Asia & the Pacific

Michael Lipin interviews Project on Managing the Atom Associate Nicole Grajewski on why Iran may not benefit much from its new membership of Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

This article examines both the premise and prescription of the argument to integrate renewable electricity in developing countries through elements of the standard model (such as a wholesale spot market, or an independent system operator for dispatch). This is done by highlighting the differences between power sector reform experiences in the developing and developed worlds, and the causal mechanisms underlying these differences.

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.

The Icelandic Ministry for Foreign Affairs recently published an extensive report with a detailed analysis on the current relationship between Greenland and Iceland with 99 recommendations on how to strengthen their co-operation. Halla Hrund Logadóttir moderated the discussion.

John P. Holdren, science advisor to the Obama administration, lists 6 things he thinks Joe Biden would do on climate change.

Technological innovation and widespread deployment of clean-energy technologies in emerging economies are critical for a global clean energy transition. Success or failure in this endeavour will have long-term energy and carbon consequences. A fundamental question exists about whether, and how, emerging economies can accelerate clean-energy transitions, given the unprecedented scales of their impending socio-economic and infrastructure transitions, and often-underdeveloped technological innovation capabilities and supporting finances. 

If Joe Biden defeats Donald Trump in November, the question he will face is not whether to restore the liberal international order. It is whether the United States can work with an inner core of allies to promote democracy and human rights while cooperating with a broader set of states to manage the rules-based international institutions needed to face transnational threats.

The authors argue that more determined efforts to globalize renewable energy transmission can confer significantly higher economic and environmental benefits from renewables on billions of people. This can be done by exploiting spatial differences between electricity loads and net renewable generation across time zones (temporal arbitrage) and latitude (seasonal arbitrage). Using very long distance, ultra-high voltage (UHV) transmission infrastructure, temporal and spatial arbitrage can move low-cost clean electricity from areas with excess capacity to high demand zones in other countries and even continents.

In this paper, a quantitative Waste to Energy Recovery Assessment (WERA) framework is used to stochastically analyze the feasibility of waste-to-energy systems in selected cities in Asia.

Deploying coal-bioenergy gasification systems with carbon capture and storage (CBECCS) provides a promising opportunity for China to realize its carbon mitigation and air pollution abatement goals simultaneously. The authors conducted a comprehensive assessment of CBECCS technology for China, with a focus on plant and fuel configurations (e.g., biomass ratios) and economics, as well as CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions and cobenefits for air quality.