Research Library

The Center for Energy Studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and the Qatar Leadership Centre hosted a roundtable on February 15-16, 2017, in Doha, Qatar, to discuss some of the most pressing challenges facing market participants in the global energy landscape, with a focus on several issues of paramount interest to Qatar and the broader Gulf Cooperation Council.

Regional air quality and health cost models are used to assess how reductions in soil nitric oxide (NO) emissions from the use of biochar could influence U.S. air quality and health costs.

The environmental and economic gains of biochar application in agricultural soils are the focus of this study.

To gain public support for Mexico’s energy reforms, the government promised a future of low gas prices. The author documents the fallout when gas prices instead shot up 20 percent. 

One of the goals of Mexico's energy reform was to create a regulatory system that would foster competition in a very complex political environment. This framework, known as "coordinated regulatory bodies," was established in Article 28 of the Constitution and is intended to oversee and regulate the hydrocarbons sector. This paper conducts a legal analysis of this new model of regulation and seeks to determine whether its implementation strengthens the rule of law in Mexico.

As China continues to open up to the transnational circulation of labor, ideas, technology and capital under globalization, one must wonder: will Chinese society’s more cosmopolitan and transnational groups continue to be guided by guanxi, the system of social networks and influential relationships that facilitate business and other dealings?

The authors examine whether Italian scientists have experienced any religious shifts and how they went through these shifts, addressing personal secularization theories by analyzing whether and how scientists reconstruct their religious identities by utilizing science. Published by Philosophy, Theology and the Sciences

As a result of the 2013 energy reform, oil and gas companies completing projects in Mexico must now meet mandatory requirements to utilize local goods and services suppliers. The authors analyze the legislative framework in place to enforce the local content requirement and the economic implications of the policy.

The oil production targets agreed to at the November 30, 2016, OPEC meeting have created the firmest prospect in the past two years of a meaningful oil price recovery. If WTI prices rise and stabilize in the $60/bbl range, how fast can U.S. shale producers respond? This brief addresses the question and highlights the challenges U.S. unconventional liquids producers will likely face during a scale-up. It also points out price and timing inflection points likely to broadly influence industry decision-making.

This paper critiques the Mexican government's efforts to train the country's workers for jobs created by energy reforms.