This thesis considers India's pursuit of energy security. Defining energy security within traditional parameters of supply, delivery, diversification of fuels and suppliers, and affordable prices; the work considers India's energy security condition by surveying the core energy sectors including coal, oil and gas, hydroelectricity, nuclear power and renewables. India's pursuit of energy security is then disaggregated into domestic and international arenas and both are analysed in turn. Considerable attention is paid to the international dimension where India's quest to acquire energy resources is contextualised within bilateral relations with specific countries. What the proceeding analysis makes clear is that the international arena offers considerable opportunities, but also constraints on, the realisation of greater energy security. Chapter one analyses global trends in the main energy sectors of coal, oil, natural gas, hydroelectricity, nuclear power and renewables. Historically, the fortunes of the global energy sectors have mirrored trends in the global economy. Since 2008, most of the world's major industrialised economies have experienced negative or greatly reduced levels of growth. This is primarily due to the proliferation of vast quantities of debt that have capsized several financial institutions and are adversely affecting the liquidity and solvency of many developed governments. The global energy sectors have also been deeply affected by the economic downturn with access to funds for the development of new infrastructure squeezed. The recent poor economic growth of these countries has further accentuated the downward trend they have experienced in energy consumption. Nevertheless, many parts of the developing world, including India, have only been marginally affected by the global economic downturn and continue to develop rapidly. Consequentially most of the growth in demand for energy is coming from developing countries, particularly India. Although there are slight variations depending on sector, this dual trend of stagnation in the developed world and rapid growth in the developing is one ofthe recurring themes in the global energy markets. It is within this context that the second chapter considers India's energy security condition. Detailed analysis of the coal, oil, gas, hydroelectric and renewable sectors demonstrate succinctly that India is experiencing considerable growing pains. While several challenges are unique to each sector the chapter also identifies several systemic problems, including insufficient supply, rampant demand, a tendency to import.

Over the past decade the movement of natural gas drilling operations toward more suburban and urban communities has created unique policy challenges for municipalities. Municipal response is manifest in a variety of institutional arrangements, some more enabling than others regarding citizen access to public hearings. This observation lead to the main research question, “How are variations in citizen participation affecting policy outcomes?” The argument is made that institutions affecting citizen participation, in turn affect policy outcomes. If the general public is given access to public hearings, their preferences for longer setbacks will be taken into account and the approved gas wells will have greater distances from neighboring residences – effectively providing for greater safety. Given the paucity of research on the topic of natural gas drilling, the research first begins with the presentation of a theoretical framework to allow for analysis of the highly complex topic of gas well permitting, emphasizing the rule-ordered relationships between the various levels of decision making and provides a typology of collective action arenas currently used by Texas municipalities. The research uses paired case studies of most similar design and employs a mixed methods process for the collection, analysis and interpretation of the municipal level gas well permitting process. The investigation includes a complete census of 185 approved gas wells from four North Texas cities between the years 2002-2012; 20 interviews comprised of city officials and drilling operators; and archival records such as gas well site plans, ordinances, on-line government documents and other public information. The findings reveal that zoning institutions are associated with a 15% longer gas well setback than siting institutions and institutions without waivers are associated with a 20% longer gas well setback than institutions with waiver rules. The practical implications suggest that citizen participation has a positive effect on public safety within gas well permitting decisions.

Thesis (M.S. in electrical engineering)--Washington State University, December 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 57-58).

An ever increasing body of legislation and regulation is transforming the UK’s energy system and its surrounding national energy framework. Depending on the mechanisms that result from this process, new forms of engagement with energy, particularly electricity, might emerge. The current trajectory of UK energy policy leans towards a centralised scenario with a portfolio of centralised renewable energy technologies (i.e. geographically concentrated such as offshore wind), nuclear power stations and gas fired power stations with the option of Carbon Capture and Storage technologies if it becomes a commercially viable option (CCC, 2011). Forecasts predict that a combination of these technologies could place the UK on the right path to reach its 2050 carbon reduction commitments (UKERC, 2008). However, this approach fails to take broader benefits of decentralisation and localisation into account and many official documents such as the Microgeneration Strategy (DECC, 2011a) and those surrounding Community Energy Online (DECC, 2011b) point to a need for greater public engagement in the generation of energy in order to ‘derive greater benefits locally’ (DECC, 2011a: 45). The question remains in how far these diverging objectives can be achieved within the current regulatory environment as there is a lack of coordinated incentives in place to facilitate the development of new scales and ownership structures capable of promoting new forms of engagement at scales below the point at which economies of scales apply. This thesis seeks to establish what barriers are preventing community energy with the capacity to increase acceptance of renewable energy technologies while also contributing towards climate change action, energy security and the strengthening of local economic cycles from becoming more widely embedded in the UK. The main focus is on how ‘niche creation’ policies such as the feed-in tariff might provide the basis for overcoming these barriers by diffusing new scales and ownership structures of renewable energy technologies. Accompanying social innovations could potentially include more meaningful engagement with energy in general and renewable energy in particular, while also enabling communities willing to invest in renewable energy technologies to build resilient local energy infrastructures with the capacity to reduce the impact of increasing energy insecurity, fossil-fuel depletion and climate change constraints. In order to appreciate the potential of community energy in the UK, parallels are drawn to the governance of national energy frameworks in other European countries, Germany and Denmark in particular, that have provided the basis for successful community energy engagement.

No description available.

Thesis (M. P. A.)--Texas State University-San Marcos, 2009. / "Spring 2009." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-78).

Thesis (M.A.)--Western Kentucky University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 57-63).

Thesis (M. S.)--International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. / Committee Chair: Birchfield, Vicki; Committee Member: Stulberg, Adam; Committee Member: Weber, Katja.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1998. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 100-104).

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2005. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-100).