This chapter covers basic concepts in power system operations and electricity markets. Basic concepts of power generation include variable cost, marginal cost, fixed cost, investment cost, the weighted average cost of capital, and the definition of a natural monopoly. Basic concepts of transmission and distribution include a discussion of Ohm’s law, Kirchhoff’s laws, the power flow equations, and the direct current power flow. Basic concepts of consumption include the notion of valuation/marginal benefit, demand functions, demand elasticity, and the value of lost load. The actors of electricity markets are introduced, including transmission/independent system operators, distribution system operators, utilities, load serving entities, retailers, power exchanges, and transmission companies. Reserves and ancillary services are then introduced, and details about the forward-looking and rolling nature of power system operations are discussed. Exchanges and pools are informally defined, and the debate between uniform and pay-as-bid pricing is detailed. A blueprint of a typical electricity markets, with the participating actors and traded products and services, is introduced. The California and Central Western European markets are compared in order to introduce the debate between zonal and nodal pricing, as well as different approaches in pricing.

This chapter introduces the unit commitment model. The fixed (startup and min load) and variable cost of a unit are discussed. Initial conditions, transitions, min up/down times, temperature-dependent startups, startup/shutdown profiles, ramp rates, heat rate curves, and reserves are discussed and represented in a mixed integer linear programming model of unit commitment. The extension of the basic model to uncertainty in the stochastic unit commitment model is discussed. The two-settlement system of day-ahead markets is described. Portfolios followed by nominations are compared to unit-based market models. Exchanges are compared to power pools. The possibility of inexistence of a market clearing price in non-convex market clearing models is discussed. Paradoxically rejected orders in European market models are described. Lost opportunity cost as a metric of deviation from equilibrium is introduced, and related notions such as make-whole payments, uplifts, and potential congestion revenue shortfall are introduced. Convex hull pricing is defined and compared to pricing based on linear relaxations and fixing integer variables. The products of the European electricity market (continuous and block orders) are described. The treatment of European pricing rules in the EUPHEMIA algorithm through a branch-and-cut scheme is discussed.

Chapter 4 unpacks the conundrum faced by Restoration acting companies. Audiences wanted new works, spectacle, and theatrical innovation, but the unforeseen consequences of the duopoly hobbled the ability of the companies to respond nimbly to changing conditions. Strapped for money and shackled by the costs of maintaining their expensive, high-tech playhouses, the acting companies were hard pressed to keep up with rival entertainments and products now enticing Londoners. Coffeehouses, spas, pleasure gardens, dance recitals, and music concerts all offered convenience, variety, and value for money. Goods in expanded bourses also tempted consumers. The theatre largely responded to the new world of goods and pastimes through allusion and imitation, oftentimes to brilliant results. Intermedial exchange between the worlds of music and theatre resulted in the gorgeous dramatic operas still staged today. The new consumerism featured in the sparkling, witty comedies spoofing the London elite. Nonetheless, allusiveness could not rival actual experiences and commodities, which often could be had for less money and greater convenience than an afternoon at the playhouse.

Europe was affected by a book crisis in the aftermath of the Great War. Much specialist literature had not been received in institutions across Europe since 1914 or had been destroyed during the conflict and was then rendered prohibitively expensive due to soaring exchange rates. This chapter explores the organization of book relief. The supply of literature was seen as an emergency that required humanitarian assistance to address ‘intellectual hunger’. Intellectual relief of this sort demonstrated the prominence of the belief that the spread of knowledge was essential to the reconstitution of the Republic of Letters and the ultimate stabilization of European political life. While initial responses hinged on humanitarian assistance, the ultimate resolution of the book crisis depended upon the restoration of international exchange networks – many of which had been severed by the war – and which came to fruition around the mid-1920s.

This conclusion elaborates three implications of the arguments of this book. First, it argues that the importance of exchange diplomacy in Sino-American rapprochement demonstrates the limits of Henry Kissinger’s understanding of rapprochement as dictated by geostrategic maneuvering and high-level diplomacy. We need, this conclusion posits, a more holistic account of Sino-American diplomacy to fully explain the development of that relationship through the 1970s. Second, this conclusion argues that the interconnection between Sino-American exchange and high diplomacy offers a case study of the value in connecting transnational and diplomatic history – an insight that has implications for both fields. Third and finally, the conclusion reflects on the lessons we can draw from the US-China exchange relationship of the 1970s in understanding the prospects for Sino-American cooperation in the twenty-first century.

In this chapter, the author discusses the world of crypto-crime. Beginning with an account of the arrest of Alexander Vinnik, the Russian accused of running a money-laundering cryptocurrency exchange, the chapter goes on to describe the ways in which blockchain has allowed dramatic levels of criminality to spread throughout the industry.