Resources Radio

For this week’s episode, we’re mixing things up a bit by introducing not just an individual guest or two, but an entirely new podcast series for our listeners to consider. Just a few weeks ago, one of Resources for the Future’s closest partner organizations in Europe, the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change, launched its own podcast series called “Foresight: Deep into the Future Planet.” W...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Michael Craig, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan who studies energy systems. Craig and Raimi discuss a recent study coauthored by Craig that explores how energy models can better incorporate variations in weather and climate and why an exchange of data between energy and climate modelers is crucial to helping keep the lights o...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Dick Schmalensee, a professor emeritus of the MIT Sloan School of Management and a former chair of the board of directors at Resources for the Future. Schmalensee and Raimi cover the takeaways from a recent study on the future of energy storage that Schmalensee coauthored, along with related insights and implications for current and future polic...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Elke Weber, a social psychology professor at Princeton University who studies how people make choices. Weber and Raimi discuss how people’s choices matter for climate change; the ways that companies, governments, and society shape decisions on energy use and civic engagement; how those decisions get incorporated into policy analysis; and more. R...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Regan Patterson, an incoming assistant professor at UCLA who recently completed a fellowship as a Transportation Equity Research Fellow at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. Patterson describes how the US transportation system has led to environmental injustice and inequitable access to mobility services. She and Raimi talk about how thi...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Bobby Tudor, the chair of the Houston Energy Transition Initiative and the founder and former CEO of the Houston-based investment and merchant bank Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. In his new role with the Houston Energy Transition Initiative, Tudor focuses on how Houston can take the lead in the energy transition away from fossil fuels. He and Raim...

This week’s episode is the final installment of a three-part series that celebrates the 70th anniversary of Resources for the Future (RFF). In this episode, host Daniel Raimi looks toward the future of RFF, as seen through the eyes of the organization’s talented and dedicated research analysts and associates. RFF’s research analysts gather and analyze data, review published studies, help write pap...

This week’s episode is the second in a three-part series that celebrates the 70th anniversary of Resources for the Future (RFF). First and foremost, RFF is a research organization—which means that it’s typically the researchers who are the focus of the work and attention at RFF. But on one fateful day, “Resources Radio” podcast hosts Kristin Hayes and Daniel Raimi did something pretty different fr...

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...

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 E...

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...

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 stu...

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 diff...

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;...

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 t...

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 cli...

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 r...

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 eco...

In this episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Danielle Spiegel-Feld, executive director of the Guarini Center on Environmental, Energy and Land Use Law at New York University. Spiegel-Feld discusses a paper she recently coauthored, which explores how a carbon trading system could be implemented in the buildings sector—the largest source of carbon emissions in the city—to help reach New York’s deca...

In this episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Dallas Burtraw, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future and chair of California’s Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee (IEMAC), a body that was created by legislation to help the state of California examine and refine its cap-and-trade program for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. California’s climate policy success matters on a global...

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Luis Sarmiento, a postdoctoral researcher at RFF’s sister institution in Italy, the RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment. Sarmiento recently coauthored a working paper that explores the air pollution impacts of Uber across the United States. The study aims to clarify the environmental consequences of ridesharing companie...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Glenn Hubbard, dean emeritus and Russell L. Carson Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia University’s business school, and a member of the board of directors at Resources for the Future. Hubbard shares insights from his new book, “The Wall and the Bridge: Fear and Opportunity in Disruption’s Wake,” which is about the role of economics i...

In this episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Kate Konschnik, a former senior lecturer at Duke University Law School who recently joined the Biden administration. Konschnik describes RTOGov, a research initiative that aims to evaluate how decisions are made in US electricity markets and the overlooked importance of regional transmission organizations (RTOs) in the electricity sector. Konschnik and...

In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Kyle Meng, an associate professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Meng discusses California’s ongoing economic transition away from oil production and refining, the need for policies that reduce oil production and consumption across the state over the next couple decades, and the challenges involved in making related legislative...

In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Rodney Rowland, the director of facilities and environmental sustainability at Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. As his job title indicates, one of Rowland’s main responsibilities at the museum is to focus on environmental sustainability. He’s helping to implement a proactive adaptation strategy for the facilities at Strawber...