Burning of biomass in traditional stoves is associated with a host of ills among an estimated 2.5 billion people around the world, even though cleaner and more efficient technologies exist that could mitigate the problems. This study examines what factors affect cooking mode choice and utilization, with the objective of developing an econometric model that is useful for efforts to encourage the adoption of improved biomass stoves. The project also seeks to offer insights on poorly understood processes of technology adoption among poor populations and to understand the magnitude of health, development and environmental benefits that might be achievable.

This EWG talk will highlight PESD's first analysis using our new coal model by demonstrating how it can be used to analyze the effects of China's import behavior on world thermal coal consumption. We will explore China's capability as a consumer to exercise market power in the domestic Chinese markets, and to what extent this behavior affects the price, consumption, and production of steam coal globally. Two scenarios will be presented: 1) we assume Chinese consumers with import capability behave competitively and 2) we assume they exercise market power.

The use of coal as a fuel has increased tremendously over the past decade, with most of the growth coming from rapidly expanding economies like those in China and India. As coal continues to be the fuel of choice for electricity generation around the world, PESD is excited to be developing a model to further understand the global steam coal market.  In the future, we anticipate the model will help answer questions regarding climate and trade policies, market structure, and technology improvements.

Michael Joined PESD in July of 2010 as a research assistant after graduating from Stanford University with a BA in Economics.

The Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies and the Economic Research Institute for Northeast Asia (ERINA) will host a seminar on the potential areas of cooperation between the U.S., Japan, and China on developing clean coal technology and clean energy markets and policies titled, "Developing Clean Energy Markets: Toward China-Japan-U.S. Trilateral Cooperation" on October 25, 2010.

Researcher He will be participating in the Prospects and Bottlenecks for Clean Energy Cooperation portion of the seminar.

Event Summary from Brookings

In recent years, the United States and China have engaged in high-profile discussions and collaborated on various aspects of clean energy. The United States and China have also separately worked with Japan. However, these nations-the world's three largest economies and three of the four largest energy consumers-have not worked together in a trilateral format.

On October 25, the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at Brookings and the Economic Research Institute for Northeast Asia hosted a seminar featuring presentations by experts from Japan, China, and the U.S. Panelists will describe existing bilateral cooperation on developing clean energy markets and policies, and will illuminate opportunities for truly trilateral cooperation, especially in the areas of energy efficiency and clean coal.

After each panel, the speakers took audience questions.

More information about this event on www.brookings.edu

Heidi Kjærnet will be presenting her paper "Petroleum sector management in Azerbaijan: A case study of the national oil company SOCAR". The paper focuses on the interactions between the Azerbaijani government and the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan, SOCAR, and explores the complex interconnections between the government and its national oil company (NOC). In the post-Soviet period, SOCAR has played the role as the national partner in consortiums with international oil companies producing oil and gas fields in Azerbaijan, as well as having important policy tasks and social responsibilities.

The paper argues that there is a profound lack of separation of commercial and regulatory responsibility in the Azerbaijani petroleum sector. While Azerbaijan is certainly giving preferential treatment to SOCAR, Heidi argues Baku is less likely to follow the example of Kazakhstan in pursuing a resource nationalist line through curtailing the activities of international oil companies due to the Azerbaijani government's ambitions for regional leadership in the South Caucasus, and its strong commitment to cooperating with the international oil companies.

Heidi's research on SOCAR and Azerbaijan is a part of her PhD dissertation with the working title "Petroleum, politics and power: The National Oil Companies of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia".

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Heidi Kjærnet is a Fulbright Visiting Researcher at the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development (PESD) at Stanford University.  She is visiting from the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and the Fridtjof Nansen Institute where she is a Research Fellow.

She holds an MA in Russia and Post-Soviet Affairs from the University of Oslo. She has taken intensive Russian language courses at the Norwegian Center in St Petersburg and interned at the Royal Norwegian Embassy to Azerbaijan. Currently she is a PhD student in Political Science at the University of Tromso.

California is like many states whose electricity customers are still protected by real-time price risk through fixed retail price.  This fixed retail price, however, restricts the consumer's ability to save money by reducing consumption during peak hours. 

Those queasy about allowing or subjecting customers' to dynamic pricing are up for a fight; major technological barriers to dynamic pricing will soon be eliminated as all three of California's IOUs will have interval meters.  The Home Area Network segment of the Smart Grid Ecosystem Broadband Plan includes some strong words for State PUCs, urging them to in turn push utilities to deliver real time pricing data to consumers.  What remains to be seem is: What set of pricing plans would satisfy both HAN vendors and the PUCs?

Panel discussion topics:

• Is some dynamic pricing available?
• What will the plans look like?
• Research questions
• What set of pricing plans would satisfy both HAN vendors and the PUCs?