Stanford University

16th Annual Coaltrans Asia

Richard Morse led a presentation on China's long term coal import/export balance at the 16th Annual Coaltrans Asia 3-day conference in Indonesia.  A few topics he addressed were:

  • Is the world's largest coal producer on the verge of becoming a net-importer?
  • Import price spreads
  • How and why China's government may intervene in the coal markets
  • Domestic market reform and investment

Coaltrans Conferences organises large-scale international coal conferences which attract delegates from all over the world. It also runs focused regional events, exhibitions, field trips and training courses. It has a reputation for employing the highest organisational standards. In 2010, Coaltrans is running events in Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Singapore, South Africa, The Netherlands, The UK, The US, and Vietnam.

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Bali International Convention Centre, Indonesia

Richard K. Morse Speaker
Conferences

Energy Working Group Talk: The Role of the Private Sector in the Diffusion of Improved Cookstoves

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Visiting Assistant Professor Gireesh Shrimali from the Indian School of Business will be presenting work currently in progress at PESD: An examination of the role of the private sector in the diffusion of improved cookstoves through a comparative case study of private-sector commercial operations.  In particular, he will present relevant background, the methodology used in our research, and some preliminary results.

More than 2.4 billion people worldwide rely on traditional biomass for cooking, leading to negative health effects, lost productivity, and environmental harm. Improved cookstoves burn fuel more efficiently, requiring less fuel and resulting in decreased emissions.  Yet after more than twenty five years of effort, mainly by governments and NGOs, there has been little progress in disseminating such stoves more widely. Such programs have generally been less successful than anticipated due to issues of sustainability of subsidies, stove design, marketing and adoption of new stove products and scale of effort.  Increasingly, for-profit models run by the private sector are seen as potential solutions to these problems.  However, the participation of the private sector raises its own set of questions regarding how viable business enterprises can be created to serve lower income consumers.

Stanford University

Gireesh Shrimali Assistant Professor Speaker Energy & Sustainable Development, Centre for Emerging Markets Solutions, Indian School of Business
Seminars

PESD invited to World Bank meeting on CDM reform

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Researcher Richard K. Morse attended a World Bank consultation focusing on finding solutions to problems in the global carbon market (CDM). The meeting took place in Frankfurt on May 4th where Richard presented recent PESD research findings from working paper #90 "Making Carbon Offsets Work in the Developing World: Lessons from the Chinese Wind Controversy," and proposed possible policy options for carbon market reform.
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PESD releases new Working Paper titled "Adapting to Shifting Government Priorities: An Assessment of the Performance and Strategy of India's ONGC

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The state-owned company Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) is India's largest company devoted to exploration and production (E&P). This paper attempts to unpack the dynamic of the government-ONGC relationship. Focusing specifically on how government ownership and control has influenced ONGC's performance and strategy, this paper makes four main arguments.

First, ONGC exists, just as with national oil companies in many other countries, because of a legacy of suspicion about outsiders.  It performed well when it was tasked with things that were not that difficult and when it had help for the more difficult ventures, such as frontier E&P and development.

Second, ONGC has run into trouble as it matured, and the roots of its troubles are mainly in its interactions with the GoI and secondarily in its management.

Third, a slew of reforms instituted since the mid 1990s have fundamentally changed the landscape of the E&P sector in India and the dynamic of government-ONGC relationship. Targeted at improving corporate governance, enhancing competition in E&P, and eliminating price controls, those reforms have had a mixed impact on ONGC's performance and strategy. They also highlight the difficulties the government has had in encouraging higher efficiencies in ONGC and the oil and gas sector.

Fourth, given the deep interconnects of the oil and gas sector with India's political economy, fixing the oil and gas sector essentially entails fixing the larger political economy within which the sector is embedded.

 

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India and Climate Change

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UCLA School of Law
Los Angeles, California

Varun Rai

616 Serra St.
Encina Hall E419
Stanford, CA 94305

(650) 724-1714 (650) 724-1717
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Research Fellow
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Varun's research focuses on technologies and policies for carbon capture and storage (CCS), technological innovation and diffusion, and the technology and energy policy of India. He leads the carbon capture and storage (CCS) research at PESD.
 
He received his Ph.D. and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford with specialization in energy systems and technologies. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur.

Varun Rai Panelist
Workshops

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS): Creating a Framework for U.S.-China Cooperation on Climate and Energy

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PESD researcher Gang He is invited to the Asia Society and Center for American Progress's roundtable Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS): Creating a Framework for U.S.-China Cooperation on Climate and Energy to discuss core policy, financing, and technological and intellectual property rights questions that need to be addressed between China and the U.S. over a commercial-scale, demonstration CCS plant in China.

This joint initiative by Asia Society and the Center for American Progress aims to bring together key stakeholders for a lively discussion with the objective of producing a document that lays the framework for both countries to cooperate on the joint research, development and deployment of one or more pilot CCS facilities in China.

Center for American Progress
1225 Eye Street NW 3rd Floor
Washington D.C., 20001

Gang He

616 Serra St.
E420 Encina Hall
Stanford, CA 94305

(650) 725-4249 (650) 724-1717
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Research Associate
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Gang He's work focuses on China's energy and climate change policy, carbon capture and sequestration, domestic coal and power sectors and their key role in both the global coal market and in international climate policy framework.  He also studies other issues related to energy economics and modeling, global climate change and the development of lower-carbon energy sources. 

Prior to joining PESD, he was with the World Resources Institute as a Cynthia Helms Fellow.  He has also worked for the Global Roundtable on Climate Change of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. With his experiences both in US and China, he has been actively involved in the US-China collaboration on energy and climate change. 

Mr. He received an M.A. from Columbia University on Climate and Society, B.S. from Peking University on Geography, and he is currently doing a PhD in the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley.

Gang He Speaker
Workshops

Guest Lecture: China’s Coal and Power Conflict and Its Broad Impacts

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PESD researcher Gang He will be guest lecturing in Stanford University's China Energy System course on China's coal and power conflict and its broad impacts on Chinese energy and climate policy.  He will discuss the most important feature in China's energy market - coal and power conflict, explain why there is a conflict and how it come into being, and analyze the broad impacts of the conflict on deploying CCS at scale and applying CDM in the Chinese power market.  Gang will also highlight some possible solutions to the coal and power conflict in China's energy market.

China Energy System(CEE 276F) is a directed readings course that studies the energy resources and policies in use and under development in the world's most populous nation.  As a country undergoing rapid and sustained economic growth, China's decisions as to how to meet its energy requirements will affect global energy markets and impact the global environment.  This course focuses on the areas of major impact that are forecast and will present a comparative analysis of China's energy management strategies.

Y2E2 111

Gang He

616 Serra St.
E420 Encina Hall
Stanford, CA 94305

(650) 725-4249 (650) 724-1717
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Research Associate
Gang.jpg

Gang He's work focuses on China's energy and climate change policy, carbon capture and sequestration, domestic coal and power sectors and their key role in both the global coal market and in international climate policy framework.  He also studies other issues related to energy economics and modeling, global climate change and the development of lower-carbon energy sources. 

Prior to joining PESD, he was with the World Resources Institute as a Cynthia Helms Fellow.  He has also worked for the Global Roundtable on Climate Change of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. With his experiences both in US and China, he has been actively involved in the US-China collaboration on energy and climate change. 

Mr. He received an M.A. from Columbia University on Climate and Society, B.S. from Peking University on Geography, and he is currently doing a PhD in the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley.

Gang He Speaker
Lectures

Patrick R. P. Heller

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(212) 547-6987
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Patrick R. P. Heller is a Legal Analyst at the Revenue Watch Institute, where he conducts research and provides policy analysis on legal and contractual regimes governing oil and mineral revenue.  He has worked in the developing world for ten years, for organizations including the U.S. State Department, USAID, the Asian Development Bank, and the International Center for Transitional Justice.  At Revenue Watch, Patrick focuses on governance and oversight of oil sectors, the role of National Oil Companies, transparency, and the promotion of government-citizen dialogue.  He has worked and conducted research in more than 15 developing countries, including Angola, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Peru, and Lebanon.  He has worked extensively with the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development at Stanford University, where he is a contributing author to an upcoming book on the strategy and performance of National Oil Companies.  He holds a law degree from Stanford University and a master's degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Research Affiliate

PESD researcher Varun Rai to speak at UCLA School of Law's India and Climate Change conference

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The UCLA School of Law’s India and Climate Change conference will be held on Friday, April 9, 2010.

PESD researcher Varun Rai will be a panelist on the challenges for domestic progress in India on climate and energy questions along with Ann Carlson (UCLA School of Law), Anjali Jaiswal (NRDC), and Armin Rosencranz (Stanford University).

This event will bring together non-profit groups, policy analysts, and legal and political science scholars working both in the U.S. and in India on climate change issues for an all-day symposium examining how India will affect, and be affected by, climate change.  Panels will focus on promising routes for engaging with India post-Copenhagen; challenges for domestic progress in India on climate and energy; and the intersection of international trade law and climate questions in India-US relations.

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