From The University of Pennsylvania
4.29.24
Jesse Dorris
The Presidential Distinguished Professor of Energy Policy and City Planning believes that energy justice should be a central part of America’s energy transition.
Among the expert voices at last month’s Energy Week at Penn was Weitzman’s Sanya Carley. Carley believes that energy justice should be a central part of America’s energy transition—and she’s collecting the data to show why it’s necessary.
Sanya Carley, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Energy Policy and City Planning.
As Presidential Distinguished Professor of Energy Policy and City Planning and the faculty co-director of the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, which co-organized Energy Week, she’s teaching students, policymakers, and practitioners what energy justice means. And as co-director of the Energy Justice Lab and as a Resources for the Future University Fellow, she’s building metrics for utilities to report where their power does and doesn’t go, and develops policy suggestions to ensure the relevant communities have political power, too.
“My work focuses on energy justice, which is thinking about the distribution of benefits and burdens connected to our energy systems,” Carley says. “It’s thinking about who has access to decision making and who has leadership over the decisions we make about our energy systems. In electricity or transportation markets, I also study the effects, effectiveness, and unintended consequences of policies.”
Carley describes the function of her Utility Disconnections Dashboard, which tracks all disconnects from utilities that report them across the United States. “Through a data scraping exercise with a fabulous team of students that work with us at the lab, we routinely gather all these files and post them on an interactive dashboard. Using the dashboard, one can see where people are disconnected more often, which utilities disconnect more often, and what kinds of protections are in place or not in place in different places.”
Here, in a conversation that has been edited and condensed, Carley talks about her work, her lab’s innovative new utility disconnection dashboard, and how energy is best spent across competing priorities.
When did you first arrive at Penn and why did you choose Penn?
I moved here last summer, from Indiana University where I was a professor and associate vice provost. The Kleinman Center had a really strong presence within the policy community, and I’ve been so impressed with everything they’ve done and built to date. The incredible brains they bring in, the mission they have, the way in which they build and amplify the climate and energy profile of Penn scholars, everything about it is was really compelling, and why I chose to relocate to Penn.
How do you conceptualize your work?
My work focuses on energy justice, which is thinking about the distribution of benefits and burdens connected to our energy systems. It’s thinking about who has access to decision making and who has leadership over the decisions we make about our energy systems. In electricity or transportation markets, I also study the effects, effectiveness, and unintended consequences of policies. Across all my research, I study the human dimensions of energy systems, which we as a scholarly community often neglect when we focus too heavily on technological and policy solutions.
What are some of those unintended consequences?
One of the main unintended consequences of some energy policies are price impacts. As the cost of energy systems rise for a variety of reasons, some of the more vulnerable populations might not be able to absorb those additional costs and will suffer disproportionately as a result. At the Energy Justice Lab, we focus on communities on the frontlines of the energy transition, including those low-income households unable to pay their bills as well as legacy fossil fuel communities. As our energy systems evolve, a variety of communities face adverse or disparate impacts, includding coal communities, autoworker communities, and low-income consumers. Our work also looks at solutions: which policies are in place, in which places? What can utilities do, and what can the government do, to protect consumers? And we test some treatments in the field of preventative solutions to try and help communities and households overcome problems or avoid them.
Consumers don’t often have control over energy prices. What kinds of solutions are you seeing?
When it comes to prices and affordability of energy bills, we’re talking within the domain of energy insecurity and energy poverty. When a household struggles to pay their energy bills, it can lead to a variety of adverse consequences: mental and physical health, but also utility disconnection, which can subsequently lead to death. Some of the preventative solutions I study include better weatherization and energy efficiency—essentially sealing up the home more tightly so that it lowers energy bills. In one project, my collaborators and I are introducing weatherization and electrification into low-income, multifamily homes as a possible solution. In another, we evaluate residential solar—asking whether having access to solar on your roof fundamentally changes how you use energy and your incidence of energy insecurity? We’re finding very robust results that suggest a strong correlational link between solar and reduced energy insecurity.
How do you measure your work?
A major thrust of my work is the Utility Disconnections Dashboard, which tracks all disconnects from utilities that report them across the United States. Through a data scraping exercise with a fabulous team of students that work with us at the lab, we routinely gather all these files and post them on an interactive dashboard. Using the dashboard, one can see where people are disconnected more often, which utilities disconnect more often, and what kinds of protections are in place or not in place in different places. One can see that in 2022, almost three million households were disconnected due to non-payment. We launched the dashboard about nine months ago, and in that time we know that it’s helped inform the modification of several states’ utility disconnection moratoria and protections. States have raised these issues in their legislatures, which is a promising development.
And you’re finishing a book on energy justice. What can you tell me about it?
Yes, a book that I am writing with my coauthor, David Konisky, pulls together a variety of important topics that dissect injustices that exist within America. There are winners and losers of the energy transition, and there are some very large geographic and social demographic disparities. Those on the frontlines of the energy transition are truly powerless is so many ways, and they also face impossible trade-offs: energy insecure families face the trade-off of being disconnected or not paying for food because they’re paying for energy. Some coal communities face the trade-off of having a job at some point will disappear, that puts their own health in jeopardy with black lung and other health consequences, and ruining their environment and water systems—or, on the other hand, not having a job. These are just really difficult situations that are rooted in history. Those on the frontlines with whom we have spoken say the country used them for as long as they needed them and now they’ve been abandoned. They say: We’re beaten and broken and just cast aside. That’s not right. It’s important for us as a community writ large to be mindful of and start to deeply internalize some of these challenges in order to find a better path forward for our energy systems and the people who rely on them.
See the full article here .
Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct.
five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings
Please help promote STEM in your local schools.
Academic life at University of Pennsylvania is unparalleled, with over 100 countries and every U.S. state represented in one of the Ivy League’s most diverse student bodies. Consistently ranked among the top universities in the country, Penn enrolls over 10,000 undergraduate students and welcomes an additional 10,000 students to our world-renowned graduate and professional schools.
Penn’s award-winning educators and scholars encourage students to pursue inquiry and discovery, follow their passions, and address the world’s most challenging problems through an interdisciplinary approach.
The University of Pennsylvania is a private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The university claims a founding date of 1740 and is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered prior to the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Franklin, Penn’s founder and first president, advocated an educational program that trained leaders in commerce, government, and public service, similar to a modern liberal arts curriculum.
Penn has four undergraduate schools as well as twelve graduate and professional schools. Schools enrolling undergraduates include the College of Arts and Sciences; the School of Engineering and Applied Science; the Wharton School; and the School of Nursing. Penn’s “One University Policy” allows students to enroll in classes in any of Penn’s twelve schools. Among its highly ranked graduate and professional schools are a law school whose first professor wrote the first draft of the United States Constitution, the first school of medicine in North America (Perelman School of Medicine, 1765), and the first collegiate business school (Wharton School, 1881).
Penn is also home to the first “student union” building and organization (Houston Hall, 1896), the first Catholic student club in North America (Newman Center, 1893), the first double-decker college football stadium (Franklin Field, 1924 when second deck was constructed), and Morris Arboretum, the official arboretum of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The first general-purpose electronic computer (ENIAC) was developed at Penn and formally dedicated in 1946. The university has a $20 billion endowment, one of the largest of all universities in the United States, as well as a research budget of over $2 billion. The university’s athletics program, the Quakers, fields varsity teams in 33 sports as a member of the NCAA Division I Ivy League conference.
Distinguished alumni and/or Trustees include U.S. Supreme Court justices; U.S. senators; U.S. governors; members of the U.S. House of Representatives; eight signers of the Declaration of Independence and seven signers of the U.S. Constitution (four of whom signed both representing two-thirds of the six people who signed both); members of the Continental Congress; foreign heads of state and two presidents of the United States. Nobel laureates; members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; billionaires; Rhodes Scholars; Marshall Scholars and Pulitzer Prize winners have been affiliated with the university.
History
The University of Pennsylvania considers itself the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, though this is contested by Princeton University and Columbia University. The university also considers itself as the first university in the United States with both undergraduate and graduate studies.
In 1740, a group of Philadelphians joined together to erect a great preaching hall for the traveling evangelist George Whitefield, who toured the American colonies delivering open-air sermons. The building was designed and built by Edmund Woolley and was the largest building in the city at the time, drawing thousands of people the first time it was preached in. It was initially planned to serve as a charity school as well, but a lack of funds forced plans for the chapel and school to be suspended. According to Franklin’s autobiography, it was in 1743 when he first had the idea to establish an academy, “thinking the Rev. Richard Peters a fit person to superintend such an institution”. However, Peters declined a casual inquiry from Franklin and nothing further was done for another six years. In the fall of 1749, now more eager to create a school to educate future generations, Benjamin Franklin circulated a pamphlet titled Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania, his vision for what he called a “Public Academy of Philadelphia”. Unlike the other colonial colleges that existed in 1749—Harvard University, William & Mary, Yale University, and The College of New Jersey—Franklin’s new school would not focus merely on education for the clergy. He advocated an innovative concept of higher education, one which would teach both the ornamental knowledge of the arts and the practical skills necessary for making a living and doing public service. The proposed program of study could have become the nation’s first modern liberal arts curriculum, although it was never implemented because Anglican priest William Smith (1727-1803), who became the first provost, and other trustees strongly preferred the traditional curriculum.
Franklin assembled a board of trustees from among the leading citizens of Philadelphia, the first such non-sectarian board in America. At the first meeting of the 24 members of the board of trustees on November 13, 1749, the issue of where to locate the school was a prime concern. Although a lot across Sixth Street from the old Pennsylvania State House (later renamed and famously known since 1776 as “Independence Hall”), was offered without cost by James Logan, its owner, the trustees realized that the building erected in 1740, which was still vacant, would be an even better site. The original sponsors of the dormant building still owed considerable construction debts and asked Franklin’s group to assume their debts and, accordingly, their inactive trusts. On February 1, 1750, the new board took over the building and trusts of the old board. On August 13, 1751, the “Academy of Philadelphia”, using the great hall at 4th and Arch Streets, took in its first secondary students. A charity school also was chartered on July 13, 1753 by the intentions of the original “New Building” donors, although it lasted only a few years. On June 16, 1755, the “College of Philadelphia” was chartered, paving the way for the addition of undergraduate instruction. All three schools shared the same board of trustees and were considered to be part of the same institution. The first commencement exercises were held on May 17, 1757.
The institution of higher learning was known as the College of Philadelphia from 1755 to 1779. In 1779, not trusting then-provost the Reverend William Smith’s “Loyalist” tendencies, the revolutionary State Legislature created a University of the State of Pennsylvania. The result was a schism, with Smith continuing to operate an attenuated version of the College of Philadelphia. In 1791, the legislature issued a new charter, merging the two institutions into a new University of Pennsylvania with twelve men from each institution on the new board of trustees.
Penn has three claims to being the first university in the United States, according to university archives director Mark Frazier Lloyd: the 1765 founding of the first medical school in America made Penn the first institution to offer both “undergraduate” and professional education; the 1779 charter made it the first American institution of higher learning to take the name of “University”; and existing colleges were established as seminaries (although, as detailed earlier, Penn adopted a traditional seminary curriculum as well).
After being located in downtown Philadelphia for more than a century, the campus was moved across the Schuylkill River to property purchased from the Blockley Almshouse in West Philadelphia in 1872, where it has since remained in an area now known as University City. Although Penn began operating as an academy or secondary school in 1751 and obtained its collegiate charter in 1755, it initially designated 1750 as its founding date; this is the year that appears on the first iteration of the university seal. Sometime later in its early history, Penn began to consider 1749 as its founding date and this year was referenced for over a century, including at the centennial celebration in 1849. In 1899, the board of trustees voted to adjust the founding date earlier again, this time to 1740, the date of “the creation of the earliest of the many educational trusts the University has taken upon itself”. The board of trustees voted in response to a three-year campaign by Penn’s General Alumni Society to retroactively revise the university’s founding date to appear older than Princeton University, which had been chartered in 1746.
Research, innovations and discoveries
Penn is classified as an “R1” doctoral university: “Highest research activity.” Its economic impact on the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has amounted to over $15 billion. Penn’s research expenditures are over $2 billion. Penn has received over $600 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health.
In line with its well-known interdisciplinary tradition, Penn’s research centers often span two or more disciplines. In the 2010–2011 academic year alone, five interdisciplinary research centers were created or substantially expanded; these include the Center for Health-care Financing; the Center for Global Women’s Health at the Nursing School; the $13 million Morris Arboretum’s Horticulture Center; the $15 million Jay H. Baker Retailing Center at Wharton; and the $13 million Translational Research Center at Penn Medicine. With these additions, Penn now counts over 160 research centers hosting a research community of over 5,000 faculty and over 1,200 postdoctoral fellows, and 6,000 academic support staff and graduate student trainees. To further assist the advancement of interdisciplinary research the University President established the “Penn Integrates Knowledge” title awarded to selected Penn professors “whose research and teaching exemplify the integration of knowledge”. These professors hold endowed professorships and joint appointments between Penn’s schools.
Penn is also among the most prolific producers of doctoral students. With hundreds of PhDs awarded each year, Penn ranks very high in the Ivy League. It also has one of the highest numbers of post-doctoral appointees in the Ivy League and very highly nationally.
In most disciplines Penn professors’ productivity is among the highest in the nation especially in the fields of epidemiology, business, communication studies, comparative literature, languages, information science, criminal justice and criminology, social sciences and sociology. According to the National Research Council nearly three-quarters of Penn’s 41 assessed programs were placed in high rankings in their fields, with more than half of these in ranges including the highest rankings in these fields.
Penn’s research tradition has historically been complemented by innovations that shaped higher education. In addition to establishing the first medical school; the first university teaching hospital; the first business school; and the first student union Penn was also the cradle of other significant developments. In 1852, Penn Law was the first law school in the nation to publish a law journal still in existence (then called The American Law Register, now the Penn Law Review, one of the most cited law journals in the world). Under the deanship of William Draper Lewis, the law school was also one of the first schools to emphasize legal teaching by full-time professors instead of practitioners, a system that is still followed today. The Wharton School was home to several pioneering developments in business education. It established the first research center in a business school in 1921 and the first center for entrepreneurship center in 1973 and it regularly introduced novel curricula for which BusinessWeek wrote, “Wharton is on the crest of a wave of reinvention and change in management education”.
Several major scientific discoveries have also taken place at Penn. The university is probably best known as the place where the first general-purpose electronic computer (ENIAC) was born in 1946 at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering.
It was here also where the world’s first spelling and grammar checkers were created, as well as the popular COBOL programming language. Penn can also boast some of the most important discoveries in the field of medicine. The dialysis machine used as an artificial replacement for lost kidney function was conceived and devised out of a pressure cooker by William Inouye while he was still a student at Penn Med; the Rubella and Hepatitis B vaccines were developed at Penn; the discovery of cancer’s link with genes; cognitive therapy; Retin-A (the cream used to treat acne), Resistin; the Philadelphia gene (linked to chronic myelogenous leukemia) and the technology behind PET Scans were all discovered by Penn Med researchers. More recent gene research has led to the discovery of the genes for fragile X syndrome, the most common form of inherited mental retardation; spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy, a disorder marked by progressive muscle wasting; and Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects the hands, feet and limbs.
Conductive polymer was also developed at Penn by Alan J. Heeger, Alan MacDiarmid and Hideki Shirakawa, an invention that earned them the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Ralph L. Brinster developed the scientific basis for in vitro fertilization and the transgenic mouse at Penn and was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2010. The theory of superconductivity was also partly developed at Penn, by then-faculty member John Robert Schrieffer (along with John Bardeen and Leon Cooper). The university has also contributed major advancements in the fields of economics and management. Among the many discoveries are conjoint analysis, widely used as a predictive tool especially in market research; Simon Kuznets’s method of measuring Gross National Product; the Penn effect (the observation that consumer price levels in richer countries are systematically higher than in poorer ones) and the “Wharton Model” developed by Nobel-laureate Lawrence Klein to measure and forecast economic activity. The idea behind Health Maintenance Organizations also belonged to Penn professor Robert Eilers, who put it into practice during then-President Nixon’s health reform in the 1970s.
International partnerships
Students can study abroad for a semester or a year at partner institutions such as the London School of Economics(UK), University of Barcelona [Universitat de Barcelona](ES), Paris Institute of Political Studies [Institut d’études politiques de Paris](FR), University of Queensland(AU), University College London(UK), King’s College London(UK), Hebrew University of Jerusalem(IL) and University of Warwick(UK).
sciencesprings 