The energy-environment interface: a modeled economic approach.

Summary The awareness of the environmental impacts due to human activities has led the whole political, scientific and economic class to consider in the strategic choices, in particular as regards structure of production and investment in the energy sector, the totality of the external effects resulting from these same choices. The fundamental question posed in this thesis is the determination of optimal energy strategies (production structure and investments) within the electric sector, when environmental protection constraints are introduced in order to limit the increase of the additional greenhouse effect. A theoretical and descriptive analysis allows us to define the basis and the scope of this study (specification of the fields selected: electricity production, greenhouse effect, theory of externalities, instruments of an environmental policy). The implementation of an environmental protection policy is considered in two ways, either by imposing a tax on CO2 emissions or by creating a market for pollution rights. A mathematical model, based on the principles of linear programming, is constructed to schematize and provide solutions to our problem. This model is applied on the one hand to the case of a closed economy (France and Germany), and on the other hand to that of an open economy (Europe). The main results obtained can be stated as follows: a preponderance of nuclear electricity in the total production structure and in the investments made to satisfy the increase in demand by 2010. a better efficiency of short-term taxation and of the long-term rights market from the point of view of practical implementation. a control of carbon emissions more directly obtained within the framework of the rights market. results (in terms of supply structure and environmental impacts) strongly conditioned by the level of the depollution costs of each producer