Podcast appearances and mentions of steve cicala

In this week's episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Sanya Carley, a professor and faculty director at the University of Pennsylvania and a university fellow at Resources for the Future, about energy poverty in the United States. Carley discusses the problem of utility disconnections, which occurs when a utility turns off a household's water, electricity, or heat; the potentially risky strategies that households employ to avoid shutoffs by reducing energy consumption and costs; the groups that are most vulnerable to disconnection; and potential improvements to government programs that help low-income households pay utility bills. References and recommendations: “Behavioral and financial coping strategies among energy-insecure households” by Sanya Carley, Michelle Graff, David M. Konisky, and Trevor Memmott; https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2205356119 “Assessing demographic vulnerability and weather impacts on utility disconnections in California” by Trevor Memmott, David M. Konisky, and Sanya Carley; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-53913-y “Which households are energy insecure? An empirical analysis of race, housing conditions, and energy burdens in the United States” by Michelle Graff, Sanya Carley, David M. Konisky, and Trevor Memmott; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214629621002371 Utility Disconnections Dashboard; https://energyjustice.indiana.edu/disconnection-dashboard/index.html “The incidence of extreme economic stress: Evidence from utility disconnections” by Steve Cicala; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047272721000979 “High temperatures and electricity disconnections for low-income homes in California” by Alan Barreca, R. Jisung Park, and Paul Stainier; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-022-01134-2 “Minnesota's energy paradox: Household energy insecurity in the face of racial and economic disparities” by Bhavin Pradhan and Gabriel Chan; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1040619024000587 “The Night Watchman” by Louise Erdrich; https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-night-watchman-louise-erdrich

In our third episode in this special series, The Atlantic's Rob Meyer talks with Steve Cicala and Michael Greenstone to take a hard look at the barriers that today's fragmented grid imposes on the growth of renewables, and what steps the government can take to remove those barriers. But taking those steps will likely not be enough, and many in Washington are supporting a Clean Electricity Standard—though not everyone agrees on what qualifies as “clean.” https://epic.uchicago.edu/area-of-focus/decarbonizing-the-us-economy-with-a-national-grid/

This is the first episode in an ongoing webinar series, which is providing Resources Radio listeners the chance to listen to a podcast recording live and ask guests their own questions about pressing energy issues. In this episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Professor Steve Cicala of the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy (soon to be moving to Tufts University’s Department of Economics). Expounding on research recently highlighted in the New York Times, in which he undertook one of the earliest looks at electricity demand during the peak of the pandemic lockdowns in the United States, Cicala details how electricity demand can serve as a valuable—if incomplete—tool to assess the health of the economy and the outlook for recovering from a recession. Cicala notes that the current crisis has shifted renewable penetration and affected energy consumption, but researchers remain uncertain about the duration of the pandemic and its long-term impacts on the electric grid. References and recommendations: "Another Way to See the Recession: Power Usage Is Way Down" by Quoctrung Bui and Justin Wolfers; https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/08/upshot/electricity-usage-predict-coronavirus-recession.html "Early Economic Impacts of COVID-19 in Europe: A View from the Grid" by Steve Cicala; https://home.uchicago.edu/~scicala/papers/real_time_EU/real_time_EU.pdf "What Is Owed: It Is Time for Reparations" by Nikole Hannah-Jones; https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/24/magazine/reparations-slavery.html

Reset’s sustainability contributor Karen Weigert and economic researcher Steve Cicala discuss how the pandemic might force us to rethink how we produce and use electricity.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has played an important role in the Trump administration, rejecting a proposal from the Department of Energy to subsidize coal and nuclear plants and largely staying true to its independent roots. Recently, EPIC’s Steve Cicala, an assistant professor at the Harris School of Public Policy, got the chance to sit down with one of the agency’s past chairmen Jon Wellinghoff. They talked about the NOPR decision, what makes FERC’s culture unique, and the changing dynamics underway for electric utilities as distributed generation becomes a more important part of the U.S. energy mix.

On the heels of the Trump administration’s call for massive infrastructure spending, EPIC hosted three experienced leaders in government and industry to talk about the future of energy infrastructure. Former FERC chairman Jon Wellinghoff, CEO of the transmission developer Anbaric Ed Krapels, and a VP from pipeline operator Kinder Morgan Allen Fore discussed the opportunities and challenges facing development of U.S. energy infrastructure, and how policymakers and markets can overcome barriers to development. The panel was moderated by Steve Cicala, assistant professor at the Harris School of Public Policy.

Carbon emissions are down 30 percent thanks in large part to an increased use of natural gas and a near doubling of renewable generation. But amid these positive developments has emerged an unexpected casualty: America’s fleet of nuclear power plants. Plant owners are threatening to shut down unless they receive subsidies. And last week, New York agreed to provide these subsidies. Was it the right decision? And if not, what’s the path forward? EPIC’s Sam Ori talks with Steve Cicala, assistant professor at the Harris School of Public Policy.

For decades, electricity generation has been thought of as a local issue. But this antiquated view is holding back the nation's transition to clean energy. Steve Cicala, from the Harris School of Public Policy, explains why in a discussion with host Sam Ori. Read Steve's piece in Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ucenergy/2016/05/12/how-going-local-is-hamstringing-the-clean-energy-transition/#1824f8793a27 (Beginning soundbite contains clips from CNN and BBC.)

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to digicomm@uchicago.edu. With a lack of consensus among policymakers on the causes, risks and proposed solutions to climate change our national debate remains at a standstill. Yet economists across the spectrum are weighing in with thoughts on economic solutions that would put us on a different path. UChicago professors, Steve Cicala and Michael Greenstone, and former Republican Congressman and IOP fellow Bob Inglis discussed how they believe famed UChicago economist Milton Friedman would respond to climate change.

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to digicomm@uchicago.edu. With a lack of consensus among policymakers on the causes, risks and proposed solutions to climate change our national debate remains at a standstill. Yet economists across the spectrum are weighing in with thoughts on economic solutions that would put us on a different path. UChicago professors, Steve Cicala and Michael Greenstone, and former Republican Congressman and IOP fellow Bob Inglis discussed how they believe famed UChicago economist Milton Friedman would respond to climate change.