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Curriculum Energy Economics

Energy Economics

How oil, gas, electricity and clean energy are priced, traded and paid for, and why energy choices shape jobs, security and everyday costs around the world.

  1. How Oil Prices Are Set How benchmark crude prices, futures markets and stubborn demand combine to set the price of a barrel of oil. 📄 Read-aloud
  2. OPEC and the Economics of Cartels Why oil producers try to coordinate output, and why cartels like OPEC find it so hard to hold together. 📄 Read-aloud
  3. Natural Gas Markets Why natural gas, unlike oil, has long had separate regional prices, and how shipping gas as a liquid is changing that. 📄 Read-aloud
  4. Electricity Markets and the Grid How the power grid keeps supply and demand in constant balance, and how wholesale markets decide which power plants run. 📄 Read-aloud
  5. Why Electricity Prices Vary by Time of Day Why the same unit of electricity can cost far more in the evening than at midday, and how time-of-use pricing puts that to work. 📄 Read-aloud
  6. The Falling Cost of Solar and Wind How learning curves, mass manufacturing and cheaper finance drove one of the fastest price declines in energy history. 📄 Read-aloud
  7. The Economics of Energy Storage How batteries and other storage earn money by moving electricity through time, and why their costs have fallen so quickly. 📄 Read-aloud
  8. The Levelized Cost of Energy, Explained How economists compare very different power plants on a single number, and what that number leaves out. 📄 Read-aloud
  9. Fuel Subsidies: Who Really Benefits? Why many governments keep fuel prices artificially low, what it costs them, and why reform is so difficult. 📄 Read-aloud
  10. Energy Security What it means for a country to have reliable, affordable energy, and the tools governments use to protect it. 📄 Read-aloud
  11. Energy Poverty and Access Why hundreds of millions of people still lack reliable electricity or clean cooking fuel, and what it takes to change that. 📄 Read-aloud
  12. Electric Vehicles and the Economy How the shift from petrol engines to batteries changes costs for drivers, jobs in car-making, oil demand and government budgets. 📄 Read-aloud
  13. The Economics of Nuclear Power Why nuclear plants are cheap to run but extremely expensive and slow to build, and how that shapes their future. 📄 Read-aloud
  14. The Energy Transition and Jobs How shifting from fossil fuels to clean energy creates new jobs, threatens others, and why where and when they appear matters so much. 📄 Read-aloud
  15. Coal in India's Energy Mix Why coal still supplies most of India's electricity, the economic and environmental trade-offs, and how India is balancing growth with a shift to clean energy. 📄 Read-aloud
  16. Green Hydrogen What green hydrogen is, why it could decarbonise heavy industry and transport, and what makes it expensive today. 📄 Read-aloud
  17. Rooftop Solar and Net Metering How households and businesses generate their own solar power, how net metering pays them for surplus electricity, and India's rooftop solar push. 📄 Read-aloud
  18. Ethanol Blending in India How India raised the share of ethanol in petrol to 20 percent, the benefits for oil imports and farmers, and the debates over food, water and vehicles. 📄 Read-aloud

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