Information on the location of grid infrastructure is difficult to get, but important for identifying optimal strategies for providing electricity access to communities without such access. A 2018-19 Bass Connections team: Wendell Cathcart (MEM '19), Ben Alexander (T '20), Atsushi Hu (T '21), Varun Nair (T '20), and Lin Zuo (T '20) worked to fill this important information gap by training deep machine learning models to automatically detect grid infrastructure in aerial imagery. In this presentation, the team's five students discuss the context for their work and describe the process of refining their object-detection algorithm. Faculty Advisors: Dr. Kyle Bradbury & Dr. Leslie Collins.

For the first time this century, global growth of new renewable energy capacity did not show a year-to-year increase. This raises concerns that efforts to advance a low-carbon energy transition may be stalling at just the wrong time. Though the last decade's growth in renewables is impressive, many policymakers are looking for it to accelerate rather than flatten in order to help meet long-term decarbonization targets to mitigate climate risk.

The Clean Energy Legislative Academy in Breckenridge, Colo., has played a key role in “activating this clean energy movement across state legislatures,” and helping state lawmakers share ideas and experience with each other, Tim Profeta, director of the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University, told Bloomberg Environment.

The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University has awarded funding to six research projects for Fiscal Year 2019–20 through the institute's Catalyst Program.

Now in its third year, the Catalyst Program aims to build on the Nicholas Institute’s mission by increasing engagement with Duke faculty to incubate and advance new partnerships, enhance policy-relevant knowledge, and create innovative policy solutions based on new creative synergies.

PJM is seeking to  procure more reserves at higher prices by augmenting its operating reserve demand curve. Because the reserve and energy markets interact, energy prices will increase too, writes Nicholas Institute Senior Counsel Jennifer Chen for RTO Insider.

On April 25-27, Chinese leaders met in Beijing with heads of state and delegations from more than 40 countries to discuss next steps in implementing the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s $1 trillion infrastructure investment program.

According to USAID, only 4 percent of people in rural Zambia has access to power. As a part of an interdisciplinary team called Bass Connections, a Duke University student team has spent the past academic year trying to get a better understanding of the barriers to energy investment there.

In late April, leaders from around the world gathered in Beijing to discuss the future of China’s sprawling Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Nicholas Institute Senior Fellow Jackson Ewing writes in The Diplomat that such ambition, regardless of the lens used, has inescapable environmental consequences.

Nicholas Institute research associate Erik Myxter-lino joined the China-Africa Project podcast to discuss why he thinks it’s so difficult for the Chinese to explain what the Belt and Road Initiative is really all about.

The nexus between changing environmental conditions and health outcomes is not well understood by many businesses. To break down this barrier, the United Nations Global Compact's "Health is Everyone’s Business" action platform, which facilitates collaboration between companies, has made the case for integrating health and environmental solutions one of its priorities.