Research Library

The authors evaluate the global oil market's ability to deal with a disruption of Russian production and exports after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The authors write that enormous volumes of “energy transition waste” — waste from wind turbines, solar panels, lithium-ion batteries, etc. — are anticipated in the coming decades. To cope with this waste and ensure a sustainable energy transition, they call for more data, planning and coordination across the entire global supply chain, in addition to waste management and recycling policies that align with environmental and sustainability goals.

Although once known for its robust urea and ammonia production capabilities, Mexico found itself particularly vulnerable to soaring international fertilizer prices in 2021. With the global circumstances surrounding the spike in prices likely to linger through 2022, and Mexico's state-owned infrastructure still hampered by technical issues, the impact could be borne all the way to dinner tables in the form of higher nutrient prices for local farmers and food inflation.

This executive summary recaps a longer report that seeks to quantify the energy security consequences of a disruption of gas supplies from Russia to Europe, and to assess strengths, weaknesses and consequences of potential responses.

The authors take a realistic look at what's needed for the global energy transition to succeed and warn that moving away from fossil fuels too quickly could backfire — stranding climate progress in the so-called “valley of death.”

"With the pressures of climate change and the urgency to incorporate alternative energy resources like wind and solar, the fixation on the purported benefits of energy transition technologies overshadows the glaring reality — an absence of strategy around identifying and quantifying other life cycle externalities, such as waste disposal or environmental impacts," write fellow Rachel Meidl and research assistant Mathilde Saada. Read more on the Baker Institute Blog.

Recycling solar panels is an expensive, complicated and energy-intensive process, writes energy fellow Rachel Meidl. But with cumulative solar waste projections expected to rise globally over the next few decades, she argues that it is vital to design a more circular and sustainable management system for end-of-life panels.

The “Energy, Environment, and Policy in the U.S.” map is an online, interactive tool to visualize and highlight the geospatial nexus of energy, environment, policy, and society in the United States. It displays the nation’s critical energy infrastructure, environmental points of interest, and relevant election and demographic statistics at different levels of granularity. This allows the users to effectively navigate key energy and environmental issues with a clear and complete picture of the nation’s infrastructure and demography.

In the push for decarbonization, "turquoise" hydrogen offers a unique, commercially viable technology that reduces CO2 emissions, argue Rachel A. Meidl and Kenneth B. Medlock III.