Solar energy systems purchased in the United States have increased tenfold since 2010. As solar photovoltaics (PV) markets expand, solar energy becomes more affordable. In the last five years, the price of solar has decreased by 40 percent. Despite solar PV becoming more affordable and rising consumer demand, between 50...
The benefits of electrification are widely discussed in energy and development literature, but little research to date has studied the impacts of household electricity access on women in particular. Women make up the majority of the world’s poor and are also disproportionately affected by energy poverty because of their social...
There are currently 43 countries which have adopted some kind of carbon pricing policy – either adopted a carbon tax or entered a cap–and–trade, while the remaining countries have not. This has created significant diversity in the world with regard to climate change mitigation. There is thus a need to...
The last decade has seen a drastic interest in microgrids throughout the world. Even though this trend might seem to be just another technological solution in the energy sector, it is a part of a greater transition from a centralized energy system to a more decentralized one. However, unlike most...
Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world with 35% of its people live below the poverty line. 70% of Afghans have no access to electricity, and 90% of those without electricity live in the rural areas. Since 2002, more than $4 billion have been spent on Afghanistan’s...
The research conducted here originated with the question of what caused the massive build-up of nuclear arsenals, which included ever larger and more powerful bombs and delivery systems from them, in the United States and the Soviet Union, even though the consensus beforehand was that nuclear energy should be prohibited...
Nuclear energy enjoyed widespread support in the United States during its initial decades and has seen extensive study as a potential means of combating contemporary energy issues such as climate change and alternative transportation fuels. Despite the potential contribution to solving these challenges, the industry has been largely stagnant since...
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), a group formed in 1960 and often blamed for the oil shock of 1973, is treated as a cartel that aims to limit oil production and hold oil price at a level above market equilibrium. Recent research has offered a counter theory that...
Researchers and policy-makers interested in assessing public communication to better inform the decision-making process are increasingly utilizing data harvested from social media. Twitter is one of the largest online sources of near-instantaneous information about a myriad of topics socially relevant in the public sphere. Renewable energy (RE) is a socially...
Cities of the world today house more than half the world’s population, contribute to 80 percent of the global GDP, consume approximately 70 percent of the global energy and produce 70 percent of the greenhouse gases produced worldwide (Floater et al., 2014; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014). City governments...