News and Events
The Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA) increases the impact of its analysis by staying engaged in and helping to shape the global energy dialogue. News about JISEA, JISEA leadership, and JISEA partners is highlighted below.
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Arent Joins Editorial Board of Scientific Journal
February 2013 — The journal Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change: An International Journal Devoted to Scientific, Engineering, Socio-Economic and Policy Responses to Environmental Change has named JISEA Executive Director Doug Arent to its editorial board.
As an editorial board member, Arent will advise the editor on related issues, review manuscripts, and invite authors to submit papers on the relevant topics.
The journal is regarded as an important journal within the field and is available both online and in print.
JISEA and Precourt Institute for Energy Map Natural Gas Research Agenda
December 2012 — In recognition of the major transitions occurring within the U.S. energy economy, the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA) and Stanford University's Precourt Institute for Energy (PIE) engaged diverse energy system stakeholders in a discussion about robust, objective, and timely research priorities relating to natural gas.
Held December 10-11, 2012 on the Golden, Colorado campus of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the workshop provided invited experts from government, industry, academia, and the environmental community an opportunity to describe the state of current knowledge and research priorities in defined topic areas:
- Dynamics of the natural gas market
- The U.S. market
- Environment and Infrastructure
- Metrics and measuring impacts
- Opportunities and challenges in the transportation, industrial, and buildings sectors.
The workshop was convened to help define a future research agenda to be undertaken by a collaborative effort of JISEA and PIE.
JISEA Report Examines Impact of Natural Gas on U.S. Electric Power
GHG impacts, regulation, industry practices and power sector dynamics analyzed
The Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA) released the first report in a series of studies on natural gas and the U.S. energy sector. Entitled "Natural Gas and the Transformation of the U.S. Energy Sector: Electricity," this report provides a new methodological approach to estimate natural gas related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, tracks trends in regulatory and voluntary industry practices, and explores various electricity futures.
"There is currently a national debate over life cycle GHG emissions from shale natural gas," NREL Senior Scientist Garvin Heath said. "We address it by conducting one of the first independent 'bottom up assessments' in this field."
Published results of natural gas life cycle GHG emissions rely on very limited data, include a broad range of analytic assumptions, and have results that vary considerably. The JISEA study leverages inventories of air pollutant emissions from more than 16,000 sources in Texas' Barnett Shale, providing the first estimate of life cycle GHG emissions using an independent harmonized data set.
The JISEA study found that life cycle GHG emissions associated with electricity generated from 2009 Barnett Shale gas were very similar to conventional natural gas and less than half of those from coal-fired electricity generation.
JISEA also looked at how legal and regulatory frameworks governing shale gas development are changing in response to public concerns, particularly in areas of the country that have less experience with oil and gas development.
"The report is intended to inform both the national and international dialogue on this subject in a few key areas critical to decision makers," JISEA Executive Director Doug Arent said.
Morgan Bazilian to Expand JISEA's Focus on Seminal Energy Systems Analysis
July 2012 — Morgan Bazilian will join the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA) as Deputy Director. In this new role, Bazilian will define and lead JISEA analytical activities and help develop and administer programs. He will also join the senior management team of NREL.
Bazilian is a former special advisor to the Director-General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) on international energy issues. He is regarded as one of the leading global experts on international energy policy, and has most recently been closely associated with the UN's Sustainable Energy for All initiative.
"Morgan will contribute to the further development of JISEA sponsorship and programs and provide thought leadership to expand the impact of our interdisciplinary research in global energy systems," JISEA Executive Director Doug Arent said. "He brings two decades of experience in the energy sector ranging from upstream oil and gas policy, to the design of fiscal instruments to promote clean energy."
"I am excited and deeply honored to join JISEA and help advance the institute's work to inform the transition of the global energy economy," Bazilian said. "We will continue to answer questions to enable a transition at significant speed and scale to achieve sustainability and avoid unintended impacts."
Bazilian holds doctoral and master's degrees related to the techno-economic aspects of energy systems, and he was a Fulbright Fellow. His book, Analytical Methods for Energy Diversity and Security, remains a key text on risk in the energy sector. He holds senior research affiliations with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and the Electricity Policy Research Group at Cambridge University.
In previous positions, Bazilian helped shape the United Nations' approach to energy for development, and managed the UN's interagency energy mechanism — UN-Energy. Before that, he held a political appointment as chief of staff for the Minister of Energy in Ireland and directed the clean energy division of Ireland's national energy authority. Bazilian had been the lead climate change negotiator for the European Union on low-carbon technology.
Energy Policy Features Article Based on JISEA-Funded Research
May 2012 — The May issue of Energy Policy featured an analysis of nuclear and renewable energy synergies, which was based on work funded through JISEA's Innovative Research and Analysis Award Program (IRAAP). The article, "Decarbonizing the Electric Sector: Combining Renewable and Nuclear Energy using Thermal Storage," was co-authored by NREL's Paul Denholm and Charles Kutcher, Jeffrey King of Colorado School of Mines, and Paul Wilson of University of Wisconsin-Madison.
JISEA and American Clean Skies Foundation Host Forum on Creating a Cleaner U.S. Electricity Sector
April 2012 — The Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA) and the American Clean Skies Foundation (ACSF) hosted the third Clean Energy Regulatory Forum (CERF III) to explore ways to advance clean energy and energy efficiency in the rules and procedures of public utility commissions, regional transmission organizations, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Held April 19–20 on NREL's Golden, CO campus, CERF III focused on solar power and synergies with other clean generation and grid options.
"Creating a cleaner energy system requires work on many levels, some glamorous and some highly technical," said Douglas Arent, JISEA Executive Director. "In this forum, we focused on identifying and creating regulatory reforms that can assist in reducing greenhouse gas and other harmful pollution from America's electricity sector. This is vital to creating a cleaner electricity sector."
Find more information and links to all CERF III presentations on cleanskies.org.
