Clean Air and Technology Innovation: Working Concepts for Promoting Clean Technology Innovation Under the Clean Air Act

June 2013

Energy Efficiency and Greenhouse Gas Limits for Existing Power Plants: Learning from EPA Precedent

June 2013

Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act will soon require the EPA and state governments to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from existing fossil fuel–fired power plants. Many stakeholders envision a role for end-use energy efficiency as a flexible compliance strategy under Section 111(d), and though energy efficiency measures have no precedent under the section, there is a long history of Clean Air Act programs that recognize energy efficiency as viable emission reduction strategy. This joint analysis by the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy identifies key issues with crediting end-use energy efficiency measures for Section 111(d) compliance—estimating which units experience emission reductions, measuring energy savings, and quantifying reductions in CO2 emissions. The report then explores how the incorporation of energy efficiency into the National Ambient Air Quality Standards program, the NOx SIP Call, and other Clean Air Act programs, can inform federal and state environmental regulators as they evaluate these Section 111(d) issues.

Author (s): Jeremy M. Tarr, Sara Hayes, Jonas Monast

Measuring the Effects of Stormwater Mitigation on Beach Attendance

June 2013

A new study in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin looks at whether improving the environmental quality of coastal areas through policy intervention had an effect on the way people use coastal areas. It found a direct correlation between increased attendance and the installation of storm drain diversions at 26 beaches in Santa Monica Bay and Malibu.

Author (s): Perla Atiyah, Linwood Pendleton, Ryan Vaughn and Neil Lessem

An Economic Evaluation of North Carolina's Landfill Biogas Development Potential

May 2013

Duke University has developed the OptimaBIOGAS tool to model the opportunities for and costs of developing, transporting, and generating usable energy from a variety of biogas sources. In this analysis, the tool is used to clarify the options for and costs of sourcing biogas from landfills within North Carolina. The study found that biogas production is possible throughout many existing landfills in the state, but the economic viability of producing biogas at these locations depends on the cost of collecting and conditioning the gas and either using it to produce electric power onsite or transporting it into the existing natural gas pipeline network. In most cases, both the pipeline injection and electricity generation scenario are more costly than conventional sources in the gas and electricity markets; therefore some price premium would need to be paid to make them profitable. The state’s Renewable Energy and Efficiency Portfolio Standard might offer renewable energy credit payments to help these projects compete. However, biogas buyers may need to pay an additional “green energy” price premium to cover the higher costs of generation.

Author (s): David Cooley, Brian Murray, Martin Ross, Meng-Yeng Lee, and Ken Yeh

A Spatial-Economic Optimization Study of Swine-Waste Derived Biogas Infrastructure Design in North Carolina

April 2013

This report by the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and the Duke Carbon Offsets Initiative highlights a comparative modeling analysis considering individual and centralized approaches for meeting North Carolina's Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard (REPS) mandate for swine. It finds that injecting biogas collected from an optimized network of farms into the natural gas pipeline could be a cost-effective approach to meeting the state REPS.

Author (s): Darmawan Prasodjo, Tatjana Vujic, David Cooley, Ken Yeh, Meng-Ying Lee

A Triple Bottom Line for Electric Utility Regulation: Aligning State-Level Energy, Environmental, and Consumer Protection Goals

April 2013

Energy infrastructure across the United States is aging, and plant retirements are increasing due to a combination of newly implemented and impending environmental requirements and inexpensive natural gas. Utilities and regulators will have to decide how to update or replace aging facilities—estimated at a cost of $1.5 to $2 trillion over the next twenty years. This article in the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law explores the opportunities and challenges to aligning state energy, environmental, and consumer protection goals within the current regulatory system, and proposes a “triple bottom line” (“TBL”) approach to state utility regulation to achieve this alignment.

Author (s): Jonas J. Monast, Sarah K. Adair

Metropolitan Gas Cost Vulnerability and the Role of Regional Attributes

April 2013

The U.S. transportation sector continues to provide a variety of challenges to policy makers as a climate issue, an energy issue, and an economic issue. Transportation activity generates nearly 30% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and nearly the same share of energy consumption. Consumers spend, on average, more than $1,400 per year on transportation fuel, an amount that can vary substantially as fuel prices change. All of these are issues that confront policy makers and need solutions. This report presents a first-of-its-kind ranking of gasoline cost vulnerability, or the measure of the economic impact of transportation on typical residents of metropolitan regions.

Author (s): Craig Raborn 

Tackling CO2 Emissions from Existing Coal-Fired Power Plants

March 2013

There is a pressing need for technology improvements that make it cost-effective for coal-fired power plants to capture carbon emissions. Carbon capture and storage technologies are particularly important for the fleet of existing coal-fired power plants, as energy projections suggest that these facilities will continue to provide a major portion of the nation's electric power—and the nation’s CO₂ emissions—for decades to come. 

This paper, the second in the "Deploying Low-Carbon Coal Technologies Series," not only looks at factors affecting domestic coal-fired generation and provides an overview of CO₂ emission projections associated with the existing fleet of coal-fired power plants, but also highlights near-term policy choices. 

Author (s): Brooks Rainey Pearson, Jonas Monast, Jeremy M. Tarr, Jessalee Landfried 

Alternative U.S. Biofuel Mandates and Global GHG Emissions: The Role of Land Use Change, Crop Management and Yield Growth

March 2013

This article in the journal Energy Policy investigates the impacts of the U.S. renewable fuel standard (RFS2) and several alternative biofuel policy designs on global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from land use change and agriculture over the 2010–2030 horizon. Analysis of the scenarios relies on GLOBIOM, a global, multi-sectoral economic model based on a detailed representation of land use. The results reveal that RFS2 would substantially increase the portion of agricultural land needed for biofuel feedstock production. U.S. exports of most agricultural products would decrease as long as the biofuel target would increase leading to higher land conversion and nitrogen use globally. In fact, higher levels of the mandate mean lower net emissions within the U.S. but when the emissions from the rest of the world are considered, the US biofuel policy results in almost no change on GHG emissions for the RFS2 level and higher global GHG emissions for higher levels of the mandate or higher share of conventional corn-ethanol in the mandate.

Author (s): A. Mosnier, P. Havlik, H. Valin, J. Baker, B. Murray, S. Feng, M. Obersteiner, B.A. McCarl, S.K. Rose and U.A. Schneider

Advancing Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Quantification

February 2013

Better information on greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation potential in the agricultural sector is necessary to manage these emissions and identify responses that are consistent with the food security and economic development priorities of countries. Critical activity data, what crops or livestock are managed in what way, are poor or lacking for many agricultural systems, especially in developing countries. In addition, the currently available methods for quantifying emissions and mitigation are often too expensive or complex or not sufficiently user friendly for widespread use. This article introduces a series of pieces in a special issue of the journal Environmental Research Letters foces on providing a vision for an improved system for quantifying greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture.

Author (s): Lydia Olander, Eva Wollenberg, Francesco Tubiello and Martin Herold