Energy Economics Course

My proposal for a course titled "Energy Economics" was approved by the College of Asia and the Pacific education committee. The course will have the number CRWF8017 and we plan to offer it for the first time in the second semester of 2012. CRWF courses are graduate courses offered by the Crawford School that have no additional prerequisites beyond those required for admission to study in one of our masters degrees. So though this course is an economics based course, it won't assume much or any background in economics. I will though have high expectations for what students will be able to learn in the duration of the course. I currently plan to cover the following topics in the course:

1. Introduction – Energy trends and history
2. Energy and the economy including: Physical principles, energy quality, indirect energy costs etc., role of energy in growth
3. Evaluation tools for energy projects, technologies, and policies (CBA, energy analysis etc.)
4. Fossil fuels – in depth analysis of oil, gas, and coal resources. Covering geology, discovery, development, production, refining etc as well as world distribution of resources and reserves.
5. Non-renewable resource scarcity (Hotelling, Hubbert etc.), fossil fuel markets, market structure, and pricing.
6. Innovation, learning curve etc. needed to analyse alternative energy technologies
7. Renewable energy and nuclear
8. Energy efficiency and conservation
9. Energy, environment, and climate change
10. Energy and economic development
11. Energy policy and regulation with an emphasis on Australian policy
12. Future energy scenarios

The course will be available to all Crawford students and also feed into the planned Master of Energy Change program and other ANU graduate programs.