With some notable exceptions see the accompanying biographies the career paths of Hans Landsberg and Sam Schurr diverged in some significant ways, as I ll note momentarily. (Never mind the personality angle: Hans, the raconteur, with an extraverted side; Sam, more low key and reserved.) Even so,...

Satellite solar power (SSP) has been suggested as an alternative to terrestrial energy resources for electricity generation. In this study, we consider the market for electricity from the present to 2020, roughly the year when many experts expect SSP to be technically achievable. We identify...

This paper looks at the status and prospects of renewables—with particular emphasis on windpower—in the electric power sector. Although renewables account for a steadily rising share of electricity generation in various countries, their role remains small in absolute terms. In part, this is...

Labor productivity in U.S. coal mining increased at an average annual rate of slightly over four percent during the past 45 years. This report examines key factors contributing to that record - particularly, technological innovation in both surface and underground mining and concurrent...

This paper first describes trends and future predictions of factors that determine U.S. dependence on oil and oil imports. We then review evidence on the oil premium, that is, the extent to which the costs to the United States as a whole from extra oil consumption may exceed the private costs to...

In this paper we develop a cost index–based measure of the expected consumer welfare gains from innovation in electricity generation technologies. To illustrate our approach, we estimate how much better off consumers would be from 2000 to 2020 as renewable energy technologies continue to be...

This study provides an evaluation of the performance of five renewable energy technologies used to generate electricity: biomass, geothermal, solar photovoltaics, solar thermal, and wind. The authors compared the actual performance of these technologies against stated projections that helped...