Hannah Girardeau (Duke University Energy Access Project) and Jonathan Phillips (Duke University Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions) discuss how taxes on imported solar equipment in sub-Saharan African countries has a substantial impact because more people in Africa rely on solar technology as the only source of electricity. In some African markets, taxes on imported solar equipment is as much as 40%.

Researchers connected with Duke's Energy Data Analytics Lab and Applied Machine Learning Lab, working in partnership with the World Resources Institute, are among five finalist teams in the GBDX for Sustainability Challenge.  For the next two months, each finalist team will have access to Digital Globe's geospatial big data platform (GBDX) and 100+ petabyte image library, one of the largest collections of satellite imagery data available to the public or private sectors. In April, judges will review their progress and select an overall winner. The Duke/World Resources Institute team will undertake a project using high-resolution satellite imagery and computer vision to build an open database of global power plants.

In an interview with WBUR On Point, Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions Water Policy Program director Martin Doyle discusses that rich history featured in his new book “The Source: How Rivers Made America and America Remade Its Rivers."

Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions Climate and Energy Program director Kate Konschnik and her co-author Sarah Jordaan write in The Conversation that a North American Methane Reduction Framework to coordinate regulations, voluntary industry actions and scientific developments in methane estimation and mitigation could help bridge the divide between science and policy. 

A ClimateWire feature story focused on former CEO of Duke Energy Corp Jim Rogers's work to distribute solar lights and other clean energy devices in developing nations quotes Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions Tim Profeta and mentions a new Energy Access Project at Duke University.

The oil industry and scholars are trying to figure out a way to cut potent methane emissions without harming the energy industry or the environment. They also need to keep alive an agreement among U.S., Mexico, and Canada to curb the emissions, or find an alternative.

Atmospheric methane concentrations continue to increase globally, despite a pledge in 2016 from the leaders of the United States, Canada, and Mexico to reduce methane emissions from each country's oil and gas sector.

"Why is it,” Martin Doyle, director of the Water Policy Program at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and author of the new book "The Source: How Rivers Made America and America Remade Its Rivers" asks, “that sewers are often at the cutting edge in finance?”

Subhrendu Pattanayak (faculty director of Duke University's new Energy Access Project, among other roles) spoke at a January 2018 Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium on Economics, Environment & Sustainable Development, organized by the National Academy of Sciences. His talk focused on air pollution and its health and economic outcomes in Indonesia.

In The Economist, the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions John Virdin writes about new ways of bridging the fisheries finance gap.