Energy

The Publication of Enduring Quality award of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE) recognizes works that are of seminal nature and with enduring value in environmental and resource economics. This year, AERE recognized two influential empirical papers on induced innovation in environmental economics: “The Induced Innovation Hypothesis and Energy-Saving Technological Change,” by Richard G. Newell, Adam B. Jaffe, and Robert N. Stavins, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 114, No. 3 (1999), pp. 941-975; and "Induced Innovation and Energy Prices," by David Popp, American Economic Review, Vol. 92, No. 1 (2002), pp. 160–180.

Opening the joint CLIMATE CHANGE DIPLOMACY WEEK event series, speakers and leading climate change experts from both Harvard and beyond participated in a panel discussion titled "What's at Stake in Paris?: Diplomacy and Policy at the Climate Change Talks," moderated by the Future of Diplomacy Project Faculty Director, R. Nicholas Burns, and co-hosted with the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements on November 9. The speakers comprised of Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology at Harvard University, Daniel Schrag;former Costa Rican Minister of Environment and Energy, René Castro; former Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs and chief climate negotiator, Paula Dobriansky; and Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government and Director of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, Robert Stavins. Together panellists weighed in on the upcoming UNFCCC talks to be held in Paris in December and the overarching policy issues at play.

CAMBRIDGE, MA – The dramatic surge in U.S. shale oil production could more than triple the current American output of shale oil to five million barrels a day by 2017, which would likely make the United States the No. 1 oil producer in the world, according to a new study by a researcher at Harvard Kennedy School.

Leonardo Maugeri, a former oil industry executive from Italy who is a fellow at the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, studied the performance of 4,000 American shale oil wells and the work of about 100 companies involved in shale oil production.

In a paper titled “The Shale Oil Boom: A U.S. Phenomenon,” Maugeri wrote that the unique characteristics of shale oil production are ideal for the United States -- and unlikely to be mirrored elsewhere in the world. These factors include the availability of drilling rigs, and the entrepreneurial nature of the American exploration and production  industry,  both critical for the thousands of wells required for shale oil exploitation.

Washington Post national environment reporter Juliet Eilperin spoke on the political difficulties of pursuing environmental policy in a seminar titled "Covering Environmental Controversies in a Political Environment" at the Harvard Kennedy School.

A new study by Belfer Center fellow Leonardo Maugeri shows that oil production capacity is surging in the United States and several other countries at such a fast pace that global oil output capacity is likely to grow by nearly 20 percent by 2020. This could prompt a plunge or even a collapse in oil prices. The findings by Maugeri, a former oil industry executive who is now a fellow in the Geopolitics of Energy Project in the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, are based on an original field-by-field analysis of the world’s major oil formations and exploration projects.

On Monday April 9, the Belfer Center’s Environment and Natural Resources Program (ENRP) hosted a screening and discussion of Hefner’s latest project, a documentary titled “The Grand Energy Transition: Natural Gas – The Bridge To Our Sustainable Future.” Excerpts from the film were shown at the Kennedy School to an audience including Belfer Center Director Graham Allison and Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor Joseph S. Nye.

(See link below for audio podcast of the event)