30648 - ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS AND POLICY

The European Union explicitly states that “since economics is about to deal with scarce resources, it can often be useful when tackling environmental problems”. This statement comes from a precise observation. The ability of the natural environment to dispose the waste of anthropogenic activities (keeping unchanged degree of regeneration) is not infinite (downstream “scarcity”). This kind of “scarcity” justifies to use the tools of the economic theory to face environmental problems. In this regard, two circumstances should be adequately emphasised. Firstly, today the most important (at least perceived) environmental problem is climate change due to the anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide. Secondly, more than 80% of carbon emissions are due to energy production and consumption. As a consequence, fighting climate change requires to adequately study the interaction between energy and environmental issues with the aim to understand how to mitigate global warming through (but not only) the decarbonisation of energy supply. The analysis of this interaction is the principal mission of this course.

The course is divided into three parts.

1.         The first part focuses on how the economic theory can help policymakers to design environmental policies. The main environmental tools are described and analyzed (environmental taxation, emissions trading, standards, voluntary agreements, etc.).

2.         The second part introduces the main energy markets (crude oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear power and renewable energy). Great attention is dedicated to the perspectives of deployment of Renewable Energy Sources (RES), their competitiveness and the possible supporting mechanisms (quantity, pricing and hybrid supporting mechanisms).

3.         The third part focuses on the policies aimed to achieve the net zero emission target especially at EU level.

Class 1. Introduction: economic theory, energy and environment (Instructor: Gullì; lecture notes provided by the instructor)

Class 2. Carrying capacity, ecological footprint and human development index (Instructor: Gullì; lecture notes provided by the instructor)

Class 3. The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) (Instructor: Gullì; lecture notes provided by the instructor)

Class 4. From theory to policy: environmental taxation (Instructor: Gullì; lecture notes provided by the instructor)

Class 5. From theory to policy: emissions trading (Instructor: Gullì; lecture notes provided by the instructor)

Class 6. Standards and voluntary agreements (Instructor: Gullì; lecture notes provided by the instructor)

Class 7. Climate change and energy supply (Instructor: Gullì; lecture notes provided by the instructor)

Class 8. Energy markets and prices: crude oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear power; renewable energy (Instructor: Gullì; lecture notes provided by the instructor)

Class 9. Renewable technologies (hydropower, wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, marine): basic technical issues (Instructor: Gullì; lecture notes provided by the instructor)

Class 10. Electricity market and RES competitiveness: market parity (Instructor: Gullì; lecture notes provided by the instructor)

Class 11. Electricity industry and RES competitiveness: grid parity and supply parity (full decentralization) (Instructor: Gullì; lecture notes provided by the instructor)

Class 12. Supporting policy of RES deployment: feed-in and quantity mechanisms (Instructor: Gullì; lecture notes provided by the instructor)

Class 13. Supporting policy of RES deployment: hybrid mechanisms (Instructor: Gullì; lecture notes provided by the instructor)

Class 14. Group assignment (tenders for wind power) (Instructor: Gullì; lecture notes provided by the instructor)

Class 15. The economics of hydrogen supply (Instructor: Gullì; lecture notes provided by the instructor)

Class 16. The economics of CCUS: Carbon Capture, Use and Storage (Instructor: Gullì; lecture notes provided by the instructor)

Class 17. Biofuels and E-fuels (Instructor: Gullì; lecture notes provided by the instructor)

Class 18. EU policies (1) (Instructor: Gullì; lecture notes provided by the instructor)

Class 19. EU policies (2) (Instructor: Gullì; lecture notes provided by the instructor)

- undesrtanding how ecomimic theory can help policymakers to to design environmental and energy policy

- verifying how the current policies can promote the deployment of renewable technologies

- understanding how environmental policies can promote the safeguard of the natural environment

- checking the impact of environmental policies on the economic activity

- how to design environmental taxation

- how to design an emissions trading scheme

- how to assess the different schemes of RES subsdies

- analyse the connection between environmental and energy issues

• Face-to-face lectures
• Case studies /Incidents (traditional, online)
• Group assignments

• face-to-face lectures
• Case studies /Incidents (traditional, online)
• Group assignments