Payne Institute Faculty Fellow Carol Dahl received an OPEC Award for Research that was given in recognition of a career dedicated to the objective study and balanced analysis of the energy sector. This award, established in 2004, honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to enhancing knowledge of the petroleum industry and oil-related issues (on page 38). July 5, 2023.
Payne Institute Director Morgan Bazilian and other researchers write about how the global clean energy transition involves large-scale deployment of a suite of renewable energy, energy storage and other new technologies. These are highly mineral-intensive and accelerated adoption of such technologies will significantly increase the demand for critical minerals (CMs). Challenges to sustainable supply of CMs include inadequate investment in mining, increased and more volatile prices, higher supply risks, negative environmental and social impacts, concerns about corruption, misuse of public finances, and weak governance. May 22, 2023.
Payne Institute Fellow Andreas Goldthau and Director Morgan Bazilian write about how Russia’s brutal aggression has wreaked devastation in Ukraine for more than a year. It has also forced a fundamental rethink of geopolitics. Central to that new thinking is the role of energy security and how to manage the insecurities created by the lopsided dependencies exposed by the conflict. May 8, 2023.
Payne Institute Research Associate Caitlin McKennie writes about how building out a robust talent pipeline for the mining sector through providing quality jobs to workers and advancement opportunities (i.e., training, upskilling, and next skilling efforts) will be a central factor for ramping up domestic critical mineral production and strengthening U.S. energy security. Yet, the labor force associated with nonfuel mineral mining in the U.S. has remained roughly stagnate over the last five years, and aligns with new statistics coming from employers. April 28, 2023.
Benjamin K. Sovacool, Payne Institute Director Morgan D. Bazilian, Jinsoo Kim, and Fellow Steven Griffiths write about how the rapid and deep decarbonization of global industry is key to reaching climate policy targets, yet it remains an incredibly difficult challenge. They propose six bold steps for accelerating progress on achieving net-zero industrial carbon emissions by mid-century with a focus on lessons learned and emerging analysis from both the Global North and Global South, the latter of which we consider as low or middle income countries primarily located in Africa, Asia and Latin America. March 30, 2023.
Payne Institute Fellow Steve Griffiths, Director Morgan Bazilian, CCUS Program Manager Anna Littlefield, student researchers Hope McLaughlin, Maia Menefee, Austin Kinzer, Tobias Hull, along with Benjamin K.Sovacool, and Jinsoo Kim write about how the decarbonization of industry and industrial systems is a pressing challenge given the relative lack of low-carbon options available for “hard to decarbonize” sectors such as steelmaking, cement manufacturing, and chemical production. This review takes a systematic and sociotechnical perspective to examine how CCUS can support industrial decarbonization and relevant associated technical, economic, and social factors. March 2, 2023.
Payne Institute Fellow Jamal Saghir and Ede Jorge Ijjasz-Vasquez analyse climate adaptation financial flows to Africa and argue that the limited resources available to Africa for adaptation need to be used in the most efficient and productive manner to dampen the combined impacts of climate shocks and economic downturns. February 14, 2023.
Payne Institute CCUS Program Manager Anna Littlefield and student researcher Chiang Cheng Siew write about how over the past two years, both the hydrogen and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) industries have gained momentum in the US. Project development in these industries has been rapidly accelerating with the growing financial incentives from policymakers for the commercial deployment of these projects. The signing of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, in November of 2021 marked the US Department of Energy’s largest single investment in carbon management, along with significant investments funding clean hydrogen development. December 9, 2022.
Ashleigh Ross and Payne Institute CCUS Program Manager Anna Littlefield write about how there is a significant and growing risk to wide-spread deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in the US that exists not in the technical space, but rather with social license to operate. The central challenge is how to achieve the principles of environmental justice for communities when the only incentives go directly to industry, and stakeholders must negotiate for fair compensation. Here we propose that a direct to community and landowner tax credit, the ‘Carbon Steward Tax Credit,’ may be the solution that enables true alignment between projects and communities. October 20, 2022.
Payne institute ESG Research Associate Baba Freeman writes about how Africa contains significant amounts of hydrocarbon reserves that contribute extensively to state revenue and facilitate social and economic development. The growth prospects for these African countries are however under threat as international financial institutions reduce their funding for hydrocarbon developments in response to global warming and its adverse effects. The paper reemphasize the importance of hydrocarbon resources to African development and present alternative funding strategies that can minimize disruptions to growth and are consistent with notions of a just energy transition. October 19, 2022.