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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Resource Use Under Climate Stabilization: Can Nuclear Power Provide Clean Energy?, Ujjayant N. Chakravorty, Bertrand Magne, Michel Moreaux
Resource Use Under Climate Stabilization: Can Nuclear Power Provide Clean Energy?, Ujjayant N. Chakravorty, Bertrand Magne, Michel Moreaux
Ujjayant Chakravorty
The long-term goal of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the stabilization of carbon concentration in the atmosphere. In this paper, we impose a carbon target concentration on a partial equilibrium model of the global energy sector. Specifically, we ask whether nuclear power can provide carbon-free energy as fossil fuel resources become costly due to scarcity and externality costs. We find that nuclear power can reduce the cost of generating clean energy significantly and relatively quickly. However, beyond a few decades the role of nuclear power may be considerably reduced as uranium becomes scarce and renewables become economical. …
Cycles In Nonrenewable Resource Prices With Pollution And Learning-By-Doing, Ujjayant N. Chakravorty, Andrew Leach, Michel Moreaux
Cycles In Nonrenewable Resource Prices With Pollution And Learning-By-Doing, Ujjayant N. Chakravorty, Andrew Leach, Michel Moreaux
Ujjayant Chakravorty
We study how environmental regulation in the form of a cap on aggregate emissions from a fossil fuel (e.g., coal) interacts with the arrival of a clean substitute (e.g., solar energy). The cost of the substitute is assumed to decrease with cumulative use because of learning-by-doing. We show that optimal energy prices may initially increase because of pollution regulation, but fall due to learning, and rise again because of scarcity of the resource, finally falling after transition to the clean substitute. Thus nonrenewable resource prices may exhibit cyclical behavior even in a purely deterministic setting.