Though new technology has recently led to a huge increase in the estimates of the amount of natural gas that can be produced economically from U.S. shale deposits, detailed objective analysis of how much gas can actually be produced from these deposits has not yet been done. This grant to the University of Texas at Austin's Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG) will support just such an analysis. BEG will obtain government and company data-some public and some proprietary-on all existing gas wells in the five major shale gas regions of the United States and use these data to perform a well-by-well analysis of production capacity. Although the BEG project will not cover all shale regions, the ones included are expected to yield the lion's share of shale gas over the next 20 years, the time horizon for the study. BEG will also quantify the needs for land and water use to enable various levels of shale gas production to be achieved.

This grant supports a project by Michael Levy, Director of the Council on Foreign Relations' program on Energy Security and Climate Change, to institute a major research program on challenges facing the United States at the intersection of energy and national security and the policy options available for addressing them, with a particular focus on oil. Funds will support the work of a full-time fellow at the Council, one to two adjunct fellows, and several outside scholars commissioned to do analysis and research. Other funds will support a series of roundtables and workshops designed to facilitate information sharing among the community of researchers and to expose interested younger scholars to work in the field, and outreach efforts designed to educate journalists, government officials, industry stakeholders, and the public. The proposed research agenda will cover several areas, including: ? understanding the security consequences of oil production, consumption, and trade; ? analyzing U.S. policies that could promote reduced demand for oil, including in developing countries; ? understanding major oil producing countries, especially Iraq and Iran; and ? assessing policies that maintain or strengthen the functioning of oil markets and the geopolitics of natural gas. In total, this project promises to make a major contribution to the ongoing discussions of energy security in the United States and should raise the quality of this discussion significantly.

This grant supports a project by MIT's Richard Lester to create a new executive-level course designed to promote the safe and responsible use of nuclear power worldwide and to provide leadership education and training in the strategies, operational practices, and technologies required to develop a safe, successful civilian nuclear energy program. The new course would be built on MIT's very successful and self-sufficient Reactor Technology Course for Utility Executives (RTC), now in its 18th year and offered in partnership with the Institute for Nuclear Power Operations. The curriculum would provide training for senior executives as well as government officials in countries considering building their first nuclear power plants, in countries in the early stages of implementing a civilian nuclear power program, or in countries which are restarting a civilian nuclear power program after an extended period of dormancy. Particular emphasis would target potential nuclear countries in the developing world, including Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., Indonesia, Turkey, Vietnam, Egypt, and Jordan. This project represents a unique opportunity for Sloan to contribute to the safe development of new civilian nuclear power programs around the world.

In 2009, the Foundation approved a grant to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to support its work helping the world's nuclear power plant vendors develop a voluntary Code of Conduct. The effort has made significant progress and funds from this grant support the Carnegie Endowment's continuing efforts to advance the project. The Code text now contains sections on safety, health and radiological protection, physical security, environmental protection and the handling of irradiated fuel and nuclear waste, compensation for nuclear damage, nonproliferation and safeguards, and ethics. Drawing, where possible, on existing international agreements and International Atomic Energy Agency recommendations, the Code would pledge complying vendors to a standard of behavior higher than would be expected in its absence or than has been true historically. While the Code, once agreed upon, will be voluntary, it promises to be highly significant in influencing the behavior of power plant vendors. Hopefully it will be incorporated into each company's own code of business conduct, making it essentially mandatory for them. Moreover, the Code's very public nature and the scrutiny of environmental and nonproliferation advocacy groups will help guarantee vendor compliance.