James Sweeney is a leading authority on energy policy, energy markets and pricing, depletable and renewable resource use, and environmental economics. He has testified in trial and deposition across a range of matters, involving damages, valuation, price fixing, and breach of contract, in the United States and New Zealand. Professor Sweeney has extensive experience consulting to companies, governmental agencies, and nongovernmental organizations.
Professor Sweeney is the author of several books, including Energy Efficiency: Building a Clean, Secure Economy, which focuses on the role of energy efficiency in reducing U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, enhancing U.S. energy import security, and improving economic performance. He wrote the Californian Electricity Crisis, analyzing and documenting the western electricity crisis and the California electricity financial crisis of 2000–2001. He coedited the three-volume Handbook of Natural Resource and Energy Economics. In addition, he has published his research in numerous other books and in journals such as Econometrica, the Energy Journal, and Management Science. Professor Sweeney is a former coeditor of the journal Resource and Energy Economics.
An award-winning teacher, Professor Sweeney has been honored by the U.S. Association for Energy Economics and the International Association for Energy Economics (IAEE) for unique, innovative, and outstanding contributions to the field of energy economics. He chaired the Stanford Department of Engineering-Economic Systems and Operations Research and was a founding member of the IAEE.
Professor Sweeney is the Council Chair of the California Council on Science and Technology, founding chair of the California Energy Commission’s Petroleum Market Advisory Committee, and serves on the External Advisory Board of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. He is the former director of the Precourt Energy Efficiency Center at Stanford University.