Science, Technology, and Public Policy

The promise, prospects, and public policy trade-offs related to second-generation biofuels in road transport were addressed in an executive session convened at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, on April 7 and 8, 2015. The workshop brought together twenty-eight of the world's leading experts from the fields of policy, science, and business for an intensive two-day session. This report is a summary of the main points and issues raised over the two days. It has been reviewed by all the participants. The summary is intended to reflect the breadth of the discussion, rather than to suggest any form of overall consensus among the participants.

The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is among the cornerstone policies created to increase U.S. energy independence by using biofuels. Although greenhouse gas emissions have played a role in shaping the RFS, water implications are less understood. We demonstrate a spatial, life cycle approach to estimate water consumption of transportation fuel scenarios, including a comparison to current water withdrawals and drought incidence by state. The water consumption and land footprint of six scenarios are compared to the RFS, including shale oil, coal-to-liquids, shale gas-to-liquids, corn ethanol, and cellulosic ethanol from switchgrass.

For the past forty years, United States Presidents have repeatedly called for a reduction in the country's dependence on fossil fuels in general and foreign oil specifically. Some officials advocate the electrification of the passenger vehicle fleet as a path to meeting this goal. The Obama administration has embraced a goal of having one million electric-powered vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015, while others proposed a medium-term goal where electric vehicles would consist of 20% of the passenger vehicle fleet by 2030 — approximately 30 million electric vehicles. The technology itself is not in question; many of the global automobile companies are planning to sell plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and/or battery electric vehicles (BEVs) by 2012. The key question is, will Americans buy them?

The Winter 2010/11 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This issue highlights a major Belfer Center conference on technology and governance, the Center's involvement in the nuclear threat documentary Countdown to Zero, and a celebration of Belfer Center founder Paul Doty.

This recent discussion paper from the Energy Technology Innovation Policy (ETIP) research group is a summary of discussions from the Belfer Center's May 2010 workshop "Transportation Revenue Options," which brought together 27 transportation experts for a two-day workshop to discuss revenue-generating options.

The report is a summary of the discussions from a workshop on "Transportation Revenue Options" convened by the Belfer Center in May 2010. The workshop brought together 27 transportation experts for a two-day workshop to discuss three broad revenue-generating options: higher fuel taxes — perhaps supplemented by a carbon tax; fees collected based on vehicle miles traveled (VMT); and congestion fees on major roadways.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A new study from current and former researchers at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs finds that reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation will be a much bigger challenge than conventional wisdom assumes — requiring substantially higher fuel prices combined with more stringent regulation.

This policy brief is based on Belfer Center paper #2010-02 and an article published in Energy Policy, Vol. 38, No. 3.

Oil security and the threat of climate disruption have focused attention on the transportation sector, which consumes 70% of the oil used in the United States.
This study explores several policy scenarios for reducing oil imports and greenhouse gas emissions from transportation.

Even as the US debates an economy-wide CO2 cap-and-trade policy the transportation sector remains a significant oil security and climate change concern. Transportation alone consumes the majority of the US's imported oil and produces a third of total US Greenhouse-Gas (GHG) emissions. This study examines different sector-specific policy scenarios for reducing GHG emissions and oil consumption in the US transportation sector under economy-wide CO2 prices.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation will be a much bigger challenge than conventional wisdom assumes — requiring substantially higher fuel prices combined with more stringent regulation. This paper finds that reducing carbon dioxide emissions from the transportation sector 14% below 2005 levels by 2020 may require gas prices greater than $7/gallon by 2020. It also finds that while relying on subsidies for electric or hybrid vehicles is politically seductive, it is ineffective and extremely expensive.