Energy

22 Items

Analysis & Opinions - Financial Times

China’s dominance of solar poses difficult choices for the west

| June 22, 2023

The geopolitical implications of solar displacing oil as the world’s major source of energy are enormous. Why has the Middle East been a central arena in the “great game” for the past century? Because countries there have been the major suppliers of the oil and gas that powered 20th-century economies. If, over the next decade, photovoltaic cells that capture energy from the sun were to replace a substantial part of the demand for oil and gas, who will the biggest losers be? And even more consequentially: who will be the biggest winner?

Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, Morgan Richmond, and Romi Bhatia speak on a panel

Adaobi Ezeokoli

Analysis & Opinions

Innovation Key to Nigerian Start-up to Keep Food Fresh

| Nov. 21, 2022

ColdHubs, an innovative Nigerian agricultural enterprise that uses solar-powered refrigerated storage units to keep food from spoiling, is slowly but surely expanding to nearby West African countries. But it faces big challenges to scale up and finance its operations, company founder and CEO Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu told a Harvard Kennedy School audience celebrating the 2022 Roy Award winner.

Muriel Rouyer, Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook and Robert N. Stavins

Belfer Center/Benn Craig

Analysis & Opinions - Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship

Transatlantic Environmental Policy

| June 03, 2019

As part of the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship’s (PETR) 2019 European Election event series, Muriel Rouyer, Adjunct Professor of Public Policy and Robert N. Stavins, A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy & Economic Development, discussed transatlantic advances in environmental policy, as well as the role the issue of climate change would play in the EU parliament vote taking place on May 23-26, in a conversation with Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, Executive Director of PETR on April 30th, 2019.

A History of the Energy We Have Consumed

Rahm Emanuael/Wikimedia Commons

Analysis & Opinions - The New York Times

A History of the Energy We Have Consumed

| June 18, 2018

Early in Richard Rhodes’s new book, “Energy: A Human History,” we hear of a prominent citizen using colorful language to lament the state of his polluted city and urge his government to shut down industry or move it elsewhere: “If there be a resemblance of hell upon earth, it is in this volcano [on] a foggy day.” Though this could easily apply to modern-day Beijing, the speaker here is John Evelyn, a wealthy horticulturalist and one of the founders of the scientific Royal Society of London — and he’s complaining about London in 1659.

A 2014 meeting between President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Netherlands

US Embassy, The Hague

Analysis & Opinions

Shunning Beijing's infrastructure bank was a mistake for the US

| June 7, 2015

The Obama administration’s negative response to China’s proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank was a strategic mistake. Though some Chinese moves might be destabilising and require US resistance, this initiative should have been welcomed.

The US should be careful about opposing ventures that are popular and likely to proceed. Losing fights does not build confidence. Moreover, the new bank’s purpose — to develop infrastructure in Asia — is a good goal. The world economy needs more growth. Many emerging markets are eager to boost productivity and growth by lowering costs of transportation, improving energy availability, enhancing communications networks, and distributing clean water.

The AIIB offers an opportunity to strengthen the very international economic system that the US created and sustained. The AIIB’s designated leader, Jin Liqun, a former vice-president of the Asian Development Bank, sought advice in Washington. He engaged an American lawyer who was the World Bank’s leading specialist on governance. He also reached out to another American who had served as World Bank country director for China and then worked with the US embassy.

If the AIIB was indeed threatening the American-led multilateral economic order, as its opponents seemed to believe, then its Chinese founders chose a curiously open and co-operative way of doing so.

Workers at Olkaria Geothermal Power Plant, Kenya, 28 January 2011.

Wikimedia CC

Analysis & Opinions - CNN

Fighting Climate Change? Don't Ignore Poor Nations' Creativity

| November 12, 2014

"Advances in solar and wind energy technology (and the associated smart power management systems) are making renewable energy competitive with fossil fuels. Their widespread adoption is likely to favor poor nations in the tropics that are not committed to traditional energy infrastructure."