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Cost-effectiveness uncertainty may bias the decision of coal power transitions in China
China’s use of coal is complex to establish a clean and low-carbon transition for the country. With an uncertainty assessment framework, this study displays the risks of missing opportunities in obtaining cumulative positive net benefits and identifying an optimal transition strategy.
- Xizhe Yan
- , Dan Tong
- & Yu Lei
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| Open Access
Electric vehicle battery chemistry affects supply chain disruption vulnerabilities
Electric vehicle battery supply chains are currently vulnerable to supply disruptions in China, but research shows that the cumulative effect of multiple supply chain steps creates additional vulnerabilities across multiple critical battery minerals.
- Anthony L. Cheng
- , Erica R. H. Fuchs
- & Jeremy J. Michalek
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Avoiding ecosystem and social impacts of hydropower, wind, and solar in Southern Africa’s low-carbon electricity system
Avoiding the most damaging land use and freshwater impacts of solar PV, wind, and hydropower development while halving carbon emissions by 2040 in the Southern Africa region is not only possible but incurs only modest (3-6%) system cost increases.
- Grace C. Wu
- , Ranjit Deshmukh
- & Kudakwashe Ndhlukula
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Mapping the planet’s critical areas for biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people
This study shows that conserving approximately half of global land area through protection or sustainable management could provide 90% of ten of nature’s contributions to people and could meet representation targets for 26,709 species of mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles. This finding supports recent commitments to conserve at least 30% of global lands and waters by 2030.
- Rachel A. Neugarten
- , Rebecca Chaplin-Kramer
- & Amanda D. Rodewald
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A cross-scale framework for evaluating flexibility values of battery and fuel cell electric vehicles
Electrified transportation exhibits great potential to provide flexibility. This article analyzed and compared the flexibility values of battery electric vehicles and fuel cell electric vehicles for planning and operating interdependent electricity and hydrogen supply chains.
- Ruixue Liu
- , Guannan He
- & Benben Jiang
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Approaching national climate targets in China considering the challenge of regional inequality
Aggressive or uniform actions on climate targets may exacerbate regional inequality and induce economic losses in China. The proposed collaborative strategy for carbon neutrality can avoid up to 1.54% of GDP losses while 90% of provinces would gain.
- Biying Yu
- , Zihao Zhao
- & Hua Liao
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Global transcontinental power pools for low-carbon electricity
By building transcontinental power pools, Yang and colleagues find global electricity demand can be 100% met by renewables, at an affordable cost.
- Haozhe Yang
- , Ranjit Deshmukh
- & Sangwon Suh
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A resilient battery electric bus transit system configuration
A resilient battery electric bus transit system design and configuration is proposed. The model is robust against simultaneous charging disruptions without interrupting daily operation. Indeed, additional marginal cost is required, yet it prevents significant service reductions.
- Ahmed Foda
- , Moataz Mohamed
- & Ehab El-Saadany
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Projecting future carbon emissions from cement production in developing countries
The rapid deployment of low-carbon measures is urgently needed to reduce cement emissions as cement CO2 emissions from developing countries will almost deplete the remaining cement emissions budget within climate targets.
- Danyang Cheng
- , David M. Reiner
- & Dabo Guan
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Article
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Limitations to sustainable renewable jet fuels production attributed to cost than energy-water-food resource availability
This study introduce the Global Biojet Fuel Sustainability Index, a holistic 25-indicator sustainability index encompassing the four domains of energy-water-food nexus and governance, to measure the potential impact of RJF productions on 154 countries/territories through the oil-to-jet, alcohol-to-jet and gas-to-jet conversion methods.
- Cheng Tung Chong
- & Jo-Han Ng
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Deploying green hydrogen to decarbonize China’s coal chemical sector
The coal chemical sector uses coal to produce chemicals and emits substantial greenhouse gases, which are hard to abate by electrification alone. Deploying green H2 for China’s coal chemical plants can reduce ~50% of emissions at a low cost.
- Yang Guo
- , Liqun Peng
- & Denise L. Mauzerall
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| Open Access
Feasible supply of steel and cement within a carbon budget is likely to fall short of expected global demand
A new study explores the global feasible supply of steel and cement within Paris-compliant carbon budgets, explicitly considering uncertainties in the deployment of infrastructure and it shows that feasible supply may fall short of expected global demand.
- Takuma Watari
- , André Cabrera Serrenho
- & Julian Allwood
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A cost comparison of various hourly-reliable and net-zero hydrogen production pathways in the United States
Considering equivalent emissions and reliability attributes for fossil- and electricity-based hydrogen production solutions, results suggest grid-tied electricity-based options can be lowest cost by the next decade if natural gas leakage is high for the USA.
- Justin M. Bracci
- , Evan D. Sherwin
- & Adam R. Brandt
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The asymmetric effects of climate risk on higher-moment connectedness among carbon, energy and metals markets
Here the authors explore the connectedness of the carbon, energy, and metals markets. They find asymmetric effects of climate risk with higher physical risk impacts on upward risk spillovers, and greater transition risk effects on the downside risk of kurtosis connectedness.
- Yuqin Zhou
- , Shan Wu
- & Lavinia Rognone
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The changing impact of rural electrification on Indian agriculture
Electrified groundwater irrigation is a major driver of India’s agricultural growth. India refocussed rural electrification towards household electrification in early 2000s in detriment of groundwater irrigation electrification, the authors find.
- Sudatta Ray
- & Hemant K. Pullabhotla
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Impacts of climate change, population growth, and power sector decarbonization on urban building energy use
This study quantifies mid-21st century hourly building energy use in 277 urban areas in the USA, revealing spatially and temporally heterogeneous changes influenced by future climate, population dynamics, and electric power sector decarbonization.
- Chenghao Wang
- , Jiyun Song
- & Robert B. Jackson
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Achieving health-oriented air pollution control requires integrating unequal toxicities of industrial particles
Health-oriented emissions reduction in China focusing on the iron and steel industry can reduce costs by 1.56 billion dollars while lowering the population-weighted toxic potency-adjusted exposure risk.
- Di Wu
- , Haotian Zheng
- & Jiming Hao
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Concentration of asset owners exposed to power sector stranded assets may trigger climate policy resistance
Von Dulong analyzes owners and incidence of asset stranding in the power sector globally. She shows that Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the US are highly exposed to stranded assets, especially coal plants and explores the linkages between asset stranding and climate policy resistance.
- Angelika von Dulong
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Achieving decent living standards in emerging economies challenges national mitigation goals for CO2 emissions
Achieving decent living standards for global emerging economies is estimated to lead to an additional 8.6 Gt of CO2 emission with more than half of emerging economies emitting additional CO2 more than the value of their emission reduction commitments
- Jingwen Huo
- , Jing Meng
- & Dabo Guan
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Dual water-electricity cooperation improves economic benefits and water equality in the Lancang-Mekong River Basin
Li and colleagues develop a dual water-electricity cooperation (DWEC) framework that combines water and electricity trading to meet the often-conflicting demands of participating countries in the Lancang-Mekong river basin. They discuss the potential of this framework for application in other transboundary river systems.
- Bingyao Zhang
- , Yu Li
- & Ximing Cai
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Rebound effects undermine carbon footprint reduction potential of autonomous electric vehicles
Autonomous electric vehicles reduce operational emissions but increase manufacturing emissions due to rebound effects. Recycling helps, but their full life cycle emits 8% more greenhouse gases. Embrace renewable energy, circular economy, cleaner manufacturing, and improved efficiency.
- Nuri C. Onat
- , Jafar Mandouri
- & Abdel Magid Hamouda
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Incentive based emergency demand response effectively reduces peak load during heatwave without harm to vulnerable groups
Co-lead authors Wang, Zhang, Qiu, Lu and their colleagues model an incentive-based emergency demand response to counter heatwaves. The modelled responded leads to the peak load reduction of 7.32% for the covered households, and can achieve a 1.02% peak load reduction when reaching a wide audience with no additional financial burden on vulnerable groups.
- Zhaohua Wang
- , Bin Lu
- & Wenhui Zhao
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Costs and health benefits of the rural energy transition to carbon neutrality in China
Electric cooking and air-to-air heat pump adoption in China advances carbon neutrality and the rural energy transition, with the transformation costs offset by monetized health benefits in most provinces.
- Teng Ma
- , Silu Zhang
- & Yang Xie
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Location is a major barrier for transferring US fossil fuel employment to green jobs
This study tests the case for the absorption of current fossil fuel workers in emerging green jobs from the perspective of their skills and location. It finds location to be a barrier in a Just Transition for these workers.
- Junghyun Lim
- , Michaël Aklin
- & Morgan R. Frank
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Carbon intensity of global crude oil trading and market policy implications
Dixit et al. trace emissions from the extraction and transport of oil. They quantify emissions variability among crude blends and suggest how this variability could be used to further reduce emissions under scenarios for reduced future oil demand.
- Yash Dixit
- , Hassan El-Houjeiri
- & Steven R. H. Barrett
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The impact of methane leakage on the role of natural gas in the European energy transition
Cost-optimal European energy transition with CO2 and methane neutrality objective is studied. While renewables are the key drivers of climate neutrality, the continuous role of natural gas requires high levels of both CO2 and methane abatement.
- Behrang Shirizadeh
- , Manuel Villavicencio
- & Gunhild A. Reigstad
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Global fossil fuel reduction pathways under different climate mitigation strategies and ambitions
An analysis of the IPCC AR6 scenarios database explores how quickly coal, oil, and gas production and use should be reduced in line with net-zero goals, and points to the need to adopt phase-out benchmarks alongside other climate mitigation targets.
- Ploy Achakulwisut
- , Peter Erickson
- & Steve Pye
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Global land and water limits to electrolytic hydrogen production using wind and solar resources
This study composes a country-specific analysis of land and water requirements for electrolytic hydrogen production, revealing nations constrained in achieving self-sufficiency in hydrogen supply and nations who can become hydrogen exporters.
- Davide Tonelli
- , Lorenzo Rosa
- & Francesco Contino
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Matters Arising
| Open AccessUncertainty and bias in Liggio et al. (2019) on CO2 emissions from oil sands operations
- Long Fu
- & Allan H. Legge
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Inherent spatiotemporal uncertainty of renewable power in China
Renewable uncertainty analysis is vital for stochastic-aware research. This study generates a benchmark dataset of year-long hourly renewable prediction errors in China, and reveals the law of the spatiotemporal distribution of renewable uncertainty.
- Jianxiao Wang
- , Liudong Chen
- & Guannan He
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The cost of electrifying all households in 40 Sub-Saharan African countries by 2030
Solar-powered standalone systems drastically lower the cost of electrifying sub-Saharan Africa. Household electrification can be provided at 7c USD per person per day on average. To reflect inter- and intra-country variance, policymakers should consider electrification cost curves.
- Florian Egli
- , Churchill Agutu
- & Tobias S. Schmidt
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Geospatial mapping of distribution grid with machine learning and publicly-accessible multi-modal data
Granular geospatial information of distribution grids is needed for various power system applications. Here the authors develop a machine-learning-based model which can accurately map distribution grids in both the U.S. and Sub-Saharan Africa.
- Zhecheng Wang
- , Arun Majumdar
- & Ram Rajagopal
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National quantifications of methane emissions from fuel exploitation using high resolution inversions of satellite observations
High-resolution satellite data enables a unique verification of national methane emissions worldwide. Global estimates are 63 Tg a−1 for oil-gas, 30% higher than the UNFCCC reports due to under-reporting by four largest emitters, and 33 Tg a−1 for coal, consistent with previous estimates.
- Lu Shen
- , Daniel J. Jacob
- & Jintai Lin
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Truck platooning reshapes greenhouse gas emissions of the integrated vehicle-road infrastructure system
Truck platooning allows for trucks to travel synchronously in close proximity to improve fuel efficiency. Here, authors evaluate the decarbonization effects of platooning on the vehicle-road system at a large-scale road network level revealing a trade-off between emission reduction and cost rise.
- Huailei Cheng
- , Yuhong Wang
- & Tian Jin
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Perspective
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A reflection on polymer electrolytes for solid-state lithium metal batteries
Polymer electrolytes are attractive candidates for rechargeable lithium metal batteries. Here, the authors give a personal reflection on the structural design of coupled and decoupled polymer electrolytes and possible routes to further enhance their performance in rechargeable batteries.
- Ziyu Song
- , Fangfang Chen
- & Heng Zhang
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Article
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The contribution of corporate initiatives to global renewable electricity deployment
Corporate procurement initiatives, such as RE100, can increase their impact on the energy transition by formulating ambitious interim targets and sourcing requirements, and by orchestrating corporate interests in countries with less ambitious renewable energy targets.
- Florian Egli
- , Rui Zhang
- & Bjarne Steffen
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Near-term pathways for decarbonizing global concrete production
This work quantifies the climate benefits of efficiently utilizing concrete through improved material and structural design, and it shows that over 75% of CO2 emissions from global concrete production could be cut with already implementable measures
- Josefine A. Olsson
- , Sabbie A. Miller
- & Mark G. Alexander
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Continuous estimation of power system inertia using convolutional neural networks
The increase of intermittent energy sources and renewable energy penetration generally results in reduced overall inertia, making power systems susceptible to disturbances. Here, authors develop an AI-based method to estimate inertia in real-time and test its performance on a heterogeneous power network.
- Daniele Linaro
- , Federico Bizzarri
- & Angelo M. Brambilla
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Endogenous learning for green hydrogen in a sector-coupled energy model for Europe
This study highlights the importance of including learning-by-doing for hydrogen production in energy models. It reveals that scaling up renewable capacities and electrolysis faster than the EU’s REPowerEU Plan can be cost-effective under strict climate targets, reducing hydrogen production costs and shifting from grey to green hydrogen.
- Elisabeth Zeyen
- , Marta Victoria
- & Tom Brown
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Uncertainty in non-CO2 greenhouse gas mitigation contributes to ambiguity in global climate policy feasibility
The potential for the mitigation of global non-CO2 greenhouse gases is highly uncertain. Harmsen et al. estimate this uncertainty and show that it has large implications for the feasibility of reaching the Paris Climate Agreement targets.
- Mathijs Harmsen
- , Charlotte Tabak
- & Detlef van Vuuren
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Hidden delays of climate mitigation benefits in the race for electric vehicle deployment
The climate benefits of battery electric vehicles relative to internal combustion engine vehicles are favorable but usually delayed. The authors show the delay threshold in China and call for more attention to the temporal characteristics of climate benefits.
- Yue Ren
- , Xin Sun
- & Xinzhu Zheng
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Global green hydrogen-based steel opportunities surrounding high quality renewable energy and iron ore deposits
Facility-level analysis of green H2- based steel production demonstrates co-location of high-quality renewables and iron ore resources is imperative for cost minimisation.
- Alexandra Devlin
- , Jannik Kossen
- & Aidong Yang
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Spatiotemporal distribution of power outages with climate events and social vulnerability in the USA
The authors find within-day, seasonal, and regional differences in county-level power outages from 2018–2020. Outages commonly co-occur with climate events. Counties in the south and Michigan faced high social and medical vulnerabilities and outages.
- Vivian Do
- , Heather McBrien
- & Joan A. Casey
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Article
| Open Access
Carbon mitigation potential afforded by rooftop photovoltaic in China
Potential rooftop photovoltaic in China affords 4 billion tons of carbon mitigation in 2020 under ideal assumptions, equal to 70% of China’s carbon emissions from electricity and heat. Yet most cities have exploited the potential to a limited degree.
- Zhixin Zhang
- , Min Chen
- & Jinyue Yan
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The effect of sustainable mobility transition policies on cumulative urban transport emissions and energy demand
A rapid and large-scale reduction in car use, within a well-designed policy mix, is necessary to achieve short-term emission targets and reduce energy demand. Here, the authors introduce the Urban Transport Policy Model and demonstrate, using London as a case study, that current policies will not meet climate targets.
- Lisa Winkler
- , Drew Pearce
- & Oytun Babacan
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Article
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A low-carbon electricity sector in Europe risks sustaining regional inequalities in benefits and vulnerabilities
The low-carbon electricity sector in Europe can bring overall benefits of new investment, employment, and decreased emissions, but could sustain regional inequalities between Northern and Southern Europe.
- Jan-Philipp Sasse
- & Evelina Trutnevyte
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Article
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Trade-off between critical metal requirement and transportation decarbonization in automotive electrification
This study analyzes the trade-off between the decarbonization potential of the road transportation sector and its critical metal requirements in 48 countries. Our results show that transportation electrification may result in an upsurge in critical metal demand, and decarbonizing fuel production is critical for adequately mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from road transportation.
- Chunbo Zhang
- , Xiang Zhao
- & Fengqi You
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Article
| Open Access
Carbon reduction technology pathways for existing buildings in eight cities
Here, the authors perform analysis of technology pathways for existing buildings using urban building energy models developed with cities, showing that shallow and deep retrofits along with onsite photovoltaic and grid decarbonization can help achieve carbon reduction targets.
- Yu Qian Ang
- , Zachary Michael Berzolla
- & Christoph F. Reinhart
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Article
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U.S. West Coast droughts and heat waves exacerbate pollution inequality and can evade emission control policies
Heat waves and droughts increase air pollution from power plants in California, which disproportionately damages counties with a majority of people of color. Droughts cause chronic increases in pollution damages. Heat waves are responsible for the days with the highest damages.
- Amir Zeighami
- , Jordan Kern
- & August A. Bruno
Substantially reducing global PM2.5-related deaths under SDG3.9 requires better air pollution control and healthcare