Tim Profeta, director of the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, and other Duke scholars were recently featured in the second installment of the Rational Middle Energy Film series. In the short videos, Profeta discusses the future of energy in the United States and North America, in particular, the future of transportation and consumer conservation and efficiency.

A new study featured in the journal Coastal Management identifies key steps for the inclusion of coastal habitats' ecosystem services into existing federal policies without statutory changes.

The National Ecosystem Services Partnership (NESP) recently hosted a series of meetings in Washington D.C. to share the research, concepts, methods, and draft reports developed for the Federal Resource Management and Ecosystem Services (FRMES) project. In the Duke Federal Relations' Capitol Connections Blog, Lydia Olander, director of NESP and the Nicholas Institute's Ecosystem Services Program, answered questions about the meetings and efforts to create a consistent understanding of nature's benefits in the context of federal resource management and planning.

Combustion of biomass for energy production has received much attention, but uncertainty and controversy surround the net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with the activity. A new analysis identifies trends in the scientific literature on the GHG emissions intensity of biomass combustion and considers them in the hypothetical repowering of a coal plant in Albany, Georgia. 

In his Climate Action Plan, President Barack Obama called on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to finalize regulations controlling carbon dioxide emissions from new and existing fossil fuel-fired power plants. A new policy brief offers an overview of the substantive and procedural requirements for existing-source regulations and explains the regulatory timeline outlined by the president in his June plan.

During an interactive online "Office Hour" discussion sponsored by Open Channels, Ocean and Coastal Policy Program Director Linwood Pendleton recently took audience questions about coastal and marine ecosystem services. Read the archived conversation. 

A new study in the journal Marine Policy develops the discourse on deep-sea restoration and offers guidance on planning and implementing ecological restoration projects for deep-sea ecosystems that are already or are at threat of becoming degraded, damaged or destroyed.