This book provides an overview of the current energy policy debate, contextualized by the oil shock from 2000, and considers how the trends in international energy markets impact on security of supply and climate change. It includes a discussion of market design, looks at carbon and oil markets, and considers best practice for effective policy design.

Introduction ; PART 1: CONCEPTS ; 1. The New Energy Paradigm ; 2. Electricity Networks: The Innovation Supply Chain ; 3. Carbon Contracts ; 4. Competitive Electricity Markets and Investment in New Generating Capacity ; PART 2: OIL AND GAS ; 5. Oil Markets and the Future ; 6. OPEC Pricing Power: The Need for a New Perspective ; 7. UK Oil and Gas Depletion Policy with Growing Import Dependence ; 8. A Constrained Future for Gas in Europe? ; PART 3: ELECTRICITY ; 9. Electricity and Markets ; 10. Large-scale Deployment of Renewables ; 11. Policy Uncertainty and Supply Adequacy in Electric Power Markets ; 12. The Effect of Liberalizing UK Retail Energy Markets on Consumers ; 13. Nuclear Energy ; PART 4: INTERNATIONAL POLICY ; 14. The Investment Implications of Global Energy Trends ; 15. Climate Change Negotiations: Past and Future ; 16. European Energy Policy: Securing Supplies and Meeting the Challenge of Climate Change

Anyone professionally concerned with energy policies markets and future trends will find the book useful...[..] For anyone interested in energy policies, markets and the issues to be faced in the coming decades, this book will form a valuable information resource and a thought-provoking read.

Dieter Helm is an economist specialising in utilities, infrastructure, regulation and the environment, and concentrates on the energy, water and transport sectors in Britain and Europe. He holds a number of other advisory board appointments, including the Prime Minister's Council of Science and Technology, the Defra Academic Panel (Chair), and the DTI Sustainable Energy Panel Advisory Board. He is associate editor of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy. His career to date has spanned academia, public policy and business. He founded Oxera in 1982, was a member of the DTI's Energy Advisory Panel from 1993 to 2003, and has published extensively on economic topics. He recently completed a major study of British Energy policy since 1979, Energy, The State and the Market, published by Oxford University Press.