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This thesis is concerned with long run developments in energy systems. It considers the implications of developments in economics related to path dependence and lock-in for climate change mitigation policies. Path dependence can arise when markets, technological systems and institutions co-evolve and are subject to increasing returns to adoption. This can have the effect of entrenching incumbent technologies and systems, which can preclude the emergence of alternative technologies or systems. This lock-in by historical events is argued to be particularly acute in the energy system. This thesis uses energy system scenario modelling to explore the potential for path dependence to create mutually exclusive low carbon energy futures. It concludes that radically different contigurations of energy technologies are equally able to deliver low carbon energy. It finds that there are good reasons to expect that development will be path dependent. This matters because the literature on path dependence also highlights the potential for lock-in to a sub-optimal outcome. However the thesis also finds that it is possible to maintain a variety of emerging options until more is known about their potential. Policy needs to create the con~itions that allow a variety of low carbon options to emerge and prosper. But, perhaps paradoxically, over time policies will also need to ensure that the most promising low carbon options can themselves benefit from increasing returns to adoption. The same processes that created lock-in to a high carbon energy system can be harnessed to reduce the costs and improve the performance of low carbon technologies. The thesis argues that the conceptual underpinnings of environmental policy intervention need to be fundamentally reassessed in the light path dependence, lock-in and increasing returns effects. The orthodox approach to environmental policy analysis uses a 'static equilibrium' paradigm which considers only extant externalities. Internalising external costs is important, but orthodox economic theory does not provide policymakers with any information about the processes which created t!Ie current energy system, nor the options needed to allow economies to extricate themselves from 'carbon lock-in'. Increasing returns could be harnessed to overcome carbon lock-in, if policymakers engage directly with issues related to technology choice and technological strategy. Along the way some important shibboleths of existing economic policy will need to be reassessed, not least the notion that policy can never, and must never even seek to, 'pick winners'.

Society's dependence on weather systems has broadened to include electricity generation from wind turbines and solar PV systems. Climate change is altering energy flows in the atmosphere, which will affect the economic potential of wind and solar power outputs. This thesis presents a framework to assess the economic impact of climate change on annual average wind and solar power generation. This thesis highlights the knowledge gaps in economic analysis of future wind and solar resource assessments which consider climate change. It presents an interdisciplinarity framework which combines climate model outputs with technoeconomic modelling of financial metrics. This thesis outlines the proof of concept for this framework, exploring the limitations of global climate models for assessing wind and solar resources, and presents a novel bias-adjustment method to create future projected time series. CMIP5 and MERRA(2) datasets are used due to their accessibility and global scale, enabling results to be produced for anywhere on the globe. The framework is demonstrated with three case studies which focus on the cost of wind power in the UK, changing icing related losses in the northern hemisphere, and future impacts of climate change on solar PV in China. In all case studies, climate change impacts are projected under low and extreme climate forcing scenarios from the early to the late 21st century. Results are mixed. The relative change in average-annual capacity factors and levelised cost of energy is between ±2% under low scenarios of climate change and within ±5% for more extreme climate change. The change is also more pronounced later into the 21st century. These results show assessments of future wind and solar power are possible, highlighting that wind and solar power generation remains an attractive investment under all scenarios of climate change.

The cost of addressing climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions is heavily dependent on the future costs of low-carbon energy technologies. Yet many of these technologies are still relatively immature, with potentially significant room for further innovation and cost reduction. Estimating future technology costs is therefore critical yet challenging. This thesis investigates how different drivers of innovation and cost reduction, such as technological improvements, material inputs and manufacturing scale can be considered in tandem to better understand the future cost ranges of energy technologies. The thesis presents a first-of-a-kind assessment of organic solar photovoltaic modules using a bottom-up engineering model of material and manufacturing costs, with a stochastic analysis to understand the range of cost outcomes and the principal drivers of those outcomes. It also includes a first-of-a-kind expert elicitation of lithium ion battery packs for off-grid applications, further developing and enhancing existing best-practice expert elicitation protocols to account for different drivers of cost-reduction, including R&D, learning-by-doing and economies of scale. The thesis explores the implications of the future cost estimates of these technologies at two geographical scales: the first by considering the costs of off-grid solar and battery systems in rural communities currently reliant on diesel generators, using a bespoke model; the second by considering the potential impact of future solar photovoltaic and battery storage costs on global mitigation costs to meet a 2oC climate target, using an integrated assessment model. The thesis finds that disaggregation of technological innovation and cost reduction drivers provides important insights into how future cost reductions are likely to come about, including the role of specific policy support. In addition, the influence of solar photovoltaic and battery storage costs on mitigation costs is significant, since these technologies are making renewable-generated electricity at a variety of scales cost-competitive with fossil fuel electricity generation.

Igneous rocks in the Sierra Tinaja Pinta and Cornudas Station areas are part of a group of intrusions of Tertiary age that outline the northeastern margin of the Diablo Plateau; they are part of the larger alkalic petrographic province of Trans-Pecos Texas. Laccoliths, dikes, sills and a cone sheet were intruded into the Hueco and Victorio Peak Limestones of Permian age and into sandstone and limestone of Cretaceous age, which are paleontologically correlative with the Fredricksburg and Washita Groups of central Texas. The igneous rocks are of four types: (1) porphyritic analcime syenite and associated dike and contact rocks, (2) pyroxene trachyte, (3) porphyritic analcime-nepheline syenite, and (4) olivine-analcime trachyte. When magma reached crustal levels presently exposed in the Sierra Tinaja Pinta-Cornudas Station vicinity, it was in an advanced stage of differentiation and crystallization. Hypersolvus feldspar, augite, and a minor amount of olivine and nepheline in a liquid were intruded near the base of the Hueco Limestone, and formed the Mayfield Valley intrusion. Filter pressing resulted in squeezing a liquid that contained a few microphenocrysts of hypersolvus feldspar and nepheline into fractures overlying the Mayfield Valley intrusion. This liquid consolidated to form the porphyritic analcime-nepheline syenite of the Miller Mountain, Cerro Diablo and East Mountain intrusions. Experimental evidence suggests that nepheline syenites can be formed by two mechanisms: (1) differentiation from a magma of different composition, or (2) partial melting of pre-existing rocks to produce magma of nepheline syenite composition. The second mechanism is questionable because partial melting of most sedimentary rocks would produce granite rather than nepheline syenite; the hypothesis of partial melting of subsilicic igneous rocks to explain the origin of nepheline syenites merely postpones the problem of origin of subsilic rocks. Fractional crystallization in the alkali olivine basalt series can produce phonolites. This mechanism is favored as the origin of feldspathoidal igneous rocks that lie along the northeastern margin of the Diablo Plateau. Block faulting in the northern Trans-Pecos is thought to be related to the initiation of melting at depth.

The UK's commitments to addressing climate change require a radical restructuring of the electricity sector. This thesis examines what role the electricity transmission networks could play in this transformation. In order to examine the possible role of policy making within a socio-technical system under conditions of long-term uncertainty, a novel scenario method is developed which accounts for political values, actor dynamics and technological networks. The approach is used to examine possible pathways for the electricity transmission network within alternative policy value-sets, which are defined by the level of locational signal provided to generators in respect of their network usage, and the degree of anticipatory or strategic planning involved in network policy. The scenarios emphasise the importance of a locational signal which acts at the operational timescale as well as the investment timescale. They also suggest a role for strategic coordination, particularly to join up planning across onshore, offshore and interconnector regimes. However, due to the range of possible generation and network configurations the scenarios span, they do not support the idea of a central design authority working to a single network blueprint. Specific policy recommendations aim to incorporate these suggestions within the grain of the existing policy trajectory and its prevailing value system. The two principle policy recommendations are therefore, the inclusion of a locational signal within the BSUoS charge in order to better reflect network usage at the operational timescale, and the establishment of an independent body with a remit to identify and contribute needs cases for cross-regime strategic coordination opportunities. The latter recommendation could be achieved with some adaption and clarification of the remit of the ENSG.

This thesis is concerned with the history of electricity generation costs, how they have changed over time, and the accuracy of forecasts of future costs. These costs are a critical input to policy, yet both estimates and forecasts have frequently proved to be wrong or have changed dramatically over relatively short timescales. The thesis presents evidence from three technology case studies (offshore wind, nuclear power and solar PV), supported by a review of the range of cost measures used in the economic, business and policy spheres, and the methodologies used to understand the factors that bear upon cost trajectories and approaches to forecasting future costs. Drawing upon the evidence from the case studies, the thesis examines how cost forecasts have changed over time, the (frequently wide) range of forecasts, the sources of errors, and how policy has responded to uncertainty and changes in both cost estimates and forecasts. The findings address the limitations of commonly used cost metrics, challenge assumptions that costs will necessarily fall, discuss the meaning of regulatory certainty in the face of uncertain future costs, and emphasise the importance of context (why estimates are commissioned, and by whom, and also who they are undertaken by). The evidence suggests that the co-presentation and use of estimates and forecasts for technologies with very different technical and financial characteristics implies significantly more comparability between them than is wise, and can convey the message that the underlying uncertainties are similar, when in fact the reasons may be fundamentally different in character. This highlights how important an understanding of technology characteristics is when deriving estimates and forecasts, not simply because those characteristics bear upon the numerical values of the results, but because of the influence they have on the nature of the uncertainty of those results.

There is a longstanding debate about the future availability of energy resources, and a significant literature has developed around the issues of oil availability in particular. More recently, the availability of lesser-known critical metals, such as lithium and indium, has been called into question. These metals are key components in low-carbon energy technologies and a new evidence base that questions their future availability is emerging. Much of this research applies methods and techniques also applied to the analysis of oil resources, with the implicit assumption that these resources are in some way analogous. However, although there are similarities, there are also structural differences and the appropriateness of the assumed analogy has not been sufficiently tested. This thesis explores the similarities and differences in the structure of the oil, lithium and indium resource systems, examining the likely response of these systems to availability constraints and testing the appropriateness of this assumed analogy. The systems that define the market for resources are dynamically complex and involve a number of different interlinked variables. The way in which these resource systems respond to changes in surrounding conditions arises from the structure of these variables and their linkages. However, much of the existing analysis of critical metals relies on simplistic assumptions regarding the structure and function of these systems. To address this knowledge gap, this thesis first presents case studies of the three resource systems. The case studies are then used to develop three system dynamics models. This thesis finds that, while there are many similarities in the structure of the three resource systems modelled, the differences between them have a significant impact on their dynamic system behaviour. Analysis which overlooks these differences is likely to draw inaccurate conclusions. In particular, the resilience of metals to periods of constrained availability is potentially greater than that of oil if metal recycling is taken into account. However, metals recovered as by-products are potentially limited in their ability to resist constrained availability.

Over the past three decades concerns have arisen about the ability of deregulated electricity systems such as the UK’s to deliver secure supplies. Capacity margins have drawn particular attention, but a number of apparently secure systems have failed for unanticipated reasons. This has led some to question whether risk-based measures fully capture the uncertainties to which such systems are exposed, and whether the concept of “resilience” provides a framework around which to discuss less quantitative indicators. This work attempts to answer four questions. First, what are the characteristics of a resilient and secure electricity system? Second, how have these characteristics evolved over the past 25 years? Third, to what extent can these changes be attributed to privatisation & liberalisation and to the introduction of new forms of renewable generation? Fourth, how might the UK Government’s proposed policies affect the security of electricity supply? ‘Resilience’ was found to be a multi-faceted concept, but five indicators were chosen for further investigation: generation margins, system diversity, energy intensity, electricity prices and energy independence. It was shown that a decline in margins can probably not be attributed to privatisation, but that renewable generation can have a positive effect depending on the support mechanism. Diversity can be enhanced by both privatisation and some forms of renewable support, the latter also seemingly reducing a country’s import dependence, but also increasing prices. Whilst there is some evidence that policy changes can affect a system’s resilience, the suggestion is that liberalisation has not had a strong overall impact. Furthermore, achieving ‘optimal resilience’ may be inherently unachievable, meaning that policies will always need to flexible enough to respond to change, but constant enough to encourage the necessary investment for the future.

Waste-to-energy technology addresses several societal concerns. It protects human health and the environment, treats waste and recovers material. It mitigates climate change by reducing the carbon intensity of energy generation whilst increasing energy security. Often, these multiple services are not sufficiently recognised. This thesis informs energy and waste management policy by characterising the benefits that can justify appropriate support to address the currently limited awareness. To investigate the greenhouse gas emissions, economic viability and energy efficiency potential, a model was created using performance metrics and, where possible, real plant data. Gasification, as a novel technology, was compared with incineration in combined thermal treatment scenarios. Anaerobic digestion was analysed independently. Gasification can achieve higher energy efficiency with lower carbon intensity and higher flexibility of location. At low levels of support gasification is less attractive than incineration; but more competitive with increased support similar to current levels. Without incentives for its electricity output, relying only on the price for carbon and high landfill tax, small-scale gasification would be ruled out. Commercial viability of anaerobic digestion is significantly influenced by support for its heat and electricity outputs. Particularly small-scale plants would not be viable without support or appropriate valuation of the multiple objectives they fulfil. Established waste management companies are necessary partners for new technology providers to access finance. Industrial interest in new technologies, however, is driven by their qualifying for support. Analysis shows that an efficiency-linked escalating reward could incentivise development and use of gasification (with combined-cycle gas turbine) instead of deployment of less risky but less efficient configurations. An extended assessment framework was developed to recognise the contribution to resource effectiveness of waste-to-energy technology by characterising energy security (in size of the contribution and through abundant, negative-cost national feedstock); the contribution to renewable energy targets; the higher energy system resilience (through increased predictability, variety, disparity and balance); and lower carbon intensity of the economy.