70 Items

bus that runs on green hydrogen, framed by leaves

AP Photo/Anupam Nath

Report - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

India - The New Global Green Hydrogen Powerhouse?

| Mar. 26, 2024

India aims to become a leading producer of green hydrogen by the next decade as part of its broader industrial and decarbonization strategies. This brief provides an overview of India's current hydrogen strategy, as well as the challenges - land and water scarcity, infrastructure gaps, and financing gaps - that must be addressed in order for India to achieve its ambitious goals.

stacks of coated steel pipes

AP Photo/Danny Johnston

Paper - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage: Carbon Dioxide Transport Costs and Network-Infrastructure Considerations for a Net-Zero United States

| July 20, 2023

This brief examines the national challenges related to deploying and scaling infrastructure to transport CO₂ from capture sites to storage or utilization sites at a scale consistent with achieving net-zero by 2050.

Discussion Paper - Energy Technology Innovation Policy Project, Belfer Center

Energy Technology Expert Elicitations for Policy: Workshops, Modeling, and Meta-analysis

| October 2014

Characterizing the future performance of energy technologies can improve the development of energy policies that have net benefits under a broad set of future conditions. In particular, decisions about public investments in research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) that promote technological change can benefit from (1) an explicit consideration of the uncertainty inherent in the innovation process and (2) a systematic evaluation of the tradeoffs in investment allocations across different technologies. To shed light on these questions, over the past five years several groups in the United States and Europe have conducted expert elicitations and modeled the resulting societal benefits. In this paper, the authors discuss the lessons learned from the design and implementation of these initiatives.

Report - Brookings Institution

Foresight Africa: Top Priorities for the Continent in 2014

| January 2014

As Africa's position in the world continues to grow and evolve in 2014, the Brookings Africa Growth Initiative continues its tradition of asking its experts and colleagues to identify what they consider to be the key issues for Africa in the coming year.

Feeding the Next Generation: Science, Business, and Public Policy

Monsanto Company Photo

Discussion Paper - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Feeding the Next Generation: Science, Business, and Public Policy

| December 2011

Today, three of ten people on the planet rely on others to grow their food and 900 million remain chronically food insecure. By 2050 the global demand for agricultural production is expected to double. Half of the global population will live in cities and will need to be fed through market channels. Meeting these demands will require significant increases in agricultural productivity. Modern, science-driven farming including genetically modified crops represents the best chance of generating the increases in agricultural productivity necessary to feed our future. This paper's overall conclusion is that genetically modified crops can and should play a critical role in agricultural productivity. It is offers a roadmap for those interested in objectively evaluating both the risk and benefits of biotechnology in agriculture.

Paper

Proposed Liability Framework for Geological Sequestration of Carbon Dioxide

    Author:
  • Wendy B. Jacobs
| October 2010

This paper proposes a framework for a liability regime for geological sites for sequestration of carbon dioxide. It incorporates issues that were discussed at the the June 21, 2010 Expert Workshop Addressing CCS Liability, Oversight, and Trust Fund Issues.

Harvard Law School’s Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic* supports immediate large-scale carbon capture and sequestration (“CCS”) demonstration projects as part of a larger national and global effort to address climate change. Large-scale CCS projects (those that sequester at least 1.5 million tons of captured carbon dioxide (“CO2”) annually) must be demonstrated soon to confirm CCS as a viable strategy to combat climate change and to show the commitment of the United States to achieving meaningful reductions in domestic CO2 emissions.

Report

Summary Report of Expert Workshop Addressing CCS Liability, Oversight, and Trust Fund Issues

    Author:
  • Wendy B. Jacobs
| October 29, 2010

This paper summarizes the discussions from a workshop convened by the Harvard Law School's Emmett Environmental Law & Policy Clinic in Washington, DC on June 21, 2010.

There is broad consensus in scientific, business, and political circles that carbon capture and sequestration ("CCS") must be demonstrated quickly on a large scale because it is likely to be an important technology for reducing carbon dioxide ("CO2") emissions throughout the world. Indeed, a number of commentators predict that it may be impossible to achieve significant emissions reduction in the United States and abroad without the use of CCS.

The world's first grid-scale, flywheel-based energy storage plant is being built in Stephentown, N.Y. The plant is being built by Beacon Power Corporation (NASDAQ: BCON) & is supported by a $43 million loan guarantee from DOE.

Beacon Power Corp. Photo

Report - Energy Technology Innovation Policy Project, Belfer Center

Transforming the Energy Economy: Options for Accelerating the Commercialization of Advanced Energy Technologies

"The focus of the workshop was on the demonstration stage of the technology innovation cycle. Current policies do not adequately address the private sector’s inability to overcome the demonstration "valley of death" for new energy technologies. Investors and financiers fear that the technology and operational risks at this stage of the cycle remain too high to justify the level of investment to build a commercial-sized facility."

Discussion Paper

Analysis of Financial Incentives for Early CCS Deployment

| October 2010

This paper looks at ten different forms of public support for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies including investment tax credits, accelerated depreciation, production tax credits, loan guarantees, capital grants, allowance allocations, and storage tax credits. The paper compares the cost reduction potential of each option against a conventional coal-to-electricity facility without CCS.