Research Library

Despite its uncertain future in the context of energy transitions, oil remains the largest global energy source, and oil markets will continue to demand attention in the near term given their economic and geopolitical impacts. Mark Finley discusses global oil production, demand, and implications.

Mahmoud A. El-Gamal discusses the importance of U.S. monetary policy changes and oil markets. He highlights the relationships among interest rate movements, the behavior of traders, and oil price formation to argue the importance of watching Federal Reserve actions when analyzing the market for oil.

Ken Medlock highlights the importance of supply chains and legacy infrastructures for the success of new technologies and stresses the role of coordination along supply chains to drive value. A holistic awareness of economics, politics, regulation, and resource scarcity is critical for developing market structures that support investment for effective decarbonization.

Emerging artificial intelligence (AI) tools could prove an important contributor to successfully decarbonizing energy. Christopher Bronk discusses how they can enhance our ability to process and understand extensive data streams in energy, policy, technology, and geopolitics, which could transform the way we process information and assess regional and global situations in real time.

Rachel A. Meidl discusses why sustainability requires an approach that includes environmental, social, and economic factors across the entire supply chain spanning the life cycle of energy systems. Sustainability must move beyond a narrow focus on carbon metrics to address broader impacts and drive innovation. As companies emphasize sustainability imperatives, life cycle management will become increasingly important.

The transportation industry is squarely impacted by energy transitions. Ed Emmett discusses the importance of a nation’s transportation system for its economic health, much like a circulatory system is critical for the health of the individual. Shifting to new transportation energy sources poses challenges because, in some applications, it requires not just a change in the technology embodied in the mode of transportation, but an overhaul of the entire system. Each mode of transportation — from cars to shipping fleets to planes — faces different constraints that impact the economic viability of different fuel sources and methods of scaling.

The EU’s withdrawal from the Energy Charter Treaty may foreshadow an eventual end to investor-state dispute settlement (ISDI) — a legal mechanism that permits foreign investors to sue a country over actions that harm their investments. A report by fellow David A. Gantz outlines the history of ISDI provisions in global trade agreements and examines what ISDI’s end might mean for the future of investment and trade in the U.S., EU, and other nations.

Each firearm injury statistic represents a person with a unique story. By empowering young people to advocate for new legislation and encouraging gun owners to use secure storage community members can better engage in firearm injury prevention. This new brief from the Center for Health and Biosciences offers more insights and policy recommendations.

Ukraine's power grid is under severe strain, with Russian attacks reducing electricity generation capacity to just one-third of prewar levels. In a new working paper, Gabriel Collins and Kenneth B. Medlock, III suggest prioritizing decentralized, mobile power solutions to help Ukraine survive the winter and prevent a humanitarian disaster. They emphasize the critical need for international support to help Ukraine rebuild a more resilient energy system.