Energy Finance Lab
Integrating Financial Insight into Decision-Making and Advancing Ideas to Foster More Capital Investment into the Energy Transition
Integrating Financial Insight into Decision-Making and Advancing Ideas to Foster More Capital Investment into the Energy Transition
Energy Finance Lab
Reference Corner
Restoring energy resilience and security while decarbonizing the global economy are generational challenges that will cost Trillions of dollars. Public capital can realistically provide only a very small portion. Instead, the public sector needs to create vibrant enabling environments for private investment; there is also ample room for the private sector to act on its own.
The Energy Finance Lab’s mission is to support the initiatives of the Payne Institute, with a guiding principle to foster market-based solutions to unlock private investment. Among other recent research, the EFL is exploring government interventions for critical mineral development, systems to track and financialize carbon footprint and fugitive methane emissions, and the use of carbon markets to fund climate mitigation activities such as plugging oil & gas wells and carbon capture & storage. The Lab also provides explainers across commodity, carbon and energy markets for the benefit of policy makers and other stakeholders.
The Energy Finance Lab Collaborates with these Payne Inititatives
Accelerated Methane Reduction
Low Carbon Energy Technologies
Critical Minerals
Native American Mining and Energy Sovereignty
Supply Chain Transparency
RESEARCH
Making Government Equity Ownership Official 8/7/2026
Making Government Equity Ownership Official
Payne Institute Energy Finance Lab Director Brad Handler and Student Researcher Matthew Safran write about how in June, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees advanced the FY2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Congress’s annual defense policy bill. The legislation covers hundreds of defense programs and policies but one small provision, Section 1051, tackles a different challenge: managing the risks of an untested facet of the current administration’s more muscular industrial policy. August 7, 2026.
The AI Boom Is Becoming a Credit Bet 7/31/2026
The AI Boom Is Becoming a Credit Bet
Payne Institute Director Morgan Bazilian writes about how AI financing has progressed from concentrated venture equity into a cross-asset financing system, while the market signals required to validate the buildout—utilization, cash generation, debt absorption and physical energization—remain unresolved. July 31, 2026.
Payne Institute for Public Policy | Annual Report 2025-2026 7/9/2026
Payne Institute for Public Policy – Annual Report 2025-2026
The Payne Institute for Public Policy’s 2025-2026 Annual Report highlights a year of growing impact at the intersection of energy, critical minerals, and global security. July 9, 2026.
Give gas a passport, not a pardon: A digital fix to Europe’s methane problem 7/1/2026
Give gas a passport, not a pardon: A digital fix to Europe’s methane problem
Aaron Lohman and Payne Institute Energy Finance Lab Director Brad Handler writes about how technology could help fix the EU’s methane emissions reporting rules. A fight is underway over Europe’s methane rules between the US and European Union. July 1, 2026.
Orphan Well Carbon Crediting Methodologies: A Review of Quantification Practices and Proposal to Incorporate Leak Forecasting 6/25/2026
Orphan Well Carbon Crediting Methodologies: A Review of Quantification Practices and Proposal to Incorporate Leak Forecasting
Payne Institute Energy Finance Lab Director Brad Handler writes about how hastening the plugging of orphan wells in the U.S., for climate, environmental and human health purposes, is encouraging the pursuit of private sources of financing through the voluntary carbon market (VCM). The largest remaining challenge to the integrity of orphan well crediting methodologies is timing, or when the plugged well would likely have emitted methane. June 25, 2026.
The Uranium Fuel Cycle under a U.S. Nuclear Renaissance: An Introduction to the Payne Institute’s Two-Part Primer 6/17/2026
The Uranium Fuel Cycle under a U.S. Nuclear Renaissance: An Introduction to the Payne Institute’s Two-Part Primer
The Payne Institute Energy Finance Lab is pleased to publish the first of a two-part primer on the nuclear fuel cycle. Part I addresses the front end — from mining through to fuel fabrication. We cover existing infrastructure capacity and the market mechanics and buying behavior for each step along the chain, as well as how U.S. policy is spurring expansion in fuel cycle capacity. June 17, 2026.
The Tokenization of Environmental Attributes of Natural Gas 5/8/2026
The Tokenization of Environmental Attributes of Natural Gas
Payne Institute Energy Finance Lab Program Director Brad Handler addressed attendees at the Enverus’ EVOLVE conference in Houston, TX on creating digital tokens based on the environmental attributes of low fugitive methane-emissions natural gas. The talk reviews the creation of such tokens, their use in facilitating transacting in low emissions gas, and efforts to turn these tokens into a tradable asset. May 8, 2026.
Tracking and Transacting Clean Natural Gas: Operationalizing Environmental Attribute Tokens 4/7/2026
Tracking and Transacting Clean Natural Gas: Operationalizing Environmental Attribute Tokens
Payne Institute Student Researcher Liam O’Byrne and Energy Finance Lab Program Director Brad Handler write about how there is an emerging need for companies to track and disclose the carbon intensity of the natural gas and other fossil fuel-based products they buy. For producers of these fuels, documenting carbon intensity, at least at scale, requires systems that standardize, which the financial services industry can leverage to create new markets. April 7, 2026.
Tin Demand Is Booming; Opportunities and Risks for Small Communities in Indonesia 3/25/2026
Tin Demand Is Booming; Opportunities and Risks for Small Communities in Indonesia
Payne Institute Student Researchers Andrew Bauman and Jason Gustely, Faculty Fellow Ian Lange, and Energy Finance Lab Program Director Brad Handler write about how artisanal and small-scale miners (ASM) in Indonesia, who provide as much as 12% of global supply, have a significant opportunity to benefit from the strong tin demand. March 25, 2026.
Kern County conference highlights dangers of abandoned oil wells 3/24/2026
Kern County conference highlights dangers of abandoned oil wells
Payne Institute Energy Finance Lab Program Director Brad Handler is featured on this news show discussing solutions to plug millions of orphaned wells that leak harmful greenhouse gases and contaminate groundwater across the country. March 24, 2026.
