Duke professor crunches feds' energy numbers

WASHINGTON -- As energy increasingly dominates the new economy, a quiet little agency in Washington holds responsibility for tracking the particles that conduct, fuse, blow, heat, combust and convert the earth, wind and water into the energy that makes our society run.

And the man behind thedata-crunching enterprise is Richard Newell of Chapel Hill, Duke University economist, energy enthusiast and father.

Newell took over Aug. 3 as administrator for the Energy Information Administration. Companies such as Duke Energy make decisions about whether to build new coal plants based in part on the EIA's long-term projections on energy use. The office is responsible for dozens of daily, weekly and monthly reports on all aspects of energy.

It tracks how much energy comes from solar, geothermal and biomass sources. It follows the production and use of coal, natural gas and petroleum. It tracks greenhouse gas emissions.

Its work can shake financial markets and propel legislation.

It does all this, by law, in a nonpartisan, neutral fashion. The only political appointee is the director: Newell.

"Energy is a part of so many aspects of our daily lives, our economy," Newell said last week in an interview. "It's the car you drive; it's when you turn the lights on, drive the kids to school.

"Environmental issues are increasing in attention and importance over the last decade or two," he said. "And so I think there's a lot of interest on the part of policymakers and society in how we meet our energy needs in a way that allowed the economy to keep running and addresses environmental concerns."

A friendly man with wavy hair and a fashionable beard, Newell, 44, sports just enough gray to give him gravitas in the very serious town of Washington. When he smiles, which is often, his eyebrows shoot above his glasses, crinkling his forehead.

Skills for the job

His former boss, Duke University dean Bill Chameides, called Newell a natural teacher and meticulous researcher - skills, he said, that will serve Newell well in Washington.

"Richard has the ability to explain complex economics concepts in language that anyone can grasp, without oversimplifying," said Chameides, who is dean of Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment.

Indeed, Newell speaks more like a middle-school teacher - down-to-earth, enthusiastic, easily able to puncture the buttoned-up atmosphere that can pervade the nation's capital.

On a recent afternoon just after lunch, he greeted a photographer with a wide grin. "Do I have anything in my teeth?" he joked.

The work he does at EIA, though, is very serious.

"They're not trying to spin the facts," said Ron Planting, an economist at the American Petroleum Institute, an advocacy group for the oil industry. "They're trying to gather the best data available."

President Barack Obama has made renewable energy a central part of his economic recovery program and one of his administration's priorities. And in what is likely to become one of the more controversial debates of the coming year, lawmakers, lobbyists and advocates shaping climate change legislation will rely on the agency's data.

"The pressure on Richard is to produce accurate data and nonpartisan analysis," said Lincoln Pratson, a colleague and professor of energy and the environment at Duke's Nicholas School. "People have made financial bets as to what oil or gas is going to do based on those numbers, and when numbers get revised there are times when people are losing out on their bets."

Guy Caruso, who served six years as head of the EIA under President George W. Bush, said the agency often faced criticism from various organizations lobbying for their own interests.

"I'd tell them: 'We can't just plug in what you like as your aspirational goals,' " Caruso recalled in an interview. Caruso said there were times when he had to tell the Bush administration that the numbers didn't fit their policy goals.

"Maybe Richard may have to say to the Obama people: 'Yes, we know that's your policy, but the analysis says it's not going to get results you like,' " Caruso said.

How he got here

Newell grew up in suburban New Jersey, the youngest of five children. His father worked in insurance; his mother primarily stayed at home with the children.

He never considered himself an environmental activist. He was good at math and science, so he majored in engineering. Because he was interested in human interactions, he added a philosophy major.

In graduate school, he took an economics course for the first time and majored in public policy. There, he became interested in greenhouse gas emissions, climate change and the impacts on the global economy.

"My motivation didn't come from an ethical or activist point of view," Newell said. "I think it's a really important problem and raises interesting issues."

For years, Newell worked as an analyst at Resources for the Future, a nonpartisan energy and economic think tank in Washington.

He was appointed by Bush to serve on the President's Council of Economic Advisers. While there, he was recruited to Duke's Nicholas School, which he joined in 2007.

After Obama's election last year, Newell began talking to members of the president-elect's transition team about a role in the administration. Of all the posts he thought about, the EIA administrator seemed to fit his interests most closely.

"I think he'll do a great job," Caruso said. "It's a wonderful appointment."

Newell said his success at EIA should not necessarily be measured by what policies come into place. He's all about the data.

He would like to leave feeling that the office had provided the best energy forecasts possible, that it had improved the quality and timeliness of its reports, and that it had increased the public's use of the information.

"If I've done that, I'd feel like I've been successful," Newell said.

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