Equipment Reliability: Basics Matter Now More Than Ever

The implications of these accelerating changes in how fossil fuel power plants operate are profound. They underscore not only the increasing need to function in ways for which they weren’t originally designed but also the vital importance of enhancing asset and plant reliability and availability.

Rather than provide consistent baseload power, for example, many coal and gas power plants cycle often or operate in low-load or load-following modes in response to the increase in intermittent renewable generation. In this playbook, we explore:

How changed operations emphasize the importance of reliability Why there’s room for reliability improvement The importance of predictive

The economic costs of climate change: lessons learned from COVID-19

COVID-19 has illuminated three lessons for climate change: the capacity of the global population for behavioral change, the need for international cooperation to manage shared challenges, and technology’s role in advancing solutions.

Moreover, the consequences of the growing environmental crisis extend well beyond the weather. Climate change is poised to exacerbate the economic, political, and social tensions that the COVID-19 pandemic brought to a boiling point in many countries. The potential for mass displacement of people, disruptions to supply chains, and steeper costs due to scarcity of resources such as water is high. But with these challenges also come opportunities. …

Designing Electricity Rates for An Equitable Energy Transition

This report takes stock of the current situation facing residential customers of California’s large electricity IOUs and describes pricing reforms that could improve economic efficiency, facilitate decarbonization, and improve overall equity. The analysis includes several findings that are pertinent to ongoing conversations about affordability, decarbonization, rooftop solar, and wildfire mitigation.…

Flipping the Switch: How the Transition to Efficient All-Electric Buildings Will Help the United States Meet Its Climate Goals

Buildings—from single-family homes to office high-rises—are fossil fuel guzzlers that emit massive amounts of carbon and air pollutants. Scientists agree that if we do not act quickly to phase down greenhouse gas pollution, we are unlikely to meet our climate goals and avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis. Replacing fossil fuel equipment with highly efficient electric appliances and running them in energy efficient homes with clean, renewable electricity are key and necessary parts of the strategy to fight the climate crisis.

In addition to burning heating oil and propane, buildings are currently responsible for about one-third of all …

Paris Climate Agreement: Instead of Regulations and Mandates, Embrace Markets

President Biden announced his intent to re-enter the Paris climate agreement. With no enforcement mechanisms in place and no repercussions for failing to meet emissions-reduction targets, the agreement is ill-suited to meet climate objectives. However, the regulations imposed on the American economy as the U.S. submits a new Nationally Determined Contribution will adversely affect consumers and businesses. Instead of a top-down, regulatory approach, Congress and the Biden Administration should remove barriers to clean energy innovation and adoption.…

Greenhouse Gases from Power Plants: 2005-2020

New EPA data shows that greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. power plants plummeted 38 percent from 2005 to 2020, even more rapidly than the goals in the Obama-era Clean Power Plan and achieved more than a decade early.

Driving the decline was a shift away from the burning of coal, driven by technological advances and cheaper prices for natural gas, wind, and solar power, as well as by environmental rules that forced coal power plants to pay for more pollution controls.…

A 1.5 Celsius Pathway To Climate Leadership For The United States

To avoiding catastrophic climate change, we must limit warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, which requires cutting greenhouse gas missions roughly in half in the next decade with emissions dropping to near zero by 2050. Achieving these reductions can only happen by rapidly transitioning from a fossil fuel-based economy to one running on clean energy.

New research using the U.S. Energy Policy Simulator shows a comparatively small group of policies can achieve the emissions reductions required for a 1.5 C pathway, while generating large economic and health benefits. Transforming the economy in line with a 1.5 C target …

Moving from a Linear to a Circular Economy

WWF’s white paper Moving From a Linear to a Circular Economy outlines the key policy priorities we have as we work to end plastic leakage into nature, ensure communities are treated equitably in materials production and waste management, and transition from an economy that creates waste to one that cares for our planet.…

The Commercial Case for Direct Air Capture

This white paper outlines the commercial case for direct air capture (DAC) of carbon dioxide, which will play a critical role in reducing climate change risks this century and mitigating emissions from difficult to decarbonize sectors while also creating new market opportunities. It was developed by the Bipartisan Policy Center’s DAC Advisory Council, which includes leaders from academia, the private sector, labor, and the NGO community. This is the second of a three-part series by the Council that outlines the environmental imperative, the commercial case, and the federal policy case for deploying DAC technologies at scale.…

Assessing Physical Risks from Climate Change: Do Companies and Financial Organizations Have Sufficient Guidance?

The purpose of this paper is to provide companies and financial organizations with a common understanding of climate-related physical risks according to climate science, to identify gaps in the publicly available guidance to assess those risks, and to propose potential resources that would facilitate better risk assessment and, in turn, risk management.

To do so, we analyze climate-related physical risk assessment guidance from leading corporate disclosure initiatives to examine whether existing publicly available guidance aligns with climate science and provides consistent terminology and robust methodologies for risk assessment.

The analysis reveals that the guidance do not share a robust understanding …