Supported partially by CEI funds, the Energy Laboratory organized and hosted a 70-person workshop in November  1997 to launch the new collaborative research initiative, Program on Energy Choices in a Greenhouse Gas Constrained World (see the news item in e-lab, October-December 1997). In February, representatives of selected petroleum companies participated in a follow-up workshop that focused on research topics that those companies might support. Jefferson W. Tester, director of the Energy Laboratory and professor of chemical engineering, is director of the Program on Energy Choices. Elisabeth M. Drake, associate director of the Energy Laboratory, is program manager. The Energy Choices Advisory Board, chaired by Professor Marks, includes the following Energy Laboratory researchers: Professor Tester; John B. Heywood, Sun Jae Professor of Mechanical Engineering; Henry D. Jacoby, William F. Pounds Professor of Management; and Malcolm A. Weiss, senior research staff member in the Energy Laboratory.

Partial funding for the Program on Energy Choices comes from the CEI's MIT Venture Fund for Energy Choices, which was established in fall of 1997 with a grant from the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation. These funds are used in conjunction with funds from corporate and other sponsors to support long-range, innovative research in strategic areas for which other funding is not readily available. Two Venture Fund initiatives are led by researchers affiliated with the Energy Laboratory. Leon R. Glicksman, professor of building technology and director of MIT's Building Technology Program, is working with his MIT group and researchers at Tsinghua University to assess China's building sector, with a focus on designs and technologies that will improve energy-use efficiency. Mujid S. Kazimi, professor of nuclear engineering, and his MIT colleagues are collaborating with researchers at several Chinese universities to help China develop safety and performance standards for its new but potentially expanding nuclear industry.

The Energy Laboratory is also closely involved in the Alliance for Global Sustainability (AGS), another program that falls under the auspices of the CEI. The AGS is a partnership of three universities--MIT, the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, and the University of Tokyo--that was created in 1994 as a strategic approach to the problems of global sustainability. Researchers from the three universities work together to develop and promote new policies and processes to deal with international sustainability issues. The annual meeting of the AGS was held in Zurich, Switzerland, on January 21-24. Among the 350 attendees were Professor Tester, Dr. Drake, and Stephen Connors, Energy Laboratory staff member and director of the Laboratory's Electric Utility Program. The meeting was designed to establish a working relationship between the university researchers and governments and residents of developing countries. Discussion focused especially on issues relating to rapidly developing "megacities" including Jakarta, Shanghai, Mexico City, New Delhi, Lagos, and Beijing. The AGS International Advisory Board also heard progress reports on the first set of AGS research projects, launched in 1997, and approved funding for an additional 16 projects, bringing the total number of AGS projects to 37.

With support from the AGS, the MIT Venture Fund for Energy Choices, and select industrial organizations, the Energy Laboratory has initiated numerous research projects within the Program on Energy Choices. One such project falls in the area of improved buildings, neighborhoods, and urban environments. With funding through the AGS from Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Professor Glicksman and his sustainable-buildings group are collaborating with Japanese researchers in the University of Tokyo's "Tokyo Half Project," which aims to identify urban environments that will  reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% from today's levels. This work builds on the group's previously described research focusing on China's building sector. Two other AGS-funded projects, led by Mr. Connors, bridge energy needs for buildings and energy supply. "Decision Framework for Energy Choices" seeks to extend the multi-attribute approach developed by Mr. Connors and the Analysis Group for Regional Electricity Alternatives (AGREA) to other energy sectors and sustainability issues, with a focus on developing nations such as China. The SESAMS project (Strategic Electric Sector Assessment Methodology under Sustainability Conditions), which involves collaborators at MIT, the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology in Zurich and Lausanne, and the Paul Scherrer Institut, has received an additional two years of support. The researchers will add life-cycle analysis to their already robust strategic  planning and decision support research capabilities.