Stanford University

Energy

This image is having trouble loading!FSI researchers examine the role of energy sources from regulatory, economic and societal angles. The Program on Energy and Sustainable Development (PESD) investigates how the production and consumption of energy affect human welfare and environmental quality. Professors assess natural gas and coal markets, as well as the smart energy grid and how to create effective climate policy in an imperfect world. This includes how state-owned enterprises – like oil companies – affect energy markets around the world. Regulatory barriers are examined for understanding obstacles to lowering carbon in energy services. Realistic cap and trade policies in California are studied, as is the creation of a giant coal market in China.

Kensuke Itoh

0
Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellow
Kensuke_Itoh.jpg
MS

Kensuke Itoh is a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for 2013-14.  Itoh has over eight years of experience in the information technology arena at Sumitomo Corporation, one of the major trading and investment conglomerates in Japan, and its subsidiaries.  His experience in the IT industry includes sales, strategy planning, M&A process and administration.  While at Stanford, Itoh is researching the difference in the profitability and structure of IT businesses between the United States and Japan.  Itoh is interested in applying his knowledge gained here to his work and overall helping to revise the economy in Asia.  Itoh graduated from the Graduate School of Energy Science at Kyoto University with a degree in energy science and technology. 

Fukushima Reinforces Worst Fears for Japanese Who Are Anti-Nuclear Power

News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs
How are the Japanese people reacting to the news of the continuing contamination leak and what does it mean for Japan's energy policy? In an interview with PBS NewsHour on August 8, Kenji E. Kushida speaks about what the government may do to stop the flow.
Hero Image
All News button
1

Jean-Marc Blanchard

Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 723-9741 (650) 723-6530
0
Visiting Professor
Blanchard-picture-2012-09-24).jpg
PhD

Jean-Marc F. Blanchard (白永辉) joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) from July-October 2013 from the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Shanghai Jiaotong University (SJTU) where he serves as Professor, Assistant Dean for International Cooperation and Exchange, and Executive Director of the SJTU SIPA Center for the Study of Multinational Corporations.

His research interests include Chinese outward foreign direct investment (FDI), inward FDI into China, Chinese foreign economic policy, Chinese foreign energy policy, multinational corporations, and economic globalization.  During his time at Shorenstein APARC, he will conduct research on the politico-economy of Chinese OFDI.

Blanchard is a co-author of Economic Statecraft and Foreign Policy (2013), a co-editor of and contributor to Governance, Domestic Change and Social Policy in China (forthcoming 2013); “China and Soft Power” (Asian Perspective special issue, 2012); New Thinking about The Taiwan Issue (2012), Multidimensional Diplomacy of Contemporary China (2010), Harmonious World and China’s New Foreign Policy (2008), and Power and the Purse (2000), and the author of more than three dozen refereed journal articles and book chapters.

Blanchard is former Associate Editor of the Journal of Chinese Political Studies (JCPS), a member of the Editorial Board for the JCPS, and a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.  He previously served as President of the Association of Chinese Political Studies (2010-2012).

Blanchard received his PhD in political science from the University of Pennsylvania and AB in economics from U.C. Berkeley.  Prior to his career in academia, Blanchard worked for the U.S. government Federal Savings & Loan Insurance Corporation and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and for the investment banking firm Kelling, Northcross, & Nobriga.

The Fukushima Disaster and Japan's Nuclear Plant Vulnerability in Comparative Perspective

Paragraphs

We consider the vulnerability of nuclear power plants to a disaster like the one that occurred at Fukushima Daiichi. Examination of Japanese nuclear plants affected by the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011 shows that three variables were crucial at the early stages of the crisis: plant elevation, sea wall elevation, and location and status of backup generators. Higher elevations for these variables, or waterproof protection of backup generators, could have mitigated or prevented the disaster. We collected information on these variables, along with historical data on run-up heights, for 89 coastal nuclear power plants in the world. The data shows that 1. Japanese plants were relatively unprotected against potential inundation in international comparison, but there was considerable variation for power plants within and outside of Japan; 2. Older power plants and plants owned by the largest utility companies appear to have been particularly unprotected.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Journal Articles
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Environmental Science & Technology
Authors
Phillip Lipscy
Phillip Lipscy
Kenji E. Kushida
Kenji E. Kushida
Trevor Incerti
External URL

Great Games: Chinese Relations with South and Central Asia

China and the World

This multiyear project, coordinated by Thomas Fingar, Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, looks sequentially and systematically at China’s interactions with countries in all regions and across many issue areas. The project seeks to clarify China’s objectives and policies to achieve them, but it also seeks to identify and explain the goals and policy calculations of other countries that see opportunities and perils associated with China’s greater activism on the world stage.

Phase one of the project examined China’s engagement with Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK), and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Scholars and foreign policy practitioners from China, Japan, the ROK, Russia, and the United Stated discussed these questions at a two-day workshop in Beijing in March 2012. Participants from several Southeast Asian countries also attended the workshop to ensure that questions explored were broad enough to facilitate comparisons and the search for patterns and learning across issues and areas at the follow-on regional workshop held in Singapore in November 2012.

The Singapore workshop, phase 2, discussed China's objectives and policies with respect to Southeast Asia, but focused primarily on the ways in which China's approach and actions are perceived by individual countries in the region and what regional countries seek to achieve with respect to China. Implicit in some of the presentations was the notion that China was trying to restore its traditional primacy in the region and to prevent any country inside or outside of Southeast Asia from exercising greater regional influence. Other participants emphasized material goals, including access to resources, markets for Chinese goods, and fostering economic dependence on China. Participants agreed that China's influence and impact are large and growing, and that states in the region are pursuing different strategies to advance their own interests and maximize their own freedom of action.

The third workshop, to be held at Stanford University on June 20-21, 2013, will examine China’s relationship with South and Central Asia. While there is a focus on the bilateral relationship between China and India, the largest and most powerful regional actor, the conference will also look at other key bilateral relationships, such as with Pakistan, and at interactions on a regional level, including in the economic sphere. The workshop will explore the management of cross border issues such as migration flows, water, and energy resource development. The sessions on Central Asia will offer broader understanding of China’s intersection with other powers such as Russia and India in that region.

Download pdf

Bechtel Conference Center

Conferences

The LDP’s Historic Comeback in the 2012 Japanese Election

-

Please note date change to June 6

On December 16, 2012, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which was swept from power in 2009 by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) after more than half a century of dominance, roared back with a landslide of its own. Entering the election with only 118 of 480 seats in the House of Representatives, the lower house of the National Diet, the LDP emerged with a whopping 294 seats, more than a third of them captured by first-time candidates. Moreover, the LDP and its long-time coalition partner, the Komeito, jointly surpassed the two-thirds threshold needed to override vetoes from the upper house, the House of Councillors, where the coalition lacks a majority—at least until the upper house election this July. The incumbent DPJ, which had taken power with an even more impressive 308 seats in 2009, retained just 57 seats this time, barely managing second place after three difficult years in government.

How did the LDP do it? In this presentation, Smith will highlight the key findings of two chapters on the LDP’s candidate selection and election results from the forthcoming volume, Japan Decides 2012 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), edited by Robert Pekkanen, Steven R. Reed, and Ethan Scheiner.

 

Philippines Conference Room

Daniel M. Smith

Walter H. Shorenstein
Asia-Pacific Research Center
Encina Hall, Room C331
616 Serra St.
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-5656 (650) 723-6530
0
Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow
Daniel_Smith_3x4.jpg
PhD

Daniel M. Smith was a postdoctoral fellow at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) during the 2012–13 academic year.

He is an expert on Japanese politics whose research interests include political parties, elections and electoral systems, candidate recruitment and selection, and coalition government. During his time at Shorenstein APARC, he will be completing a book manuscript about the causes and consequences of political dynasties in developed democracies, with a particular focus on Japan.

Smith earned his PhD and MA in political science from the University of California, San Diego, and his BA in political science and Italian from the University of California, Los Angeles. He has conducted research in Japan as a Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology research scholar at Chuo University (2006–2007), and as a Fulbright IIE dissertation research fellow at the Institute of Social Science at the University of Tokyo (2010–2011). After completing his fellowship at Shorenstein APARC, he will join the Department of Government at Harvard University as an assistant professor.

CV
Daniel M. Smith Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center Speaker Stanford University
Seminars

The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster and the DPJ: Leadership, Structures, and Information Challenges During the Crisis

Paragraphs

The Fukushima nuclear disaster was a critical juncture in the world’s relationship with nuclear energy, as well as Japan’s postwar political economy, society, and national psyche. The DPJ, and particularly Prime Minister Kan, were later widely criticized for mismanaging the disaster, contributing to the party’s loss of power. This paper closely examines the crisis as it unfolded, assessing the degree to which the government’s chaotic response can be attributed to the DPJ’s political leadership. It finds that the DPJ inherited a difficult hand when coming to power in 2009, with deep structural problems developed under the long LDP rule. Existing procedures and organizations were drastically inadequate, information and communications problems plagued decision-making and coordination. Kan’s leadership was, on balance, beneficial, taking control where the locus of responsibility and decision-making was ambiguous and solving several information and communication problems. This paper is one of the first readily accessible English language analyses examining this critical juncture, including a broadly readable account of primary government decision-makers as the disaster unfolded.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Journal Articles
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Japanese Political Economy
Authors
Kenji E. Kushida
Kenji E. Kushida
External URL

Paying for Performance to Improve Health in Rural China

-

Grant Miller will discuss the results of his SAPARC-funded research in rural China, supplementing a large NIH-funded project about pay-for-performance to improve health. The research was designed to test the effect of offering school principals small incentives for anemia reduction on the health and academic performance of primary school students – potentially leading to substantially more cost-effective health policies.

Grant Miller, PHD, MPP, is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Stanford School of Medicine, a Core Faculty Member at the Center for Health Policy/Primary Care and Outcomes Research, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). He is also a Faculty Fellow of the Stanford Center for International Development and a Faculty Affiliate of the Stanford Center for Latin American Studies. His primary areas of interest are health and development economics and economic demography.

Miller's current research focuses broadly on behavioral obstacles to health improvement in developing countries. One line of studies investigates household decision-making underlying puzzlingly low adoption rates of highly efficacious health technologies (like point-of-use drinking water disinfectants and improved cookstoves) in many poor countries. Another vein of research investigates misaligned macro- and micro-level incentives governing the supply of health technologies and services. He has conducted these and other research projects at institutions including the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Urban Institute, and the University of California-San Francisco's Institute for Health Policy Studies. He received a BA in psychology from Yale College, a master's degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a PhD in health policy/economics also from Harvard.

Philippines Conference Room

Grant Miller Associate Professor of Medicine; Associate Professor, by courtesy, of Economics and of Health Research and Policy; Senior Fellow at FSI and CHP/PCOR Core Faculty Member Speaker Stanford University
Seminars
Subscribe to Energy