The NEA Small Modular Reactor Dashboard

Nuclear energy already plays an important role in many countries’ energy systems, supplying approximately 10% of the world’s electricity from 444 nuclear power reactors in operation. These reactors are mainly gigawatt-scale, providing on-grid non-emitting baseload electricity. Innovation in SMRs is advancing in several countries. The innovation pipeline is poised to produce a range of commercial SMRs of different sizes, with a range of outlet temperatures, and new attributes and potential benefits in the areas of safety, flexibility, and economics, as well as spent fuel and waste management. The pipeline of SMRs has the potential to support a variety of energy …

Eastern Mediterranean Deepwater Gas to Europe: Not Too Little, But Perhaps Too Late

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 precipitated a global energy crisis with Europe as its epicenter. The war compelled Europe to endeavor to end its long-standing dependence on Russian natural gas, a goal that required diversification of supply. This process has proven challenging, however. Compared with oil, which is relatively fungible, gas is difficult to redirect due to high capital costs and long lead times for pipelines and liquefaction plants. Amid this crisis, one region that has emerged as a promising new gas source for Europe is the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly Israel, Egypt, and Cyprus.

This report, part …

Carbon Dioxide Removal

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) is advancing a suite of carbon dioxide removal approaches to help the nation achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and support an equitable, decarbonized energy system of the future.

Advancing the carbon dioxide removal industry will help spur innovation and position the United States as a leader in the research and manufacturing of technologies that will be important in the global economy of the 21st century. Carbon dioxide removal is needed to counterbalance emissions associated with the hardest-to-decarbonize sectors (e.g., agriculture, aviation, and shipping) to …

Gender Balance in the Nuclear Sector

Female scientists and engineers pioneered the nuclear and radiological fields, with leaders and innovators such as Marie Skłodowska-Curie and Lise Meitner, among many others, establishing the foundation of modern nuclear science and technology. Women continue to make vital contributions to the sector, but their visibility and overall numbers in the sector remain limited, especially in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and leadership roles. The lack of diversity in the sector represents a loss of potential innovation and growth and a critical threat to the viability of the field.

This report features the first publicly available international data on gender …

A Strategy for Balancing the 7 Utility Boardroom Priorities

The roughly 3,000 utilities in the United States are diverse in geography, customer demographics, structure, assets, and corporate culture. Yet, the C-suites within these utilities share many of the same top boardroom priorities.

The priorities arise from trends that disrupt how utilities have done business for the last century. It’s imperative that utility leaders assess these priorities, develop a point of view on what each means for their utility, and build a strategy to start evolving for the future. These seven boardroom priorities will define the strategic roadmaps utilities are creating for the coming years — and decades. The priorities …

Innovation at Scale: Supporting Pilot-Scale Demonstrations

The establishment of the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations at the Department of Energy represents an important step towards accelerating American innovation and achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This report identifies a gap in public funding for pilot-scale demonstration projects requiring less than $25 million and offers recommendations aimed at helping OCED support these projects by creating a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)/Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program through existing authority. An agency’s SBIR/STTR program derives funding as a portion of the agency’s overall budget and does not require additional funding. The recommendations in this report were developed …

OurEnergyPolicy Event Summary – Reliability and Resilience within Competitive Markets

This event summary highlights key comments made by industry experts at an OEP webinar in March 2023. Featuring panelists from the Energy Choice Coalition, Edison Electric Institute, and C3 Solutions in a discussion on competition in energy markets and issues of cost, reliability and resiliency.…

Exploring China’s Pathway to a New Power System

China has made a commitment to reach peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. The power sector, which contributes about 40% of the country’s carbon emissions today, is at the heart of climate change solutions and the energy transition. Recognizing the significance of power decarbonization, China officially rolled out its concept of a New Power System in March 2021, and the concept was later reinforced in top-level Chinese climate policy. The fast-changing global energy landscape added complexity to the discussion of the New Power System. With the 2022 global energy crisis and the domestic power crunch …

Powering Recovery: Reform, Reconstruction, and Renewables in Conflict-Affected States in the Arab World

The United States and other international donors have committed tens of billions of dollars to reconstruction and peacebuilding in conflict-affected environments in the Middle East, but there is frustratingly little to show for the effort in many states. After conflict stopped, those in power during wartime transitioned to privileged positions in peacetime, entrenching themselves and their interests in the new status quo. In the electricity sector, elites profit from infrastructure contracts, fuel imports, and informal systems of electricity provision.

In this report, Will Todman argues that renewable energy offers a different pathway with wide-reaching benefits. Based on over 175 interviews …

Sustainable Energy In America 2023 Factbook

The Factbook aims to augment existing sources of information on US energy. It focuses on renewables, efficiency, natural gas,
distributed power and storage, as well as sustainable transportation. It fills important data gaps in certain areas (e.g., clean energy investment flows, contribution of distributed energy). It contains data through the end of 2022 wherever possible. It employs BloombergNEF data in most cases, augmented by the Energy Information Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and other sources where necessary. It contains the very latest information on …