Climate, health and environmental consequences of climate change mitigation interventions in the U.S. electric grid

A transition to a sustainable energy system that addresses climate change, reduces pollution, and provides energy services in an affordable and socially just way requires a portfolio of energy technologies and strategies. To evaluate the health, environmental, and climate change benefits of wind, solar, energy efficiency, vehicle electrification, and storage, we (i) gather hourly data on generation and emissions for U.S. power plants, (ii) estimate the health, environmental, and climate damages from those emissions, (iii) use regressions of hourly emissions and generation data to estimate the damages from marginal electricity production by region, and (iv) estimate the reduction in damages that occur when conventional generators are displaced by wind and solar, and the increase in damages that occur when conventional generators are needed to charge electric vehicles or bulk storage. In the case of solar PV, we find that although the Southwest has the greatest solar resource, a solar panel in New Jersey displaces significantly more SO2, NOx, and PM2.5 than a panel in Arizona, resulting in 15x the health and environmental benefits. Similarly, a wind turbine in West Virginia displaces twice as much CO2 as the same turbine in California. Depending on location, the combined reduction in health, environmental, and climate change effects from wind or solar range from $10/MWh to $100/MWh, and the sites with the highest energy output do not necessarily yield the greatest social benefits. Surprisingly, using energy storage for energy arbitrage leads to an increase in CO2, SO2 and NOx emissions in most U.S. regions. Finally, in what concerns electrified transportation for the light duty sector, the Chevy Volt has higher life cycle emissions than the hybrid Toyota Prius across the entire U.S. and the Nissan Leaf has lower emissions than the Prius in the western U.S. and in Texas. The emissions avoided or induced by wind, solar, energy efficiency, vehicle electrification, and storage vary dramatically across the United States â€" and so do their health, environmental, and climate change consequences.

Speaker: Inez Azevedo, Carnegie Mellon Univ.