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Asserting the climate benefits of the coal-to-gas shift across temporal and spatial scales

Nature Climate Change volume 9, pages 389–396 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Reducing CO2 emissions through a shift from coal to natural gas power plants is a key strategy to support pathways for climate stabilization. However, methane leakage in the natural gas supply chain and emissions of a variety of climate forcers call the net benefits of this transition into question. Here, we integrated a life cycle inventory model with multiple global and regional emission metrics and investigated the impacts of representative coal and gas power plants in China, Germany, India and the United States. We found that the coal-to-gas shift is consistent with climate stabilization objectives for the next 50–100 years. Our finding is robust under a range of leakage rates and uncertainties in emissions data and metrics. It becomes conditional to the leakage rate in some locations only if we employ a set of metrics that essentially focus on short-term effects. Our case for the coal-to-gas shift is stronger than previously found, reinforcing the support for coal phase-out.

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Fig. 1: Short- and long-term climate impacts of coal and natural gas power plants in two stages.
Fig. 2: Short- and long-term climate impacts of coal and natural gas power plants as a result of different GHGs and SLCP emissions.
Fig. 3: Differences in the climate impacts between coal and natural gas power plants.
Fig. 4: Very short-term climate impacts for different emission and impact locations.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author on request.

Code availability

The computer codes used to generate the results presented in this study are available from the corresponding author on request.

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Acknowledgements

This research was partially supported by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (2–1702) of the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency (Japan). K.T. was supported by a Senior Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (Potsdam, Germany) to conduct the early phases of this study. F.C. and W.J.C. acknowledge support from the Research Council of Norway (project numbers 244074 and 235548, respectively). The authors are grateful for comments from O. Boucher and A. McLean, which were useful to improve this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Global Environmental Research, National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba, Japan

    Katsumasa Tanaka

  2. Institut Pierre Simon Laplace, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/Sorbonne Université, Paris, France

    Katsumasa Tanaka

  3. Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Potsdam, Germany

    Katsumasa Tanaka

  4. Industrial Ecology Programme, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

    Otávio Cavalett & Francesco Cherubini

  5. Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, UK

    William J. Collins

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  1. Katsumasa Tanaka
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  2. Otávio Cavalett
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  4. Francesco Cherubini
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Contributions

K.T. led the study. K.T. and F.C. designed the experiment. O.C. and F.C. derived the emissions data. W.J.C. computed the emissions metrics. K.T. and O.C. calculated the climate impacts. O.C. performed the Monte Carlo analysis. K.T. generated all of the figures and tables. K.T., O.C., W.J.C. and F.C. analysed the results. K.T. drafted the manuscript, with inputs from O.C., W.J.C. and F.C.

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Correspondence to Katsumasa Tanaka.

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Supplementary Tables 1–8, Supplementary Figs. 1–9 and Supplementary references.

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Tanaka, K., Cavalett, O., Collins, W.J. et al. Asserting the climate benefits of the coal-to-gas shift across temporal and spatial scales. Nat. Clim. Chang. 9, 389–396 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0457-1

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