Revitalising energy capital project development and execution strategies: lessons from the energy sector

This study sought to examine project delivery challenges currently being faced by energy clients and to determine how they could achieve value creation through better alignment of project delivery processes. There are important lessons to be learned from the energy sector on how to deal with the unique operational and project challenges. Four exploratory focus groups were held with twenty senior project management practitioners, to better understand the greatest needs and project management processes in the energy sector. A formal deductive approach was used to examine and evaluate existing and future energy project delivery processes. From the qualitative data, participants recognised the need to introduce science-based project techniques such as system dynamics and project predictive analytics in project management processes. Participants further noted that comprehensive innovative project delivery processes and analytical approaches are required to cope with the increasing scale and complexity of energy capital projects.     

Renewable energy,CO2 emissions and economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa: Does institutional quality matter?

Renewable energy appears to be the most optimal alternative to fossil fuel and the widely accepted pathway towards the mitigation of climate change. However, the costs of adopting renewable energy are high, and it appears the wealth of nations, the stages of economic development and growth and institutional willingness and quality are important in winning this global challenge. However, there is limited information on the interplay of all the factors that are perceived as critical in moving the world towards the use of renewable energy sources to meet most of the domestic and industrial energy needs. This study investigates the inter-temporal causal relationship between institutions, renewable energy, carbon emissions and economic growth for 45 sub-Saharan Africa countries using annual data for the period 1960–2017. We used the generalised method of moment panel vector autoregression (GMM-PVAR) technique to explore the linkages. From a general perspective, the results reveal that no causal relationship exists between institutions and economic growth, but a bidirectional causality exists between economic growth and renewable energy. Our results indicate that economic growth causes carbon emissions, and institutions are more likely to respond to carbon emissions and renewable energy but prompts no causality exists between carbon emissions and renewable energy. Interestingly, these results differ between countries with different institutional origin. The policy implications are discussed.     

The Kalman Filter from the Perspective of Goldberger—Theil Estimators

This article is designed to point out the close connection between recursive estimation procedures, such as Kalman filter theory, familiar to control engineers, and linear least squares estimators and estimators that include prior information in the form of linear restrictions, such as mixed estimators and ridge estimators, familiar to statisticians. The only difference between the two points of view seems to be a difference in terminology. To demonstrate this point, it is shown how the Kalman filter equations can be derived from an existing textbook account of linear least squares theory and the notion of combining prior information in linear models, that is, the Goldberger—Theil mixed estimators' point of view. The author advocates the inclusion of these ideas early when least squares estimation concepts are being taught.     

A Note on the Hyperbolic-Secant Distribution

This note discusses briefly some basic properties of the hyperbolic-secant distribution (e.g., Johnson and Kotz 1970; Manoukian 1986; Perks 1932; Talacko 1956), which has not received sufficient attention in the published literature, and may be useful for students and practitioners.     

Definable and Contractible Contracts

This paper analyzes Bayesian normal form games in which players write contracts that condition their actions on the contracts of other players. These contracts are required to be representable in a formal language. This is accomplished by constructing contracts which are definable functions of the Godel code of every other player's contract. We provide a complete characterization of the set of allocations supportable as pure‐strategy Bayesian equilibria of this contracting game. When information is complete, this characterization provides a folk theorem. In general, the set of supportable allocations is smaller than the set supportable by a centralized mechanism designer.     

SPECIAL ISSUE： CLIMATE CHANGE AND GLOBAL GOVERNANCEStrategic Measures to Reduce China＇s Carbon Emissions： Based on an Index Decomposition Analysis of Carbon Emissions in Eight Industries

基于优化的Laspeyres指数分解方法,通过考察1994-2008年我国八大行业部门碳排放量的总体趋势与特征,结果发现：经济规模每增长一个百分点,碳排放量平均增加15Mt（百万吨）,但不同行业间经济增长的边际碳排放量差异很大;经济结构重型化加剧碳排放量的增加,制造业比重每增加一个百分点,碳排放量平均增加56Mt;技术进步推动能源强度下降,是减少碳排放的核心动力,能源强度每下降一个百分点,碳排放量平均减少33Mt;以煤炭为主的能源结构导致碳排放密度居高不下,能源结构变化的减排效应并不显著。但是,综合碳排放密度下降是一个积极的信号,显现出我国能源结构优化的迹象。推动产业结构调整、能源结构优化,促进节能技术与工艺创新、走新型工业化道路,是实现中国低碳发展的必经之路。     

生态安全语境下中国能源法的变革：问题与应对

能源安全的内涵应包含供应安全和生态安全两层涵义,能源法呈现生态化趋势。我国现行的能源法在生态安全保障上仍然存在很大的不足,例如能源生态安全理念不够深入,能源立法体系不够完善,能源法律制度亟需健全和创新等。在能源法的生态化变革中,要将生态安全作为能源立法的重要价值目标,对能源法体系进行全面的生态化构建,加强能源法与环境法的融合,重视新能源的污染问题,并将外部性解决作为构建生态能源法律制度的基本思路。     

The CUSUM Test for Detecting Structural Changes in Strong Mixing Processes

Strong mixing property holds for a broad class of linear and nonlinear time series models such as Auto-Regressive Moving Average Processes and Generalized Auto-Regressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity Processes models. In this article, we study correlation structure of strong mixing sequences, and some asymptotic properties are presented. We also present a new method for detecting change point in correlation structure of strong mixing sequences, and present a nonparametric sequential analysis for detecting changes named cumulative sum test statistic for this. Asymptotic consistency of this test statistics is shown. This method is applied to simulated data of some linear and nonlinear models and power of the test is evaluated. For linear models, it is shown that this method has a better performance in comparison to Berkes et al. (2009 Berkes, I., Gombay, E., Horvath, L. (2009). Testing for changes in the covariance structure of linear processes. J. Stat. Plan. Inf. 139:2044–2063.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).     

Is Probability the Only Coherent Approach to Uncertainty?

In this article, I discuss an argument that purports to prove that probability theory is the only sensible means of dealing with uncertainty. I show that this argument can succeed only if some rather controversial assumptions about the nature of uncertainty are accepted. I discuss these assumptions and provide reasons for rejecting them. I also present examples of what I take to be non-probabilistic uncertainty.