astronomy

Richard G. Newell

Richard G. Newell is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Richard G. Newell rather than just read about it. In short: Richard G. Newell (born 1965) is an American energy economist, environmental economist, and climate policy expert who served as the seventh administrator of the United States Energy Information Administration from 2009 to 2011.

Key takeaways

Richard G. Newell belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Richard G. Newell to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Richard G. Newell from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Richard G. Newell (born 1965) is an American energy economist, environmental economist, and climate policy expert who served as the seventh administrator of the United States Energy Information Administration from 2009 to 2011. He was also once the president and CEO of Resources for the Future, a nonprofit environmental economics research and policy institute in Washington, D.C. He has previously served as Senior Economist for Energy and Environment on the President's Council of Economic Advisers and as Professor of Energy and Environmental Economics at Duke University. Newell is often cited as an authority on climate, energy, and environmental policy issues in major media outlets like the Financial Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, NPR, and C-SPAN. He has testified on multiple occasions in the United States Senate and House of Representatives. He has been described by former US secretary of energy Steven Chu as "a leading expert on the economics of energy and environmental markets, policies, and technologies".

Early life and education Newell earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1997 in public policy, specializing in environmental and resource economics. Newell holds an MPA from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, as well as a BS in materials engineering and a BA in philosophy from Rutgers University.

Career In the 1990s and early 2000s, Newell was a senior associate at the global advisory and digital services provider ICF International, a teaching fellow at Harvard University, and a senior fellow at Resources for the Future. During 2005–2006, Newell served as Senior Economist for Energy and Environment on the President's Council of Economic Advisers, where he worked with chairman Ben Bernanke, providing economic analysis on issues including energy market disruptions, energy innovation, automobile fuel economy, and renewable fuels. Newell later joined Duke University as the Gendell Professor of Energy and Environmental Economics at the Nicholas School of the Environment. There, he taught from 2007 to 2016, and in 2011 also became a professor in the university's economics department. Newell founded and directed the Duke University Energy Initiative and directed the university's Energy Data Analytics Lab. Newell took a leave of absence from the university when he was confirmed by the Senate as the seventh administrator of the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) after being nominated by President Barack Obama. He held the position from August 3, 2009 to July 1, 2011. In the role, he was responsible for directing responsible collection, analysis, and dissemination of unbiased energy information to promote sound policymaking by the United States government. Newell left Duke University in 2016, but remained an adjunct professor at the Nicholas School. In 2016, Newell became the president and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based environmental economics think tank, Resources for the Future. He previously worked as a senior fellow at the organization from 1997 to 2006 and has served on its board of directors since 2011. His research work at the organization covers climate policy, energy innovation, the social cost of carbon, energy efficiency, energy markets, and global energy outlooks. He made notable news in the energy and environmental policy sector when he stepped down from his position as President and CEO of Resources for the Future (RFF) after eight years of leading the think tank. Following his tenure at RFF, he transitioned into the technology sector by joining enterprise AI company C3 AI as their CTO for Sustainability, focusing on leveraging artificial intelligence to help public and private organizations track and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, optimize energy and water consumption, and improve supply chain sustainability.

Testimony, Analysis, and Commentary Newell has testified on multiple occasions in front of the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, most recently on global climate emissions trends and clean energy advancements. He has also testified in front of the United States Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, the United States House Committee on Natural Resources, and the United States House Energy Subcommittee on Energy. He has been cited in The New York Times on the impacts of the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and the impacts of Trump administration energy policy. Newell co-chaired the multi-disciplinary committee formed by the National Academy of Sciences to inform revisions to estimates of the social cost of carbon. He has been cited as an authority on the social cost of carbon in media outlets like Bloomberg News, the Financial Times, and The New York Times, and published commentaries on it in Barron's.

He has also written about the global energy transition for Axios. His analysis on this subject has featured prominently in the Financial Times, which described it as "thought provoking": [Newell] argued that "there has never been an energy transition" because, as each new technology has emerged, it has merely added to older sources, rather than replacing them. Newell goes on that “To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, the story of energy requires a new script. A true energy transition will be a story of addition but also one of subtraction—in particular, reducing carbon emissions.”

Notable Research, Awards, and Memberships Newell has published widely on topics such as energy innovation, climate policy, and energy efficiency. Newell was awarded the USAEE Adelman-Frankel Award from the US Association for Energy Economics in 2018 for contributions to the field of energy economics. His 2002 paper, "The Induced Innovation Hypothesis and Energy-Saving Technological Change," earned the 2017 Publication of Enduring Quality Award from the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. His 2003 paper, "Discounting the Distant Future: How Much Do Uncertain Rates Increase Valuations?" was awarded the 2006 Petry Prize for the Economics of Climate Change, and later informed estimation methods for the social cost of carbon. Newell has been a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a member of the USAEE, American Economics Association, and Association of Environmental and Resource Economics. He has served on advisory boards of the National Academy of Sciences and other institutions.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Richard G. Newell

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Richard G. Newell claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Richard G. Newell before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Richard G. Newell ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Richard G. Newell

In research: Richard G. Newell appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Richard G. Newell in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Richard G. Newell is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1965 births, Duke University faculty, Energy economists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Richard G. Newell outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Richard G. Newell in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Richard G. Newell means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Richard G. Newell out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Richard G. Newell in simple terms?

Why does Richard G. Newell matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Richard G. Newell?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Richard G. Newell.