L'analyse économique face à l'épuisement des ressources naturelles, de William Stanley Jevons à Harold Hotelling (1865-1931) : le cas de énergies fossiles

L'épuisement des énergies fossiles est un thème d'actualité dont les prémices datent, selon l'opinion courante, des années 1970 et du premier choc pétrolier. En réalité, c'est une préoccupation plus ancienne, intimement liée à l'ère industrielle. Dans la deuxième partie du XIXème siècle, les économistes se sont penchés sur la question de l'épuisement des minerais, 'objet non identifié' jusqu'alors et nécessitant la mise sur pied de nouveaux outils d'analyse (effet-rebond chez Jevons, rente minière chez Marshall-Einaudi notamment). Avec le progrès des techniques et l'apparition de nouvelles énergies (pétrole, hydro-électricité), leurs craintes de déclin industriel se sont progressivement dissipées dans les années 1910 et 1920. Mais ces évolutions tenant à l'histoire des faits ne sont pas les seules à considérer. Des facteurs internes à la discipline économique, comme l'émergence du marginalisme dans les années 1870 et de la théorie de l'épargne et du capital dans les années 1890, ont aussi changé le regard des économistes sur la question de l'épuisement des ressources. Pourquoi ? Comment ? Quels enseignements peut-on en tirer pour les défis environnementaux d'aujourd'hui ? Voilà les questions qui sont traitées dans ce travail de thèse

The Hotelling Rule in Non-Renewable Resource Economics: A Reassessment

International audienceHarold Hotelling's 1931 contribution is known for providing a basic principle—the Hotelling rule—to the economics of non‐renewable resources. Nearly 90 years later, empirical tests conclude the rule lacks empirical validity, requiring strong amendments to describe the long‐term, aggregate behaviour of its target object. On the basis of Hotelling's unpublished archival material, this paper revisits the place given to the Hotelling rule in non‐renewable resource economics. Our reconstruction shows that Hotelling's 1931 paper has been misinterpreted: from the outset, the Hotelling rule was not valid for mineral resources. In contrast, the consideration of two inherent geological constraints, alongside exhaustibility, offered the opportunity for an alternative basic framework, capable to generate bell‐shaped and U‐shaped equilibrium trajectories for supplies and prices, respectively. Inspired by this unknown aspect of Hotelling's work brought to light by our archival investigation, we sketch this alternative basic model, enabling non‐renewable resource economics to circumvent the empirical shortfalls of the Hotelling rule

An anthropocene-framed transdisciplinary dialog at the chemistry-energy nexus

At the energy-chemistry nexus, key molecules include carbon dioxide (CO2), hydrogen (H2), methane (CH4), and ammonia (NH3). The position of these four molecules and that of the more general family of synthetic macromolecular polymer blends (found in plastics) were cross-analyzed with the Planetary Boundary framework, and as part of five scientific policy roadmaps for the energy transition. According to the scenarios considered, the use of some of these molecules will be drastically modified in the coming years. Ammonia, which is currently almost exclusively synthesized as feedstock for the fertilizer industry, is envisioned as a future carbon-free energy vector. ‘Green hydrogen’ is central to many projected decarbonized chemical processes. Carbon dioxide is forecast to shift from an unavoidable byproduct to a valuable feedstock for the production of carbon-based compounds. In this context, we believe that interdisciplinary elements from history, economics and anthropology are relevant to any attempted cross-analysis. Distinctive and crucial insights drawn from elements of humanities and social sciences have led us to formulate or re-raise open questions and possible blind-spots in main roadmaps, which were developed to guide, inter alia, chemical research toward the energy transition. We consider that these open questions are not sufficiently addressed in the academic arena around chemical research. Nevertheless, they are relevant to our understanding of the current planetary crisis, and to our capacity to properly assess the potential and limitations of chemical research addressing it. This academic perspective was written to share this understanding with the broader academic community. This work is intended not only as a call for a larger interdisciplinary method, to develop a sounder scientific approach to broader scenarios, but also – and perhaps mostly – as a call for the development of radically transdisciplinary routes of research. As scientists with different backgrounds, specialized in different disciplines and actively involved in contributing to shape solutions by means of our research, we bear ethical responsibility for the consequences of our acts, which often lead to consequences well beyond our discipline. Do our research and the knowledge it produces respond, perpetuate or even aggravate the problems encountered by society

From Ecosystem Service Evaluation to Landscape Design: The Project of a Rural Peri-urban Park in Chieri (Italy)

The concept of Ecosystem Services (ES), namely the benefits that people obtain from ecosystems, clearly highlights the added value that environment and landscape conservation provides for the society and the economy and, more generally, for human well-being. In the last decade, several studies dealt with the needs and ways of integrating ES evaluation into spatial planning policies to foster sustainable development. More recently, the relationship between ES evaluation and landscape design has been increasingly investigated too, and ES have been proposed as a conceptual framework for addressing landscape architecture towards multifunctionality objectives. This chapter presents the first outcomes of an applied research that assumed ES evaluation—understood both as biophysical assessment and economic valuation—as a tool to sustain landscape design choices at the local scale. The study evaluated ES in a rural peri-urban area of Chieri (Turin, Italy), to support the project of a rural-recreational park. In the envisaged park, agricultural, natural and recreational areas coexist and a more sustainable relationship between the dense city and its peri-urban context is promoted. ES evaluation allowed to highlight at the site-scale the ES performance of alternative design choices and to draft possible pathways for the implementation of Payment for Ecosystem Services schemes

Rebound effects and ICT : a review of the literature

International audienceThis paper presents a critical review of the literature on the rebound effects generated by information and communication technologies (ICT). Following a discussion of the types of general rebound, including direct, indirect, and economy-wide, the literature on ICT-related rebound effects is critically assessed. The chapter suggests ways of overcoming rebound and lays out promising avenues of research to better understand and tackle rebound effects in ICT