and the renewable energy subsidy, and characterize the optimal amount of untapped fossil fuel.

Available here [ox.ac.uk].

New OxCARRE research: Fossil fuel producers under threat

Rick van der Ploeg writes on

Fossil fuel producers under threat

Oil and gas producers face three threats: prolonged low oil and gas prices, tightening of climate policy and a tough budget on cumulative carbon emissions, and technological innovation producing cheap substitutes for oil and gas. These threats pose real risks of putting oil and gas producers out of business. They lead to the problem of stranded assets and a significant downward valuation of oil and gas producers. This calls for divesting from and shorting coal, oil, and gas. The economies of oil- and gas-rich countries are typically in a deplorable state, since they did not use their past windfalls to build up buffers and invest in a diversified economy. More rapacious depletion of their oil and gas reserves will not help. After the crash in oil and gas prices these countries are facing serious problems and it is difficult to see how they will cope with the outlined threats.

Published in Oxford Review of Economic Policy, available here [oxrep.oxfordjournals.org].