Monetary Energy Footprint Analysis (MEFA)

Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Jubiläumsfonds)

Climate change and securing the energy supply are amongst the major challenges for the growth of the economy and for the well-being of nations. The increasing number of climate change related disasters, the dramatic increase of the oil price and the gas crisis between Russia and the Ukraine in late 2005 underline these critical developments.

In this context, a comprehensive discussion of feasible strategies for a sustainable energy supply is urgently needed to achieve a turnaround of this trend in the medium term and to reassure energy supply in the long term. The necessary fundamentals required for the development of a long term energy vision lack widely, due to the absence of reasonable long term scenarios that fulfill the requirements of climate protection. In addition, no adequate translation of ecological considerations into economic models is currently available in this respect. Furthermore, when comparing different energy technologies by economic means, external costs are normally not considered and distorted costs result in misleading market signals.

The study "Monetary Energy Footprint Analysis" aims at developing a combined economic and ecological model, and will allow the economic and ecological evaluation of different energy scenarios. External costs will be considered in the calculation and comparability of the
scenarios will be obtained through a long term investment appraisals. The investment guidelines developed in this study will provide economic and political decision makers with a tool to rate energy investments by their long term costs for the economy.