12 Items

Book - Cambridge University Press

Transforming U.S. Energy Innovation

How much should the U.S. government invest on energy R&D, and where should those investments be focused? How can the government work with the private sector to accelerate energy innovation? This book addresses these and other important questions to meet the energy challenge with new analytical methods and data.

Book - MIT Press

The Globalization of Clean Energy Technology: Lessons from China

| April 2014

The development and deployment of cleaner energy technologies have become globalized phenomena. Yet despite the fact that energy-related goods account for more than ten percent of international trade, policy makers, academics, and the business community perceive barriers to the global diffusion of these emerging technologies. Experts point to problems including intellectual property concerns, trade barriers, and developing countries' limited access to technology and funding. In this book, Kelly Gallagher uses analysis and case studies from China's solar photovoltaic, gas turbine, advanced battery, and coal gasification industries to examine both barriers and incentives in clean energy technology transfer.

Book - Brookings Institution Press

Acting in Time on Energy Policy

| May 2009

Energy policy is on everyone's mind these days. The U.S. presidential campaign focused on energy independence and exploration ("Drill, baby, drill!"), climate change, alternative fuels, even nuclear energy. But there is a serious problem endemic to America's energy challenges. Policymakers tend to do just enough to satisfy political demands but not enough to solve the real problems, and they wait too long to act. The resulting policies are overly reactive, enacted once damage is already done, and they are too often incomplete, incoherent, and ineffectual. Given the gravity of current economic, geopolitical, and environmental concerns, this is more unacceptable than ever. This important volume details this problem, making clear the unfortunate results of such short-sighted thinking, and it proposes measures to overcome this counterproductive tendency.

Book Chapter

Policy for Energy Technology Innovation

| May 2009

"The United States ought to be the leader of the world in the energy technology innovation that is needed. It has the largest economy, uses the most energy (and within that total the most oil), has made the largest cumulative contribution to the atmospheric buildup of fossil carbon dioxide that is the dominant driver of global climate change, has a large balance of payments stake in competitiveness in the global energy technology market as well as a large stake in the worldwide economic and security benefits of meeting global energy needs in affordable and sustainable ways, and possesses by many measures the most capable scientific and engineering workforce in the world. The actual performance of this country in energy-technology innovation, however, has been falling short by almost every measure...."

Book Chapter

Acting in Time on Energy Policy

| May 2009

"The book's title—Acting in Time—refers to the persistent problem in U.S. energy policy that typically just enough is done to satisfy the short-term political imperatives, but not enough is done to actually solve the underlying problems themselves. As a result, many of the fundamental economic, environmental, and security-related challenges arising from patterns of U.S. energy production and consumption have become more intractable. Some now approach a point of crisis."

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Book - Elsevier Inc.

Encyclopedia of Energy

March 2004

The history of human culture can be viewed as the progressive development of new energy sources and their associated conversion technologies. Advances in our understanding of energy have produced unparalleled transformations of society, as exempli- fied by James Watt’s steam engine and the discovery of oil. These transformations increased the ability of humans to exploit both additional energy and other resources, and hence to increase the comfort, longevity, and affluence of humans, as well as their numbers. Energy is related to human development in three important ways: as a motor of economic growth, as a principal source of environmental stress, and as a prerequisite for meeting basic human needs. Significant changes in each of these aspects of human existence are associated with changes in energy sources, beginning with the discovery of fire, the advent of agriculture and animal husbandry, and, ultimately, the development of hydrocarbon and nuclear fuels. The eventual economic depletion of fossil fuels will drive another major energy transition; geopolitical forces and environmental imperatives such as climate change may drive this transition faster than hydrocarbon depletion would have by itself. There is a diverse palette of alternatives to meet our energy needs, including a new generation of nuclear power, unconventional sources of hydrocarbons, myriad solar technologies, hydrogen, and more efficient energy end use. Each alternative has a different combination of economic, political, technological, social, and environmental attributes.

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Book Chapter

NGOs and Energy

| July 2003

Organizational goals of nongovernmental organiza­tions (NGOs) include empowering people socially, economically, or politically; serving underserved or neglected populations; and protecting the local or global environment.