Mines Energy Future podcast featuring Dr. M.V. Ramana, Professor and Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security, Director, Liu Institute for Global Issues, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia discussing nuclear energy, and small modular reactors (SMR). July 21, 2020.
The Payne Institute’s Earth Observation Group has been watching the nighttime lights dim, and recently recover, across the world since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a good proxy for both electricity demand and economic activity. The disruption patterns of the Coronavirus shutdowns have been recorded by the NASA / NOAA Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) day /night band (DNB). To examine this is detail, the EOG calculated changes in the brightness between monthly cloud‐free average radiance composites. The results are detailed in this paper. April 21, 2020.
Payne Institute Fellow Hisham Zerriffi, and collaborators write about how climate action presents special challenges for communities, and countries, that produce fossil fuels consumed elsewhere. As an exporter of relatively emissions-intensive and high-cost oil, Canada is especially vulnerable to price declines that will result from climate action. The challenge of climate change mitigation for fossil fuel producing regions has been brought to the fore by the COVID-19 crisis, which has depressed global demand and driven already-low global oil prices still lower. Although economic recovery will follow, the prospect of delayed recovery and national economic stimulus packages tied to clean energy transition may hasten a moment of reckoning. In that context, it is especially timely to consider the call for “just transition” plans, which seek to ensure fossil fuel-dependent communities and workers are not left behind. April 17, 2020.
While the media focuses on countries hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic — China, United States, Italy and South Korea — relatively less news emerges from the bulk of the world’s population living in developing countries. The United Nations is doing its best to highlight the grim prospects of those 70 million people who are displaced and now live in refugee camps or urban slums. April 5, 2020.
Payne Institute Fellow Hisham Zerriffi and collaborators write about how coal mining directly employs over 7 million workers and benefits millions more through indirect jobs. However, to meet the 1.5 °C global climate target, coal’s share in global energy supply should decline between 73% and 97% by 2050. But what will happen to coal miners as coal jobs disappear? Answering this question is necessary to ensure a just transition and to ensure that politically powerful coal mining interests do not impede energy transitions. March 6, 2020.
Important work by Payne Institute Expert Kartikeya. India’s general election is over, and the newly reelected Modi administration has a slew of reforms that are ripe for implementing to shore up India’s teetering power sector. In the first term of the Modi administration, the government focused on providing electricity connections to all houses, aiming to deploy 175 gigawatts (GW) of new renewable energy capacity (mainly from solar and wind) by 2022 and to enact the Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana, also known as UDAY, a reform meant to improve the technical and financial performance of the cash-strapped state-owned utilities (discoms). August 19, 2019.
The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) collects low light imaging data at night in five spectral bands. The addition of the short wavelength channels extends detection limits to smaller source areas across a broad range of temperatures. February 15, 2019.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Delhi-based Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation, which together lead the U.S.-India State and Urban Initiative, announce a partnership between the government of Gujarat and the government of Colorado. September 17, 2018.
In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government aims to install 227 gigawatts of renewable power generation capacity by 2022. Accounting for one-half of the targeted capacity, solar power plays a key role in these plans. September 2018.
Mr. Ravinder, Deb Chattopadhyay, and Director Morgan Bazilian write about how the Indian Government declared its intention to sign the Paris Climate deal. By ratifying the agreement on October 2nd, India will always be remembered as a key country that helped push the global climate deal into force. November 1, 2016.