Publications

| Journal Article

The Use and Impacts of an Ethanol Cooking Fuel Promotion Pilot in Dar es Salaam

The authors evaluated the effects of a large-scale ethanol cooking fuel promotion program in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and found substantial uptake of ethanol cooking. However, alternative fuels were not fully replaced under this scheme. The report concludes that improving the relative convenience of ethanol as a cooking fuel is needed to achieve broader positive impacts. 

| Policy Brief

The Energy Transition Accelerator as a Vehicle for Low-Carbon Development Capital: Opportunities, Challenges, and Uncertainties

Addressing the dual needs of development and decarbonization in low- and middle-income countries requires significant increases in public and private investment and project implementation. Announced in 2022 by the US Department of State, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Bezos Earth Fund, the Energy Transition Accelerator (ETA) aims to drive such increases by leveraging carbon credits as a sector-wide channel for energy transition finance.

| Proceedings

Energy Transitions & Investment in Emerging Markets: Navigating Shifting Undercurrents

The Energy Transitions and Investment in Emerging Markets: Navigating Shifting Undercurrents summit was convened on April 8, 2025, during a moment of profound disruption and transformation. In an era marked by the dismantling of US foreign assistance programs and rising pressures on multilateral systems, the event brought together the Duke University community and leading practitioners to take stock and ask urgent questions about what comes next.

| Journal Article

The Costs and Benefits of Clean Cooking Policies in Low- and Middle-Income Countries Under Real-World Conditions

Clean cooking technologies have the potential to deliver substantial health, environmental, climate, and gender equity benefits. We use the BAR-HAP model to conduct the first global analysis of the regional and global costs and benefits of several subsidy and financing policies supporting household transitions to cleaner technologies. The analysis provides evidence-based estimates of these interventions' impacts, while remaining conservative about factors such as stove usage, subsidy leakage, and exposure levels, for which there remains considerable uncertainty.

| Journal Article

Evaluating Heat Risk: Comparing On-Site WBGT Measurements Versus Smartphone Application Estimates

Exertional heat illness poses a significant risk for workers, athletes, and military personnel participating in outdoor activities during hot weather. An important component of heat safety is monitoring environmental conditions through heat stress indices like the wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT), which accounts for factors such as air temperature, humidity, wind, and sunlight, and adjusting activity as conditions get progressively hotter.

| Commentary, Journal Article

Inspiring Women in Small-Scale Fisheries from Ocean to Table

Oceans@Duke Director Stephanie Rousso discusses her personal experience working with women fisherfolk to promote sea turtle conservation in an opinion for Frontiers in Ocean Sustainability. "Globally, women are blending traditional knowledge with modern science, taking on challenges head-on, and redefining what it means to work toward a sustainable ocean," she writes. "While these global initiatives are empowering women at a large scale, my personal journey has shown me how deeply transformative their contributions can be at the grassroots level."

| Journal Article

Testing Factors that Enhance Private Participation in Payments for Ecosystem Service Programs Targeting Flood Mitigation

This report empirically examines the determinants of private participation in flood mitigation programs that use a payment for ecosystem services (PES) framework and suggests improved PES program designs and enhancements to their flood mitigation effectiveness. It offers evidence suggesting income from farming and potential participants' past experiences with PES programs may increase participation in programs aiming to mitigate flooding and that in turn could reduce economic damages from flooding impacts.

| Journal Article

Intersecting Risk: Heat and Substance Use in Rural Communities

Extreme heat directly impacts health and can exacerbate substance use. Rural communities face high risks due to those areas’ higher rates of heat-related hospitalizations and disproportionate effects of substance use. This commentary explores the connection between heat and substance use in rural communities and proposes policy, research, and practice recommendations that can be tailored to fit the local rural context.

| Commentary, Journal Article

Utilities Need Regulatory Certainty

The Nicholas Institute's Tim Profeta contributed an essay to "How to Advance Environmental Protection During a Turbulent Era," a special section in the March/April issue of Environmental Forum. The Trump administration is expected to take up a deregulatory agenda—which environmentalists anticipate with trepidation but which businesses generally welcome as an appropriate relaxation of regulations they say inhibit a creative free market and stymie investments in needed projects.

| Testimony

Congressional Testimony of Tyler H. Norris of Duke University—Hearing on Scaling for Growth: Meeting the Demand for Reliable, Affordable Electricity

Increased need for electricity is driving elevated demand for power companies to rapidly build out their generation capacity. But Nicholas Institute research shows that, with strategic timing of load use, such demand could be met by the existing power grid.