Energy Economics
Energy use: economics of energy saving The dynamics behind the changes in energy intensity is an important topic in energy economics. Goods and services are produced with a variety of inputs and a so-called production function has been proposed to describe it. Engineers prefer to construct it on the basis of physical flows (engineering production functions), but this is difficult [...]
Desalinization: a necessary option?
A technology to supply water in relevant amounts is desalinization of seawater. It is at the intersection of water, food and energy issues, because the water for drinking and food is a necessity of life but its production from seawater requires lots of electricity. It competes with other technologies such as extracting water from air. As with other technologies, these [...]
Food Price Elasticity
Estimating food demand Past food demand equals use by definition and is determined from historical measures and correlations. To estimate long-term future food demand, populations at country level are segmented by income group and by urban versus rural (Bijl et al. 2018). Food quality is implemented by assessing food categories on the basis of end-use functions (energy, protein, luxury-taste, vitamins-minerals, [...]
Input-Output Methodology
Measuring monetary flows: I-O matrices National economic models have usually more sectors than the economic growth models discussed so far. Such sectoral disaggregation is based on a table or matrix of the intersectoral flows, or intermediate deliveries, between economic sectors: the input-output (I-O) table. They offer a bridge between the empirical data on monetary transactions on the one hand and [...]
Catastrophe Theory and Tipping Points
Modelling catastrophic change The simplest mathematical equation that represents bifurcations and catastrophic change is a first order differential equation of the form: (eqn. 1) Solving for the attractors (dX/dt = 0), it is seen that one root is X = 0 and it represents a globally unstable attractor and the other two roots are for X* = ±√a. For [...]
Depletion dynamics: Oil in the USA and gas in the Netherlands
Models of oil and gas exploitation An important issue in sustainable development discourses is the depletion of finite resources of fossil fuels and minerals. The concepts of supply cost curves and reserve-production ratios (RPR) have been introduced in resource economics, in combination with learning-by-doing (see Appendix 8A.1 en Box 17.2 in Sustainability Science book and the blog Energy Economics). Usually, [...]