Cutler Cleveland
Professor, Department of Geography and Environment and Center for Energy and Environmental Studies
Affiliations: Fellow, Pardee Center for the Study of Longer-Range Future; Faculty Associate, Center for Ecology and Conservation Biology
PhD 1988, University of Illinois, Geography
Research interests: ecological economics, resource scarcity, petroleum supply and energy systems; dematerialization; energy policy; natural resources and sustainable development; bats, see bat movie clip
Office: Stone Science (STO) 447
Phone: 617-353-3083
Fax: 617-353-5986
E-mail: cutler@bu.edu
Address: Center for Energy
and Environmental Studies
675 Commonwealth Avenue, Rm 457
Boston, MA 02215, USA
Recipient of the 2006 Adelman/Frankel Award from the United States Association for Energy Economics in "recognition of his unique and innovative contributions to the field of energy economics."
Current Projects
To read about Cutler's ideas on everything energy, visit his Energy Browser blog.
The Encyclopedia of Earth: The Encyclopedia will be the largest reliable information resource on the environment in history. Imagine every resource describing the Earth from the reference section of the largest university library in the world organized into one work, fully searchable and completely free—but, in addition, kept constantly up-to-date. The project has already attracted a large group of distinguished editors and authors of the highest caliber, from renowned international institutions. For more details on the Encyclopedia see www.eoearth.org
The Earth Portal: Earth Portal will be the first web-based information resource that combines the trustworthiness and authority of scientific review and governance with the power of web-based collaboration, all enabled by a state-of-the-art technology platform. It will also provide news services, structured metadata, a federated environmental search engine, and a suite of stewarding tools that will enable users to effortlessly build subject-specific portals. For more information see www.earthportal.net
Current Research
The Bush Energy Policy
Cutler J. Cleveland and Robert Kaufmann
Like his four predecessors, President Bush has identified dependence on imported oil as an urgent energy, economic, and national security concern. To close the 'oil supply gap' the President promotes the development of domestic resources of oil and natural gas. Will this policy succeed? This project assesses the economic, energy security and environmental issues surrounding the Bush Energy plan. Download a draft copy here.
The Assessment of U.S. Oil and Gas SuppliesCutler Cleveland and Robert Kaufmann
There are few issues more important and more hotly debated than the future supply of oil and natural gas. Our research has sought to identify the economic, geological, engineering and institutional forces that determined the historic pattern of petroleum discovery and production in the U.S., and then use that information to forecast future supply. Much of this work uses time series econometric models to quantify these relationships. Our results clearly show that (i) depletion effects now dominate technology effects in the discovery and production stages; (ii) models that rely exclusively on physical or economic driving forces have poorer explanatory power than those that integrate the effects of such forces, and (iii) policies that aim to subsidize or otherwise stimulate oil production in the U.S. will fail to do so in any appreciable way, and in doing so will damage the economy and the environment. A synthesis of this work is available at our web site: www.oilanalytics.org.
The Encyclopedia of Energy
Cutler Cleveland, Editor-in-Chief
Associate Editors: Amory Lovins, Margaret Slade, Rajendra Pachauri, Vaclav
Smil, Robert Costanza, Jose Goldemberg , Robert Ayres, Robert Kaufmann, Mohan
Munasinghe and Lee Schipper.
Advances in our understanding of energy have catalyzed unparalleled social and technological transformations. However, there exists no authoritative reference providing an encyclopedic treatment of energy. This premise is the motivation for developing the Academic Press Encyclopedia of Energy. This scholarly endeavor will be designed as a comprehensive yet accessible reference; it will elucidate many of the transdisciplinary aspects of energy and illuminate energy's central role in society. Energy is designed to appeal to a variety of audiences including students, scholars and professionals in colleges, universities and other institutions of higher education; the libraries of non-governmental organizations, government agencies, and other consultants and researchers involved with energy, environmental, and public policy issues. Energy will follow in the path of Academic Press's award-winning Reference Series http://www.elsevier.com/homepage/sai/encycofenergy/.
Courses Taught
GG 100
Introduction to Environmental Science
EE 518 Energy and
Resource Scarcity
EE 519
Energy, Society and the Environment
Selected Publications
Books:
• Cleveland, Cutler J., Robert Costanza and David I. Stern (Editors). The Nature of Economics and the Economics of Nature (Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, England, 2001).
• Costanza, Robert, Charles Perrings and Cutler J. Cleveland (Editors). The Development of Ecological Economics (Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, England, 1997).
• Hall, Charles A.S., Cutler J. Cleveland, and Robert K. Kaufmann. Energy and Resource Quality: The Ecology of the Economic Process. (Wiley Interscience: New York, 1986). (Reprinted by the University of Colorado Press, Niwot, CO 1992).
Major Reference Works:
• Cleveland, Cutler J., Editor-in-Chief. The Encyclopedia of Energy. Six volumes (Elsevier Science, Oxford, UK, 2004).
• Cleveland, Cutler J., Editor-in-Chief. The Dictionary of Energy. (Elsevier Science, Oxford, UK, 2005).
Articles (links are to PDFs):
• C. J. Cleveland. 2003. Biophysical Constraints to Economic Growth. In: D. Al Gobaisi, Editor-in-Chief. Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems. EOLSS Publishers Co., Oxford, UK. (http://www.eolss.com/)
• Hall, Charles, Pradeep Tharakan, John Hallock, Cutler Cleveland and Michael Jefferson. 2003. Hydrocarbons and the evolution of human culture . Nature. 426: 318-322.
• Najam, Adil and Cleveland, Cutler J. 2003. Energy and Sustainable Development at Global Environmental Summits: An Evolving Agenda. Environment, Development and Sustainability. 5: 117-138.
• Cleveland, Cutler J. 2002. Changing of the Guard at Ecological Economics. Ecological Economics. 42: 353-358.
• Cleveland, Cutler J. Net energy from oil and gas extraction in the United States, 1954-1997. (in review, Energy: The International Journal).
• Kaufmann, R. K. and Cleveland, C. J. 2001. Oil Production in the lower 48 states: economic, geological. and institutional determinants. Energy Journal, 22: 27-49.
• Costanza, R., C. Perrings, and C. J. Cleveland. 2000. Ecosystem and economic theories in ecological economics. Pp. 547-560 in: S. E. Jorgensen and F. Mueler (eds) Handbook of Ecosystem Theories and Management. Lewis Press, Boca Raton, FL.584 pp.
• Cleveland, Cutler J. and David I. Stern. 2000. Beyond Natural Resource Scarcity Indicators: An Ecological-Economic Synthesis. In Cleveland, Cutler J., Robert Costanza and David I. Stern Eds. The Nature of Economics and the Economics of Nature (Edward Elgar Publishing, Hants, England).
• Cleveland, Cutler J., David I. Stern, and Robert K. Kaufmann. Aggregation and the Role of Energy in the Economy. Ecological Economics, 32: 301-317 (2000).
• Cleveland, Cutler J . 1999. Biophysical Economics: From Physiocracy to Ecological Economics and Industrial Ecology. In Bioeconomics and Sustainability: Essays in Honor of Nicholas Gerogescu-Roegen, J. Gowdy and K. Mayumi, Eds. (Edward Elgar P
• Cleveland, Cutler J. and Matthias Ruth. 1998. Indicators of Dematerialization and the Materials Intensity of Use. Industrial Ecology, 2: 13-49.
• Cleveland, Cutler J. and Robert Kaufmann. 1997. Natural Gas in the U.S.: How Far Can Technology Stretch the Resource Base? The Energy Journal, 18: 89-108.
• Cleveland, Cutler J. and Matthias Ruth. 1997. When, Where, and By How Much Do Biophysical Limits Constrain the Economic Process? The Contribution of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen to Ecological Economics. Ecological Economics, 22: 203-223.
• Cleveland, Cutler J. 1995. The Direct and Indirect Use of Fossil Fuels and Electricity in U.S. Agriculture, 1910 to 1990. Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Environment, 55: 111-121.
• Cleveland, Cutler J. 1995. Resource Degradation, Technical Change, and the Productivity of Energy Use in U.S. Agriculture. Ecological Economics, 13: 185-201.
• Kaufmann, R.K. and Cutler J. 1995. Measuring sustainability: needed an interdisciplinary approach to an interdisciplinary concept. Ecological Economics, 15: 109-112.
• Cleveland, Cutler J. 1993. An exploration of alternative measures of natural resource scarcity: the case of petroleum resources in the U.S.. Ecological Economics, 7: 123- 1.57.
• Cleveland, Cutler J. 1992. Energy quality and energy surplus in the extraction of fossil fuels in the U.S.. Ecological Economics, 6: 139-162.
Web sites:
• The Project On Human Development (http://humandevelopment.bu.edu/), Cutler J. Cleveland and Adil Najam, Co-Directors, the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer Range Future, Boston University.
