An energy quota, not energy itself, is allocated per person. Is having a permit to fish the same as having fish? No. If have no cash you could sell half (w.a.g) your quota and have cash to buy energy with the rest of your quota, how will that a problem?
Sorry, I only read the article, not the booklet.
A quota as you mentioned is a right or a permission to fish or to sell energy. Anytime a quota is issued it has an intrinsic value, like a dairy quota or a taxi quota to a busy airport. The price of the quota represents the economic rent it brings to the seller by those who are willing to buy it. Those willing to buy these certificates think they can get more economic value out of the quota than those willing to sell.
If it is allocated for free to those that do nothing then it is simply a gift. Like diary or taxi quotas the intrinsic value of the quota quickly get capitalized. For example, the quota value of one dairy cow may be worth $25.000 the quota value of one taxi might also be worth $25.000. My energy quota allocation might be like getting a cheque for $1000 each year. It is simply unearned income.
If it is not a universal scheme then it is not worth doing. Most of the world's remaining petroleum in any case belong to governments, not private companies. Whether the government decides to extract that petroleum themselves through a national oil company or decides to sell the rights to explore, drill and extract in exchange for royalties, basically all the oil & gas that we use going forward comes from the public domaine. TEQ's therefore will not make energy cheaper. The cost of petroleum reflects its scarcity, the cost to find it and to extract it and then distribute it. And governments find it an attractive target for extra taxes as its demand is very inelastic. So the argument that TEQs will make energy cheaper simply does not hold water.
As it is a gift it brings unearned economic benefit to those who have not produced anything of value to trade for that petroleum. So like the share trading privatization scandal in the Czech Republic the government/UN or whomever distributes energy quotas which individuals would have the right to exchange for energy or sell.
Except the energy is already owned by nations who want to sell it. Therefore, due to infrastructure problems in sub-sahara Africa they may not have anything to trade to buy the imported energy in any case, and as the countries are so corrupt and many uneducated people live in poverty, I will explain to you exactly what will happen.
Criminal gangs will go up and down the countryside buying certificates at a steep discount from those who do not know their true value, cannot read, or are too poor and need pennies on the dollar to buy food instead of petroluem. Then these gangs will aggregate these certificates and sell them on the black market at a profit to those who need energy and can afford to buy it.
As I said, it is not dissimilar to the Czech privatization scheme where every ciitzen was given shares in public companies, but then smart operators bought those shares up cheaply, and then used them to buy these newly privatized companies. One privatization share is not worth much, however, one million are enough to exercise management control over a company. In Africa, and other parts of the developing world, it will be worse, as at least the Czech's had a fairly developed country, laws, courts, and were relatively well educated at the time.
But in underdeveloped countries, where the poor are uneducated and the infrastructure poor, criminal gangs will get pocession of these certs and sell them at a profit. I fail to see how this is going to help anyone?
The certs are given away free, but they have value. Therefore, the biggest countries will get more energy allocation whether they need it or not, whether they deserve it or not, whether they can pay for it or not. So high birthrates definately play a role even if as you say the authors envision paying less for children. Well, children grow up, so there is still an incentive to produce them.
The petroleum already belongs to the public via national governments. They sell that oil via the competitive market or by allocation. Yes, OPEC decides to whom they sell at what price. They sometimes sell to Asia, Europe and N.AM at different prices at the sametime while allocating more supply where they see fit.
The certs that are allocated bring an unearned benefit to the recipient. That is a nice form of charity, but ultimately that cost has to be borne by the end user. Therefore, it cannot result in lower priced petroleum as you suggested. As the costs of extraction, refining, etc. already reflect their costs in terms of capital, manpower, infrastructure, risk, etc.
As petroleum is overwhelmingly found in a few inexcessible places, the import and export of energy is a fact that cannot be discounted away. Therefore any energy trading scheme has to be international as well.
Really, taking away ownership rights from national governments and handing them out to many individuals for free is just a sort of global communism.
Why oil? Why not water, food, land and the other means of production? A global government to make asset allocations. An all seeing, all knowing world government that can allocate resources more effectively than the market. An omnipotent government that can ensure that no one cheats, that energy certs go to everyone fairly. And that a blackmarket does not spring up for their trading. Much like cheap, subsidized energy gets smuggled out of a country and sold at a gain creating profits for the smugglers and shortages in the home market.
We already have a very simple, workable system for allocating energy based on price using freely traded currencies who's value goes up and down against other freely tradeable currencies based on supply & demand, interest rates, trade balances, etc. This does a remarkable effective job of allocating scarce resources to those who produce something else of value in order to trade for them. But instead of this simple, but effective system, you want to impose an unworkable system, full of imperfections, that can easily be manipulated. Added layers of complexity and bureaucrats instead of market mechanisms.
The organized state is a wonderful invention whereby everyone can live at someone else's expense.