8,495 research outputs found
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Backyard Politics, National Policies: Understanding the Opportunity Costs of National Fracking Bans
Some local communities in the United States, particularly in the Northeast, are scrambling to oppose natural gas production enabled by hydraulic fracturing (or fracing, fracking, or hydrofracking) in shale formations. Local opposition to the impacts of fracking is understandable, but recent proposals for national bans ignore a key, more potent threat. Due to a mismatch between the benefits and costs of fracking, on the one hand, and the distribution of political and legal influence, on the other, the voices of those opposed to extraction may drown out the more distant voices of those suffering from the widespread future effects of coal—the primary fossil alternative to gas. Energy policy processes must recognize the opportunity costs of banning gas, including the consequences of continuing to rely on coal as our primary electricity source. The negative environmental impacts of natural gas extraction must be addressed, and our focus on gas ought not to divert attention from the need to develop more sustainable energy alternatives. However, policymakers should not adopt the myopic view advocated by some anti-fracking activists. Rather, policymakers should formulate energy policies that fully weigh the costs and benefits of alternative courses of action and consider the interests of those under-represented in the policy process.The Kay Bailey Hutchison Center for Energy, Law, and Busines
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Electricity Markets $64,000 Question
The Kay Bailey Hutchison Center for Energy, Law, and Busines
Covariant Phase Space Formulations of Superparticles and Supersymmetric WZW Models
We present new covariant phase space formulations of superparticles moving on
a group manifold, deriving the fundamental Poisson brackets and current
algebras. We show how these formulations naturally generalise to the
supersymmetric Wess-Zumino-Witten models.Comment: 15pp., LaTe
Hamiltonian Reduction and Supersymmetric Toda Models
New formulations of the solutions of N=1 and N=2 super Toda field theory are
introduced, using Hamiltonian Reduction of the N=1 and N=2 super WZNW Models to
the super Toda Models. These parameterisations are then used to present the
Hamiltonian formulations of the super Toda theories on the spaces of solutions.Comment: 15pp., LaTe
The Solutions of Affine and Conformal Affine Toda Field Theories
We give new formulations of the solutions of the field equations of the
affine Toda and conformal affine Toda theories on a cylinder and
two-dimensional Minkowski space-time. These solutions are parameterised in
terms of initial data and the resulting covariant phase spaces are
diffeomorphic to the Hamiltonian ones. We derive the fundamental Poisson
brackets of the parameters of the solutions and give the general static
solutions for the affine theory.Comment: 11pp, phyzz
Branes at angles and calibrated geometry
In a recent paper, Ohta and Townsend studied the conditions which must be
satisfied for a configuration of two intersecting M5-branes at angles to be
supersymmetric. In this paper we extend this result to any number of M5-branes
or any number of M2-branes. This is accomplished by interpreting their results
in terms of calibrated geometry, which is of independent interest.Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX2e (Minor correction in next to last paragraph of
section 5.2
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