Magazine: Info

Author: Dr. Patrick Gougeon, ESCP Business School, Fmr. UK Director.

Energy policy: squaring the circle

Energy issues are high on the agenda of policy makers; they are concerned with 'energy development including energy production, distribution and consumption. The attributes of energy policy may include legislation, international treaties, incentives to investment, guidelines for energy conservation, taxation and other public policy techniques.'1 The objectives are not much debated: energy should be 'available', 'affordable' and 'sustainable'.

There are two issues here.

First, the most appropriate workable solutions to achieve each objective need to be identified. But since we are talking about long-term, capital-intensive projects in a context of technological uncertainty and scarcity of funds, there are no straightforward answers.

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