Integrated Tradable Green Certificate Markets: Functioning and Compatibility

Many countries plan to increase the proportion of their electricity supply obtained from renewable sources relative to nonrenewable sources. Recently, the EU has implemented a system of tradable emission permits and many countries have introduced systems of tradable green certificates (TGCs). In this paper, we analyze how integrated TGC markets function and how they are affected by harsher CO2 emission constraints. A key result of our analytical model is that TGCs may be an imprecise instrument for regulating the generation of green electricity. Furthermore, our analysis shows that the combination of TGCs with a system of tradable emission permits may yield outcomes contrary to the intended purpose. The results are valid under both autarky and international trade.Renewable energy; electricity; green certificates; emissions trading.

Provision of reserve capacity on the Nordic electricity market: Principles and practises

System reliability is a key aspect of electricity supply, and the ability to maintain system reliability thus is an important aspect of a liberalised electricity market. But system reliability can be ensured only if there is sufficient reserve capacity at all times. In a liberalised electricity market the provision of reserve capacity is a matter of incentives. The Nordic electricity market, comprising of the integrated Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish electricity markets, has worked well from a system reliability point of view. A key factor behind this favourable outcome is that the incentives for keeping sufficient reserve capacity have been strong enough. The reason for this is an adequate institutional design point. More precisely the set of markets that is commonly called “the electricity market” includes both regulation and capacity markets, and rules and regulations are such that these markets are wellfunctioning.Nordic electricity market; reserve capacity; peak capacity; capacity market.

International Redistribution of Resource Rents: An alternative perspective on the Kyoto process

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the resource rent distribution aspect of the Kyoto process. The paper focuses on the “battle for resource rents” with oil consuming countries on one side and oil producing countries on the other. Our analysis is carried out within the framework of a theoretical model of resource extraction over time. In particular, it is shown how CO2 emission caps may be used by the oil consuming countries, acting under the realm of the Kyoto process, to maximize the rent acquisition from oil producing countries and how the oil producing countries may constrain this possibility by exercising market power. The paper also compiles data and numerical results regarding the order of magnitudes of resource rents redistribution.Resource rent; environmental taxes; market form

Black Hole Formation in Fallback Supernova and the Spins of LIGO Sources

Here we investigate within the context of field binary progenitors how the the spin of LIGO sources vary when the helium star-descendent black hole (BH) is formed in a failed supernova (SN) explosion rather than by direct collapse. To this end, we make use of 3d hydrodynamical simulations of fallback supernova in close binary systems with properties designed to emulate LIGO sources. By systematically varying the explosion energy and the binary properties, we are able to explore the effects that the companion has on redistributing the angular momentum of the system. We find that, unlike the mass, the spin of the newly formed BH varies only slightly with the currently theoretically unconstrained energy of the SN and is primarily determined by the initial binary separation. In contrast, variations in the initial binary separation yield sizable changes on the resultant effective spin of the system. This implies that the formation pathways of LIGO sources leading to a particular effective spin might be far less restrictive than the standard direct collapse scenario suggests.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, submitted to ApJ Letter

Scaling of the dynamics of flexible Lennard-Jones chains. II. Effects of harmonic bonds

The previous paper [Veldhorst et al., J. Chem. Phys. 141, 054904 (2014)] demonstrated that the isomorph theory explains the scaling properties of a liquid of flexible chains consisting of ten Lennard-Jones particles connected by rigid bonds. We here investigate the same model with harmonic bonds. The introduction of harmonic bonds almost completely destroys the correlations in the equilibrium fluctuations of the potential energy and the virial. According to the isomorph theory, if these correlations are strong a system has isomorphs, curves in the phase diagram along which structure, dynamics and the excess entropy are invariant. The Lennard-Jones chain liquid with harmonic bonds does have curves in the phase diagram along which the structure and dynamics are invariant. The excess entropy is not invariant on these curves, which we refer to as "pseudoisomorphs". In particular this means that Rosenfeld's excess-entropy scaling (the dynamics being a function of excess entropy only) does not apply for the Lennard-Jones chain with harmonic bonds.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figure

Did GW170817 harbor a pulsar?

If the progenitor of GW170817 harbored a pulsar, then a Poynting flux dominated bow-shock cavity would have been expected to form around the traveling binary. The characteristic size of this evacuated region depends strongly on the spin-down evolution of the pulsar companion, which in turn depends on the merging timescale of the system. If this evacuated region is able to grow to a sufficiently large scale, then the deceleration of the jet, and thus the onset of the afterglow, would be noticeably delayed. The first detection of afterglow emission, which was uncovered 9.2 days after the $\gamma$-ray burst trigger, can thus be used to constrain the size of a pre-existing pulsar-wind cavity. We use this information, together with a model of the jet to place limits on the presence of a pulsar in GW170817 and discuss the derived constraints in the context of the observed double neutron star binary population. We find that the majority of Galactic systems that are close enough to merge within a Hubble time would have carved a discernibly large pulsar-wind cavity, inconsistent with the onset timescale of the X-ray afterglow of GW170817. Conversely, the recently detected system J1913+1102, which host a low-luminosity pulsar, provides a congruous Milky Way analog of GW170817's progenitor model. This study highlights the potential of the proposed observational test for gaining insight into the origin of double neutron star binaries, in particular if the properties of Galactic systems are representative of the overall merging population.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJL, 6 pages, 5 figure