A balanced examination of global energy issues. Energy sustainability and climate change are two of the greatest challenges facing humankind. Unraveling these complex and interconnected issues demands careful and objective assessment. Fact and Fiction in Global Energy Policy aims to change the prevailing discourse by examining fifteen core energy questions from a variety of perspectives, demonstrating how, for each of them, no clear-cut answer exists. Is industry the chief energy villain? Can we sustainably feed and fuel the planet at the same time? Is nuclear energy worth the risk? Should geoengineering be outlawed? Touching on pollution, climate mitigation and adaptation, energy efficiency, government intervention, and energy security, the authors explore interrelated concepts of law, philosophy, ethics, technology, economics, psychology, sociology, and public policy. This book offers a much-needed critical appraisal of the central energy technology and policy dilemmas of our time and the impact of these on multiple stakeholders.

In 1999, Texas passed a landmark clean energy law, beginning a groundswell of new policies that promised to make the US a world leader in renewable energy. As Leah Stokes shows in Short Circuiting Policy, however, that policy did not lead to momentum in Texas, which failed to implement its solar laws or clean up its electricity system. Examining clean energy laws in Texas, Kansas, Arizona, and Ohio over a thirty-year time frame, Stokes argues that organized combat between advocate and opponent interest groups is central to explaining why states are not on track to address the climate crisis. She tells the political history of our energy institutions, explaining how fossil fuel companies and electric utilities have promoted climate denial and delay. Stokes further explains the limits of policy feedback theory, showing the ways that interest groups drive retrenchment through lobbying, public opinion, political parties and the courts. More than a history of renewable energy policy in modern America, Short Circuiting Policy offers a bold new argument about how the policy process works, and why seeming victories can turn into losses when the opposition has enough resources to roll back laws.

This book presents an analytic history of American energy policy, examining policy failures and how the policy process itself leads to failure.

Sustainable development is triggering a re-assessment of innovation and technological change in all fields, and energy is no exception. A key challenge of energy sustainability is to examine the range of credible potential pathways of combined social, environmental and technological systems under conditions of uncertainty, stagger, personal preferences and complication. Conventional energy resources essentially fossil fuels are becoming limited because of the swift increase in energy demand. This disparity in energy demand and supply has placed enormous coercion not only on consumer prices, but also on the natural world; this requires mankind to look for sustainable energy resources. Sreekanth. K J, PhD begins this book by first describing the energy efficiency and emission reduction characteristics of the road transportation sector in Chapter One. Chapter Two proposes the costs of renewable energy promotion and benefits through an analysis of the European case by Margarita Ortega Izquierdo and Pablo Del Río. Next, Chapter Three, by Jiang Yu and Zheng Fang, presents a review on residential electricity price policies in China. In Chapter Four, Fotouh Al-Ragom discusses the behavior change approach with a metric to promote and sustain energy efficiency. The Nigerian electricity market and its future is explained in Chapter Five by Karen Maguire and Kolawole Olaniyi. The institutionalization of the common gas market in the context of institutional evolution of the Eurasian economic union by Elena Shadrina is explained in Chapter Six.

This is the first handbook to provide a global policy perspective on energy, bringing together a diverse range of international energy issues in one volume. Maps the emerging field of global energy policy both for scholars and practitioners; the focus is on global issues, but it also explores the regional impact of international energy policies Accounts for the multi-faceted nature of global energy policy challenges and broadens discussions of these beyond the prevalent debates about oil supply Analyzes global energy policy challenges across the dimensions of markets, development, sustainability, and security, and identifies key global policy challenges for the future Comprises newly-commissioned research by an international team of scholars and energy policy practitioners