Timely Topics
The topics we addressed this year were timely and dynamic. This year brought rapid shifts in the energy policy landscape, as emerging technologies, economic pressures, and climate risks raised new questions for policymakers and the public. From the surging electricity demands of artificial intelligence and data centers to concerns about affordability, insurance, carbon markets, and industrial policy, these developments underscored the growing complexity of the energy transition.
Kleinman Center researchers responded with research, writing, and teaching to shine a light on these complex issues.
Here are some of the ways we have contributed to these timely topics.
Hitting the Presses
As the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence drives unprecedented demand for data centers and electricity, the Kleinman Center helped shape the public conversation around the energy implications of AI. Building on research featured throughout this report, the center’s experts—particularly Senior Fellow John Quigley—provided timely analysis to policymakers, journalists, and the public. Over the past year, Kleinman Center research informed more than 60 media interviews on AI, data centers, and energy infrastructure. Our experts helped explain the challenges and opportunities posed by one of the fastest-growing sources of electricity demand.
As climate change intensifies weather-related disasters, communities, local governments, and insurance markets face growing challenges. In a Kleinman Center event, Carolyn Kousky examined the evolving role of disaster insurance in supporting economic recovery, the pressures reshaping housing markets, and emerging public, private, and nonprofit partnerships that are developing innovative insurance solutions to build more climate-resilient communities.
The Kleinman Center is examining the evolving systems that underpin carbon markets and corporate climate action. On Energy Policy Now, Senior Fellow Danny Cullenward discussed the growing influence of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and the questions around governance, transparency, and emissions accounting as it becomes increasingly embedded in climate policy.
As rising energy costs place increasing pressure on households and businesses, the Kleinman Center has helped elevate affordability as a central challenge in the clean energy transition. Through research, public events, and expert commentary featured throughout this report, we examined how energy policy can deliver reliable, affordable, and equitable outcomes while advancing decarbonization.
Implications of Rising Energy Costs
The Kleinman Center joined researchers at Perry World House to share their perspectives on how the current energy crisis and rising prices could influence many aspects of everyday life.
Battling for Batteries: Li-ion Policy and Supply Chain Dynamics in the U.S. and China
Three decades of U.S.–China battery policy show China’s playbook-built dominance while U.S. efforts fluctuated. Faculty Fellow Scott Moore and Ph.D. student Madeline Craig-Scheckman map out this timeline and implications and lessons for the future of U.S. Li-ion, and potentially other clean tech industries.
