Commentary
If the “user pays” idea is worth saving, the United States needs a different calculation, writes Liisa Ecola. Some states are looking at mileage fees. With mileage fees, you pay based on the number of miles you drive, rather than the number of gallons of gas used.
Report
Media and policy sources often cite natural resources as a primary driver of tensions in the South and East China Seas. In reality, the region’s hydrocarbon potential is moderate. Resource issues function primarily as focal points for more powerful underlying drivers of domestic political legitimacy, popular nationalism, and regional order.
Commentary
As solar power remains more expensive than conventional sources of electricity in most parts of the world, demand for photovoltaic solar panels still primarily depends on government subsidies, says Keith Crane.
Commentary
A conservative, cost-efficient response to climate change involves sending price signals to people and businesses now so that they take steps to reduce emissions, writes Keith Crane.
Commentary
Even if the United States no longer imports oil from the Middle East, the United States will still be vulnerable to oil price shocks driven by developments in the Middle East, writes Keith Crane.
Past Event
Declines in energy consumption because of substantial improvements in efficiency and surging production of natural gas, oil, and renewable energy have brought the United States to the brink of energy independence. Join RAND to learn more about shifts in U.S. energy markets.
Multimedia
Energy expert Keith Crane discusses shifts in U.S. energy markets, their economic implications and effects on gasoline and electricity prices, and how these developments might affect climate change.
Report
If policies aimed at large reductions of carbon dioxide emissions are enacted, more carbon capture and storage will be needed. RAND researchers explored the ability of the industrial base to support the expansion of carbon storage.
Commentary
Instead of setting an arbitrary Production Tax Credit value, we could provide a tax credit based on the social value of clean electricity generation, writes Constantine Samaras.
Commentary
Further study, including primary data collection in regions where extraction is occurring, will be important to track the magnitude of emissions and to insure that the DEP's permit requirements are adequate to protect human health and the environment, writes Aimee Curtright.
Blog
The 2013 SOTU address will be remembered for its impassioned call for greater gun control just two months after Sandy Hook. But President Obama's second-term agenda can be characterized by its sheer breadth, reflecting the broad range of policy challenges facing the U.S. today.
Journal Article
Producing natural gas from shale generates air pollutant emissions. RAND researchers provided a first-order estimate of air emissions, and the monetary value of the associated damages, from the extraction of shale gas in Pennsylvania.
News Release
A federal government corporation and an independent government agency are the two most promising models for a new organization to manage and dispose of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste in the United States.
Report
A federal government corporation and an independent government agency are the two most promising models for a new organization to manage and dispose of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste in the United States.
Research Brief
RAND researchers describe the attributes of potential organizational models and the steps needed to choose the form of a new organization charged with managing and disposing of commercial and defense high-level radioactive materials.
Report
Improving the security of the Gulf of Guinea's oil infrastructure would increase output and promote additional investment, to the benefit of oil importing nations. The U.S. Air Force has expertise that could help build local security capabilities.
Periodical
Obama has championed an "all-of-the-above strategy" to develop every available source of American energy "while making sure we never have to choose between protecting our environment and strengthening our economy." Romney would not provide support for ventures in new energy technologies. RAND's research on renewable fuels, oil shale development, and fuel taxes provides options.
Commentary
The sanctions have imposed economic costs and have effectively signaled that not only the United States, but much of the rest of the world, see Iran's policies on nuclear enrichment as a serious potential threat to the region and the world, writes Keith Crane.
Report
Energy purchases made by the U.S. DoD do not influence world oil prices, making cutting fuel use the only effective choice to reduce what the Pentagon spends on it. The U.S. military can continue to have an important role in promoting stability in major oil producing regions and by helping protect the flow of energy through major transit corridors and on the high seas.
Report
Turkey aspires to become a key transit state for moving both natural gas and oil from the Caspian region and from the broader Middle East via pipelines crossing its territory. U.S.-Turkish cooperation on energy security issues offers a promising yet modest opportunity to strengthen the bilateral relationship.
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