21A.341
Energy Decisions, Markets, and Policies
Spring 2012
Topics
- This Course and The U.S. Energy System
- Recitation
- Comparative Energy Systems
- U.S. Energy Problems
- Discussion of Paradigms; Debate Prep
- The Market and The State
- Path Dependence in Energy Systems
- C-Learn; Climate Game Prep
- Climate Science and Policy
- Climate Agreement Negotiations I
- Climate Agreement Negotiations II
- Economics of Energy Demand
- Derived Demand and Capital Practice; Discussion of Final Paper Assignment
- Normative Frameworks for Business Decisions
- Business Decisions in Reality: CHP at Hexion
- Review; Finalization of Final Paper Teams & Topics
- Organizational Decision-Making: Biodiesel at MIT
- Developing Profitable Strategies
- Non-Renewable Energy Resources
- Shale: Opportunities & Challenges
- Production Planning for Non-renewables; Discussion of Paper Outlines
- (Yesterday’s &) Today’s Electric Power System
- Tomorrow’s Electric Power System
- Making Public Policy
- Social Movements
- U.S. Environment Policy
- Final Paper Presentations & Debrief
- Final Paper Presentations & Debrief (cont.)
Readings
- [B] = Brealey, R., S. Myers, and F. Allen. Principles of Corporate Finance . 10th ed. McGraw-Hill, 2010. ISBN: 9780077404895.
- U.S. National Research Council. “Context and Challenges.” Chapter 1 in America’s Energy Future . National Academies Press, 2009, pp. 1–30. ISBN: 9780309141451.
- Friedman, T. “Our Carbon Copies (Too Many Americans).” Chapter 3 in Hot, Flat, and Crowded . Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2008, pp. 53–76. ISBN: 9780374166854.
- United Nations. 2008 Energy Balances and Electricity Profiles . United Nations, 2011. ISBN: 9789210613002.
- “Environmental Regulation.” Chapter 21 in [V].
- National Research Council. “Executive Summary.” In Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use . National Academies Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780309146401.
- Lee, Henry. “Oil Security and the Transportation Sector.” In Acting in Time on Energy Policy . Edited by K. S. Gallagher. Brookings, 2009, pp. 56–88. ISBN: 9780815702931.
- Weimer, D. L. “Cost-Benefit Analysis.” In The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics . Edited by S. N. Durlauf and L. E. Blume. 2nd ed. Vol. 2. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, pp. 271–5. ISBN: 9780333786765.
- Kelman, S. “Cost-Benefit Analysis: An Ethical Critique (with replies).” In Economics of the Environment: Selected Readings . Edited by R. N. Stavins. 5th ed. W. W. Norton & Company, 2005, pp. 260–75. ISBN: 9780393927016.
- Mason, Alpheus Thomas, and William M. Beaney. “Carter v Carter Coal, 298 U.S. 238 (1936).” In American Constitutional Law: Introductory Essays and Selected Cases . Prentice Hall, 2004, pp. 290–6. ISBN: 9780131174375.
- Hayek, Friedrich. The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents—The Definitive Edition . University of Chicago Press, 2007, pp. 71–3. ISBN: 9780226264219.
- Marx, Karl. The 18th Braumaire of Louis Napoleon . Originally published in 1852. Dodo Press, 2009, p. 15. ISBN: 9781409961666.
- ———. “Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, 1844” and “German Ideology, 1845–6.” In Karl Marx: Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy . Edited by T. B. Bottomore and M. Rubel. Reprinted in Watts, 1956. Penguin, 1963, pp. 91–5.
- Frankfurt Institute for Social Research. Aspects of Sociology . Edited by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno. First published in 1956. Beacon Press, 1973, pp. 38–48. ISBN: 9780807041697.
- Mills, C. Wright. “The Promise.” In The Sociological Imagination . Oxford University Press, 1959, pp. 5–7.
- National Research Council. “America’s Climate Choices: Report in Brief.” National Academies Press (2011).
- Weber, Max. “Social Action and Social Relationship.” In The Theory of Social and Economic Organization . First published in 1922, translated in 1964. Martino Fine Books, 2012, reprinted pp. 128–43. ISBN: 9781614272571.
- Pindyck, R., and D. Rubinfeld. Microeconomics . 7th ed. Prentice Hall, 2008, pp. 551–68. ISBN: 9780132080231.
- Chapter 2 in [B].
- Ingersoll, C., D. Mehrotra, and J. Sterman. “Waste Heat Recovery at Hexion.” MIT Sloan School of Management (2010).
- Rivkin, Jan W. “Husky Injection Molding Systems.” Harvard Business School Case. Harvard Business School Publishing. Case: 799157-PDF-ENG, May 14, 1999.
- Chapter 11 in [B].
- Christensen, C. M. “Managing Disruptive Technological Change: A Case Study.” Chapter 9 in The Innovator’s Dilemma . Harvard Business School Press, 1997.
- Pindyck, R., and D. Rubinfeld. Microeconomics . 7th ed. Prentice Hall, 2008, pp. 573–7. ISBN: 9780132080231.
- Tietenberg, T., and L. Lewis. “The Allocation of Depletable and Renewable Resources: An Overview.” In Environmental & Natural Resource Economics. 8th ed. Addison-Wesley, 2008, pp. 134–55. ISBN: 9780321485717.
- “Natural Monopoly Regulation and Electric Power.” Chapter 12 in [V].
- Chapter 2–9 in [M].
- Whitt, J. A. Urban Elites and Mass Transportation: The Dialectics of Power . Princeton University Press, 1982, pp. 3–39, 174–210. ISBN: 9780691028262.
- Wilson, J. Q., ed. “The Politics of Regulation.” In The Politics of Regulation . Basic Books, 1982, pp. 357–94. ISBN: 9780465059683.
- Sandel, M. J. “It’s Immoral to Buy the Right to Pollute (with replies).” In Economics of the Environment: Selected Readings . Edited by R. N. Stavins. 5th ed. Norton, 2005, pp. 355–8. ISBN: 9780393927016.
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗Historical OpenCourseWare
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- MIT OCW calendar ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.