Science, Technology, and Public Policy

Breaking up Big Tech companies could trigger unintended, and possibly irreparable, collateral damage to America’s quest to remain the world’s leader in new technologies, write Venkatesh Narayanamurti and Steven C. Currall.

On December 3, 2022, Nicola De Blasio, Senior Fellow with the Belfer Center’s Environment and Natural Resources Program (ENRP), chaired a panel discussion, “Is Hydrogen Our Future?,” at the Rome MED – Mediterranean Dialogue (Rome MED), an annual high-level conference on Mediterranean geopolitics. The panel discussion was part of ENRP’s Future of Hydrogen project’s ongoing engagement with global policymakers, who are increasingly viewing hydrogen as a solution to meeting their decarbonization and energy security goals. 

In reshaping the National Science Foundation and other institutions to best support innovation, policymakers should apply evidence-based principles drawn from scholarship and previous experience, write Steven Currall and Venkatesh Narayanamurti.

This paper focuses on the market and geopolitical implications of renewable hydrogen adoption at scale in the European Union (EU). The authors analyze long-term strategies based on three reference scenarios in which the EU prioritizes a different strategic variable: energy independence, cost (optimization), or energy security. Developing competitive and secure hydrogen markets will require close coordination between policy, technology, capital, and society—and for EU countries to unite behind a shared long-term vision.

Over the past decade, there have been consistent alarm signals about U.S. leadership in science and technology. Venkatesh Narayanamurti argues that the remedy is not merely additional funding for R&D, but also more effective funding in technoscientific research, a key engine of innovation.

In The Genesis of Technoscientific Revolutions, Venkatesh Narayanamurti and Jeffrey Tsao propose a new and holistic system, a rethinking of the nature and nurturing of research. They share lessons from their vast research experience in the physical sciences and engineering, as well as from perspectives drawn from the history and philosophy of science and technology, research policy and management, and the evolutionary biological, complexity, physical, and economic sciences.

Renewable hydrogen offers significant advantages for China. It can help Beijing meet its climate and pollution goals—at a time when coal continues to dominate—while avoiding increased reliance on imported fuels. As a readily dispatchable means of storing energy, hydrogen can help to address intermittency and curtailment issues as renewable energy increases its share of China’s energy mix. As a sustainable mobility energy carrier, it can power fuel-cell electric vehicles or be the base for synthetic fuels. Finally, renewable hydrogen can open new avenues for developing clean technology manufactured goods for both internal and export markets.

Renewables are widely perceived as an opportunity to shatter the hegemony of fossil fuel-rich states and democratize the energy landscape. Virtually all countries have access to some renewable energy resources (especially solar and wind power) and could thus substitute foreign supply with local resources. Our research shows, however, that the role countries are likely to assume in decarbonized energy systems will be based not only on their resource endowment but also on their policy choices.

At the Arctic Frontiers 2021 conference, Joel Clement delivered the keynote address for the "Building the future" panel. His inspirational speech was an ode to empowering youth and building a resilient Arctic — and a reflection on the discussions of the 2020 Arctic Resilience Forum.

In the face of advancing impacts of climate change — fires, smoke, floods, droughts, storms, and heat— Lara Hansen and Joel Clement argue for changing the way the country does business in every facet of the economy, with an eye toward reducing risk, increasing resilience, and ensuring equity and justice.