Laura Diaz Anadon
Associate Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; Director, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group; Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy
Member of the Board,, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Contact:
Telephone: (617) 384-7325
Fax: (617) 495-8963
Email: laura_diaz_anadon@harvard.edu
NEAMS/DOE Photo
2012
"Expert Judgments about RD&D and the Future of Nuclear Energy"
Journal Article, Environmental Science and Technology, issue 12, volume 46
By Laura Diaz Anadon, Associate Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; Director, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group; Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, Valentina Bosetti, Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom, Michela Catenacci and Audrey Lee, Former Research Fellow, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group, 2009–2011
Probabilistic estimates of the cost and performance of future nuclear energy systems under different scenarios of government research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) spending were obtained from 30 U.S. and 30 European nuclear technology experts. The majority expected that such RD&D would have only a modest effect on cost, but would improve performance in other areas, such as safety, waste management, and uranium resource utilization. The U.S. and E.U. experts were in relative agreement regarding how government RD&D funds should be allocated, placing particular focus on very high temperature reactors, sodium-cooled fast reactors, fuels and materials, and fuel cycle technologies.
AP Photo
December 2012
"Missions-oriented RD&D Institutions in Energy Between 2000 and 2010: A Comparative Analysis of China, the United Kingdom, and the United States"
Journal Article, Research Policy, issue 10, volume 41
By Laura Diaz Anadon, Associate Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; Director, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group; Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy
By analyzing the institutions that have been created to stimulate energy technology innovation in the United States, the United Kingdom, and China—three countries with very different sizes, political systems and cultures, natural resources, and histories of involvement in the energy sector—this article highlights how variations in national objectives and industrial and political environments have translated into variations in policy.
AP Photo
July 2012
"A New Case for Promoting Wastewater Reuse in Saudi Arabia: Bringing Energy into the Water Equation"
Journal Article, Journal of Environmental Management, volume 102
By Arani Kajenthira, Associate, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, Afreen Siddiqi, Visting Scholar, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program and Laura Diaz Anadon, Associate Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; Director, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group; Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy
Saudi Arabia is the third-largest per capita water user worldwide and has addressed the disparity between its renewable water resources and domestic demand primarily through desalination and the abstraction of non-renewable groundwater. This study evaluates the potential costs of this approach in the industrial and municipal sectors, exploring economic, energy, and environmental costs (including CO2 emissions and possible coastal impacts). Although the energy intensity of desalination is a global concern, it is particularly urgent to rethink water supply options in Saudi Arabia because the entirety of its natural gas production is consumed domestically, primarily in petrochemical and desalination plants.
AP Photo
May 2012
"The Price of Wind Power in China During its Expansion: Technology Adoption, Learning-by-doing, Economies of Scale, and Manufacturing Localization"
Journal Article, Energy Economics, issue 3, volume 34
By Yueming Qiu and Laura Diaz Anadon, Associate Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; Director, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group; Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy
Using the bidding prices of participants in China's national wind project concession programs from 2003 to 2007, this paper built up a learning curve model to estimate the joint learning from learning-by-doing and learning-by-searching, with a novel knowledge stock metric based on technology adoption in China through both domestic technology development and international technology transfer. The paper describes, for the first time, the evolution of the price of wind power in China, and provides estimates of how technology adoption, experience building wind farm projects, wind turbine manufacturing localization, and wind farm economies of scale have influenced the price of wind power.
March 2012
"A Collaboratively-Derived Science-Policy Research Agenda"
Journal Article, PLoS ONE, issue 3, volume 7
By William J. Sutherland, Laura Bellingan, Jim R. Bellingham, Jason J. Blackstock, Robert M. Bloomfield, Michael Bravo, Victoria M. Cadman, David D. Cleevely, Andy Clements, Anthony S. Cohen, David R. Cope, Arthur A. Daemmrich, Former Research Fellow, Science, Technology and Public Policy Program, 1998–2000, Simon Denegri, Cristina Devecchi, Laura Diaz Anadon, Associate Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; Director, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group; Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, Robert Doubleday, Former Research Fellow, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, 2000–2001, Nicholas R. Dusic, Robert J. Evans, Wai Y. Feng, H. Charles J. Godfray, Paul Harris, Sue E. Hartley, Alison J. Hester, John Holmes, Alan Hughes, Mike Hulme, Colin Irwin, Richard C. Jennings, Gary S. Kass, Peter Littlejohns, Theresa M. Marteau, Glenn McKee, Erik P. Millstone, William J. Nuttall, Susan Owens, Miles M. Parker, Sarah Pearson, Judith Petts, Richard Ploszek, Andrew S. Pullin, Graeme Reid, Keith S. Richards, John G. Robinson, Louise Shaxson, Leonor Sierra, Beck G. Smith, David J. Spiegelhalter, Jack Stilgoe, Andy Stirling, Christopher P. Tyler, David E. Winickoff, Former Research Fellow, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, 2002–2003 and Ron L. Zimmern
The need for policymakers to understand science and for scientists to understand policy processes is widely recognized. However, the science-policy relationship is sometimes difficult and occasionally dysfunctional; it is also increasingly visible, because it must deal with contentious issues, or itself becomes a matter of public controversy, or both. Laura Diaz Anadon and her coauthors suggest that identifying key unanswered questions on the relationship between science and policy will catalyse and focus research in this field.
August 2011
"The Water–Energy Nexus in Middle East and North Africa"
Journal Article, Energy Policy, issue 6, volume 39
By Afreen Siddiqi, Visting Scholar, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program and Laura Diaz Anadon, Associate Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; Director, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group; Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy
Extracting, delivering, and disposing water requires energy, and similarly, many processes for extracting and refining various fuel sources and producing electricity use water. This so-called 'water–energy nexus', is important to understand due to increasing energy demands and decreasing freshwater supplies in many areas. This paper performs a country-level quantitative assessment of this nexus in the MENA region.
AP Photo
Fall 2009
"Transforming Energy Innovation"
Journal Article, Issues in Science and Technology
By Venkatesh "Venky" Narayanamurti, Benjamin Peirce Professor of Technology and Public Policy; Professor of Physics, Harvard; Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; Co-Principal Investigator, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group, Laura Diaz Anadon, Associate Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; Director, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group; Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy and Ambuj D. Sagar, Associate, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program
"The United States must change the way it produces and uses energy by shifting away from its dependence on imported oil and coal-fired electricity and by increasing the efficiency with which energy is extracted, captured, converted, and used if it is to meet the urgent challenges facing the energy system, of which climate change and energy security are the most pressing. This will require the improvement of current technologies and the development of new transformative ones, particularly if the transition to a new energy system is going to be timely and cost-effective."
November 21, 2011
Transforming U.S. Energy Innovation Video
Media Feature
By Laura Diaz Anadon, Associate Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; Director, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group; Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy and Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom
An interview with Laura D. Anadon and Matthew Bunn, two of the authors of Transforming U.S. Energy Innovation (8 minutes).
Martha Stewart
Spring 2009
"Preliminary Policy Recommendations for Enhancing Energy Innovation in the U.S."
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
By Laura Diaz Anadon, Associate Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; Director, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group; Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom, Kelly Sims Gallagher, Senior Associate, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group and Charles Jones, Associate, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group
The Obama administration and the 111th Congress face enormous challenges and opportunities in tackling the pressing security, economic, and environmental problems posed by the energy sector in the United States and worldwide. Improving the technologies of energy supply and end-use is a prerequisite for surmounting these challenges in a timely and cost-effective way. This article is adapted from the executive summary of the Belfer Center Energy Technology Innovation Policy (ETIP) report, "Tackling U.S. Energy Challenges and Opportunities," by Laura Diaz Anadon, Kelly Sims Gallagher, Matthew Bunn, and Charles Jones.
AP Photo
September 28, 2010
"Expert Elicitation of Cost, Performance, and RD&D Budgets for Coal Power with CCS"
Paper
By Gabe Chan, Research Fellow, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group, Laura Diaz Anadon, Associate Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program; Director, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group; Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, Melissa Chan, Former Research Fellow, Energy Research, Development, Demonstration & Deployment Policy Project, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group, January 2009–December 2010 and Audrey Lee, Former Research Fellow, Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group, 2009–2011
There is uncertainty about the ex-ante returns to research, development, and demonstration programs in the United States on carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology. To quantify this uncertainty, we conducted a written expert elicitation of thirteen experts in fossil power and CCS technologies from the government, academia, and the private sector. We asked experts to provide their recommended budget and allocation of RD&D funds by specific fossil power and CCS technology and type of RD&D activity (i.e. basic research, applied research, pilot plants, and demonstration plants) for the United States....On average, experts estimated that if their recommended RD&D portfolio was implemented, the capital cost of new coal plants with CCS in 2030 would decrease by 10% in addition to the cost reductions/increases that would occur by 2030 through non-public RD&D related factors.
