Daniel Sperling, founding director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis, has been named one of fifteen Sacramento locals “involved in essential work on mitigating greenhouse-gas emissions” by Sacramento News & Review.

Dr. Sperling was described by Sacramento News & Review as “an international leader in the field of alternative transportation fuels” and as someone who “knows well that transportation is the source of a massive 40 percent of California’s contribution to climate change.” His research in the fields of alternative transportation and fuels, as well as his work on policies such as AB 32, which “created the country’s toughest low-carbon fuel standard for California,” have earned him a top spot on the list of Sacramento’s most influential climate changers.

While his outlook for climate change in the future may seem bleak, he speaks with an optimism that reveals his passion and confidence in his work: “Humans are very creative and resourceful. If humans get focused on a task, I have confidence that we’ll dramatically reduce carbon emissions,” says Sperling.

For more information, read the full article here: http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/climate-changers/content?oid=8569198

A UC Davis report documents industry response since 2011 to California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), one of several state policies targeting greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions. The report finds that industry exceeded LCFS requirements for 2011 and the first quarter of 2012 by a substantial margin, though the requirements for the first few years of the LCFS program are rather modest.

“Status Review of California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) 2011- August 2012” by UC Davis researchers Sonia Yeh and Julie Witcover, starts a planned series. Each status review will examine how industry is complying with the regulation and will analyze credit trades and prices. Each report will address a special topic; for this initial report, the special topic is the effect of the 2012 summer drought, the nation’s worst in half a century, on LCFS compliance.

Yeh, who leads the UC Davis LCFS research team, says this report aims to provide as much information as possible about the performance of this important state policy and is useful for policy makers and stakeholders in California, the United States and beyond.

“Our initial findings indicate that companies are responding to the state policy, and the low-carbon fuel market in California is growing,” Yeh says. “The question is how fast and at what scale companies will respond as the requirements are strengthened over time.”

Witcover adds that the LCFS is designed to be transparent.

“Getting data about LCFS performance into the public realm is key to meeting that important goal,” she says.

Adopted in 2009, California’s LCFS is a performance-based regulation that requires the state’s transportation fuel providers, such as oil producers and importers, to reduce incrementally the carbon intensity of their fuels starting in 2011. It phases in gradually with small reductions required in the early years and grows more stringent, requiring a 10 percent reduction, by 2020.

“The gradual carbon intensity reduction built into the standard is one reason companies are able to exceed the goal in these early years,” Yeh notes. Excess credits generated now can help companies meet requirements in later years.

Among the status report’s key findings are the following:

• Companies required to meet the LCFS exceeded the standard’s carbon reduction targets for each quarter of 2011 and for the first quarter of 2012.
• Based on available data, the average compliance cost in August 2012 was $13 per equivalent metric ton of carbon (MT CO2e), adding about a tenth of a penny per gallon to the production cost of gasoline.
• Summer drought increased costs of corn ethanol, but the full impact of the drought on California LCFS compliance and compliance costs will not be known for some time.

The European Union and the Canadian province of British Columbia have adopted policies modeled after California’s LCFS. Other U.S. states are considering adopting LCFS-like policies to incentivize long-term emission reduction in the transportation sector.

Yeh also co-directs the National LCFS Project, which last summer released a series of reports on the prospects of a national LCFS policy.  Witcover is an ITS-Davis postdoctoral researcher working on indirect land use effects of biofuels policy. The analysis was conducted under a UC Davis research contract with the California Air Resources Board.

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto/Thinkstock

By Jamie Knapp • J Knapp Communications

After 15 years, Professor Pat Mokhtarian is stepping aside as chair of the Graduate Group in Transportation Technology and Policy (TTP).

“It’s healthy to say, ‘it’s someone else’s turn,’” says the modest professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, who was the founding chair and has led TTP as chair and graduate advisor.

Mokhtarian, who has provided strategic direction for the graduate group, guided its students and tracked the day-to-day administrative needs, will stay on as graduate advisor. She also remains as associate director for education at ITS-Davis.

Since the unique, multidisciplinary program was approved by the UC Office of the President in February 1997, UC Davis has awarded 80 master’s degrees and 36 Ph.D.s in TTP. Roughly 10 to 15 new students enroll each year.

Even though five students were waiting to enroll from day one, Mokhtarian says it has been tricky to promote the program because its offerings don’t fit neatly into traditional academic categories. Most university graduate transportation programs focus on hard-core engineering studies, or constitute a specialization within a discipline such as economics or geography.

“In most graduate fields there are clear channels from which to recruit undergrads and places you advertise your program to prospective graduate students,” she says. “But because our program is so diverse, there is no efficient way to reach our potential market.”

TTP has relied heavily on word of mouth, drawing students from academic backgrounds as varied as English, history, psychology, geography, marketing, government and sociology, in addition to more common paths including engineering and economics. That diversity, says Mokhtarian, is the key to TTP’s success.

“TTP, by design, was made available to any grad student of any major whatsoever,” she says. “That’s our secret weapon. The fact that we have these different students all working together, socializing and educating their geeky engineering professors with multidisciplinary perspectives, has created research teams and products and ideas that wouldn’t have happened anywhere else. And that makes us unique and exciting.”

Mokhtarian credits ITS-Davis Director Dan Sperling for proposing and gaining university approval of TTP.

“I think Dan and I make a great team. He has the ideas and the vision. I have complementary skills and some inclination for day-to-day management and organization. You need both.”

Sperling returns the compliment.

“Pat has been an extraordinary leader and mentor. Her commitment and focus have elevated TTP into a premier graduate program.”

Mokhtarian says TTP received a fortuitous boost early on from the prestigious five-year National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) grant, which she led. IGERT provided fellowships for TTP students and other transportation students across campus. It enabled UC Davis to compete for outstanding graduate students who otherwise might have been attracted to a more traditional engineering school.

Looking forward, Mokhtarian sees a need and an opportunity for TTP to strengthen both its technology and its policy offerings.

“It’s ironic that our technology students think we overemphasize the policy side and our policy students think we overemphasize the technology side,” Mokhtarian notes. The students’ perceptions point to a need for additional lab space and technically oriented faculty, and for a stronger presence in urban planning, economics, integrated land use and transportation modeling, she says.

She also looks forward to having more time to devote to her travel behavior research and her students. She currently advises nine students.

“I wouldn’t trade my interactions with students for anything. My legacy is in the lives of the students that I advise and teach, and in the training I give so they can be well-equipped, critical thinkers.”

Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor John Harvey has agreed to be the new TTP chair. In passing the baton, Mokhtarian says she is looking forward to a new era of growth and development for TTP.

“John is just the right person to carry us forward at this time.”

Photo: Professor Pat Mokhtarian with her graduate students, November 2012 (Dorian Toy – UC Davis)

By Jamie Knapp • J Knapp Communications

Lew Fulton, a highly respected researcher on international transport and energy policy, has joined ITS-Davis as co-director of NextSTEPS, the Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways research consortium.

Fulton, an expert in transportation energy policy and global energy transition modeling, has just moved to Davis from Paris, where he led the transport technology team of the International Energy Agency (IEA), and spent the past year as head of the Energy Technology Policy Division. Fulton enjoyed an unusually long research career at the renowned global energy think tank, serving multiple five-year terms (1999-2005 and 2007-2012), and helping to publish numerous major reports, such as the Energy Technology Perspectives series.

His time at the IEA was interspersed with two years (2005-2006) working in Kenya with the United Nations Environment Program. Fulton previously worked for the U.S. Department of Energy and at the Independent University in Bangladesh in the early to mid-1990s. He received his Ph.D. in Energy Management and Environmental Policy from the University of Pennsylvania in 1994.

Having lived overseas for the better part of two decades, mostly in Paris, Fulton acknowledges the move to Davis has required a few cultural adjustments, like dining before 8 p.m. and shifting from Metro rides to biking for most trips. He’s also adjusting to the weather.

“In Paris, they say it will stop raining in about three weeks. Here, they say it will start raining in about three weeks.”

Fulton takes these changes in stride since his work fulfills more pressing needs.

“I’m a futurist and I like to think globally. I’m interested in the changes we need to make to our transport systems in order to meet our goals. We’re almost out of time to meet certain targets in 2050 – for example, limiting the increase in global temperatures to only 2 degrees Celsius.  And there are still many unanswered questions.”

NextSTEPS, which is dedicated to examining the pathways and transitions to a sustainable transportation energy future, is a perfect fit. As co-director, he will focus on strengthening the program’s international reach.

“At IEA we’ve been building up the Mobility Model, a globally consistent analytical framework for keeping track of transport trends and progress around the world,” he notes. “I hope we can make good use of it here in NextSTEPS, as well.”

Likewise, he adds, some of the ITS-Davis modeling techniques might be applicable at a broader level. “I want to scale up the higher resolution, greater precision modeling work being done here to examine things globally.”

Fulton has been a leader in the Global Fuel Economy Initiative, whose objective is to promote further research, discussion and action to improve fuel economy worldwide. A consortium of research agencies and nongovernmental organizations, GFEI has recently helped Australia, India, and Mexico develop their own fuel economy policy frameworks. The GFEI has invited ITS-Davis to become its sixth partner, recognizing that the institute can bring to GFEI additional technical and analytical support and the potential for even more international collaborations and policy support for governments.

“We have the tools and the experience thinking through these thorny problems. We might want to partner with experts in other countries to bring to these countries our knowledge and experience in how to solve these global transport energy problems we face together.”

Fulton says he was drawn to ITS-Davis by its comprehensive and forward-looking approach to solving the world’s transportation challenges.

“The institute’s work is highly respected and very cutting edge,” Fulton says. “The group here is very influential – nationally and internationally – and that of course is very appealing to me as an energy researcher.”

He also was enticed by California’s leadership in transportation and energy policy.

“No other state gets the same attention globally. When I go to conferences around the world, often there’s a representative from a California agency or university because people want to hear what’s happening here.”

Finally, he says he was drawn to ITS-Davis by its people. He has developed strong relationships with the faculty and has enjoyed working with ITS-Davis graduate students who interned at IEA. Fulton and ITS-Davis Director Dan Sperling first collaborated when Sperling spent a year on sabbatical in Paris at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2000. Sperling is delighted to have finally lured Fulton to Davis.

“Lew’s unparalleled knowledge and expertise in so many aspects of global transportation, and his engagement with many international research initiatives, will help ITS-Davis broaden its reach and play an even greater role in global efforts to make transportation more sustainable.”

 

Additional reading:

Fulton, Lewis (co-author), Energy Technology Perspectives 2012: Pathways to a Clean Energy System. International Energy Agency, OECD/IEA, Paris, June 2012.
http://www.its.ucdavis.edu/?page_id=10063&pub_id=1717

Fulton, Lewis, François Cuenot and Alex Körner. Technology Roadmap: Fuel Economy of Road Vehicles. International Energy Agency, OECD/IEA, Paris, September 2012
http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/name,31269,en.html

Press release regarding ITS-Davis’s partnership with the Global Fuel Economy Initiative
http://www.globalfueleconomy.org/updates/2012/Pages/WorldleadinginstitutejoinsGFEI.aspx

 

Photo: Lew Fulton, an expert in transportation energy policy, has just moved to Davis from Paris, where he led the transport technology team of the International Energy Agency (IEA). Photo by Dorian Toy, UC Davis

By Jamie Knapp • J Knapp Communications

“If ever there was a time, it’s now,” says Amy Myers Jaffe, about the need to fashion a national energy policy that addresses both the growing insecurity of Middle East oil supply and the challenges of climate change. And now, Jaffe, one of the world’s foremost experts on the oil industry, has joined the University of California, Davis to help.

“We’re hurtling toward a crisis with the region that supplies much of the world’s oil and gas. We need different policies in the United States. California is in position to get it right and I was attracted to this job to help California lead us forward.”

The country is at a critical juncture, she says. “In the past, we had the desire but not the technology, or the will but not the necessity. Now we have all four.”

Today’s young people have the desire to transition to alternative forms of transportation and sustainable living. For the first time in decades, advances in automotive and fuel technologies present new and enticing options for meeting the new generation’s demands. The daily news headlines scream of the growing need. And decision-makers in California have the will.

“It’s important that we design a successful market system to propel and enhance adoption of these technologies; to do that we need the sellers of fuel and cars to cooperate,” Jaffe says.

She sees in UC Davis the potential to foster that cooperation and help build a successful system. Jaffe says she was drawn to UC Davis by its focus on sustainability and its interdisciplinary research on transportation and energy. She looks forward to the opportunity to work near California’s state capital, which is an international pioneer on environmental public policy.

“I believe UC Davis has made a substantial commitment to working on this issue, and I want to be part of it,” she says.

Jaffe, whose expertise spans oil geopolitics and strategic energy policy, including energy science and energy economics, has a joint appointment to ITS-Davis and the Graduate School of Management (GSM). At ITS-Davis she will lead fossil energy research in the NextSTEPS (Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways) Program. She will also be developing a new joint executive education program at GSM in collaboration with ITS-Davis, and developing energy research and educational programs at GSM.

The new position presents an opportunity for Jaffe to apply her expertise to the NextSTEPS multidisciplinary research consortium and tap her longstanding relationships with industry in a meaningful way. Her background as an energy analyst and communicator makes her a perfect fit for NextSTEPS. Its goal is to generate new insight about the sustainable transportation energy future and to disseminate that knowledge to decision-makers in industry and government so that they can make informed technology, investment and policy choices.

Both NextSTEPS and the new energy executive education program at GSM provide opportunities to explore the diverse perspectives of leaders in industry, academia, government and advocacy, and to engage them together in developing successful, sustainable state and national policies. Jaffe expects to contribute to and strengthen these well-established collaborations at UC Davis.

Jaffe has spent the past 16 years at Rice University, where she served as director of the Energy Forum at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. She was the Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Energy Studies, as well as associate director of the Rice Energy Program.

Jaffe is a frequent keynote speaker at major energy industry and investment conferences, and has testified on Capitol Hill on energy matters. She is a widely quoted commentator on oil and energy policy in the international media and appears regularly on TV and in print.

“Amy’s knowledge of the energy industry perfectly complements and enhances ITS-Davis’s global leadership and expertise on sustainable transportation,” said ITS-Davis Director Dan Sperling.

Jaffe began her career as a journalist and strengthened her understanding of the linkage between the Middle East and U.S. energy policy as senior editor and Middle East analyst for Petroleum Intelligence Weekly. Some may be surprised that she has excelled in academia, given her nontraditional background, but she finds common values between journalism and academic research: the pursuit of truth, the pursuit of knowledge, and a commitment to the public’s right to know. Jaffe bridges the two worlds; she understands economists and modelers who operate in an academic world and can apply their work in an approach that speaks to a broader audience.

One reason she is excited about coming to UC Davis is the opportunity to work with industry to “bring innovation into the business value chain at every level.”

The oil industry, she says, understands that it will have to promote and foster innovation to develop conventional and unconventional fuels to meet future energy needs. “Sustainability and community involvement will have to be front and center for the energy industry. And they can see that clearly now in light of recent failures such as the deep-sea Horizon disaster,” she says.

Industry today is looking for young people who can help it apply advanced, innovative new technologies, and interface with communities. “That’s why I’m optimistic.  We’re not going to sit in the dark, and we’re not going to not drive our cars. We need an army of young people who will help companies do the right thing,” and collaborations such as those underway at UC Davis ensure we’re headed in the right direction.

One of her most interesting – and among her favorite – activities at Rice, Jaffe says, was teaching an interdisciplinary sustainability class that draws students from engineering, social science, environmental science, policy studies, and business disciplines. The class involved team projects and a hands-on internship in the summer. In another class, on energy policy, students took on the role of OPEC ministers who have to influence the price of oil in the character of the country they represent. Jaffe says she hopes to lead similarly creative classes and seminars here and looks forward to educating not just students and the broader UC Davis community, but also industry.

Many of Jaffe’s colleagues in the energy industry were surprised to learn of her move to California because it signals a shift in her career focus away from the oil industry’s impact on foreign policy and economic security.

“It’s not that I’m abandoning writing about national security,” she responds. “It’s that these other elements – sustainability and energy – are what we need to be talking about for national security.”

More than one observer has pointed out the symbolism of her move, given the longstanding political rivalry between Texas and California, to which she replies that people need to stop thinking in anachronistic terms about what’s good for one state or region of the country over another.

“We’re all Americans,” she exclaims. “We’re facing the possibility of a giant crisis in the Middle East and we need to solve it for the sake of future generations without destroying the planet. It’s not partisan or regional. I’m seeking what’s going to work for our whole country.”

 

Further reading and viewing:

Jaffe has written extensively on the energy security implications of the Arab Spring and on the need for a clearly defined policy and trigger mechanism for releasing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Jaffe, Amy and Keily Miller, The Arab Awakening and the Pending Oil pinch, Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations,  http://www.bakerinstitute.org/publications/EF-pub-WhiteheadJaffeMillerArabAwakening-062912.pdf

Jaffe, Amy, America’s Real Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Foreign Policy
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/24/Saudi_Arabia_Strategic_Petroleum_Reserve

View Jaffe discuss energy subsidies and costs, and strategies for how we create renewables that don’t require subsidies at the New York Times Energy for Tomorrow Conference, April 2012. Jaffe’s introduction begins at about 8:00.
http://www.nytenergyfortomorrow.com/video.php

Jaffe talks about the expected price drop after Governor Brown directs the state’s Air Resources Board to allow the sale of what’s called winter gas on Capital Public Radio

http://ia601501.us.archive.org/21/items/Insight-121009/Insight-121009a.mp3

By Jamie Knapp • J Knapp Communications

Every year, the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies recognizes one Ph.D. dissertation and one master’s thesis as examples of the highest-quality research conducted by its graduate students. This year’s winners are Nathan Parker, 2011 Friends of ITS-Davis Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation award (right) and Geoff Morrison, 2011 Friends of ITS-Davis Outstanding Master’s Thesis award (left).

Parker received his Ph.D. in Transportation Technology and Policy in Jan. 2011 and is currently conducting postdoctoral research at UC Davis. His dissertation, “Modeling Future Biofuel Supply Chains using Spatially Explicit Infrastructure Optimization”, highlights a new approach for identifying how much, from where and at what cost biofuel could be produced to meet policy goals in the United States.

Parker’s dissertation advisors professors Joan Ogden and Bryan Jenkins wrote, “Nathan’s work has strong bearing on one of the most important energy policy debates in California and the United States: how to develop new, low carbon fuels for the transportation sector. His work is of high relevance to the state of California and the nation.”

Parker developed a comprehensive model that employed geospatial models to estimate the location and magnitude of biomass resources, engineering/economic models to replicate the bio-refinery supply, production and fuel delivery system, and sophisticated mathematical programming techniques combining these factors to find the best supply chain solutions.

“His success in developing this first-of-a-kind comprehensive model attests to his exceptional creativity and facility as a mathematical modeler,” his advisors wrote, adding that the multi-disciplinary nature of his work is one of its strong points. Parker’s methods have attracted wide attention in the energy and modeling communities, they added, and could be applicable internationally.

Morrison, an Agricultural and Resource Economics student, analyzed the commute habits of military personnel in his thesis, “Driving in Force: Why the U.S. Military Commutes by Automobile.” He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Transportation Technology and Policy.

Morrison found that military personnel are more likely to drive to work than civilian counterparts, even after controlling for typical predictors of travel behavior such as socio-economic, demographic, family, immigration, transit availability and built environment variables. The study also investigated incentives for driving to base such as discounted gasoline, free parking and lack of walkability.

Professor Cynthia Lin, chair of Morrison’s thesis committee wrote, “Geoff’s research has the potential to make an important impact on policy… his research could improve the cost-effectiveness of infrastructure decisions on bases, help reduce congestion at gates, promote more healthy lifestyles of service members, bolster the environmental image of the Department of Defense, and facilitate the development of carbon-neutral-alternative-energy solutions.”

The judging committee noted that Morrison’s work is unique. “The study is original and tackles a subject that has not been well researched,” members wrote.

A three-person committee of ITS-Davis faculty judges the thesis and dissertation entries on their originality, significance of findings, rigor and logic, completeness, quality and clarity. Winners receive a $1,500 award from the Friends of ITS-Davis fund.

 

Photo: Taken at Shields Library, at the Robert Arneson sculpture named “Bookhead” (1991), from the Egghead Series, in September 2012. Geoff Morrison is on left, Nathan Parker is on right. Photo by Sylvia Wright – UC Davis

By Jamie Knapp • J Knapp Communications

California, the state known for pioneering car-dependent cities, is aiming to transform vehicles and how they are used. It is adopting policies that will not only protect public health and the environment, but also cut air pollution, carbon emissions and oil use. California is blazing a new trail, providing a model for other state and national governments to follow.

In the journal Issues in Science and Technology, ITS-Davis Director Dan Sperling and California Air Resources Board Chairman Mary Nichols explain how California has become a leader in reducing motor vehicles’ carbon footprint and changing the way people travel.

Two political circumstances favor California’s climate policy leadership, Sperling and Nichols say. First, because of its history of unhealthy air pollution, the state has unique legal authority under the federal 1970 Clean Air Act to adopt its own more stringent motor vehicle emission standards. Second, the state’s political leaders have had the freedom to take decisive action, thanks to broad public support for environmental and clean-energy initiatives.

The result is a unique and comprehensive strategy of vehicle, fuel and mobility policies that present minimal cost to taxpayers, are largely performance-based, embrace and take advantage of market forces, and work together to cut carbon and other pollution from transportation.

California adopted its first – revolutionary – vehicle emissions standards in 1966 and 1970 in response to eye-stinging smog that plagued the Los Angeles air basin. It broke more ground in 1990 by adopting the controversial Zero Emission Vehicle mandate, a rule that has prevailed despite automaker opposition, lawsuits and multiple revisions. The California ZEV mandate is credited for inspiring the electric and hybrid cars now on roads around the globe today.

In 2004, California took another giant step when it adopted the nation’s first vehicle greenhouse gas rules, which have since become the model for federal GHG and fuel economy rules.

And in January of this year, the state Air Resources Board updated its entire suite of vehicle regulations. In contrast to earlier years, when industry opposed California’s vehicle emissions rules, automakers generally supported all the updated standards.

These actions serve as an international model for policies that address smog-forming and GHG emissions, Sperling and Nichols note. What’s more, California’s leadership has accelerated automotive investment worldwide, spurring a race to innovate body and powertrain designs.

California policy is also spurring a fuels innovation race. Sperling and Nichols explain how the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard provides a durable framework to transition transportation fuels away from high-carbon sources. The LCFS is a performance-based standard that applies to all transportation fuels and encourages competition in an open, transparent market. The LCFS is already stimulating investment in cleaner, lower-carbon fuels, despite legal challenges from the oil and ethanol industries.

California’s third approach to cutting transportation carbon involves mobility. Sperling and Nichols describe how California is trying to reverse its suburban sprawl development patterns and high vehicle usage. The state has set targets for local governments to reduce GHG emissions from passenger travel, encouraging them to change land-use policies, increase transit use, pursue new forms of efficient mobility services, and use pricing to reduce vehicle use. Once again the state is pioneering new ideas and approaches.

Even though California contributes only 2 percent of the world’s total GHG emissions, few countries have larger shares, so the state’s policy action is significant in its own right as well as being a model for other states and nations.

Sperling and Nichols conclude by suggesting that, although California’s top-down approach has worked, a bottom-up approach that directly engages individuals, businesses and local and regional governments is at least as important, if the results are to be sustainable.

Read this paper: Sperling, Daniel and Mary Nichols (2012) California’s Pioneering Transportation Strategy. Issues in Science and Technology Winter (2012), 59 – 66.

Learn more about California climate policy: Sperling, Daniel and Mary Nichols (2012) Cooling the Sky: Creating Climate Policy in California. Boom: A Journal of California, Vol. 2, Number 1 (Spring 2012), pp 17 – 32.

Explore future global mobility in emerging countries like China and India: Gordon, Deborah and Daniel Sperling (2011) Critical Crossroad: Advancing Global Opportunities to Transform Transportation. The European Financial Review 2011 (October-November), 71 – 75.

Envision future travel in zero-emission “pod” cars: Sperling, Daniel and Richard T. Forman (2011) The Future of Roads: No Driving, No Emissions, Nature Reconnected. Solutions 2011 (September-October), 10 – 23.

Photo: Fernie Payan, then 24, drives through Los Angeles on Oct. 29, 1965 in the city’s third smog alert in three days. California adopted its first – revolutionary – vehicle emissions standards in 1966. Credit: TheOldMotor.com

Amy Myers Jaffe, a leading expert on the oil industry and influential thought leader on global energy policy, will join the University of California, Davis. She strengthens the university’s leadership on clean technology, sustainable energy and transportation.

On October 1, Jaffe will join UC Davis with a joint appointment in to the Institute of Transportation Studies and the Graduate School of Management. At ITS-Davis she will head the fossil energy component of Next STEPS (Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways) and will play a lead role with our energy policy research. She will also be executive director of a new energy executive education program at the School of Management in collaboration with ITS-Davis. She has spent the past 16 years at Rice University, where she served as director of the Energy Forum at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. She is the Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Energy Studies, as well as associate director of the Rice Energy Program.

Jaffe’s expertise spans oil geopolitics and strategic energy policy, including energy science policy and energy economics. She said she was drawn to UC Davis by its focus on sustainability and the interdisciplinary research and relationships between transportation and energy, and by the opportunity to work near California’s state capital, which is an international pioneer on environmental and public policy issues.

“Amy’s knowledge of the energy industry is the perfect complement to ITS-Davis’ global leadership and expertise on transportation energy and sustainability,” said Daniel Sperling, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS-Davis) and professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Jaffe said, “I am excited to join the team at UC Davis to be able to play a greater leadership role in the transition in the energy pathway.

“UC Davis is making an exemplary commitment to sustainability and the kind of world I would like to leave for my children and their children,” she said. “By working at the interface of two great UC Davis institutions, the Graduate School of Management and the Institute of Transportation Studies, I see tremendous opportunities to work with the top minds in the field to forge a bridge between academia and the energy industry to a smarter U.S. policy on energy and climate change.”

Jaffe said the U.S. has a historic opportunity to fashion a national energy policy that addresses both the growing insecurity of Middle East oil supply and the challenges of climate change.

“The United States suddenly finds itself with ample domestic natural gas, emergent automotive technologies and a younger generation of Americans who care deeply about sustainability,” she said. “It is within our grasp to gain an energy future that we can be proud of for future generations.”

Jaffe is widely published, most recently as the co-author of the 2010 book “Oil, Dollars, Debt and Crises: The Global Curse of Black Gold.” She is a frequent keynote speaker at major energy industry and investment conferences, and has provided testimony on Capitol Hill on energy matters. She is a widely quoted commentator on oil and energy policy in the international media, appearing regularly on TV and in print, including CNN, The New Hour with Jim Lehrer, FOX, MSNBC, National Public Radio, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times of London. Her writings have been featured by the New York Times, Dow Jones International and Petroleum Intelligence Weekly.

Jaffe served as a member of the reconstruction and economy working group of the Baker/Hamilton Iraq Study Group. She was project director for the Baker Institute/Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on Strategic Energy Policy. She also chaired a working group on nuclear power in the Middle East for the U.S. Institute for Peace-Stinson Center strategic task force on Iran. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Steven Currall, dean and professor at Graduate School of Management, said Jaffe brings unequaled experience, expertise and international media visibility on the energy industry and geopolitical factors affecting energy and sustainability, which will contribute to the School’s focus on innovation and entrepreneurial solutions in the energy and clean tech sectors.

 “Amy will be leading our efforts in education programs in energy and sustainability, and her interdisciplinary work and leadership represents a first-of-its-kind collaboration between our program and the Institute of Transportation Studies,” Currall said.

 

More information

Read Amy Jaffe’s article in Foreign Policy: “America’s real strategic petroleum reserve — Is relying on Saudi Arabia in times of war a smart tradition or future folly?” Aug. 24, 2012

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/24/Saudi_Arabia_Strategic_Petroleum_Reserve

Watch Jaffe on CNN: “Rising gas prices are starting to affect the 2012 elections.” Her comments are at 1:35 and 2:40 in the video clip. March 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEBoCCkgQ18

Watch a Jaffe speech: “Where I see the conflict lines coming in the oil market in the current economic crisis and the geopolitics of today.” March 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1y2PL8CEpg&feature=plcp

 

About the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis (ITS-Davis)

The leading university center in the world on sustainable transportation, ITS-Davis is home to more than 60 affiliated faculty and researchers, 120 graduate students, and has roughly $15 million in funding. While our principal focus is research, we also emphasize education and outreach. We partner with government, industry and non-governmental organizations to inform policy making and business decisions, and advance public discourse on key transportation, energy and environmental issues. We focus on issues important to society. www.its.ucdavis.edu

 

About the UC Davis Graduate School of Management

Dedicated to preparing innovative leaders for global impact, the UC Davis Graduate School of Management is consistently ranked among the premier business schools in the United States and internationally. The School’s faculty members are globally renowned for their thought leadership and teaching excellence and research in advancing management practices. Each year, the school provides a bold, innovative approach to management education to 110 full-time MBA students at the UC Davis campus and more than 450 part-time MBA students in Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area. A new Master of Professional Accountancy degree program begins in fall 2012. The Schools offers open enrollment and customized executive education programs. The School is home to the Center for Investor Welfare and Corporate Responsibility, and the Child Family Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. www.gsm.ucdavis.edu

Media Contact:

Sylvia Wright, Institute of Transportation Studies, (530) 304-2697, swright@ucdavis.edu

 

On Sept. 6, ITS-Davis director Dan Sperling was a guest on NPR radio’s “Talk of the Nation” program, hosted by Neal Conan, to discuss the new U.S. car and truck fuel efficiency (CAFE) standards. On Aug. 19, he was interviewed on Platts Energy Week by John Kingston about the new report he co-authored on a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard.

 

Photo: Left image: screen shot from Platts Energy Week. Right image: Sperling in UC Davis radio studio, February 2012, by Sylvia Wright

Read the story and watch a Sierra Magazine video of the UC Davis students building a hybrid race car.