Reports & Papers

12 Items

Electricians install solar panels.

AP/Mary Altaffer

Report Chapter - Brookings Institution

Mexico’s Energy Reforms: A Blow to Realizing the Most Competitive and Dynamic Region in the World

| Feb. 28, 2022

In late 2017, Mexico made headlines as Italian company Enel bid what was then a world-record low price for renewable energy in the country’s third such energy auction. This development was possible due to the historical and sweeping energy reforms passed with broad support in Mexico in 2013. Then-President Enrique Peña Nieto had succeeded where previous Mexican presidents had failed, reversing decades of resource nationalism and overhauling the energy sector through constitutional reforms that gave the private sector a larger role and advantaged renewable energy in Mexico’s economy. The 2017 auction seemed to indicate Mexico’s bright future not only as a conventional oil producer, but also as a clean energy power.

Tractors on Westminster bridge

AP/Matt Dunham

Paper - Institut für Sicherheitspolitik

The Global Order After COVID-19

| 2020

Despite the far-reaching effects of the current pandemic,  the essential nature of world politics will not be transformed. The territorial state will remain the basic building-block of international affairs, nationalism will remain a powerful political force, and the major powers will continue to compete for influence in myriad ways. Global institutions, transnational networks, and assorted non-state actors will still play important roles, of course, but the present crisis will not produce a dramatic and enduring increase in global governance or significantly higher levels of international cooperation. In short, the post-COVID-19 world will be less open, less free, less prosperous, and more competitive than the world many people expected to emerge only a few years ago.

Russia's Energy Foray into Asia: Implications for U.S. Interests

kees torn/Flickr

Paper - National Bureau of Asian Research

Russia's Energy Foray into Asia: Implications for U.S. Interests

| Dec. 12, 2018

This essay examines Russia’s growing role in Asia’s energy markets, assesses the implications for the U.S., and examines the claim that closer Sino-Russian energy ties are adding new incentives for a broader strategic alignment.

overhead image of Brookhaven National Laboratory

©2016 Landsat / Copernicus, used with permission

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

The Department of Energy National Laboratories

| November 2017

This report recommends policies and actions to improve the return on investment the U.S. government makes in sponsoring research and development (R&D) at the Department of Energy's (DOE) seventeen National Laboratories ("Labs"). While the Labs make a unique and significant contribution to all of the Department of Energy's missions, the authors develop the idea that for the Labs to fully support DOE's energy transformation goals, their R&D management practices need to be updated to better reflect current research into innovation systems and management. They also highlight the necessity of Lab interactions with industry in order to impact the nation's energy infrastructure investment, which is, for the most part, privately held.

Panel: What does Brexit mean for Europe's security architecture?

Thomas Lobenwein

Report

Brave new world? What Trump and Brexit mean for European foreign policy

| Dec. 08, 2016

On 24 and 25 November 2016 experts from politics and academia, including FDP Executive director Cathryn Clüver, discussed the impact of Brexit on several policy areas in a series of workshops at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. All events took place under Chatham House rules.

Russian and Chinese state representatives stand before the ceremonial ground-breaking of the Power of Siberia gas pipeline in Yakutsk, Russia, September 1, 2014.

Gazprom

Paper

The Sino-Russian Gas Partnership: Explaining the 2014 Breakthrough

| November, 2014

As Moscow’s relations with the West deteriorate, Putin seeks to show the world and the Russian people that he has alternative friends to the East. Be that as it may, the incentives leading to the mega deal were in place much earlier. This paper proposes a framework for assessing the deal along three dimensions: 1) gas trade and energy security implications; 2) regional- and global policy-related implications; and 3) prospects for the future.

Report - Center for Strategic and International Studies

The U.S.-Japan Alliance: Anchoring Stability in Asia

| August 2012

The following report presents a consensus view of the members of a bipartisan study group on the U.S.-Japan alliance. The report specifically addresses energy, economics and global trade, relations with neighbors, and security-related issues. Within these areas, the study group offers policy recommendations for Japan and the United States, which span near- and long-term time frames. These recommendations are intended to bolster the alliance as a force for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.

Drax Power Station in the Vale of York, where the Government devised plans for the future of coal-fired power stations and the technology which could be used to massively cut their emissions.

AP Photo/John Giles

Discussion Paper

"Post-Durban Climate Policy Architecture Based on Linkage of Cap-and-Trade Systems"

| July 2012

The outcome of the December 2011 United Nations climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa, provides an important new opportunity to move toward an international climate policy architecture that is capable of delivering broad international participation and significant global CO2 emissions reductions at reasonable cost. This paper addresses an important component of potential climate policy architecture for the post-Durban era: links among independent tradable permit systems for greenhouse gases.

Report - Energy Technology Innovation Policy Project, Belfer Center

Transforming U.S. Energy Innovation

The United States and the world need a revolution in energy technology—a revolution that would improve the performance of our energy systems to face the challenges ahead. In an intensely competitive and interdependent global landscape, and in the face of large climate risks from ongoing U.S. reliance on a fossil-fuel based energy system, it is important to maintain and expand long-term investments in the energy future of the U.S. even at a time of budget stringency. It is equally necessary to think about how to improve the efficiency of those investments, through strengthening U.S. energy innovation institutions, providing expanded incentives for private-sector innovation, and seizing opportunities where international cooperation can accelerate innovation. The private sector role is key: in the United States the vast majority of the energy system is owned by private enterprises, whose innovation and technology deployment decisions drive much of the country's overall energy systems.

Discussion Paper

Putting It All Together: The Real World of Fully Integrated CCS Projects

    Author:
  • Craig A. Hart
| July 2011

This study examines the legal, regulatory and financial issues encountered in nine planned commercial-scale carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) research, development and demonstration (RD&D) projects under Phase III of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships (RCSP) Program. In Phase III of the RCSP, financial issues dominated the outcomes in these projects, directly causing termination of three of the projects and contributing to termination in two others. Long-term liability and lack of coordination among regulatory authorities also posed significant barriers.