Research and Science-Based Policy

This study explores how a prolonged blackout can escalate from a power outage into a system-wide emergency affecting communication, transportation, healthcare, water, food, and financial services. It examines how failures across interconnected infrastructures can trigger cascading risks, disrupt essential services and the economy, and proposes a framework for improving resilience during extended blackouts.

The study examines how AI-driven growth in data-center electricity demand is straining Israel’s power-grid capacity, analyzes the gap between data-center expansion and grid upgrades and its implications for reliability and power quality. The study draws on international experience and outlines policies that support technological competitiveness while maintaining grid stability.

This study develops a risk management model addressing nine risk factors threatening the supply of 37 key minerals used in 12 renewable energy technologies, including solar, wind, hydropower, nuclear, and biomass energy. It identifies the most supply-vulnerable minerals and recommends actions for risk mitigation.

A techno-economic analysis of advanced biotechnological systems to assess the feasibility of producing biofuels and alternative foods from bacteria and sustainable feedstocks. It examines scenarios based on inputs, costs, outputs, and competing market prices, identifying products with commercial potential and low carbon footprint.

The research examined how 166 countries have implemented the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals over the past 20 years, including the promotion of renewable energy. It highlights which countries prioritized clean energy at the expense of other goals, or other goals at the expense of clean energy, and explores relative advantages or disadvantages in sustainable energy, water, and food systems.

The study analyzed the environmental and health impacts of mining and mineral use in the production of three major types of batteries: lithium-ion, sodium-ion, and solid-state. It also assessed the potential risks of institutional interventions that could restrict mining and trade of these minerals, potentially hindering battery production

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) stands as the most ambitious infrastructure project in history. This study maps and accounts for the materials embodied in the BRI by integrating official governmental project reports, geographical information, and material flow analysis. The study analyzes the BRI material stocks in each individual project by material types, countries, and sectors.

Marking a decade of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), this study, with researchers from China, Russia, and the Netherlands, analyzed 735 scientific studies on energy, water, food, mineral resources, and ecology. The research found increasing scientific, technological, and economic focus on solar, wind, and hydropower projects.