Research Library

As we are celebrating the first decade of the journal, we reflect on some of the major issues driving policy, industry, and academia.

An emerging perspective in U.S. public discourse claims that a buildout of renewable electricity would exacerbate supply risks, mining intensity, and import dependence. This ScienceDirect article from fellow Jim Krane and graduate student Robert Idel contends the opposite is true, demonstrating how transitioning to renewables hugely reduces the materials, mining and political risk involved compared to coal.

For petrostates like Saudi Arabia, new tactics and strategies will be needed to recapture the strategic interest of global powers, and to cope with the transition away from fossil fuels. Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Fall 2020.

The authors propose a new way to estimate "reasonably reliable" power and find that 3.5 billion people live without it.

This article considers the implications of expanding hydroelectricity for war production and strategy using Canada, the United States and Germany during World War II as an example. The article also examines how war-time decisions structured the longer-term evolution of large technological systems: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1740022819000366

Climate change poses a strategic dilemma for Gulf oil-exporting states. The author analyzes the risks of climate (in)action for regimes who must weigh the costs of decarbonization against the costs of climate change. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies: http://bit.ly/30udfxC

The author examines Saudi Arabia's climate strategy as part of an Oxford Institute for Energy Studies report on economic diversification in the MENA.

The authors conducted mobile phone surveys on energy supply, demand and quality in 12 sub-Saharan African countries, finding that current grid and off-grid electricity supply is inadequate to meet consumers' demands.

A combination of factors is encouraging Saudi Arabia to consider raising crude oil production capacity beyond the current ceiling of 12.5 million barrels per day. However, an increase in Saudi crude oil production would have consequences for markets and competing forms of energy, as well as for the kingdom's geopolitical stature, writes fellow Jim Krane in an article for Energy Policy.

The authors examine ways in which disruptive technologies could potentially help improve power sector development in African countries.