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DOE OSTI2021

Fossil energy deployment through midcentury consistent with 2°C climate stabilization

Energy system transformation scenarios satisfying particular climate stabilization objectives, such as 2°C, suggest that a wide range of fossil energy outcomes could be consistent with such objectives. The underlying drivers of variability in these outcomes cannot, however, be easily separated. This paper attempts to shed light on such drivers using a single, state-of-the-art global integrated assessment model (GCAM) to evaluate the energy system implications of climate stabilization near 2°C. We focus specifically on the role of fossil primary energy through midcentury under different assumptions about carbon capture and storage (CCS) and bioenergy supply. In our scenarios, coal and natural gas primary energy are most sensitive to the availability of CCS, with bioenergy supply having a secondary impact on these sources. Looking across primary energy sources, we find that primary energy from coal declines by midcentury relative to 2015 in all GCAM mitigation scenarios considered here, whereas primary energy from natural gas and oil increases by midcentury relative to 2015 in most of the scenarios in which CCS is available. We explain these results in terms of fundamental energy-economic relationships and discuss the implications of these findings for broader energy policy and planning.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Comparing net zero pathways across the Atlantic A model inter-comparison exercise between the Energy Modeling Forum 37 and the European Climate and Energy Modeling Forum

Europe and North America account for 32 % of current carbon emissions. Due to distinct legacy systems, energy infrastructure, socioeconomic development, and energy resource endowment, both regions have different policy and technological pathways to reach net zero by the mid-century. Against this background, our paper examines the results from the net zero emission scenarios for Europe and North America that emerged from the collaboration of the European and American Energy Modeling Forums. Here, in our analysis, we perform an inter-comparison of various integrated assessments and bottom-up energy system models. A clear qualitative consensus emerges on five main points. First, Europe and the United States reach net zero targets with electrification, demand-side reductions, and carbon capture and sequestration technologies. Second, the use of carbon capture and sequestration is more predominant in the United States due to a steeper decarbonization schedule. Third, the buildings sector is the easiest to electrify in both regions. Fourth, the industrial sector is the hardest to electrify in the United States and transportation in Europe. Fifth, in both regions, the transition in the energy mix is driven by the substitution of coal and natural gas with solar and wind, but to a different extent.

100 % renewables↗
DOE OSTI2025

Pathways for decarbonization of the buildings sector in Ukraine

The paper focuses on Ukraine’s intention to achieve a two-thirds reduction in buildings’ energy consumption for heating and cooling by 2050, concurrently aiming for net zero greenhouse gas emissions and heightened energy security. Here, the study examines the outcomes of retrofitting existing residential, commercial, and public buildings with highly efficient materials, improving construction standards, and transitioning to advanced heating systems. However, Russia’s invasion in 2022 inflicted substantial damage, prompting a shift from retrofit and decarbonization to reconstruction. The Ukrainian government’s Reconstruction Plan emphasizes clean, sustainable, and resilient energy systems. The study employs energy system and integrated assessment models (TIMES-Ukraine and GCAM-Ukraine) to explore scenarios taking into consideration the war, reconstruction, and a net zero CO 2 pathway. Using two models allowed the inter-model comparison. The analysis addresses vital questions on energy resiliency measures and the compounding effects of decarbonization. Findings indicate that Ukraine’s energy goals can be met through strategic retrofitting and economy-wide decarbonization, emphasizing the importance of low-carbon alternatives like district heating with renewable sources. Electrification with renewables and fuel-switching emerges as crucial for achieving building decarbonization. The study offers valuable insights into navigating energy challenges amidst the war and outlines a pathway for Ukraine’s sustainable energy future.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Energy System Transitions and Low-Emission Pathways in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, EU-28, India, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Russia, and United States

The Paris Agreement invited Parties to submit long-term, low-emission development strategies. This study presents national low-emission scenarios to inform such strategies for Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, EU, India, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, Republic of Korea and the USA. The study uses country-level energy–economy and integrated assessment models (IAMs) that incorporate detailed and disaggregated representations of the energy demand and supply systems that are difficult to capture in global IAMs. Models were used to explore low-carbon pathways up to 2050, providing insights in their implications for country emissions, energy system restructuring, energy–economy indicators and system costs. The analysis shows that the low-carbon scenarios of most economies studied here are consistent with pathways limiting global warming to below 2 °C.

Fragkos, Panagiotis↗
DOE OSTI2021

The Role of Energy Storage in the Uptake of Renewable Energy: A Model Comparison Approach

The power sector needs to ensure a rapid transition towards a low-carbon energy system to avoid the dangerous consequences of greenhouse gas emissions. Storage technologies are a promising option to provide the power system with the flexibility required when intermittent renewables are present in the electricity generation mix. This paper focuses on the role of electricity storage in energy systems with high shares of renewable sources. The study encompasses a model comparison approach where four models (GENeSYS-MOD, MUSE, NATEM, and urbs - MX) are used to analyse the storage uptake in North America. The analysis addresses the conditions affecting storage uptake in each country and its dependence on resource availability, technology costs, and public policies. Results show that storage may promote emissions reduction at lower costs when renewable mandates are in place whereas in presence of carbon taxes, renewables may compete with other low-carbon options. The study also highlights the main modelling approach shortcomings in the modelling of electricity storage in integrated assessment models.

electricity storage↗
DOE OSTI2022

The energy system transformation needed to achieve the US long-term strategy

The authors designed and executed the integrated assessment modeling for the United States long-term strategy. They bring diverse expertise to the modeling and analysis of United States decarbonization. Russell Horowitz, Matthew Binsted, and Haewon McJeon are scientists at the Joint Global Change Research Institute, a partnership between Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Maryland. Allen Fawcett, James McFarland, and Morgan Browning are economists at the Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Economics Branch. Claire Henly is White House Fellow at the Office of the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate. Nathan Hultman is the Director of the Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Multifunctional landscapes for dedicated bioenergy crops lead to low-carbon market-competitive biofuels

Switchgrass is a promising feedstock for cellulosic biorefineries, due to its ability to maintain comparatively high biomass yields across a wide range of soil and climatic conditions. However, there is an incomplete understanding of the economic and environmental tradeoffs associated with cultivating switchgrass on low-productivity land for conversion to biofuels. This study surveys prior literature and demonstrates a new integrated assessment framework, including agroecosystem, ecosystem services valuation, technoeconomic, and life-cycle assessment models, to quantify and contextualize the economic and environmental impacts of switchgrass cultivation on marginal land with downstream conversion to biofuels. Monetizing and incorporating the value of ecosystem services, such as improved water quality benefits from nitrate and sediment reductions, climate change mitigation benefits from CO 2 emission reduction, and recreational and pollination benefits from increased biodiversity, the modeled multifunctional landscape reduces the ethanol production cost by 33.3–58.9 cents/$\scriptsize{L}$-gasoline-equivalent ($\$$1.3–2.2/gge). Planting switchgrass in low productivity land improves soil health, resulting in the carbon footprint reduction credit of 12.8–20.2 gCO 2e /MJ. For an improved switchgrass-to-ethanol conversion pathway with the maximum benefits from ecosystem services, the minimum ethanol selling price and carbon footprint of ethanol, respectively, could reach to 31 cents/$\scriptsize{L}$-gasoline-equivalent (47% reduction relative to average gasoline price) and 3 gCO 2e /MJ (97% reduction relative to gasoline). In conclusion, this low carbon renewable ethanol leads to substantial State and/or Federal policy incentives (~$\$$1/$\scriptsize{L}$-gasoline-equivalent) providing a large benefit to biorefinery operators, farmers, and the public as a whole.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Role of climate goals and clean-air policies on reducing future air pollution deaths in China: a modelling study

Over 3 million people still die every year from diseases caused by exposure to outdoor PM 2.5 air pollution, and more than a quarter of these premature deaths occur in China. In addition to clean air policies that target pollution emissions, climate policies aimed at reducing fossil-fuel CO 2 emissions (e.g., to avoid 1.5°C of warming) may also dramatically improve air quality and public health. Yet there has been no comprehensive accounting of public health outcomes under different energy pathways and local clean air management decisions in China. In particular, further research is needed to understand the relationships among climate and clean air polices and future health burdens in China, where an aging population will further exacerbate the impacts of air pollution. Using a China-focused integrated assessment model (GCAM-China) and a dynamic emission projection model (DPEC), we project future Chinese air quality in scenarios spanning a range of global climate targets (i.e. 1.5°0C, 2°C, NDC, unambitious, baseline, and 4.5°C) as well as national clean air actions (i.e. 2015-pollution, current-pollution, and ambitious-pollution). We then evaluate the health impacts of PM2·5 air pollution of scenario matrix using the chemical transport model WRF-CMAQ and the latest epidemiological concentration–response (C-R) functions (i.e. GBD2019). We find that, without ambitious climate mitigation (e.g., under current NDC pledges), Chinese deaths related the PM2.5 air pollution do not substantially decrease—and often grow—by mid-century, regardless of clean air policies and air quality improvements. For example, in scenarios that track China’s current NDC pledge and deploy best-available pollution control technologies, PM 2.5 -related deaths in China decrease slightly by 2030 (to 1.2 million per year) but no further by mid-century (Ambitious-pollution-NDC-goals; 1.2 million deaths in 2050) despite substantial and continuous improvements in population-weighted air quality (27.2 to 16.0 µg/m 3 from 2030 to 2050). The contrary trends of improving air quality and increasing PM 2·5 -related deaths in many of our scenarios reveals the extent to which extra efforts are needed to compensate for the established fact of increasing age of China’s population in future. Substantial decreases in China’s PM 2.5 -related deaths and age-standardized death rates (e.g., decreasing by 0.3–0.5 million deaths and 10.2–14.2 per 100,000 population age-standardized death rates per year) thus require the sort of large-scale transition in energy sources entailed by scenarios that meet international climate goals to avoid 1.5°C and 2°C of warming (Ambitious-pollution-2°C- and 1.5°C-goals).

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Funding a Just Transition Away from Coal in the U.S. Considering Avoided Damage from Air Pollution

Abstract Coal is declining in the U.S. as part of the clean energy transition, resulting in remarkable air pollution benefits for the American public and significant costs for the industry. Using the AP3 integrated assessment model, we estimate that fewer emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and primary fine particulate matter driven by coal’s decline led to $300 billion in benefits from 2014 to 2019. Conversely, we find that job losses driven by less coal plant and mining activity resulted in $7.84 billion in foregone wages over the same timeframe. While the benefits were greatly distributed (mostly throughout the East), costs were highly concentrated in coal communities. Transferring a small fraction of the benefits to workers could cover these costs while maintaining societal net benefits. Forecasting coal fleet damages from 2020 to 2035, we find that buying out or replacing these plants would result in $589 billion in air quality benefits, which considerably outweigh the costs. The return on investment increases when policy targets the most damaging capacity, and net benefits are maximized when removing just facilities where marginal benefits exceed marginal costs. Evaluating competitive reverse auction policy designs akin to Germany’s Coal Exit Act, we find that adjusting bids based on monetary damages rather than based only on carbon dioxide emissions – the German design – provides a welfare advantage. Our benefit–cost analyses clearly support policies that drive a swift and just transition away from coal, thereby clearing the air while supporting communities needing assistance.

Dennin, Luke R. (ORCID:0000000205405520)↗
DOE OSTI2021

Carbon‐Neutral Pathways for the United States

Abstract The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C points to the need for carbon neutrality by mid‐century. Achieving this in the United States in only 30 years will be challenging, and practical pathways detailing the technologies, infrastructure, costs, and tradeoffs involved are needed. Modeling the entire U.S. energy and industrial system with new analysis tools that capture synergies not represented in sector‐specific or integrated assessment models, we created multiple pathways to net zero and net negative CO 2 emissions by 2050. They met all forecast U.S. energy needs at a net cost of 0.2–1.2% of GDP in 2050, using only commercial or near‐commercial technologies, and requiring no early retirement of existing infrastructure. Pathways with constraints on consumer behavior, land use, biomass use, and technology choices (e.g., no nuclear) met the target but at higher cost. All pathways employed four basic strategies: energy efficiency, decarbonized electricity, electrification, and carbon capture. Least‐cost pathways were based on >80% wind and solar electricity plus thermal generation for reliability. A 100% renewable primary energy system was feasible but had higher cost and land use. We found multiple feasible options for supplying low‐carbon fuels for non‐electrifiable end uses in industry, freight, and aviation, which were not required in bulk until after 2035. In the next decade, the actions required in all pathways were similar: expand renewable capacity 3.5 fold, retire coal, maintain existing gas generating capacity, and increase electric vehicle and heat pump sales to >50% of market share. This study provides a playbook for carbon neutrality policy with concrete near‐term priorities.

Williams, James H.↗
DOE OSTI2021

The Impact of U.S. Re-engagement in Climate on the Paris Targets

The Paris Agreement is meant to bind together international efforts to reduce temperature increase to well-below 2ºC. While so far, ambitions in many signatories of the Paris Agreement have been insufficient to achieve this goal, optimism prevailed in the second half of 2020, with several major emitters enhancing their mitigation targets and a change of leadership in the United States (U.S.). Expectations are high for an active re-engagement in climate action by the Biden Administration, which immediately re-entered the Paris Agreement and announced a net-zero goal for 2050. Apart from the impact that U.S. federal re-engagement could have on national greenhouse gas emissions levels, there are several channels through which U.S. re-engagement in climate action could positively impact ambitions in other countries. This Policy Forum explores the impact of renewed U.S. engagement on national emissions, global emissions and end-of-century temperatures by comparing five combinations of climate ambitions in the U.S. and the rest of the world through an integrated assessment model.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Uncertain Spatial Pattern of Future Land Use and Land Cover Change and Its Impacts on Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Over the Arctic–Boreal Region of North America

Land use and land cover change (LULCC) represents a key process of human-Earth system interaction and has profound impacts on terrestrial ecosystem carbon cycling. As a key input for ecosystem models, future gridded LULCC data is typically spatially downscaled from regional LULCC projections by integrated assessment models, such as the Global Change Analysis Model (GCAM). The uncertainty associated with the different spatial downscaling methods and its impacts on the subsequent model projections have been historically ignored and rarely examined. This study investigated this problem using two representative spatial downscaling methods and focused on their impacts on the carbon cycle over the Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) domain, where extensive LULCC is expected. Specifically, we used the Future Land Use Simulation model (FLUS) and the Demeter model to generate 0.25° gridded LULCC data (i.e., LULCC FLUS and LULCC Demeter , respectively) with the same input of regional LULCC projections from GCAM, under both the low (i.e., SSP126) and high (i.e., SSP585) greenhouse gas emission scenarios. The two sets of downscaled LULCC were used to drive the Community Land Model version 5 and prognostically simulate the terrestrial carbon cycle dynamics over the 21st century. The results suggest large spatial-temporal differences between LULCC FLUS and LULCC Demeter , and the spatial distributions of the needleleaf evergreen boreal tree, broadleaf deciduous boreal tree, broadleaf deciduous boreal shrub, and C3 arctic grass are particularly different under both SSP126 and SSP585. Additionally, the spatiotemporal differences are larger under SSP126 than SSP585, due to more intensive LULCC under SSP126 than SSP585 from GCAM projection. The differences in LULCC further lead to large discrepancies in the spatial patterns of projected gross primary productivity, ecosystem respiration, and net ecosystem exchange, which represent more than 79% of the contributions of future LULCC in 2100. Additionally, the difference in carbon flux under SSP126 is generally larger than those under SSP585. This study highlights the importance of considering the uncertainties induced by the spatial downscaling process in future LULCC projections and carbon cycle simulations.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Climate policy models need to get real about people — here’s how

Here, to predict how society and political systems might actually respond to warming, upgrade integrated assessment models. Political support for decarbonizing the global economy is at an all-time high. The good news is that about two-thirds of carbon emissions come from countries that have committed to reach ‘net zero’ by mid-century — they aim to cut their greenhouse-gas outputs and capture as much as they emit. The bad news? The computer models that analysts use to assess routes to achieve such goals are missing a crucial factor: politics.

Peng, Wei↗
DOE OSTI2020

Fusing subnational with national climate action is central to decarbonization: the case of the United States

Approaches that root national climate strategies in local actions will be essential for all countries as they develop new nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement. The potential impact of climate action from non-national actors in delivering higher global ambition is significant. Sub-national action in the United States provides a test for how such actions can accelerate emissions reductions. We aggregated U.S. state, city, and business commitments within an integrated assessment model to assess how a national climate strategy can be built upon non-state actions. We find that existing commitments alone could reduce emissions 25% below 2005 levels by 2030, and that enhancing actions by these actors could reduce emissions up to 37%. We show how these actions can provide a stepped-up basis for additional federal action to reduce emissions by 49%—consistent with 1.5 °C. Our analysis demonstrates sub-national actions can lead to substantial reductions and support increased national action.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Power sector investment implications of climate impacts on renewable resources in Latin America and the Caribbean

Climate change mitigation will require substantial investments in renewables. In addition, climate change will affect future renewable supply and hence, power sector investment requirements. We study the implications of climate impacts on renewables for power sector investments under deep decarbonization using a global integrated assessment model. We focus on Latin American and Caribbean, an under-studied region but of great interest due to its strong role in international climate mitigation and vulnerability to climate change. We find that accounting for climate impacts on renewables results in significant additional investments ($12–114 billion by 2100 across Latin American countries) for a region with weak financial infrastructure. We also demonstrate that accounting for climate impacts only on hydropower—a primary focus of previous studies—significantly underestimates cumulative investments, particularly in scenarios with high intermittent renewable deployment. Our study underscores the importance of comprehensive analyses of climate impacts on renewables for improved energy planning.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2021

A plant-by-plant strategy for high-ambition coal power phaseout in China

More than half of current coal power capacity is in China. A key strategy for meeting China’s 2060 carbon neutrality goal and the global 1.5 °C climate goal is to rapidly shift away from unabated coal use. Here we detail how to structure a high-ambition coal phaseout in China while balancing multiple national needs. We evaluate the 1037 currently operating coal plants based on comprehensive technical, economic and environmental criteria and develop a metric for prioritizing plants for early retirement. We find that 18% of plants consistently score poorly across all three criteria and are thus low-hanging fruits for rapid retirement. We develop plant-by-plant phaseout strategies for each province by combining our retirement algorithm with an integrated assessment model. With rapid retirement of the low-hanging fruits, other existing plants can operate with a 20- or 30-year minimum lifetime and gradually reduced utilization to achieve the 1.5 °C or well-below 2 °C climate goals, respectively, with complete phaseout by 2045 and 2055.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Global roll-out of comprehensive policy measures may aid in bridging emissions gap

Closing the emissions gap between Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and the global emissions levels needed to achieve the Paris Agreement’s climate goals will require a comprehensive package of policy measures. National and sectoral policies can help fill the gap, but success stories in one country cannot be automatically replicated in other countries. They need to be adapted to the local context. Here, we develop a new Bridge scenario based on nationally relevant, short-term measures informed by interactions with country experts. These good practice policies are rolled out globally between now and 2030 and combined with carbon pricing thereafter. We implement this scenario with an ensemble of global integrated assessment models. We show that the Bridge scenario closes two-thirds of the emissions gap between NDC and 2°C scenarios by 2030 and enables a pathway in line with the 2 °C goal when combined with the necessary long-term changes, i.e. more comprehensive pricing measures after 2030. The Bridge scenario leads to a scale-up of renewable energy (reaching 52%-88% of global electricity supply by 2050), electrification of end-uses, efficiency improvements in energy demand sectors, and enhanced afforestation and reforestation. Our analysis suggests that early action via good-practice policies is less costly than a delay in global climate cooperation.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗