Energy

See a sampling of recent books from the Belfer Center

The Spring 2014 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This edition highlights the Belfer Center’s deepening engagement with China and increasing collaboration with Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance around critical issues related to China. We announce former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as a new Belfer Center senior fellow who will lead efforts to explore possibilities and impacts of a new strategic China-U.S. relationship. Read about this and much more.

Two years ago, Venkatesh (Venky) Narayanamurti and  Laura Diaz Anadon, director and associate director of the Belfer Center’s Science, Technology, and Public Policy program, set the stage for the Center’s energy research team to zero in on the challenges facing energy and the natural resource essential to it in many countries around the world—water. This article reviews some of their work to date.

The Spring 2011 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This issue highlights the Belfer Center’s continuing efforts to build bridges between the United States and Russia to prevent nuclear catastrophe – an effort that began in the 1950s. This issue also features three new books by Center faculty that sharpen global debate on critical issues: God’s Century, by Monica Duffy Toft, The New Harvest by Calestous Juma, and The Future of Power, by Joseph S. Nye.

For many living in rural sub-Saharan Africa, lack of electricity means nobody can work after sunset. This limits productivity in many areas, including students' ability to study in the evening. Kerosene lamps are an option, but they are expensive and dangerous and are used only in emergencies. Many people are left in the dark.

The 2007 Roy Family Award for Environmental Partnership project winner is working to shed some light on this problem with a local and green solution: the jatropha nut.

Calestous Juma is professor of the Practice of International Development and director of the Belfer Center's Science, Technology, and Globalization Project. Juma recently served as coordinator of the U.N. Millennium Project's Task Force on Science, Technology and Innovation, which in January released its report: "Innovation: Applying Knowledge in Development."