Energy

146 Items

Xie Zhenhua, China's Special Envoy for Climate Change, is seen on big screens as he speaks

AP/Ng Han Guan

Analysis & Opinions - Project Syndicate

The Logic of US-China Competition

| May 06, 2021

The success of U.S. President Joe Biden's China policy will depend on whether the two powers can cooperate in producing global public goods, while competing in other areas. The U.S.-China relationship is a "cooperative rivalry," in which the terms of competition will require equal attention to both sides of the oxymoron.  Joseph Nye argues that it will not be easy.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter speaks at the 3rd Annual ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit

DoD/Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo

Analysis & Opinions - The Hill

Our National Experiment in R&D for Clean Energy Just Turned 10

The authors recount the history of ARPA-E and describe how it has supported clean energy innovation in the United States. They argue that ARPA-E needs two things in the short term in order to increase its chances of success in the long term: resources and a leader who can channel the country's top science and engineering talent toward particularly tough technical challenges.

Antwerp, Belgium Industrial Plant

AP Photo/Virginia Mayo

Analysis & Opinions

The Sunset of an Industrial Plant and the Global Decommissioning Challenge

| Sep. 24, 2019

After many years of productive service, industrial plants reach the end of their useful life and must be dismantled. This complex and costly process, know as decommissioning (commissioning refers to the beginning of a plant useful life), is a confluence of economic, environmental, physical, and regulatory challenges.

U.S. President Donald Trump

CNN Politics

Analysis & Opinions - Future of Diplomacy Project

Twitter Diplomacy: Preventing Twitter Wars from Escalating into Real Wars

| May 20, 2019

Just two weeks ago, a tweet cost the global stock markets roughly $1.36 trillion (or Australia’s annual GDP). With 280 characters on Twitter, the U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to raise tariffs on select Chinese imports, instilling lower market confidence, triggering significant volatility, and exacerbating existing political uncertainties. To explore what is really at stake in Twitter diplomacy, it is important to explore why Twitter diplomacy matters, why world leaders use it, what it means for diplomatic relations, and how governments can manage the associated risks.

Three Mile Island nuclear power plant

cdc.gov/phil

Analysis & Opinions - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

How to Deal with Increasingly Complex Safety-Critical Technologies

| Mar. 28, 2019

The authors analyze the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident and the recent back-to-back crashes of two Boeing 737 Max jets and make policy recommendations for the regulation of increasingly complex technologies.

The AI Advantage of Nations in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

geralt/Pixabay

Analysis & Opinions - Global Policy

The AI Advantage of Nations in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

| Apr. 17, 2018

Like revolutions in the past the on-going AI revolution will produce winners and losers. The first industrial revolution in the 18th century changed the world of production and paved the way for Britain’s global leadership. Similarly, the current digital revolution is redefining the service sector and China’s role in the world.

Blue LED Christmas lamps and reflection on wall

Creative Commons/Alexofdodd

Analysis & Opinions - MRS Bulletin Energy Quarterly

Engineering Research: An Underinvested-in Weak Link in the Energy Innovation Ecosystem

| Dec. 08, 2017

"Engineering research, the exploration of new tools and technologies for manipulating and observing our world, has long been vital to humanity. The invention of the blue LED...is just one recent example—one that, along with many others such as the light bulb, the steam engine, and solar photovoltaics, is transforming humanity's relationship with energy. Perhaps most importantly, engineering research does not follow from (and the blue LED even contradicted!) the scientific understanding of the time. Engineering research has a way of surprising us, most notably when it provides new windows into nature."