PERCEBOIS Jacques

"This book tells the story of energy by taking as a starting point the role played by a few people, some of them famous, others unknown or even forgotten, but all of whom have had a major influence on the changes in the world of energy. They are pioneers. What they all have in common is that their fate was tragic. Some died in accidents, others were murdered or disappeared under mysterious conditions. Through them, the book recalls the main features of the evolution of energy technologies since the 17th century. It makes the link between the innovations of the time and the contemporary energy debates, whether in the field of hydrocarbons, coal, nuclear energy or new energies. It also presents the debates on electricity pricing and network management. The book reads like a novel, with many anecdotes, and is intended to be easily accessible. The book is intended for high school students, university and college students and engineering students, but also for all those who are concerned about energy and environmental issues.

For the past ten years, the public authorities have supported the photovoltaic industry in order to meet the objectives of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The support policies implemented have resulted in an unprecedented development of this sector, leading to a significant drop in production costs. The decrease has been so significant that, in many countries, photovoltaic production costs are lower than the retail price of electricity. Households are now encouraged to invest in a photovoltaic power plant in order to consume part of their own electricity. This so-called self-consumption phenomenon depends largely on the structure of the grid tariff. Currently, this tariff is mainly based on the energy drawn without time differentiation. This type of tariff does not reflect the costs of the electricity network operators, which are essentially fixed in the short and medium term. The decrease in revenue induced by self-consumption creates a deficit for the grid operators which must be covered by an increase in the grid tariff. This effect leads to cross-subsidies from standard consumers to self-consumers. The objective of this thesis is to address this issue and it consists of 4 chapters. In the first chapter, an analysis of support policies for self-consumption has been carried out for the following countries: Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Spain and France. This study is based on bibliographic and documentary research in order to identify the strengths and weaknesses of these policies. In the second chapter, we study the indirect costs of the development of self-consumption for consumers. For this purpose, an estimate of cross-subsidies in France between 2017 and 2021 is proposed. This estimate is based on the calculation of aggregated self-consumption volumes at the national level, based on the reconstitution of load curves for different consumer and company profiles. In chapter 3, the current support mechanism is evaluated according to two criteria: the revenues generated by self-consumption and the support costs for the community. A simulation model has been developed to determine the profitability of a PV installation coupled with a battery under different network tariffs. In chapter 4, an estimation of the gains related to load shedding is performed. A battery charging optimization model has been developed to maximize the revenue from load shedding for the self-consumer.The thesis shows that policies to support self-consumption have neglected the indirect costs associated with network tariffs. Changes in the structure of the grid tariff are needed to limit cross-subsidies on the one hand, and to take advantage of the benefits that self-consumption can bring to the grid or to the power system in general on the other. Tariff signals are needed to increase the value of self-consumption, but this can only be achieved by changing the current subsidy scheme that does not encourage the adoption of batteries. The results show that a premium for battery investment would be less costly for the community but would limit the development of self-consumption.

Opening up to competition, development of renewable energies, volatility of oil prices, global warming... With the widespread awareness of the challenges to be met, energy issues are exciting. These challenges are not only economic but also real social issues. It is on the specificities of the "French energy model" and the role of the State that historians, economists and actors have been regularly examining for three years in a seminar organized by the Committee for the Economic and Financial History of France. Indeed, if there is one industrial field in which the State has been a legislator, operator, regulator and financier since the beginning of the 19th century, it is energy. Energy (coal, gas, electricity, oil) has been the driving force behind the different phases of industrialization, and has proved to be a strategic sector, as well as a privileged field for the emergence of the notion of public service. What are the different roles of the State in this field? How have these complex relationships between the State and the operators developed over time? What is the genealogy of the model of the large public company that put its monopoly at the service of the nation? Why is energy a privileged sector of public action? The thirty or so texts and testimonies gathered in these proceedings retrace, analyze and provide a better understanding of the main mechanisms of this history.

The ARENH (regulated access to historical nuclear energy) mechanism, which since 2011 has allowed alternative suppliers to acquire 100 TWh of nuclear electricity at the regulated price of 42 euros per MWh, is now being challenged. Alternative suppliers want to raise the ARENH ceiling to 150 TWh, while EDF is calling for the ARENH price to be raised well above its current level. In early 2020, the public authorities submitted a project for public debate that would replace the ARENH system with a price "corridor" type mechanism. All nuclear electricity would be purchased at the wholesale market price by all suppliers (including EDF) and financial compensation would be paid ex post between EDF, a nuclear producer, and alternative suppliers when the market price falls below a floor price or exceeds a ceiling price. The purpose of this article is to recall the evolution of the ARENH mechanism, to explain its criticisms and weaknesses. It is then to analyze the new mechanism proposed by the CRE, to measure its consequences for operators as well as for the final consumer.

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The deployment of renewable energies relies upon incentive policies to make their use profitable for the owner. Increasing costs of renewable support result in rising public service obligation tariffs to fund these policies. The photovoltaic prosumption could help decreasing the cost of developing renewables but induces cross-subsidies between prosumers and other users of the network that may compensate the benefits. We show that such cross-subsidies do occur but are dependent on the self-consumption rate that will remain low in the coming years. The regulator could fund these cross-subsidies by increasing the fixed part of the network tariff for prosumers only.

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"In some thirty years, few industries have undergone a transformation comparable to that which has "changed the game" in the various energy sectors: oil, gas, coal, electricity, nuclear, and renewables. Technological changes, the balance of power between countries, the behavior of players, and political decisions that put the market at the heart of all reforms are all major factors that have changed the very fundamentals of these activities. How are prices formed on these different markets? How can we take into account the two dimensions of energy: a strategic good, but also a public service? Is what applies to one energy source relevant to the others? Can the market always replace planning and under what conditions? What are the links between energy and the environment? These are some of the questions, among many others, to which this book - in its updated 3rd edition - provides answers. It takes stock of these changes, based on a rigorous economic analysis of the sectors and the "energy good" as a whole. It also provides numerous figures and institutional data presented in a synthetic manner and offers critical analyses of policies conducted in Europe and around the world. While the approach is primarily methodological, the text also provides numerous examples of practical situations observed and case studies. This book can satisfy a wide audience: engineering students, undergraduate and graduate students of economics and political science, managers and observers of the energy industry and the economy as a whole. The 1st edition of Energy won the AFSE prize for the best economics textbook (2011)".

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The deployment of renewable energies relies upon incentive policies to make their use profitable for owner. However, their development needs adjustments of network to manage intermittency and additional energy fed into the grid. Moreover, the Public Service Obligation Tariffs (PSOT) are increasing to fund policies that support renewable energy deployment. Therefore, some decisions are taken to promote self-consumption by owners of renewable energy power plants, as photovoltaic prosumers. This behavior is encouraged by payment exemptions of PSOT, special tariffs dedicated to remunerate each self-consumed energy unit or savings on the variable part of the network tariff. Thus, some cross-subsidies appear between self-consumers and other users of the network to compensate all these previous self-consumers' gains. We show that these cross-subsidies occur but they strongly rely on self-consumption rate and on renewable energy share in the total produced or consumed energy. So, currently, the levels of cross-subsidies are not significant for consumers. We also show that regulator could fund these cross-subsidies increasing the fixed part of the network tariff for prosumers.

The WIOD (World Input-Output Database) project led by the European Commission since 2009 has been able to take advantage of the development of statistical sources on international trade in recent years to harmonize the input-output tables of many countries at a global level. This database renews interest in input-output analyses inspired by the work of Leontief, adapted to the framework of a world economy. It is now possible to follow the propagation of a shock at the global level. The thesis is in line with this revival by trying to evaluate the inter-sectoral and international chain of events of a shock on energy prices, and its impact on unit production costs. The originality of this paper is that it seeks to go beyond the usual limits of input-output analysis by allowing an endogenous deformation of technical coefficients over time.The thesis seeks to take advantage of the econometric literature on flexible functional forms, applied to the analysis of production, to overcome this main limitation. The interest of the flexible cost functional form of the Generalized Leontief type is more particularly discussed insofar as it covers as a special case the usual input-output model. The thesis proposes to use a nested sectoral modeling and gives an important place to the theory of indices to achieve this in the most coherent way possible. The model thus developed is finally estimated in order to carry out simulation work on the effects of a carbon tax in European countries on the cost competitiveness of the different sectors in these countries. We study the effects of a carbon tax at 20€/tCO2 or 80€/tCO2 first at the European level. The analysis of cost competitiveness reveals that Poland and Spain would be the main losers of this tax while the other European countries manage to preserve their competitiveness vis-à-vis the rest of the world. A similar study on a tax applied unilaterally on France or Germany shows that these countries will be only slightly affected.

Faced with the urgency of the fight against global warming, the low-carbon energy transition is a societal transition that constitutes a real challenge due to its singularities. The conditions for its realization lie in a multi-level political steering in order to act now on the different possible levers of action. Indeed, the States intervene on the one hand during international negotiations in order to reach a universal agreement on the climate, and on the other hand in the legislation of their national regulatory framework. Local authorities also intervene because of their competences which give them a significant power of influence on decentralized production modes and on energy consumption. The local level plays a key role because it benefits from the bonds of proximity and trust that encourage collective action and constitute a real leverage effect. It is at the local level that energy transition projects emerge and that the fight against global warming takes shape. This is why it is necessary to understand what types of local projects for the energy transition are emerging, and what their performance is from an economic, social and environmental point of view. This will allow public authorities to identify the types of efficient projects to encourage their development, and also to identify the obstacles to be removed in order to encourage the emergence of innovative projects. In the long term, the aim is to understand which types of projects will be deployed and generalized within the framework of the energy transition according to the type of value they will manage to generate. In order to answer this question, the business model approach is relevant: it constitutes an analysis grid allowing to determine the characteristics of each project, by describing its value proposition and the configuration of this value, and to determine its viability and sustainability according to the creation (or destruction) of values (economic, financial, social, environmental) that it generates. The thesis thus proposes a typology of energy transition business models at the local level, a project analysis grid adapted to the societal challenge represented by the energy transition and finally proposes recommendations for public policy in terms of evaluating the economic, social and environmental performance of local energy transition projects.

The aim of the paper is to quantify the impact of increasing renewable energy sources (RES), especially wind generation and photovoltaic feed-in, on electricity prices in Germany, with a view to investigating the well-known merit order effect. To explore the dynamics of the merit order effect at an hourly resolution, we use the SURE methodology for carrying out an empirical analysis based on hourly historical data for the Germany electricity market between 2012 and 2015. Our main empirical findings confirm that increasing the share of wind generation and photovoltaic feed-in induces a sharp fall in electricity spot prices. Moreover, this impact varies throughout the 24 h of the day due to the dynamics of electricity demand and the intermittency of wind and solar photovoltaic feed-in.

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In this paper, we explore carry out an empirical analysis for Germany, as a country with high penetration of wind energy, to investigate the interaction between the well-known merit-order effect, i.e., falling spot price levels as well as highly fluctuating spot prices and the European electricity grids inteconnections,i.e., market coupling. Our main empirical findings suggest that wind power in-feed decreases electricity spot price level but increases spot prices volatility. Furthermore, the relationship between wind power and spot electricity prices can be strongly impacted by European electricity grids interconnection which behaves like a safety valve lowering volatility and limiting the price decrease. Therefore, the impacts of wind generated electricity on electricity spot markets are less clearly pronounced in interconnected systems.

Energy and environmental issues are one of the major challenges for humanity in the 21st century. The global growth in energy demand is confronted with environmental concerns (including pollution, global warming and CO2 emission reduction), especially in rapidly growing economic regions such as Asia. Shifting the use of traditional energy sources such as coal, oil, to cleaner energy sources and renewable energy is an inevitable trend in the future. In the current context, natural gas is considered a clean energy source that will play an important role in the process of energy transition to a low-carbon economy. The consequences for natural gas markets can be considerable. The prerequisite for such a development is a large supply of natural gas. The development of unconventional gas, in particular shale gas, provides an opportunity to expand global gas supply, as demonstrated by the "shale gas revolution" in the United States. This has profoundly changed regional gas markets. However, this "revolution" is hardly replicable to other regions of the world. This thesis demonstrates in particular that, apart from geological factors, institutional (taxation, property rights), economic (prices, technologies) and organizational (market liberalization) conditions are necessary to ensure large-scale development of unconventional resources. This thesis shows that these conditions are mostly not met either in Europe or in Asia (notably in China). Therefore, a transition to gas to meet the climate challenges in Asia will be done through imports and not through the region's own production. From three POLES model scenarios based on assumptions of climate policy, shale gas development and rapid increase of gas demand in the energy mix, especially in Asia, two main conclusions emerge. First of all, the importance of the development of shale gas in the USA and its low production cost lead to an abundant and competitive gas supply compared to other energies, especially compared to coal. Consequently, even without a climate policy, the conditions are in place for the share of natural gas in the energy mix to grow. Second, a strong climate policy has contradictory effects on the importance of natural gas in the energy mix of Asian countries. On the one hand, it allows a greater penetration of natural gas in their energy mix. But at the same time, limiting energy demand, the volumes of natural gas demanded are only slightly higher than in scenarios without climate policy.

At present, although most nuclear countries are converging on the same technical solution: deep disposal for the management of high-level and long-lived radioactive waste, the time objectives differ from one country to another. Through economic calculation, we wish to provide elements of an answer to the following question: In terms of temporality, how should the present generations, which benefit from nuclear electricity production, bear the burden of radioactive waste management, taking into account future generations? This thesis proposes to analyze specifically the French decision, taking into account its context. We propose a set of tools to evaluate the utility of the deep disposal project according to the choices of temporality. Our thesis also studies the feedback influence of storage choices on the nuclear fuel cycle. Beyond that, we take into account the interactions between deep storage and the choices of nuclear fleet and fuel cycle that constitute a "complete system".

"This is not the first time electricity has been transformed. After lighting our cities, making high-speed trains run, and modernizing agriculture, it now guides the surgeon's hand or the trajectory of missiles from a distance. This book recounts this incredible saga and reminds us that electricity, which cannot be stored, is not a commodity like any other. This particularity explains the difficulties of the liberalization of the electricity sector in the 1990s when Europe wanted to make it the tool of its renewal. Today, faced with the crisis and environmental issues, the Europe of energy is struggling to see the light of day. How can we make it happen? How much of it will be for renewable energies and nuclear power? And what kind of nuclear power are we talking about? These are the questions that run through this book, intended for decision-makers as well as citizen-consumers. [Source: 4th cover].

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Most recent studies on the long-term supply of uranium make simplistic assumptions on the available resources and their production costs. Some consider the whole uranium quantities in the Earth's crust and then estimate the production costs based on the ore grade only, disregarding the size of ore bodies and the mining techniques. Other studies consider the resources reported by countries for a given cost category, disregarding undiscovered or unreported quantities. In both cases, the resource estimations are sorted following a cost merit order. In this paper, we describe a methodology based on “geological environments”. It provides a more detailed resource estimation and it is more flexible regarding cost modelling. The global uranium resource estimation introduced in this paper results from the sum of independent resource estimations from different geological environments. A geological environment is defined by its own geographical boundaries, resource dispersion (average grade and size of ore bodies and their variance), and cost function. With this definition, uranium resources are considered within ore bodies. The deposit breakdown of resources is modelled using a bivariate statistical approach where size and grade are the two random variables. This makes resource estimates possible for individual projects. Adding up all geological environments provides a repartition of all Earth's crust resources in which ore bodies are sorted by size and grade. This subset-based estimation is convenient to model specific cost structures.

Faced with the instability of agricultural prices and its consequences, particularly for developing countries, the first part of this thesis is devoted to the presentation of the determinants of food commodity prices, including recent developments in terms of supply, taking into account the consequences of global warming, and of demand, considering in particular biofuels. It is also a question of presenting the ongoing financialization of economies, and the doubts that hover over the role that speculation on futures markets or the implementation of monetary policies may have on the spot prices observed on the physical markets of agricultural products. Following the reflections and elements of literature put forward, the second part proceeds from two empirical studies. The first focuses on the impact of speculation on financial futures markets on the price of the underlying (agricultural) commodities, while the second questions the role of money markets, approached through the central banker's capacity to stabilize short-term interest rates. On this basis, conclusions are drawn, as well as avenues of research, in view of the ongoing process of financialization of economies.

In Europe, the energy transition in the electricity sector is unique from both a geographical and a historical point of view. On the one hand, it is part of a dual process of technological addition and substitution. On the other hand, it calls on electricians to move away from the thermal paradigm and to mobilize new knowledge to do so. The aim of this research is to characterize the innovation strategies implemented by the six largest European electricity groups (EDF, Enel, Engie, E.ON, Iberdrola and RWE) and at the sector level. Based on patents filed between 2007 and 2013 and on collaborative projects conducted within the framework of FP7, we analyze the technological strategies that concern the direction of progress and the knowledge acquisition strategies that concern the approach mobilized by electric utilities to introduce low-carbon technologies. We show that, at the sector level, addition technologies are favored over substitution technologies and that substitution technologies are less open than addition technologies. Furthermore, it appears that the electricity companies with the highest emissions are not those that have the most pronounced strategy of technological substitution. On the other hand, they are the most open to acquiring new knowledge.

The issue of reducing CO2 emissions is now clearly posed worldwide and the COP21 has highlighted the new international requirements that countries could or should face in the short term. The fundamental objective of the thesis is to contribute to the identification of possible solutions in the field of increasing electricity production in a developing country, Vietnam, taking into account the necessary reduction of carbon-based energy sources. To this end, several scenarios concerning the development of the electricity sector in Vietnam are constructed in order to measure the effects of the choices relating to the production of electricity on CO2 emissions. After having presented an overview of the energy situation in Vietnam and highlighted the rapid increase in electricity consumption due to demographic pressure and the expression of new needs, the question of coal and gas imports and that of the production of new forms of energy are posed, with regard to the economic constraints, but also environmental. Theoretical reflections, the study of the construction of electricity master plans, the analysis of available economic tools and the application of energy demand forecasting models allow us to understand the complexity of the "electricity gamble" facing Vietnam. After a presentation of potential quantitative simulation tools, ELECsim was chosen for the modeling of the electricity sector in Vietnam. The scenarios are based on several assumptions regarding the evolution of economic growth and demographics, energy prices, the development of power generation technologies, the reported value of carbon, discount rates and exchange rates. Vietnam can first control demand growth through strong action on energy efficiency, while simultaneously reducing both electricity production costs and CO2 emissions. Several scenarios are then proposed, highlighting both the need for greater energy efficiency and the promotion of low-carbon energies, in the context of a rapid reorientation of policy choices in the face of the needs of accelerated but also sustainable economic development. Six scenarios have been built, based on a reference scenario, successively insisting on energy efficiency, nuclear, CCS technology, renewable energies and a more balanced electricity mix. The global environmental constraint (reduction of CO2 emissions) is a priority in the scenario building process. This multi-criteria approach is very new in Vietnam, a country that is currently more concerned with the cost of supply. The scenarios analyzed in the thesis take into account the reduction of the carbon intensity of the Vietnamese power sector. It is then proposed, as a threshold for the benchmark, the emission level of 50 to 80 g/kWh (chosen from the thresholds studied by two Asian economies neighboring Vietnam such as Indonesia and India). The different power generation mixes proposed seem to offer relevant solutions. They allow us to meet the economic and environmental challenges related to the expansion of Vietnam's electricity sector. The analysis takes into account the growing pressure of demand, the security of fuel supply with alternative choices, the reduction of total costs of high power generation, the control of the external bill, the consideration of the social impact (especially on the health of citizens) and land use, and finally, the respect of the standards related to the protection of the regional, national and global environment

The composition of the national electricity generation mix is based on the ranking of the different means of production in relation to their marginal cost of electricity generation. Thus, the considerable hydrocarbon reserves in oil producing countries have favored the misuse of oil or natural gas in the electricity generation fleet. The objective of this research work is to analyze the generation mix for these oil producing countries by constructing the optimal electricity mix regarding the rational (from the economic point of view) use of different means of electricity generation. In this work, we evaluate the current and future situation of electricity generation in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran through several modeling approaches: linear, dynamic and statistical. Then, we will conduct a sensitivity analysis to evaluate the optimality and efficiency of electricity generation considering the integration of other non-carbon alternative resources.

Liberalized electricity markets are assumed to provide long-term coordination of investments to ensure security of supply, sustainability and competitiveness. In the energy-only reference model, price formation by aligning the variable cost of marginal equipment in successive hourly markets provides a price signal to investors. However, in practice, this model is questioned as to its ability to trigger investments in low-carbon technologies and in particular renewable energies (RE) and as to its ability to guarantee security of supply. This thesis first seeks to characterize these two market failures and then looks at different solutions to address each of them. The results show that the replacement of non-market support mechanisms by market investments with the help of a carbon price appears to be a solution to trigger the development of RE, provided that there is a strong political commitment to a high carbon price. On the other hand, it also appears that the energy-only market with capped prices does not succeed in ensuring capacity adequacy. The addition of a capacity market or the removal of the price cap would allow for an improvement in the number of hours of load shedding and collective welfare. Moreover, the capacity market appears to be the best choice for the regulator among the market architectures considered.

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Uranium-bearing coal deposits are occasionally mentioned as a potential source of supply for nuclear fuels. The production of uranium from coal-ash has remained sub-economic for decades, but the emergence of new projects has once again raised a number of questions. How much coal-ash do we have? Are the coal deposits all rich in uranium? Can the uranium content always be recovered?This study shows that there are significant quantities of uranium in the ash produced by the world coal consumption: between 7 ktU and 13 ktU in 2012. Yet, most of this ash correspond to very low grade ores and potential production capacities should not exceed 700 tU/yr in today’s economic conditions (between 40 and 70 $/lbU3O8 for both spot and long-term price over the period 2011–2014 (Ux Consulting, 2015)), i.e. approximately 1% of current needs. On the long-term, the sensitivity of the production potential to economic factors (cut-off grade, uranium price) and coal-consumption scenarios is moderate. Economic production from coal-ash should not exceed a couple of percents of uranium needs.

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The physical architecture of power grids and the organizational structures of the power industries that have emerged as a result of reforms have been designed primarily around the characteristics of transmission infrastructure and generation assets. However, the new energy transition challenges, coupled with advances in communication and automation equipment, argue for greater involvement of decentralized generation activities and end consumers. We note that electrical systems are on the verge of major evolutions that share a double characteristic. The first is that these changes will require considerable capital investments to adapt and modernize the distribution networks. The second is that the activation of the downstream part of the electricity chain will release economic efficiency gains that are currently untapped, but will also bring new constraints. Based on this observation, the objective of this thesis is twofold. First, we propose a theoretical analysis of the regulatory instruments that frame and guide the expenditures of network operators. Based on the literature, we seek to characterize the regulatory tools that are best suited to investment in smart technologies. Since it is necessary to confront the theoretical analysis with the facts, we undertake to identify the key economic efficiency gains expected from the generalization of smart grids. We illustrate each of these gains with an empirical study that allows us to compare the results of our theoretical analysis to existing regulation schemes and to formulate a number of recommendations.The second objective of the thesis focuses on the impacts of the diffusion of demand-side management programs. The reasoning adopted is based on two observations. Important benefits are expected from substantial reductions in peak demand, reductions that translate into reduced profit opportunities for producers. The aim is to estimate the gains and losses that can be expected from demand management. To do so, we develop and use an optimization model in which we integrate several interconnected countries with differentiated generation fleets.The thesis shows that the currently dominant regulatory frameworks are limited in their incentive scope to promote efficient investment in the technology, which is likely to delay its introduction. Quantifying the impacts of demand-side management shows that significant efficiencies can be achieved through the generalization of these measures. However, they pose new problems in the remuneration of existing and future capacity adequacy, and highlight the potential antagonism between loss of revenue for the most reactive peak units and the development of low-carbon energies.Clearly, the questions raised by the development of smart grids require an informed political debate, as the electricity industry is essential to our societies. Among the considerable number of issues to be addressed, questions about the financing of investment projects and the inclusion of new sources of flexibility brought about by the adoption of the technology in the liberalized electricity markets will figure prominently.

"In some twenty years, few industries have undergone a transformation comparable to that which has "changed the game" in the various energy sectors: oil, gas, coal, electricity, nuclear, and renewables. Technological changes, the balance of power between countries, the behavior of players, and political decisions that put the market at the heart of all reforms are all major factors that have changed the very fundamentals of these activities. How are prices formed on these different markets? How can we take into account the two dimensions of energy: strategic goods but also public services? Is what applies to one energy source relevant to others? Can the market always replace planning and under what conditions? What are the links between energy and the environment? These are some of the questions, among many others, to which this book, in its second updated edition, provides answers. For the first time, it provides an assessment of these changes, based on a rigorous economic analysis of the sectors and the "energy good" as a whole. It also provides numerous figures and institutional data, presented in a synthetic manner, and offers critical analyses of policies conducted in Europe and around the world. While the approach is primarily methodological, the text also provides numerous examples of practical situations observed and case studies. This book can satisfy a wide audience: engineering students, undergraduate or graduate students in economics or political science, managers and observers of the energy industry and the economy. [Source: 4th cover].

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Most recent studies on the long-term supply of uranium make simplistic assumptions on the available resources and their production costs. Some consider the whole uranium quantities in the earth's crust and then estimate the production costs based on the ore grade only, disregarding the size of ore bodies and the mining techniques. Other studies consider the resources reported by countries for a given cost category, disregarding undiscovered or unreported quantities. In both cases, the resource estimations are sorted following a rising cost trend.In this paper, we describe a methodology based on geological environments. It provides a more detailed resource estimation and it is more versatile regarding cost modelling. The global uranium resource estimation introduced in this paper results from the sum of independent resource estimations from different geological environments. A geological environment is defined by its own geographical boundaries, resource dispersion (average grade and size of ore bodies and their variability), and cost function. In this definition, uranium resources are considered within ore bodies. The deposit breakdown of resources is modelled using a bivariate statistical approach. In this approach, size and grade are the two random variables. This makes resource estimates possible for individual projects. Adding up all geological environments provides a repartition of all earth's crust resources in which ore bodies are sorted by size and grade. This subset-based estimation is convenient to model specific cost structures.

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Uranium-bearing coal deposits are occasionally mentioned as a potential source of supply for nuclear fuels. The production of uranium from coal-ash has remained sub-economic for decades, but the emergence of new projects has once again raised a number of questions. How much coal-ash do we have? Are the coal deposits all rich in uranium? Can the uranium content always be recovered?.

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ln Saudi Arabia, fossil-fuel is the main source of power generation. Due to the huge economie and demographie growth, the electricity consumption in Saudi Arabia has increased and should continue to increase at a very fast rate. At the moment, more than half a million barrels of ail per day is used direct! y for power generation. Herein, we assess the power generation situation of the country and its future conditions through a modelling approach. For this purpose. we present the current situation by detailing the existing generation mix of electricity. Then we develop an optimization mode! of the power sector which aims to define the best production and investment pattern to reach the expected demand. Subsequently, we will carry out a sensitivity analysis so as to evaluate the robustness of the model's by taking into account the integration variability of the other alternative (non-fossil fuel based) resources. The results point out that the choices of investment in the power sector strongly affect the potential oil's exports of Saudi Arabia. For instance, by decarbonizing half of its generation mix, Saudi Arabia can release a round 0.5 Mb/d barrels of ail equivalent per day from 2020. Moreover. total power generation cast reduction can reach up to around 28% per year from 2030 if Saudi Arabia manages to attain the most optimal generation mix structure introduced in the mode! (50% of power from renewables and nuclear power plants and 50% from the fossil power plants).

A growing number of academic studies and reports from international organizations point to an increased dependence of new energy technologies on a category of resources often referred to as rare metals. At the same time, concerns have been raised for several years about the economic availability of these metals for the energy transition needed to combat global warming. The objective of this thesis is therefore to highlight all the constraints and risks involved in the frequent and widespread use of these metals in new energy technologies. The first part of the thesis is devoted to the indicators and theories related to the long-term economic availability of a non-renewable resource while highlighting a set of common traits shared by rare metals. The second part of this thesis demonstrates the risks attached to a lack of price elasticity in the supply of rare metals due to a by-product constraint. It also provides an in-depth analysis of the causes and consequences of the absence of a futures market for almost all of these rare metals. Finally, its last chapter proposes to explore the very strong connection between the energy sector and the metals sector. It is shown that this connection is growing and that it implies the possibility of a vicious circle between ever less concentrated energy (with a growing metal content) and metals that consume more and more energy due to their depletion.

This thesis studies the European electricity market. The first topic focuses on the interdependencies of electricity prices in the main European markets to assess the effectiveness of the reforms introduced by the European Commission to create a single electricity market. We use multivariate statistical methods (vector autoregressive model and Granger causality test). The second topic concerns the impact of the introduction of the derivatives market on the volatility of spot market prices through an econometric study with the GARCH model. The objective is to examine the stabilizing or destabilizing effect of derivatives on the volatility of electricity prices. Finally, the third topic analyzes the potential effects of the evolution of regulatory reforms on prices and security of supply as well as the interactions between the UK and EU reforms.

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The objective of this thesis is to develop a computable general equilibrium model adapted to the analysis of the biodiesel support policy in France. The French government has recently decided to remove the partial exemption of TICPE which was until now the main support to first generation biofuels. This measure could jeopardize the future of this sector in the absence of a new incentive system. Our model aims to measure the consequences of this regulatory change on the different economic activities and to evaluate the impacts of an alternative support system for biodiesel based on an increase in the tax on diesel. The study takes into account the contribution of oil price fluctuations to this objective. The social accounting matrix used as an empirical basis for the model is based on the reference year 2009. It includes 3 factors of production, and 17 goods and sectors of activity. The disaggregation of the agricultural and agri-food sectors shows the biodiesel production chain in detail. The model also incorporates specifications to represent the role of biodiesel co-products and land use changes. The results of the simulations suggest that the 10% incorporation target by 2020 required by the 2009 European directive could be met by raising the TICPE on diesel fuel to a level comparable to that of gasoline. However, the recessionary effects observed on a number of variables suggest that the appropriateness of adopting such a measure should be tempered.

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This thesis aims to demonstrate the interest of cotton in the African economy, particularly in Mali, which is 70% based on the primary sector, in which agriculture is estimated to account for 60 to 70% of the workforce, with an employability rate of over 60%. It also raises questions about the future of this crop in light of the disruptions that the world cotton market has been experiencing for over a decade. In doing so, initially, and over several periods, the analysis of statistical data through tables, graphs, figures and even maps has made it possible to highlight the multidimensional importance (economic, socio-cultural and environmental, etc.) of this crop at the triple level of the world, Africa and particularly Mali. Faced with the great interest in cotton production, differences of opinion arose at several levels, leading to what was called the cotton war. Then, if on the one hand historical and geopolitical reasons were put forward to justify this war over cotton, on the other hand, it was recalled that this war is manifested through the numerous negotiations and discussions that are bogged down on the cotton issue, particularly at the level of the World Trade Organization, which is struggling to ensure that its own basic rules (aiming at the elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers) are respected by certain countries known as "Price makers". Another manifestation of the cotton war has been explained by the large volume of American, European and Chinese subsidies paid in all forms by developed countries to their producers to the detriment of those in poor countries, particularly in Africa. Several studies using impact analysis models and tools have confirmed the negative correlation between subsidies and the world price of cotton as expressed by the Cotlook A index. In this regard, it appears that subsidies paid by developed countries result in a drop in the world price of cotton by an average of 15% (between 3 and 28% depending on the case). In order to stop this practice of subsidies, several agreements have been formed, firstly the African Sectoral Initiative made up of the C4 countries since the Cancun ministerial conference in September 2003, and secondly, initiatives within the WAEMU and the EU-Africa partnership on cotton issues. Finally, in the last part of this paper, the cotton problem goes beyond the issues of subsidies and prices, which seem to be cyclical. Thus, in addition to the abandonment of subsidies, some researchers propose a structural reform of the cotton sectors through the liberalization of the sector and the valorization (transformation) of cotton and its by-products, the opportunity of alternative crops to conventional cotton, without forgetting the formalization of bilateral and multilateral aid in order to support the actions envisaged.

The European Commission wants to introduce more competition into the European electricity market. But the low nuclear electricity prices, currently enjoyed by the incumbent Electricité de France (EDF), prevent its competitors from breaking into the French market. To promote competition, either French-regulated price must rise to the level of the European market prices, dominated by more expensive fossil-fueled generation, or EDF’s competitors must lower their prices to the French level. Usually, one would expect competition to lead to lower prices. In the case of the so-called “the French paradox,” it has been decided that EDF must share a portion of the “nuclear rent” with its competitors to allow them greater markets share in domestic market. This solution, chosen by the French government and embodied in recently passed New Organization of the Electricity Market law, is further described in this chapter as well as a discussion of how the nuclear costs are accounted in the Regulated Access to Incumbent Nuclear Electricity scheme and what may be the future course of energy policy in France.

No summary available.

In Saudi Arabia, fossil-fuel is the main source of power generation. Due to the huge economic and demographic growth, the electricity consumption in Saudi Arabia has increased and should continue to increase at a very fast rate. At the moment, more than half a million barrels of oil per day is used directly for power generation. Herein, we assess the power generation situation of the country and its future conditions through a modelling approach. For this purpose, we present the current situation by detailing the existing generation mix of electricity. Then we develop a optimization model of the power sector which aims to define the best production and investment pattern to reach the expected demand. Subsequently, we will carry out a sensitivity analysis so as to evaluate the robustness of the model’s by taking into account the integration variability of the other alternative (non-fossil fuel based) resources. The results point out that the choices of investment in the power sector strongly.

The European Commission wants to introduce more competition into the European electricity market. But the low nuclear electricity prices, currently enjoyed by the incumbent Electricité de France (EDF), prevent its competitors from breaking into the French market. To promote competition, either French-regulated price must rise to the level of the European market prices, dominated by more expensive fossil-fueled generation, or EDF’s competitors must lower their prices to the French level. Usually, one would expect competition to lead to lower prices. In the case of the so-called “the French paradox,” it has been decided that EDF must share a portion of the “nuclear rent” with its competitors to allow them greater markets share in domestic market. This solution, chosen by the French government and embodied in recently passed New Organization of the Electricity Market law, is further described in this chapter as well as a discussion of how the nuclear costs are accounted in the Regulated Access to Incumbent Nuclear Electricity scheme and what may be the future course of energy policy in France.

The European Commission wants to introduce more competition into the European electricity market. But the low nuclear electricity prices, currently enjoyed by the incumbent Electricité de France (EDF), prevent its competitors from breaking into the French market. To promote competition, either French-regulated price must rise to the level of the European market prices, dominated by more expensive fossil-fueled generation, or EDF’s competitors must lower their prices to the French level. Usually, one would expect competition to lead to lower prices. In the case of the so-called “the French paradox,” it has been decided that EDF must share a portion of the “nuclear rent” with its competitors to allow them greater markets share in domestic market. This solution, chosen by the French government and embodied in recently passed New Organization of the Electricity Market law, is further described in this chapter as well as a discussion of how the nuclear costs are accounted in the Regulated Access to Incumbent Nuclear Electricity scheme and what may be the future course of energy policy in France.

The trend in the global refining market is towards closure or reduction of capacity in Europe and North America while new consumer countries, such as some producing countries, develop their industry. In recent years, oil-producing countries have announced the construction of "mega-projects" for refining and basic petrochemicals. The question of where to locate refineries has been raised many times since the 1970s, and several strands of the literature offer elements of analysis depending on the economic and political conditions of the countries. The objective of this thesis is to understand the stakes and the limits of vertical integration of producing countries in the downstream oil sector, taking into account the evolutions and perspectives on crude oil supply, the localization of demand and the increased implementation of environmental policies. An empirical analysis of the oil and macroeconomic characteristics of the oil producing countries allows us to identify the theoretical investment framework in which the announced projects fit. The literature review allows us to understand downstream integration, but the development of certain projects is more difficult to explain. From these theoretical and empirical analyses, a typology of producing countries is proposed according to their investment strategies. In addition, in order to better understand the markets for these new projects, an econometric analysis of oil product prices on the major world markets is conducted. While the relationship between the prices of refined products and crude oil is significant, in line with the literature, the price hierarchy between products reflects a change in demand. A portfolio analysis is developed to identify the efficient industrial choices that a producing country can consider to ensure its economic development by controlling the exposure to the risk of variation of its revenues. With the increase in industrial and financial stakes associated with these new refineries, the cooperation of producing countries with international majors allows them to share the risk and meet their respective economic development challenges. Each of the parties masters certain production factors that are essential to the success of a project and which, when combined, increase the overall value of the project.

No summary available.

No summary available.

The European Commission wants to introduce more competition into the European electricity market. But the low nuclear electricity prices, currently enjoyed by the incumbent Electricité de France (EDF), prevent its competitors from breaking into the French market. To promote competition, either French-regulated price must rise to the level of the European market prices, dominated by more expensive fossil-fueled generation, or EDF’s competitors must lower their prices to the French level. Usually, one would expect competition to lead to lower prices. In the case of the so-called “the French paradox,” it has been decided that EDF must share a portion of the “nuclear rent” with its competitors to allow them greater markets share in domestic market. This solution, chosen by the French government and embodied in recently passed New Organization of the Electricity Market law, is further described in this chapter as well as a discussion of how the nuclear costs are accounted in the Regulated Access to Incumbent Nuclear Electricity scheme and what may be the future course of energy policy in France.

The European Commission wants to introduce more competition into the European electricity market. But the low nuclear electricity prices, currently enjoyed by the incumbent Electricité de France (EDF), prevent its competitors from breaking into the French market. To promote competition, either French-regulated price must rise to the level of the European market prices, dominated by more expensive fossil-fueled generation, or EDF’s competitors must lower their prices to the French level. Usually, one would expect competition to lead to lower prices. In the case of the so-called “the French paradox,” it has been decided that EDF must share a portion of the “nuclear rent” with its competitors to allow them greater markets share in domestic market. This solution, chosen by the French government and embodied in recently passed New Organization of the Electricity Market law, is further described in this chapter as well as a discussion of how the nuclear costs are accounted in the Regulated Access to Incumbent Nuclear Electricity scheme and what may be the future course of energy policy in France.

The European Commission wants to introduce more competition into the European electricity market. But the low nuclear electricity prices, currently enjoyed by the incumbent Electricite de France (EDF), prevent its competitors from breaking into the French market. To promote competition, either French-regulated price must rise to the level of the European market prices, dominated by more expensive fossil-fueled generation, or EDF’s competitors must lower their prices to the French level. Usually, one would expect competition to lead to lower prices. In the case of the so-called “the French paradox,” it has been decided that EDF must share a portion of the “nuclear rent” with its competitors to allow them greater markets share in domestic market. This solution, chosen by the French government and embodied in recently passed New Organization of the Electricity Market law, is further described in this chapter as well as a discussion of how the nuclear costs are accounted in the Regulated Access to Incumbent Nuclear Electricity scheme and what may be the future course of energy policy in France.

This thesis focuses on the relationship between the EU ETS and energy markets. Particular attention is given to fuel switching, the main means of reducing short-term CO2 emissions in the EU ETS. This consists of substituting gas power plants for coal power plants in off-peak electricity generation. In this way, coal plants operate for shorter periods of time, thereby reducing CO2 emissions. Chapter 1 describes different approaches explaining the relationship between energy and CO2 markets. A literature review is then presented. We give a detailed description of the fuel switching process. In particular, the influence of plant efficiency is analyzed. Chapter 2 provides a theoretical study of the impact of efficiency differences among gas plants for fuel switching. The main result shows that the sensitivity of the CO2 price to the gas price depends on the level of CO2 emissions.Chapter 3 examines the interactions between electricity, coal, gas and CO2 prices in an empirical study. The results show that there is a significant relationship between gas and CO2 in the long-run equilibrium. Chapter 4 investigates the process of discovering the information that influences the price formation of gas and CO2. The strong relationship between gas and CO2 indicates that their prices are affected by the same information. We show in an empirical study that the CO2 market dominates the information discovery process.

This thesis discusses the changing organizational and institutional framework of the Russian oil industry during the period 1992-2012. Its objective is to characterize and interpret the increased role of the majority state-owned oil companies, Rosneft and Gazpromneft, in upstream oil operations that has been observed since the mid-2000s. Within this theoretical framework of New Institutional Economics, our thesis argues that the increased role of Russian state-owned oil companies marks a shift from a liberal to a hybrid oil governance structure. This should be interpreted as a feasible response by the federal authorities to the inconsistency between the liberal oil governance structure defined at the beginning of the transition process and the prevailing institutional environment in Russia.

The relationship between macroeconomic variables and oil prices has been of great interest to economists for many years. These interactions depend not only on the variables selected, but also on the time horizon considered. The purpose of this thesis is to study the relationships between the price of oil and various macroeconomic and financial variables by considering different time horizons and by using various complementary econometric methodologies. After a historical review of the oil industry since 1860, we study the relationship between the price of oil and the behavior of the member countries of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries using time series and panel data techniques. Subsequently, the estimation of time-varying VAR models allows us to study the impact of the US dollar exchange rate on the price of Brent. Finally, we analyze the joint movements between commodity prices and oil prices using non-stationary panel data econometrics.

In view of the current challenges represented by the increase in energy prices, the gradual depletion of fossil fuels and environmental damage, energy demand analysis is a prerequisite for the design and deployment of energy demand management programs. The tertiary sector, which is heterogeneous, diffuse and a low energy consumer, has been little studied until now. However, it is an important issue due to the rapid growth of its energy consumption. The objective of this thesis is to analyze the determinants of the energy demand of the tertiary sector in France. To this end, we rely on a technical-economic approach. Energy consumption, disaggregated by branch and by energy use, is considered as a response to given socio-economic needs. We distinguish two categories of determinants: energy determinants and socio-economic determinants. An analysis using a decomposition method allows us to quantitatively evaluate the contribution of the main drivers to the past evolution of energy demand in the French tertiary sector. This analysis shows the importance of the activity as a determinant and the essential role of structural phenomena. This thesis also demonstrates the contribution of a detailed approach to the understanding of the determinants of energy demand in the tertiary sector, in particular through a prospective exercise applied to the trade branch.

Originally built around a quasi-universal model, characterized by strong public regulation, long-term planning, vertical integration, territorial monopolization and coordination of the operation of production equipment, the electricity industry has adapted to the evolution of the global theoretical, political, economic and technological context. This adaptation has been uneven across regions and countries, depending on the level of development, the weight of institutional organization and the imperatives of energy policy. Thailand, which has been liberalizing its electricity sector since the mid-1990s, is now looking for a direction for its reform, which is still oscillating between monopoly and competition. The questions of feasibility and opportunity of the reform are at the center of the reflection carried out by the Thai authorities in a context updated by the problems linked to the regional integration of the electricity markets within the Greater Mekong region and the one formed by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as the imperatives of energy policy.

No summary available.

This thesis focuses on the impact of technological change on the punctual reshaping of industrial organization in networked industries. Technical progress, which is present in different ways in the public utility industries of telecommunications and energy, has allowed the emergence of these economic sectors of obvious interest to the community, in the form of monopolized industries with strong state involvement. For some years now, it has been helping to shape the organizational configurations and regulatory procedures that preceded the liberalization reforms that Europe is undergoing. Technical progress is bringing new technologies, new products and, by the same token, new collective needs to the fore. It is therefore undoubtedly helping to revitalize the concept of public service and to update its content. In the current context of trans-regulation, the "capacity for innovation" is becoming the key and the condition for the survival of public services, and influences the paths of their evolution. Articulated around four intertwined chapters, of theoretical and practical scope, this work aims to show the role and place of technical progress in the reality of three services of general interest, in this case, telecoms, electricity and natural gas.

No summary available.

This thesis aims to compare the effectiveness of standard instruments to support the development of renewable energies and of innovative instruments resulting from the Kyoto Protocol by taking into consideration: (i) the deregulation of network industries. (ii) and the emergence of new market forms resulting from multilateral environmental agreements. We test the trade-off between institutional approaches based on prices and those based on tradable quotas in industrialized countries before evaluating the possibilities of their transposition to developing countries. This exercise is undertaken on the basis of the evaluation of the economic, environmental and technological performances of each mechanism. We demonstrate the supremacy of price instruments within national frameworks and that of tradable allowances within the framework of a deregulated EU market. The extension of the evaluation to Developing Countries (DCs) leads us to integrate the progressive opening to competition of their electricity markets in parallel with the implementation of the flexibility instruments of the Kyoto Protocol. We mobilize the complementary theoretical contributions of the theory of contestable markets and neo-institutional economics. We then analyze the impact of different forms of deregulation on the development of renewable energy sectors on the basis of a global comparison including Bolivia, Thailand, India, Tunisia and Ghana. The empirical evaluation demonstrates the strong contribution of price support in the increase of installed capacities thanks to the adoption of the principle of Independent Power Production (IPP). It also highlights the low contribution of this instrument in the increase of renewable electricity supply and in the impetus of technological change in the sectors. The study of the transposition of the quota approach is carried out in the framework of the global carbon market and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). We demonstrate the important contribution of this mechanism to the development of renewable energy sources, thanks in particular to the possibility of double rents obtained by investors in the international carbon market and in national electricity markets. However, the requirements of sustainable development that its implementation implies will lead us to broaden the scope of the evaluation to ecological, social, spatial and governance sustainability criteria. We will then demonstrate, within the framework of a cost-effectiveness analysis, the strong capacity of the CDM to lower the costs of reducing emissions for industrialized countries, while highlighting: (i) the risks of reinforcing regional and sectoral disparities in terms of installed capacity (ii) and the risks of accentuating opportunistic behavior in the distribution of credits among economic agents.

The characteristics of gas supply in Europe and the specificities of the gas market have led regulators to adopt asymmetrical regulations in the form of gas release and market share loss targets. Empirical experience shows, in line with economic theory, that these measures make competitors active on the market and do not discourage investment. In terms of competition, the effects are more mixed. Some positive effects are certainly due to the growth of consumption, which is sometimes exponential, or to the development of import and transport infrastructures. However, these measures can encourage collusive behavior, skimming or reverse cherry-picking strategies, as well as inefficient entry, made possible because the competitor is protected for a given period of time. A gas release creates a commercial relationship between the incumbent and its competitor, as well as a system of constraints on the capacities of each. The price or quantity strategies are then modified. Equilibrium prices are more volatile and can deviate significantly from the << mark-u p >> of competition. Similarly, the strategies of a COURNOT model become more complex. The incumbent operator, if the on-lending quantities are high and its supplies low, may voluntarily let its costs increase to increase its profits. This strategy of increasing rivals' costs is all the more possible if the retrocession price is close to its supply costs. It does not deteriorate consumer surplus but it does reduce welfare. The regulator can restore the incentive to efficiency by setting a proportion of retrocession according to the observed level of supply. This proportion should not be too low to allow the market to benefit from the incumbent's efficiency incentive and the higher sales of the two operators. At the same time, a proportion that is too high accentuates the potential for increased costs for rivals or collusion.

In today's energy systems, renewable energy technologies appear as radical environmental innovations. Standard models of innovation and environmental economics focus on incremental innovations. Based on different assumptions, evolutionary analysis allows us to study the learning of renewable energy technologies as new "green" technological trajectories. The technological systems approach then allows us to study the evolution of the German solar photovoltaic and Danish wind energy systems. In the former, public R&D policies and the learning process of the actors have allowed the creation and development of a self-sustaining market. In the second, the combination of the two initial sub-systems, small and large wind turbines, and interactive learning have allowed some firms to dominate the wind energy sector at the global level.

This thesis focuses on firms' strategies related to the implementation of a domestic market for tradable emission permits. Since the main experiences with the implementation of such markets (Acid Rain Program, RECLAlM Program, NOx Budget Program and the European carbon market) primarily concern electricity and heat producers, we consider in particular the strategies of electricity companies. In a context of liberalization of the electricity markets, our analysis is oriented in two directions: uncertainty and distortions of competition. Regarding uncertainty, we are interested in the management of permit portfolios, i.e. the choices under uncertainty of buying, selling and banking permits. Concerning the distortions of competition, we consider the manipulation of the permit and/or product market. In particular, we are interested in the interactions between an emission permit market and a wholesale electricity market. From a general perspective, we find that an emissions permit market, even a competitive one, provides additional opportunities for electricity producers to act strategically in wholesale electricity markets. Thus, our analysis attempts to provide regulators with elements for reflection on the possibility of the occurrence of these distortions, as well as indications on the choice of operating rules for the permit market.

The development of the electrical industry in Latin America began at the end of the 19th century and proceeded in three stages. In the first stage, the service was developed mainly under private initiative. The second, which began after the Second World War and lasted until the 1990s (except in Chile), made the State the major player. The third corresponds to the current deregulation. The latter seeks to return responsibility for the sector to the private sector, implying a drastic change in the role played by the state. It is true that the English pool has been adopted by most Latin American countries. However, in England, deregulation seeks to introduce competition into a mature industry in order to make it more efficient, more transparent and to lower production costs. In Latin America, deregulation aims to attract foreign investment to meet increased energy demand. This thesis approaches the subject. It proposes a positive reading of the experiences implemented in Latin America, notably through the analysis of the cases of Chile, Argentina, Colombia and Brazil.

Universal service is defined as: access for all to basic services at an affordable rate; these services include access to an electricity connection, voice telephony services and a basic postal service. In the last two decades, the conditions for the provision of universal service have changed. The regulatory authorities must set up new ways of organizing this provision. This involves defining and calculating the cost of this provision on the one hand. On the other hand, by studying and setting up new financing methods. The underlying question is to know if it is possible to set up a calculation methodology and a unique financing mode for all the services concerned. In fact, it turns out that if there can be a single cost calculation method, the financing method will have to be adopted according to the regulator's objectives and the constraints imposed by the industry, on a case by case basis.

This thesis shows how economics can be used to defend human rights. It does so by showing why human rights are a standard for defining social justice and sustainable development. Moreover, if human rights can be a legitimate norm, economists also have a role to play in defining this norm. We develop such an approach in four chapters. The first is devoted to the history of economic thought in relation to human rights. The second chapter focuses on the "public choice" movement, the theories of justice, as well as systemic approaches. It establishes the foundations of an economics of human rights. The third chapter, using a regulationist approach, examines the interactions between capitalism and human rights. The fourth concludes with the importance of human rights for the processes of globalization and development.

In the 1980s, developing countries were faced with what was called the debt crisis. As a result of restrictive monetary policies in developed countries, interest rates rose and the supply of capital to developing countries dried up. It seems that today international capital is trying to find its way back, but its transit is no longer through the banking systems. The trend that is emerging is to see them invested through the financial markets. In these conditions, Tunisia should seize this opportunity by ensuring the conditions of emergence of its financial market.

Traditional economic tools for environmental resource management raise two issues. From a normative perspective, the question of equity in resource sharing or resource use rents arises directly or indirectly, ex ante or ex post, and the implementation of these instruments runs up against the question of state sovereignty. We propose an alternative to the market of rights by considering international water resources as a common property of the different States. The exploitation and maintenance of these resources are delegated to an international water agency. These activities define an International Public Good. The non-cooperative game of serial cost sharing pits the international water agency against the two political entities. The mechanism thus defined has a strong Nash equilibrium. The resulting allocations satisfy the fairness tests of the welfare and sovereignty bounds of the states.

In France, the European Electricity Directive 96/92/EC of December 19, 1996 opens the electricity production sector to competition. Forced to separate its activities, Electricité de France, previously a regulated monopoly, will become an independent producer in a competitive market. It retains the programming of its investment in nuclear power equipment authorized by the regulator. This specific capital has a totally unrecoverable cost. The company cannot disinvest if market conditions become unfavorable. It can choose to wait until it has more information on future market conditions before accepting the project. We have characterized the institutional change in the production segment by cost price uncertainty scenarios. We then highlighted, first, the influence of deregulation on its investment decision. In addition, the firm can go into debt to finance this equipment according to the principle of the project company, which isolates the nuclear and financial risks. In a second step, we calculated the long-term financing structure of the company and its impact on its investment decision.

By deregulating road passenger transport, the commission of the european communities wishes to find the best possible transport system for the citizens and industry of the 15 member states. What will be the future structure of this sector of activity? what strategies will transport operators adopt? the experience of total deregulation in the United Kingdom has not stemmed the decline in the use of public transport, and monopoly structures have been re-established. Therefore, based on the logic of the European Treaty, but also on the desire to exploit the stimulating power of competition, the Commission is pressing for the opening up of those parts of the public transport market which can be described as public contracts. However, if the contract concerns only an exclusive right that does not involve significant public financing, it considers an authorization procedure that has the advantage of being more lenient. The theory of contracts and the analysis of the auction mechanism allow us to compare these options and to highlight the strategy of the different parties. These theories also allow us to understand why the Commission has come closer to the contractualization option despite the problems that the application of the Community rules will raise in terms of public procurement.

The objective of public authorities is to raise funds in a fair and efficient manner. Nevertheless, taxes, which are an obligatory contribution to the financing of the State's expenses, are sometimes evaded by taxpayers, especially when they practice tax evasion. Therefore, by interfering with the collection of tax resources, they imply a confrontation between the State and taxpayers: a tax face-off. In the first instance, taxpayers face the tax administration, established by the government and responsible for collecting the sums due. The latter has to adapt a coercive policy, with a repressive and exemplary aim, which must allow to promote the sincerity of the declarations. However, the ingenuity of taxpayers in tax matters and the adaptation of their fraud strategies require a regular adaptation of the control strategies put in place by the latter. Nevertheless, it seems necessary to be aware of the nature and motivations of tax evaders in order to implement effective measures. Thus, the tax face-to-face describes the opposition of different actors, often with dual roles, and provides a framework for studying the phenomenon of tax fraud. This crime, which is committed against the State, is not an ordinary crime. Indeed, this actor has, in addition to the resources and organization necessary to repress this behavior, the fiscal power. Thus, the government has an alternative solution to limit fraud: the adaptation of the tax structure.

The objective of the deregulation of the gas industries is to introduce competition in the supply of gas to end users. The opening up of this access raises two essential questions: should the incumbent operator maintain its supply activity? how to control the tariffs of natural gas transport by pipeline, which remains a natural monopoly? the american and british experiences of gas deregulation offer a particularly interesting insight into these questions, notably because the regulation of transport tariffs is diametrically opposed on either side of the Atlantic. Theoretical analysis of these two modes of control in relation to the principles of productive efficiency and allocative efficiency raises questions about the relevance of a hybrid formula such as that applied in Great Britain since 1997. Since European legislation does not require member states to completely separate transmission from the other activities carried out by incumbent operators, it is necessary to take into account the vertical integration of the system operator in order to complete the analysis of the issues inherent in the definition of the access charge by the regulator.

The room for manoeuvre of cyclical regulation policies is a central issue of the Maastricht Treaty, whose economic policy options were confirmed by the Amsterdam Treaty in 1997, in particular the principles relating to budgetary discipline. In the framework of the monetary union, the pre-eminence of price stability is also recognized, to which all economic policy must contribute. The restrictive impact of the constraints on policy autonomy in the context of European monetary unification justifies a reflection on the room for manoeuvre. It begins by recognizing the elements involved in the definition of this concept, which is widely used in the Keynesian macroeconomic literature. The margin of manoeuvre is defined on the basis of the notions of diversity, efficiency and sustainability of policies, and is then confronted with the constraints likely to reduce it. These are mainly agents' expectations, the external constraint and monetary unification. The question of the credibility of the economic policy options adopted in the Community texts is raised by the macroeconomic interdependencies. The disappearance of the policy mix is likely to affect the stabilizing capacity of the budgetary authorities, the confidence of agents and the emergence of credible policies.

The purpose of this paper, entitled <>, is to contribute to the debate on the determination of a fair tax by articulating the redistributive dimension of the tax to the principles of justice present in normative economics. The analysis shows that the theory of taxation according to taxpayers' ability to pay is the only theory able to integrate the elements of ethical reflection in its definition of compulsory levies. However, its political concretization requires an appeal to a principle of justice. However, from the plurality of normative principles, no overriding redistributive criterion emerges that can be directly used by the tax decision-maker. To get out of this indetermination, the study focuses on the positive reality of the practice of fairness in French taxation. It shows that the principle of equality before the tax and the principle of equality through the tax are the two principles that constitute the ethical reference for the public decision-maker. They are supposed to structure his concrete choices of tax measures. An examination of the compulsory levies borne by French households in 1999 shows that this hypothesis is not borne out.

We start from the fact that, for reasons of both pure economics and energy economics, it is important to seek efficiency in oil exploration. A pragmatic way of looking at efficiency is through informational efficiency, which requires that the different blocks be drilled in descending order of estimated profitability, with estimates being made on the basis of the best (in the sense of reliability) information available. It remains to be agreed on what the notion of "best available information" encompasses. This will be either the information held by the most experienced oil companies (which is due to the existence of information asymmetries in favour of these more experienced companies), or the information revealed by drilling and which makes it possible to evaluate the chances of success on neighbouring blocks with similar geological conditions (which is due to the existence of informational externalities of exploration). Taking into account these asymmetries and information externalities, we will say that exploration is informationally efficient when - on the one hand, the initial exploration choices are guided by the most experienced companies, - and on the other hand, during the drilling phase, faced with the informational externality, the companies adopt a sequential exploration, i.e. excluding both overinvestment and strategic underinvestment The problem that we address in this thesis is then to know if oil companies, placed in normal conditions of competition, are likely to emerge a state of informationally efficient exploration, the analysis being conducted theoretically and empirically.

In this work, we analyze the impact of a possible tax harmonization in the Middle East. To do so, we first carry out a comparative factual study of the economic and fiscal situations of five member countries selected as a sample. The structural examination of their tax systems shows essentially the absence of a general consumption tax and the concentration of capital taxation on corporate income tax. We also find significant divergence in national tariffs and tax rates. We consult the literature, which is rich in information on the fiscal and budgetary aspects between cooperating countries. We review the different views on tax competition and harmonization. We then propose harmonization measures, which we develop in a formal analysis articulated around two distinct approaches. The first approach considers tax harmonization as an intergovernmental game. The first approach considers tax harmonization as an intergovernmental game. It is conducted within the framework of two macroeconomic models of external partial equilibrium in three countries, and highlights the strategic behavior of public authorities cooperating in the establishment of rates associated with common taxation and taxing principles. The second, which identifies the harmonization process with a tax reform carried out at the international level, makes it possible to evaluate in a national general equilibrium model the consequences of the tax measures indicated by harmonization on the allocation of productive resources in the Middle East.

In this work we propose an equity analysis of the tariff regulation and cost allocation policies of a multi-product electric firm (organized as a natural monopoly). The objective of this thesis is twofold. From a normative point of view, the aim is to show that the contemporary literature in the fields of public economics, industrial organization and regulation (traditionally focused on efficiency considerations) is capable of providing keys to analyze problems of moral philosophy. From a positive point of view, we try to argue that the criterion of fairness can be sufficiently operative to gauge pricing management practices in a particular industrial environment and to serve as a regulatory tool for an ethically minded supervisory authority. The work we present is organized in two parts. First, we propose an ethical and economic analysis of the concepts of equity, between allocative efficiency, productive efficiency and tariff practices of firms. We thus consider a particular conception of equity that can function in the regulation of a public service, and we evoke the ins and outs to which a theory of the equity of tariff practices can claim. In a second step, we try to contribute to an analysis of the conflicts of objectives between the regulator and the regulated firm, from a regulatory perspective of equity and cost allocation. Here, we first define an improved equity criterion from which we construct a measure. This measure becomes an instrument for the regulator. We then try to understand the issues at stake in the cost allocation and pricing policies of the firm that its use by a perfectly informed regulator facing information asymmetry problems suggests.

Firmly rooted in the framework of theoretical public economics, this work seeks to compare different universalist theories of social justice. This comparison is made from the point of view of determining the characteristics of the supply of local public goods. A reflection on the nature of local public goods makes it possible to highlight the need to take ethical criteria into account in their management. It also appears essential to introduce the spatial characteristics of these goods into the analysis. The different theories of social justice compared are: utilitarianism, the new welfare economy, the absence of envy and the theory of John Rawls. The presentation of these theories allows two types of lessons to be learned. First, social justice is an element that contributes to maintaining social cohesion. Secondly, the criteria of justice are tools for collective decision-making. A common application grid makes it possible to determine, for each theory, the recommendations to be followed to ensure that their principle is respected. Thus, for each theory, it is possible to determine the best location, the optimal quantity of equipment to build and the distribution of financing. It is these different results that can be compared. It thus appears that the principles of horizontal and vertical equity must be the pillars of the distribution system, that Weber's and Rawls' location models are relevant tools, and that the relative position of individuals with respect to the public good must be taken into account.

This thesis, composed of two volumes, is a synthesis of the author's work on migration and mobility in Languedoc-Roussillon since 1970 (volume 1) and a selection of his publications (volume 2). In the first part, the author sets out to define the framework for the analysis of migration: its scope, its forms and the techniques used to observe and measure it. The second part focuses on the various theoretical approaches used to analyze population movements. If the angle of attack was initially macro-economic and focused on economic reasons, with an emphasis on income and employment, the theory gradually turned to a micro-economic vision. Research has then focused on refining the causes of migration by highlighting extra-economic causes, including amenities. However, we must note that theorists are less interested in the consequences of migration. The last part of volume 1 rereads the author's work to show its coherence. 25 years of observation of migrations in Languedoc-Roussillon show through the presented works, briefly summarized, that this region is a space favorable to migration and exchange. Migration has had and still has consequences for the demography and economy of this region. This work concludes with a thesis: Languedoc-Roussillon, in its economic organization and its animation driven by migratory movements, should be considered as a model for other French regions. A second volume gathers a selection of the publications used or evoked throughout the synthesis work.

The first part of the thesis is devoted to the structural analysis of the gas industry. After a characterization of the gas business in the European context, the theoretical tools to determine the natural structure of the gas industries are critically presented. The second part of the thesis examines the restructuring dynamics of the gas industry. On the one hand, the logic of deregulation is analyzed, favoring the liberalization of the gas sector, and on the other hand, the post-deregulation strategies that could be implemented by the actors. It seems that through these strategies, we can move towards a vertical re-integration of gas activities.

Public intervention in the area of oil supply security is commonly justified in the literature by the existence of externalities related to the phenomenon of supply insecurity. In this paper, we propose to analyze in detail the validity of this justification and its implication for energy policy recommendations. To do so, we study in a first part, the components of the cost of insecurity. We select two of them, the macroeconomic effects of insecurity and the cost of monopsony. The study of the macroeconomic component of insecurity uses an economics of disequilibrium approach. For the monopsony component of supply insecurity, we analyze how insecurity generates an additional cost related to the monopsony situation. Having identified the components of the cost of insecurity, we turn to their analysis through the notion of external cost. This study allows us to reject the macroeconomic component as an external cost and to retain only the monopsony component as generating an external cost. The second part of the paper analyzes the tools that allow us to internalize the external effect generated by the monopsony component of oil supply insecurity. After a reminder of the classical internalization procedures, we particularize them to the problem of internalizing the external effect of "oil supply insecurity". We highlight the superiority of stockpiling procedures by comparing them to the creation of a market of security rights. This supremacy of stockpiling leads us to focus on two particular problems in the last two chapters. The first concerns the coexistence of security stocks and stocks. The presentation of three theoretical models highlights the complexity of the relationships between these two types of stocks. The second problem posed by the constitution of security stocks is the international impact of stockpiling. The use of game theory concepts allows the study of the strategic behavior choices of two countries subjected to insecurity of supply.

The main objective of this thesis is to shed light on the fundamental characteristics of individuals' rational behaviors in order to specify the mechanisms of structuring locations and movements in urban space at equilibrium. The aim is then to compare these equilibrium structures with the socially optimal structures for the community, and to identify in this case the "externalities" at the origin of the divergences between the two types of configuration. In a more normative approach, the final objective is to determine the public policies to be put in place to modify (or at least influence) the "mass behavior" of location and displacement of individuals in order to restore the urban collective optimum. In this perspective, all the theoretical analyses of the thesis, conducted within the framework of spatial and temporal dynamics, are situated in the neoclassical paradigm of welfare economics. . Our research is structured around two parts, a division based on the distinction between location and displacement issues, with the understanding that there are very strong causal relationships between the two research areas.

In this work we try to see how we can reconsider the neo-Hotellinian analysis through the prism of r&d and technological innovation. We try to appreciate how the phenomena of r&d efforts, incentives to innovate or the timing of innovation amend the basic r% rule and allow us to explain some of the stylized facts observable in the markets of non-renewable resources, and particularly in the market of crude oil. Methodologically, we situate ourselves in the mining paradigm developed by h. Hotelling and Gray, i.e. in a neoclassical logic of agents and the market. This choice corresponds to a desire to conduct a theoretical rather than a pragmatic analysis of the relations between the natural resource sectors and technological innovation. Our research is structured around a division based on the distinction between the problems of firm decisions and those of market strategies.

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

The presence of increasing returns was the traditional justification for regulation of the electricity industry, but recent empirical studies and new theoretical contributions have questioned the validity of such state intervention. The objective of this thesis is to clarify the role of regulation, both from a theoretical point of view and through the case of the electricity industry in Latin America. Although the study of the natural monopoly has been treated preferably with the paradigm of economic efficiency, within the framework of a normative approach to economics, this research proposes another method that seems better suited to explain the role of regulation of the electricity industry in Latin America, as well as the reforms carried out. This approach, which involves a combination of the paradigms of economic efficiency and political support, makes it possible to analyze not only the problems related to the techno-economic characteristics of the natural monopoly, but also the interactions between the government, the regulatory authorities and the regulated firms. Three Latin American countries have been selected because of the representativeness of their electricity industries: Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.

The purpose of this research is to find out whether or not energy investments after the oil shocks have caused the crowding out of industrial investments in South Korea. In this thesis, we have tried to establish a new methodology of crowding out analysis, showing the difference of crowding out analysis among Keynesians, monetarists, and French. The new methodology is characterized by the following two points: on the one hand, it is based on quantitative analysis, because the Korean financial system is a debt economy. On the other hand, it is based on the analysis of the volume effect and the price effect, because the definition of the crowding out effect is extended to the open economy. Based on these new economic methodologies, it could be concluded that the financing of energy investments has negatively influenced (in the sense of crowding out) the investments of the manufacturing sector, in particular, on the domestic market of medium and long term loans.

This report presents the results obtained from a study exploring the possible applications of the expert system technique in energy conservation. The objective of the work is not to implement fully operational expert systems, but rather to find "paths" to achieve this. We try to identify the problems that can be treated by the expert systems technique, to describe the general architecture and the main elements for each system considered. To illustrate the feasibility of the proposals, the example of some rule bases or knowledge-based models is incorporated in each part and the rather detailed development of a prototype intended for the construction, validity and exploitation of global energy balances serves as the main demonstration.

Oil taxation can be built in a perspective of confrontation or cooperation with foreign oil companies. However, a well-designed tax system is a sine qua non condition for encouraging investment and achieving other objectives of the state's oil policy. A thorough comparative analysis of oil taxation in the producing countries of the West Coast of Africa between 1974 and 1987 leads to the conclusion that a poorly adapted institutional framework, particularly at the level of the tax system, cannot be considered to be the main reason for the inadequacy of the exploration-production effort or for its unequal distribution among the countries of the region. This phenomenon can be explained by a series of industrial factors, of which those related to the strategy of international companies occupy a predominant phase.