Beyond the Early Era of EVs
Electric vehicle adoption is a key part of climate and transportation goals, and local policies can make a big difference. One such policy is allowing EVs to use high-occupancy vehicle lanes even with a single driver. Using data on California’s HOV lanes and vehicle registrations from 2012 to 2024, a new Working Paper examines how these exemptions affected EV adoption.
Is Fusion Too Late? How Investors Value its Role in a Decarbonized Europe
Fusion energy offers clean, firm, and geographically flexible power, but decades of delays have left investors skeptical. Using a high-resolution energy-system model and a probabilistic valuation framework that accounts for recent fusion investments, a new Working Paper shows that investor confidence in successful commercialization remains below 20%.
Policy Support for Electrolytic Hydrogen
Governments worldwide have recently launched policy support programs for hydrogen, where the level of support is to be tied to the carbon intensity of the hydrogen produced. In a new Working Paper, the researchers analyze the impact of alternative accounting rules for assessing the carbon intensity of electrolytic hydrogen on the financial and emission performance of Power-to-Gas (PtG) systems.
Commentary: Lessons for Scope 2 Greenhouse Gas Emissions Accounting
For a number of years, a debate has been brewing concerning the best way to report on the indirect emissions from the generation of purchased electricity, which falls into the Protocol’s Scope 2 category. This research commentary contributes to the debate by means of a review of the history of an analogous debate in corporate financial accounting standards, which can be helpful for identifying lessons that can instruct the discussion on inventory and consequential accounting for Scope 2 emissions.
A Country-Level Study of Exposure to Battery Price Fluctuations through Trade Networks
A new Working Paper examines the impact of critical raw materials (CRMs) and their processed derivatives on countries’ exposure to lithium-ion battery price fluctuations. Specifically, we investigate how a country’s position within the global trade network of CRMs, processed materials, and batteries influences the stability of the price they pay for lithium-ion batteries.
Is climate change making inflation worse?
In a recent paper, CEEPR faculty members Christopher Knittel and Catherine Wolfram with UCLA's Kimberly Clausing estimated that Americans are paying between $400 and $900 per person annually because of global warming. "We're likely at this inflection point where costs are going to start growing more rapidly," Knittel said. "The observed costs have been fairly linear so far. Going forward, that's going to start increasing at an increasing rate." Read more in an article in the New York Times.
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Data centers and your power bill
Tech companies are investing billions of dollars to build energy-hungry data centers at a time when demand for electricity in the United States is already increasing. In an article in the New York Times, CEEPR Director Christopher Knittel stated that the costs of utility investments could add up quickly: "If it's just a few industrial customers with behind-the-meter power plants, it doesn't really matter, but as data centers grow bigger and more plentiful, these things are going to matter so much."
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The 5 Big Reasons Why Electricity Bills Are So High Right Now
In an interview with TIME Magazine, CEEPR director Christopher Knittel discusses a few causes for the increase in electricity bills. Electricity costs have been steadily rising for years, outpacing inflation. The average monthly residential electricity bill increased from about $121 in 2021 to $156 in 2025, a nearly 30% rise. From last January to October alone, electricity bills rose 12.7%, and prices may continue to rise. Read the full article at the link below.
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Clean Investment
Monitor
The Clean Investment Monitor (CIM) is a joint project of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR) and the Rhodium Group. The CIM tracks public and private investments in climate technologies in the United States. Through this data and analysis, the CIM provides insights into investment trends, the effects of federal and state policies, and on-the-ground progress in the U.S. towards net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.
The CIM covers dozens of different technologies and their input components across all sectors of the economy, including for clean electricity and transportation, building electrification, low-emission industrial production, and carbon management.
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Climate Action
Through Education
The MIT Climate Action Through Education (CATE) program, directed by Professor Christopher R. Knittel, has developed an MIT-informed interdisciplinary, place-based climate change curriculum for U.S. high school teachers in the following core disciplines: History/Social Science, English/Language Arts, Math, and Science.
Curricular materials – labs, units, lessons, projects – will be aligned with Next Generation Science Standards, and MA education standards. The solutions-focused curriculum aims to inform students about the causes and consequences of anthropogenic climate change, while equipping them with the knowledge and sense of agency to contribute to climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience.
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Driving Towards
Seamless Public
EV Charging
Widespread electric vehicle (EV) adoption is critical to confronting climate change – but a lack of sufficient public charging infrastructure is holding many potential EV drivers back. A team of researchers from Harvard and the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research will work to accelerate progress on public EV charging as a gating requirement to achieving widespread EV adoption. The team will contribute by working directly with stakeholders and stakeholder groups to identify barriers to seamless public EV charging, build consensus for solutions, and advance those solutions.
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The Roosevelt
Project
Transitioning the United States economy toward deep decarbonization will have unequally distributed effects, positive and negative, across socio-economic groups, geographies and economic sectors. The concerns of workers and communities adversely affected by the transition must inform the discussion around decarbonization, associated policy changes and institutional development. The goal of the Roosevelt Project is to provide an analytical basis for charting a path to a low carbon economy in a way that promotes high quality job growth, minimizes worker and community dislocation, and harnesses the benefits of energy technologies for regional economic development.
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