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The economics of indigenous energy use: The case of northern Ireland lignite
Author(s) -
Jefferson Clifford W.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
international journal of energy research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.808
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1099-114X
pISSN - 0363-907X
DOI - 10.1002/er.4440150605
Subject(s) - indigenous , energy (signal processing) , environmental science , economics , agricultural economics , natural resource economics , geography , physics , ecology , biology , quantum mechanics
The paper sets out an economic framework within which to judge the potential economic benefits of using newly discovered indigenous fuel reserves. It illustrates the method with extensive reference to the newly discovered deposits of lignite in Northern Ireland. For a long time, the lack of indigenous fuel supplies, together with some unfortunate decisions on fuel use, resulted in Northern Ireland having the highest energy costs of any region in the United Kingdom. Although not the bonanza it was originally thought to be, lignite offers the possibility of a secure source of fuel to power at least part of the local electricity supply system, the smallest isolated electricity supply system in western Europe.