Towards an efficient allocation of electrical energy
Abundant electrical energy at low cost is essential to a highly industrialized economy like that of the United States. With the existing and growing dependence on electrical energy, there has been a great deal of anxiety over the sufficiency of the nation's resources for meeting the apparently insatiable demand for electrical energy. Recently, the concern over energy has been embedded in a more general pessimism about the viability of economic growth on a finite world. This new and pejorative view of economic growth holds that growth is bounded by a finite amount of essential, exhaustible natural resources. In the process of consuming finite resources, the standard of living descends toward subsistence. If such a sequence is plausible, the squeeze will most likely be felt in the energy sector first. Energy, and specifically electrical energy, is a necessary input in many processes. Opportunities exist for significantly increasing the efficiency with which electrical energy is generated and allocated in the United Sates. This is the concern of this book. The focus is on efficiency to the exclusion of distributional equity considerations. Further, attention throughout is concentrated on the basic economic aspects of the problem, and it must be clearly understood that the discussion pays little attention to the practical engineering problems that necessarily loom large in the eyes of those whose job it is to face the technical aspects of the situation. This study shows quantitatively that opportunities exist for markedly increasing the efficiency of pricing and allocating electrical energy in the United States. The approach is through an intertemporal-spatial price equilibrium model. Chapters 2 and 3 look at demand considerations while Chapters 4 and 5 look at interregional transmission, distribution, and supply considerations. Chapter 6 presents the model, complete with its empirical solution. Chapter 7 summarizes and concludes the study.
- OSTI ID:
- 6553099
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: An essay in applied welfare economics
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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