CAMBRIDGE, MA – Two veteran energy industry executives who also served in senior U.S. government positions are joining Harvard Kennedy School’s Geopolitics of Energy Projects in the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

CAMBRIDGE, MA – The dramatic surge in U.S. shale oil production could more than triple the current American output of shale oil to five million barrels a day by 2017, which would likely make the United States the No. 1 oil producer in the world, according to a new study by a researcher at Harvard Kennedy School.

Leonardo Maugeri, a former oil industry executive from Italy who is a fellow at the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, studied the performance of 4,000 American shale oil wells and the work of about 100 companies involved in shale oil production.

In a paper titled “The Shale Oil Boom: A U.S. Phenomenon,” Maugeri wrote that the unique characteristics of shale oil production are ideal for the United States -- and unlikely to be mirrored elsewhere in the world. These factors include the availability of drilling rigs, and the entrepreneurial nature of the American exploration and production  industry,  both critical for the thousands of wells required for shale oil exploitation.

Susan Hockfield is the Marie Curie Visiting Professor at Harvard Kennedy School. After almost eight years as president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she is spending a sabbatical year based at the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center.

A new study by Belfer Center fellow Leonardo Maugeri shows that oil production capacity is surging in the United States and several other countries at such a fast pace that global oil output capacity is likely to grow by nearly 20 percent by 2020. This could prompt a plunge or even a collapse in oil prices. The findings by Maugeri, a former oil industry executive who is now a fellow in the Geopolitics of Energy Project in the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, are based on an original field-by-field analysis of the world’s major oil formations and exploration projects.

The U.S. government could save the economy hundreds of billions of dollars per year by 2050 by spending a few billion dollars more a year to spur innovations in energy technology, according to a new report by researchers at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. The three-year project by the Belfer Center's Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group calls for doubling investment and adopting policy changes in energy technology.

The Spotlight feature in this issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features Henry Lee, director of the Environment and Natural Resources Program at the Belfer Center, was promoted in January to senior lecturer in public policy at Harvard Kennedy School. Lee, the Jassim M. Jaidah Family Director of the environment program, serves also as co-­principal investigator of the Center’s Energy Technology Innovation Policy project and is a member of the board of directors. Before joining the Kennedy School in 1979, he served in Massachusetts state government for nine years as director of the state energy office and special assistant for environmental affairs.

John P. Holdren, President Obama's chief science and technology advisor, draws a grim picture of our world at the end of this century if we fail to start slashing greenhouse gas emissions that are ravaging the global climate. In a lecture at MIT, Holdren issued a call to action, arguing for a package of integrated measures to protect the environment. Holdren is on leave from Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center, where he was director of the Science and Technology Public Policy program.