Energy Policy-Related Programs and Projects at Harvard
Overview: 2007-2008
Biofuels and Globalization Project
Under the direction of the Sustainability Science Program, this effort seeks to advance basic understanding of the dynamics of human-environment systems; to facilitate the design, implementation, and evaluation of practical interventions that promote sustainability in particular places and contexts; and to improve linkages between relevant research and innovation communities on the one hand, and relevant policy and management communities on the other. The Biofuels and Globalizaton project examines the trade, economic development, and environmental dimensions of the emerging global biofuels industry. (Henry Lee, Robert Lawrence, and Ricardo Hausmann, Investigators)
The Center for Health and the Global Environment
The Center for Health and the Global Environment works to expand environmental education at medical schools and to further investigate and promote awareness of the human health consequences of global environmental change. Core programs related to energy policy include the development of courses and curricula to educate professionals and the public about the dependency of human health on the health of the environment; annual courses on environment and human health held for members of Congress and their staffs; the Scientists and Evangelicals Initiative, which works to develop relationships of trust and mutual respect and understanding between leading members of the scientific and evangelical communities; and the Media and Outreach project, which hosts numerous activities designed for a wide range of audiences to increase awareness about human health and global environmental change. (Eric Chivan, Director; Paul R. Epstein, Associate Director)
The China Project
The Harvard China Project conducts peer-reviewed research related to China’s atmospheric environment, to build knowledge underpinning strategies to address local air quality and greenhouse gas emissions in concert. The Project pursues two collaborative mandates: crossing disciplines and schools at Harvard, and partnering with Chinese universities. It has built up advanced research capacities in atmospheric transport and chemistry (both modeling and field measurement); general equilibrium modeling of China’s economy, energy use, and emissions; pollution exposure assessment; health impacts and valuation; household surveys; urban transport planning and emissions; assessment of meteorological energy resources (wind and solar); and, ultimately, integrating these areas to assess full costs and benefits of policy options. (Michael B. McElroy, Chair; Chris Nielsen, Executive Director; Dale Jorgenson, James Hammitt, Peter Rogers, and William Munger, Principal Investigators of component studies.)
Energy Technology Innovation Policy Group
The Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group (ETIP) aims to determine and then seek to promote adoption of effective strategies for developing and deploying cleaner and more efficient energy technologies, primarily in three of the biggest energy-consuming nations in the world: the United States, China, and India. ETIP researchers seek to identify and promote strategies that these countries can pursue, separately and collaboratively, for accelerating the development and deployment of advanced energy options that can reduce conventional air pollution, minimize future greenhouse-gas emissions, reduce dependence on oil, facilitate poverty alleviation, and promote economic development. ETIP staff and fellows this year are researching a range of topics including the deployment of advanced coal technologies in China, the Indian coal sector, Chinese energy consumption, and U.S. transportation policy. (Kelly Sims Gallagher, Director; John Holdren and Henry Lee, Co-Principal Investigators)
Future of Energy Initiative
The Harvard University Center for the Environment (HUCE)’s Future of Energy Initiative encourages interdisciplinary research and education about energy technologies, consequences, and policy issues. The Center awards research seed grants, sponsors post-doctoral fellows and visiting scholars, supports student energy reading and discussion groups, and holds a flagship “Future of Energy” speaker series to serve as a focal point for the connection of scientific, engineering, and public policy discussion of energy issues. (Daniel Schrag, Faculty Director; Jim Clem, Managing Director)
The Harvard Electricity Policy Group
The Harvard Electricity Policy Group (HEPG) provides a forum for the analysis and discussion of important policy issues facing the electricity industry. Founded in 1993, its objectives are to study, analyze and engage discourse on the problems associated with the transition from monopoly to a more competitive electricity market. With the involvement of scholars, market participants, regulators, policy makers, and advocates for various positions and interests, HEPG seeks to foster more informed, highly focused open debate in order to contribute to the wider public policy agenda affecting the electric sector. Through research, information dissemination, and regular seminars, HEPG facilitates discussion, which leads to the development of new ideas or to an expansion of the debate. Participants include electricity industry executives from public power and investor-owned utilities, independent power producers, consumer advocates, regulators, energy officials from both state and federal governments, representatives of the environmental and financial communities, and academics. (William Hogan, Research Director; Ashley Brown, Executive Director)
Harvard Green Campus Initiative
The mission of the Harvard Green Campus Initiative (HGCI) is to make Harvard University a living laboratory and learning organization for the pursuit of campus sustainability. The business model of the HGCI is fundamentally entrepreneurial in its approach as it continuously develops and sells new services to schools and departments that want to both save money and reduce their environmental impacts. HGCI is a service organization consisting of 19 professional staff and 40 part-time students that have been trained and managed to work on building upgrades, building construction and design, behavioral change, procurement practice, renewable energy, staff training, waste reduction, ongoing environmental education, recycling, and more. (John Spengler and Thomas Vautin, Co-Chairs; Leith Sharp, Director)
Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements
Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements, launched in July 2007, helps identify key design elements of a scientifically sound, economically rational, and politically pragmatic post-2012 international policy architecture for global climate change. The Project recently entered its second stage, which focuses on original research, hosting two workshops in spring 2008—one in Cambridge and one in Venice, Italy—for key scholars working on international climate change policy. (Robert Stavins and Joseph Aldy, Co-Directors)
Populism and Natural Resources project
The Populism and Natural Resources project brings together a broad range of international and Harvard-based researchers to examine the problems that countries face in setting up a credible and stable regime for the exploitation of natural resources. One of the most serious problems in expanding the supply of non-renewal resources in the developing world are the recurrent contract renegotiations to which the sector is usually subject during boom-bust cycles. Economists have developed substantial tools that have helped us understand how to set up optimal contracts, design auctions, hedge risks, provide insurance, and even how to address concerns on fairness, thus addressing the very issues that have hindered successful long term contracts. In addition, economic history can also provide important clues for bettering the institutional scheme that is required to deal with the boom-bust cycle. The project provides a unique opportunity to span the bridge between recent analytical developments and practical implications. The project's first product will be a major volume that applies contract theory to natural resource issues and offers case studies of the oil industry in Bolivia, Argentina, and Venezuela. (William Hogan, Research Director)
Project on Managing the Atom
The Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) brings together scholars and practitioners who conduct policy-relevant research on key issues affecting the future of nuclear weapons, the nuclear proliferation regime, and nuclear energy. A major focus of MTA research and policy engagement is how nuclear energy could be made as cheap, safe, secure, and proliferation-resistant as possible—and how the problem of radioactive waste can be successfully addressed. The Project sponsors an international group of resident fellows and a bi-weekly research seminar. (John Holdren, Henry Lee, and Steven Miller, Co-Principal Investigators; Matthew Bunn, Senior Research Associate; Martin Malin, Executive Director)
Regulatory Policy Program
The Regulatory Policy Program serves as a clearinghouse for faculty work on regulation. This past year, the Regulatory Policy Program made regulation and climate the focus of its year-long seminar series. Current research examines the roles of alternative regulatory instruments, including voluntary approaches, management-based strategies, and industry self-regulation, in achieving policy goals. (Erich Muehlegger, Faculty Chair)
Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Science and Technology Policy: A Cross-National Comparison
Under the Program on Science, Technology, and Society, this two-year project, which began in September 2007, aims to develop a new theoretical framework for understanding the global politics of science and technology, by using case studies focused on three specific technologies: nuclear power, stem cells and closing, and nanotechnology. (Sheila Jasanoff, Director)
For more information, contact:
Louisa Lund
Program Director
Energy Policy Research Programs
(617) 495-8693
Date Prepared: July 31, 2008
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Overview: Programs and Projects -
Harvard Energy Policy-Related Activities Detail, by Topic Area
2007-2008
Carbon capture and storage
· ETIP Research Fellow Jeff Bielicki presented on his ongoing work on his "Carbon Sequesterer" model, which identifies the "supply curve" that results from matching spatially heterogeneous sources of CO2 with spatially heterogeneous CO2 storage sites. Bielicke developed this with colleagues at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge National Laboratories. Bielicke spoke about his work before audiences at the Harvard Kennedy School, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Columbia University, National Energy Technology Laboratory, Princeton University, and the Garrison Institute.
· In February 2008, ETIP researchers John Holdren and Kelly Gallagher joined the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Carbon Mitigation Initiative at Princeton University. There, they reported on ETIP’s collaborative work with the CMI team at Princeton and planned for activities in the coming year.
· ETIP Associate Jennie Stephens is continuing her work on the socio-political aspects of emerging energy technologies -- particularly CCS -- in the United States. Having won a grant from the NSF to study this, she recently published an article on this subject in Technological Forecasting and Social Change (in press). Stephens presented her work at the 2008 AAAS Annual Meeting in Boston.
· In June 2008 ETIP brought together a group of colleagues from industry, government, academia, the media, and the civil sector to discuss "Public Perception of Carbon Capture and Storage Technology."
Climate change, carbon pricing, trading, and international agreements
· In a Hamilton Project/Brookings Institution paper published in the Fall of 2007, Robert Stavins argued that the United States should adopt a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions. Professor Stavins also discussed his work at a forum organized by the Hamilton Project/ Brookings Institution analyzing his and a competing proposal.
· The Harvard Environmental Economics Program launched The Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements (HPICA), which is working to help identify key design elements of a scientifically sound, economically rational, and politically pragmatic post-2012 international policy architecture for global climate change. In the Spring of 2008, the Project entered its second stage, hosting a March 2008 workshop for key scholars and other thinkers working on international climate change policy.
· In September 2007, Architectures for Agreement, edited by Project Directors Joseph Aldy and Robert Stavins, was published by Cambridge University Press.
· The HPICA Directors gave six presentations on international policy architectures around the United States, in Brussels, and in Bali at the Council of the Parties 13 gathering.
· HPICA has been enlisted to advise the Danish Prime Minister in preparing for his role as President of the Conference of the Parties 15 in December 2008, which is expected to play an important part in reaching a post-Kyoto treaty.
· Twenty-five research projects are ongoing as part of “Stage 2” of the HPICA work. The Project has held two research workshops at which researchers met to discuss and refine their ideas.
· Gallagher, Collantes, Holdren, Lee, and Frosch of ETIP modeled the policy options outlined in their Summer 2007 “Policy Options for Reducing Greenhouse-Gas Emissions and Oil Consumption from the Transportation Sector” paper using the National Energy Modeling System. Gallagher and Collantes presented briefings on the members and staff in the House and Senate, US EPA staff, executives from Ford, GM and UAW, and the ICCT and National Commission on Energy Policy. The paper is available as a discussion paper, and is forthcoming in Energy Policy.
· In April 2008, Energy Policy Research Programs at Harvard hosted Shell’s Chief Economist and other senior management for an invitation-only workshop on the Shell energy future scenarios, “Scrambles vs. Blueprints.”
· Forest Reinhardt and Mikell Hyman of the Harvard Business School published a case study on Global Climate Change and British Petroleum.
· ETIP worked with colleagues in China and India, and the Woods Hole Research Center on a project examining “Win-Win” climate policies in the four rapidly-developing countries of China, India, Brazil, and Mexico. The resulting report was presented at the Conference of Parties in Bali in December 2007, and to the Chinese, Brazilian, and Indian governments in their respective capitols.
· Gallagher published a paper in Current History in November/December 2007 about the magnitude and difficulty of tackling the climate change challenge in China, given China’s heavy dependence on coal. Gallagher was also named to a task force co-sponsored by the Brookings Institution, Council on Foreign Relations, and Asia Society on U.S.-China Climate Relations. She was also appointed as an International Task Force member for the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development on Innovation for Environmental Protection.
· A June 2008 conference on “Managing in a Global Era” at the Harvard Business School featured discussions of ongoing research by HBS faculty, including “Energy and Globalization in Historical Perspectives” by Rawi Abdelal and Tarun Khanna; “The Rise of the Global Wind Industry,” presented by Richard Vietor; and “Markets for Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” presented by Andre Perold and Forest Reinhardt.
· In April 2008, the Harvard Law School and Duke University jointly held a two-day workshop on carbon trading schemes and the use of carbon offsets. Panelists and invitees provided a broad range of expertise, and included policy makers, offset market participants, state officials, and academics.
· The Harvard Law School’s new Environmental Law and Policy Clinic began providing placements and projects for law students, a number of which are energy-focused, including the preparation of a consumer’s guide to the purchase of renewable energy; preparation of proposals for and testimony in support of legislative reforms to improve access to renewable energy by consumers and municipalities; analysis of the legal aspects of the use of tidal, wave, and solar energy for electricity production; development of a model green label rule; and work on lawsuits involving false environmental advertising and the right of regulators to deny air quality permits to facilities that emit carbon dioxide.