Thema Energiewirtschaft

Klimaverhandlungen: welche Erwartungen können an den Klimagipfel in Paris gestellt werden?

Kurz vor dem anstehenden Klimagipfel äußert sich Angela Merkel in der Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung wie folgt: „Zu Recht wird von Regierungen und Politikern erwartet, dass sie nicht länger die Augen vor erdrückenden wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnissen verschließen, dass der Klimaschutz rasches und energisches Handeln erfordert.“ Frau Merkel stellt schließlich eine klare Forderung an die Ergebnisse ...

Climate Negotiations: What Can Be Expected from the Climate Summit in Paris?

Shortly before the upcoming UN climate summit, Angela Merkel wrote in a German newspaper: “With good reason, it is expected from governments and politicians, that they do not longer close their eyes to the pressing scientific results that climate protection requires rapid and vigorous action.” She further calls for a clear negotiation outcome: “The greenhouse gas emissions do not only have to be stabilized, ...

Measuring Productivity When Technologies Are Heterogeneous: A Semi-Parametric Approach for Electricity Generation

While productivity growth in electricity generation is associated with multiple positive effects from an economic and environmental perspective, measuring it is challenging. This paper proposes a framework to estimate and decompose productivity growth for a sector characterized by multiple technologies. Using a metafrontier Malmquist decomposition and frontier estimation based on stochastic non-smooth ...

Shaking Dutch Grounds Won't Shatter the European Gas Market

The Netherlands have been a pivotal supplier in Western European natural gas markets in the last decades. Recent analyses show that the Netherlands would play an important role in replacing Russian supplies in Germany and France in case of Russian export disruption (Richter & Holz, 2015). However, the Netherlands have suffered from regular earthquakes in recent years that are related to the natural ...

Earthquakes in the Netherlands Cannot Shake the European Natural Gas Market

The rising number of earthquakes in the northeastern part of the Netherlands has been attributed to the extraction of natural gas from the Groningen field. This has led tostrong opposition to natural gas production from the Dutch population, a matter that is increasingly preoccupying not only policy-makers on the local and provincial levels,but also the central government. In response, the Dutch government ...

Liquefied Natural Gas Will Have to Play a Larger Role in the Future: Six Questions to Franziska Holz

Erdbeben in den Niederlanden können den europäischen Erdgasmarkt nicht erschüttern

Die vermehrt auftretenden Erdbeben im Nordosten der Niederlande werden auf die Förderung von Erdgas im Groningen-Feld zurückgeführt. Dadurch entstand erheblicher Widerstand gegen die Erdgasförderung in der niederländischen Bevölkerung, der über die Lokal- und Provinzpolitik hinaus zunehmend auch die Zentralregierung beschäftigt. Inzwischen hat die niederländische Regierung einen starken Rückgang der ...

Flüssiggas wird künftig eine größere Rolle spielen: Sechs Fragen an Franziska Holz

Small Might Be Beautiful, but Bigger Performs Better: Scale Economies in "Green" Refurbishments of Apartment Housing

The energy efficiency of the residential housing stock plays a key role in strategies to mitigate climate change and global warming. In this context, it is frequently argued that private investment and the quality of thermal upgrades are too low in the light of the challenges faced and the potential energy cost savings. While many authors address the potential barriers for investors to increase energy ...

How Natural Disasters Can Affect Environmental Concerns, Risk Aversion, and Even Politics: Evidence from Fukushima and Three European Countries

We study the impact of the Fukushima disaster on environmental concerns, well-being, risk aversion, and political preferences in Germany, Switzerland, and the UK. In these countries, overall life satisfaction did not significantly decrease, but the disaster significantly increased environmental concerns among Germans. One underlying mechanism likely operated through the perceived risk of a similar ...