Resources Radio

This week’s episode is the first in a three-part series that celebrates the 70th anniversary of Resources for the Future (RFF). Over that time span, RFF has had a significant impact on the fields of environmental economics and policy. In this episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Ray Kopp, RFF’s recently retired vice president for research and policy engagement, and Kerry Smith, an RFF university fellow (who also happened to be Ray Kopp’s graduate school advisor). Kopp continues to lead the organization’s Comprehensive Climate Strategies Program. Kopp, Smith, and Hayes discuss the 70-year history and legacy of RFF, the real-world impacts of its research, and how the act of conducting research itself has changed through the decades. They take a trip down RFF memory lane to explore how the world of environmental economics has evolved over the past 70 years—and how RFF has helped shape that evolution. References and recommendations: “Scarcity and Growth: The Economics of Natural Resource Availability” by Harold J. Barnett and Chandler Morse; https://www.routledge.com/Scarcity-and-Growth-The-Economics-of-Natural-Resource-Availability/Barnett-Morse/p/book/9781617260315 “Air Pollution and Human Health” by Lester B. Lave and Eugene P. Seskin; https://www.routledge.com/Air-Pollution-and-Human-Health/Lave-Seskin/p/book/9781617260582 Marchant calculator; https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_690723 “The Voltage Effect” by John A. List; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/672117/the-voltage-effect-by-john-a-list/ “Big Data for Twenty-First-Century Economic Statistics” edited by Katharine G. Abraham, Ron S. Jarmin, Brian C. Moyer, and Matthew D. Shapiro; https://www.nber.org/books-and-chapters/big-data-twenty-first-century-economic-statistics “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari; https://www.ynharari.com/book/sapiens-2/ “The Food Lab” by J. Kenji López-Alt; https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393081084

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Helima Croft, a managing director and the Head of Global Commodity Strategy and Middle East and North Africa Research at RBC Capital Markets. Croft talks about how the oil market has responded to historical events in the past and how current events have been influencing the oil market today. Croft and Raimi’s conversation ranges from Russia to Europe to China to Saudi Arabia to Texas and beyond. They discuss how the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Ukraine, and the US government have responded to recent high oil prices; the implications of sanctions on Russian oil and gas; and how the perception of Russian sanctions may vary across the international energy sector. References and recommendations: “The World for Sale: Money, Power, and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources” by Javier Blas and Jack Farchy; https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-world-for-sale-9780190078959 “Syriana” the movie; https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365737/ “Crude Volatility: The History and the Future of Boom-Bust Oil Prices” by Robert McNally; http://cup.columbia.edu/book/crude-volatility/9780231178143

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Ty Priest, associate professor of history and geography at the University of Iowa. Priest explains the origin, history, and potential future of the Defense Production Act in the context of US energy development. Priest and Raimi discuss how the act has evolved and expanded under different presidential administrations since it was enacted in 1950 and how the act has been invoked to promote domestic energy security in the face of major concerns such as COVID and climate change. References and recommendations: “Global Gambits: Big Steel and the US Quest for Manganese” by Tyler Priest; https://typriest.com/global-gambits/ “‘Can We Please Stop Talking about Energy Independence?’” by Daniel Raimi; https://www.resources.org/common-resources/can-we-please-stop-talking-about-energy-independence/ “Energy Crises: Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Hard Choices in the 1970s” by Jay Hakes; https://www.oupress.com/9780806190983/energy-crises/ “The Bridge: Natural Gas in a Redivided Europe” by Thane Gustafson; https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674987951

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Matt Shields, a senior offshore wind analyst at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Among other research projects, the lab conducts offshore wind techno-economic analysis, which involves developing cost models, analyzing market and technology trends, and projecting the future costs of offshore wind. Shields is the lead author of a new study that explores the demand for a domestic offshore wind energy supply chain following the Biden administration’s March 2021 goal to install 30 gigawatts of offshore wind in the United States by 2030. Shields and Hayes discuss some challenges to achieving the 2030 goal—including constraints on the number of turbine installation vessels and ports—along with the potential employment impacts of building a domestic supply chain for offshore wind, and how best to synchronize the design of turbines, installation vessels, and ports along the supply chain. References and recommendations: “Supply Chain Road Map for Offshore Wind Energy” by Matt Shields, Ruth Marsh, Jeremy Stefek, Frank Oteri, Ross Gould, Noé Rouxel, Katherine Diaz, Javier Molinero, Abigayle Moser, Courtney Malvik, and Sam Tirone; https://www.nrel.gov/wind/offshore-supply-chain-road-map.html “Offshore Wind Market Report: 2021 Edition” by Walter Musial, Paul Spitsen, Philipp Beiter, Patrick Duffy, Melinda Marquis, Abryn Cooperman, Rob Hammond, and Matt Shields; https://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/articles/offshore-wind-market-report-2021-edition-released “Supply Chain Contracting Forecast for U.S. Offshore Wind Power—The Updated and Expanded 2021 Edition” by the Special Initiative on Offshore Wind; https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/sites.udel.edu/dist/e/10028/files/2021/10/SIOW-supply-chain-report-2021-update-FINAL-1.pdf “Offshore Wind Insider” podcast; https://www.offshorewindus.org/oswinsider/ “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/176226/the-black-swan-second-edition-by-nassim-nicholas-taleb/

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Erika Wise, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Wise discusses some of her research, which combines tree ring data with historical climate data drawn from artifacts such as ship logs and diaries, to provide insights about the North American climate of the mid-1800s. Wise enumerates the strengths and weaknesses of different types of paleoclimate records and historical sources. She also highlights the importance of understanding past climate patterns and extreme weather events, which can help inform contemporary adaptations to extreme weather and climate change. References and recommendations: “Sub-Seasonal Tree-Ring Reconstructions for More Comprehensive Climate Records in US West Coast Watersheds” by Erika K. Wise; https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GL091598 “Climate Factors Leading to Asymmetric Extreme Capture in the Tree-Ring Record” by Erika K. Wise and Matthew P. Dannenberg; https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019GL082295 “Saving Us” by Katharine Hayhoe; https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Saving-Us/Katharine-Hayhoe/9781982143831 “Getting to the Heart of Science Communication: A Guide to Effective Engagement” by Faith Kearns; https://islandpress.org/books/getting-heart-science-communication

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Stefano De Clara, head of secretariat at the International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP), an international forum for governments and public authorities that have implemented (or are planning to implement) emissions trading systems (ETSs). De Clara discusses this year’s status report from ICAP, which provides the latest updates on global ETSs; the role of ETSs in the carbon market; how ETSs are being implemented with increasingly ambitious emissions reduction policies; specific ETSs in China, the European Union, and California; the potential for integrating negative emissions (carbon removal) into ETSs; and more. References and recommendations: “Emissions Trading Worldwide Status Report” by the International Climate Action Partnership; https://icapcarbonaction.com/en/publications/emissions-trading-worldwide-2022-icap-status-report “Collapse” by Jared Diamond; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/288954/collapse-by-jared-diamond/

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Kailin Kroetz, an assistant professor at Arizona State University and university fellow at Resources for the Future. Kroetz discusses some of her research, which takes an empirical look at the scale of seafood mislabeling in the United States. Seafood is the most globally traded food commodity, with supply chains that can be particularly hard to trace, and with systematic evidence of environmental impacts from high rates of mislabeling. Kroetz discusses commonly mislabeled seafood products, identifies where more data is needed, shares ideas for mitigating some of the challenges, and explores efficient policy solutions for fisheries management. References and recommendations: “Consequences of seafood mislabeling for marine populations and fisheries management” by Kailin Kroetz, Gloria M. Luque, Jessica A. Gephart, Sunny L. Jardine, Patrick Lee, Katrina Chicojay Moore, Cassandra Cole, Andrew Steinkruger, and C. Josh Donlan; https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2003741117 “To create sustainable seafood industries, the United States needs a better accounting of imports and exports” by Jessica Gephart, Halley E. Froehlich, and Trevor A. Branch; https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1905650116 “The characterization of seafood mislabeling: A global meta-analysis” by Gloria M. Luque and C. Josh Donlan; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320719301508 Seafood Watch from Monterey Bay Aquarium; https://www.seafoodwatch.org/recommendations/download-consumer-guides “Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know” by Alexandra Horowitz; https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Inside-of-a-Dog/Alexandra-Horowitz/9781416583431 “The Ministry for the Future” by Kim Stanley Robinson; https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/kim-stanley-robinson/the-ministry-for-the-future/9780316300162/

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Fran Moore, an assistant professor at the University of California, Davis. Moore discusses a paper she recently coauthored that expands the way we model the future of the climate system. The model examines how human behavior, political decisionmaking, and technological progress can interact with one another to speed or stall efforts to limit climate change. Moore and Raimi discuss the range and likelihood of outcomes the model has produced, and how these possible pathways are impacted by the complex systems that have been taken into account. References and recommendations: “Determinants of emissions pathways in the coupled climate-social system” by Frances C. Moore, Katherine Lacasse, Katharine J. Mach, Yoon Ah Shin, Louis J. Gross, and Brian Beckage; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04423-8 “Why Trust Science?” by Naomi Oreskes; https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691179001/why-trust-science “The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science” by Michael Strevens; https://wwnorton.com/books/9781631491375

In this episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Nadia Gkritza, a professor at Purdue University. Gkritza is leading a team that’s independently evaluating a new product developed by Holcim, a global building materials and concrete company, and Magment, a German startup that is developing wireless charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. The team envisions a world where electric vehicles can recharge by simply driving over magnetized concrete, eliminating the need for separate charging stations and potentially reducing the need for larger batteries to combat range anxiety. Gkritza discusses the development, implementation, and benefits of the magnetized concrete technology; the next steps for the project; the collaboration involved; and the importance of funding electric vehicle charging infrastructure. “Could Roads Recharge Electric Cars? The Technology May Be Close.” by Kerry Hannon; https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/29/technology/electric-cars-magnetic-roads.html “Indiana DOT, Purdue developing wireless EV charging for highways” by Katie Pyzyk; https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/indiana-dot-purdue-developing-wireless-ev-charging-for-highways/603774 “Pavement That Wirelessly Charges EVs Will Be Tested in Indiana” by Hazel Southwell; https://www.thedrive.com/tech/41625/pavement-that-wirelessly-charges-evs-will-be-tested-in-indiana

In this episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Erik Nordman, professor of natural resources management and adjunct professor of economics at Grand Valley State University, and affiliate scholar at Indiana University’s Ostrom Workshop. Nordman discusses his new book, “The Uncommon Knowledge of Elinor Ostrom: Essential Lessons for Collective Action,” which introduces Ostrom’s Nobel Prize–winning economic concepts to a broader audience. Nordman discusses his inspiration behind writing the book, how locally tailored solutions are essential to resource management today, and Ostrom’s research legacy in establishing the Bloomington School of Political Economy. References and recommendations: “The Uncommon Knowledge of Elinor Ostrom: Essential Lessons for Collective Action” by Erik Nordman; https://islandpress.org/books/uncommon-knowledge-elinor-ostrom “The Cambridge Handbook of Commons Research Innovations” edited by Sheila R. Foster and Chrystie F. Swiney; https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-handbook-of-commons-research-innovations/0C89E27A710207DC008C7A2F9AD55F79 “Elinor Ostrom and the Bloomington School: Building a New Approach to Policy and the Social Sciences” edited by Jayme Lemke and Vlad Tarko; https://ppe.mercatus.org/publications/elinor-ostrom-and-bloomington-school “Fixing Niagara Falls: Environment, Energy, and Engineers at the World’s Most Famous Waterfall” by Daniel MacFarlane; https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/F/bo70337053.html “Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future” by Elizabeth Kolbert; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/617060/under-a-white-sky-by-elizabeth-kolbert/ “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History” by Elizabeth Kolbert; https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250062185/thesixthextinction “Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change” by Elizabeth Kolbert; https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/field-notes-from-a-catastrophe-9781620409886/