Like other initiatives of the time, RFF research on energy issues in the early 1950s was conditioned by concern over scarcity and import dependence. That concern had previously motivated work of the Paley Commission and now stirred renewed anxiety arising from the Korean War. Framed most broadly, might the country's economic well-being be jeopardized by uncertainty about, or worse, insufficiency of, its underlying energy and resource base?
Unquestionably, two individuals who most directly and successfully took up the challenge of addressing that dilemma—both in the course of their own impressive research and their leadership of an expanding RFF program of energy studies—were Sam Schurr, who joined RFF in 1954, and Hans Landsberg, who followed in 1960.
In recognition of these scholars' abiding professional contributions and influence throughout their long careers, a special issue of The Energy Journal (Vol. 24, No. 4, 2003) honors their role through a series of invited articles on different aspects of energy economics. This issue is available to members of the International Asosciation For Energy Economics on their website. Senior Fellow Joel Darmstadter illuminates the lives of these two men in the magazine’s introductory article, Hans H. Landsberg and Sam H. Schurr: Reflections and Appreciation. Biographies of both men, along with a select list of their publications, can be found at the end of the article.
On January 21, 2004 RFF inaugurates a lecture series in Landsberg’s honor. The Inaugural Hans Landsberg Memorial Lecture features a talk by Under Secretary of Energy Robert G. Card (A Discussion of Two of the Key Energy Questions of the Day: Natural Gas and Greenhouse Gas Emissions). Read RFF Journalist-in-Residence John Anderson on the highlights of Card's talk and watch video of this RFF Seminar.
