Energy Economics and Energy Policy Do Not Agree What Happens?

Transcription

1 Energy Economics and Energy Policy Do Not Agree What Happens? CFA Society of Houston October 21, 2009 Ed Hirs, CFA University of Houston & DJ Resources, Inc

2 Economics does not support Policy What are the goals of current policy?? Improve electricity transmission Double supply of Renewable Energy Eliminate Carbon Emissions Establish efficient natural gas transmission system Eliminate dependence on foreign crude

3 What were past Policies? Nuclear Technology Clinch River Breeder Reactor Advanced Liquid Metal Reactor Program ( ) Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (2006)

4 What were past Policies? Coal Utilization US Synthetic Fuels Corporation ( ) Clean Coal Technology Program (1987) Clean Coal Power Initiative (2001) FutureGen (2003)

5 What were past Policies? Vehicle Technology Virtually pollution-free car (Nixon 1970) Reinventing the Car (Carter ) Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (Clinton ) FreedomCar (Bush 2003)

6 What were past Policies? Biofuels Alcohol fuels (Energy Security Act 1980) Oxygenated fuels (Clean Air Act Amendments 1990) Biofuels (EPAct 2005; EISA 2007)

7 What were past Policies? Crude Oil Mandatory Crude Oil Import Quota ( ) Crude Oil Price Controls (pre-1972 and post-1972; ) Strategic Petroleum Reserve (1973-now)

8 What about Electricity? 3,100 separate entities and NO coherent policy in place Power generation 60% of Asset Base Distribution 30% of Asset Base High Voltage Transmission 10% of Asset Base

9 What about Electricity? Demand growth is forecast to require between $1.5 trillion and $2.0 trillion in new plants and transmission facilities by 2030! Smart grid may reduce the amount of capital required by 15% while reducing electricity consumption by 40% to 50%

10 What about Electricity? Production Mix Coal 49% 45% Gas 22% 22% Nuclear 19% 21% Hydro 6% 7% Renewable 2% 4%

11 What about Electricity? Renewable Wind 41% Solar 1% Geothermal 14% Waste 16% Wood 37%

12 What about Electricity? Regulatory policies were designed to prevent the exercise of monopoly pricing Electricity began Deregulation in the late 1970s Generation, Transmission and Distribution were unbundled creating markets

13 What about Electricity? Deregulation is Incomplete! The California debacle Price regs in Texas Transmission regs

14 What about Electricity?

15 What about Electricity?

16 What about Electricity? Other Costs Northeast Utilities in 1996 Northeast blackout in 2003 ERCOT blackout in 2008 Hurricane Ike in 2008

17 What about Natural Gas? Gas Deregulation began in 1978 created 68 different levels of pricing Producers, pipelines and distributers were unbundled Deregulation was incomplete, for example, we have..

18 What about Natural Gas?

19 What about Natural Gas?

20 What about Natural Gas?

21 What about Natural Gas?

22 Crude Oil What would energy independence cost?

23 Crude Oil The government of the United States under the present administration has withdrawn oil lands from entry in order to conserve this asset. The Economics of Exhaustible Resources, by Harold Hotelling 1931

24 Crude Oil Do we have enough? 2007 Consumption: 20 mm bopd 2009 Consumption: 17 mm bopd US domestic production: 6 mm bopd US availability : 560 Billion bbls

25 Crude Oil What does imported oil cost us? 13 million bopd at $70/bbl $332 billion/year

26 Crude Oil At what Price? The near-term elasticity of demand for crude oil is e(d) = -.11 That is, for a 1% increase in price, there is only a.11% decrease in demand! An estimate of the elasticity of supply is e(s) =.35 At 2007 levels, to eliminate 15 million bopd imports..

27 Crude Oil Source: MacAvoy 2009

28 Crude Oil The effects on consumers buying gasoline at the pump would include prices in the range of $12 per gallon (ouch)

29 Crude Oil Where will the new Supply come from? Biofuels, no more than 2.0 mm boepd Conservation, perhaps 4.0 mm boepd CTL, at $45/boe New oil supply, from conventional and unconventional resources, $40/bbl

30 What about Carbon? 2006 CO 2 Emissions Total: 5890 million metric tons 1. Electricity 40% 2. Transportation 33% 3. Industry 17% 4. Commercial 4% 5. Residential 6%

31 What about Carbon? 2006 CO 2 Emissions Electricity Total: 2344 million metric tons 1. Coal 82% 2. Natural Gas 15% 3. Petroleum 3%

32 What about Carbon? We do not have the technology to eliminate Carbon emissions We do not know how many windmills, hydro dams, solar farms and geothermal holes will double renewable energy Cap & Trade will not work as well as intended

33 What will work? Reregulate or Completely Deregulate Electricity and Natural Gas industries Tax Coal Enforce an import quota on oil raise the domestic price to encourage domestic production and the development of alternative transportation schemes

34 Sources The National Academies Summit on America s Energy Future, 2008 Electricity Transmission Policy for America: Enabling a Smart Grid, End-to-End, by Mason Willrich, July 2009, MIT Transforming America s Power Industry: The Investment Challenge , Marc W. Chupka, Robert Earle, Peter Fox-Penner, Ryan Hledik, The Brattle Group for The Edison Foundation, November 2008 Electric Power Monthly, Energy Information Agency, US Department of Energy, October 2009 Contradictions between Economics 10 and the New Energy Policy, Paul W. MacAvoy, March 2009, Yale University ExxonMobil Energy Outlook 2009

35 Sources The Unsustainable Costs of Partial Deregulation, Paul W. MacAvoy, Yale University Press, 2007 Natural Gas Networks Performance After Partial Deregulation: Five Quantitative Studies, Paul W. MacAvoy, Vadim Marmer, Nickolay Moshkin, and Dmitry Shapiro, World Scientific Press, 2008 Economic Issues in a Designing a Global Agreement on Global Warming, William Nordhaus, Keynote Address Prepared for Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges, and Decisions, Copenhagen, Denmark, March 10-12, 2009 Depletion and the Future Availability of Petroleum Resources, by Roberto F. Aguilera, Roderick G. Eggert, Gustavo Lagos C.C. and John E. Tilton, Energy Journal, July 2009

36 Energy Economics and Energy Policy Do Not Agree What Happens? CFA Society of Houston October 21, 2009 Ed Hirs, CFA University of Houston & DJ Resources, Inc