The OurEnergyLibrary aggregates and indexes publicly available fact sheets, journal articles, reports, studies, and other publications on U.S. energy topics. It is updated every week to include the most recent energy resources from academia, government, industry, non-profits, think tanks, and trade associations. Suggest a resource by emailing us at info@ourenergypolicy.org.
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Low carbon energy transition assets are creating investment opportunities, and they have also demonstrated significant resilience, consistently attracting capital despite the COVID–19–induced global economic crisis.
In financial year (FY) 2020, the clean energy sector received record investment commitments totaling US$501 billion –9% more than the previous year. The renewable energy segment led with US$303bn in 2020, which is 60% of total investment committed into the overall low carbon energy transition sector.
In addition to the inherent advantages of investment in the clean energy sector such as relatively higher risk–adjusted returns and …
View Full ResourceThe United States faces the challenge of dramatically reducing carbon emissions while simultaneously ensuring the reliable supply of on-demand energy services that its residents have come to expect. Federal policy will be instrumental in driving investments in energy infrastructure that will be required to transition the U.S. energy supply to zero-emissions sources. This paper discusses the major barriers that policy will need to overcome in order to successfully execute this transition at a reasonable cost. A core problem is that wind and solar generation are intermittent. Provision of reliable zero-emission supply therefore requires combining wind and solar resources with investments …
View Full ResourceTo determine the appropriate level of infrastructure spending, there is no alternative to aggregating the results of project-by-project cost-benefit analysis. With widespread variation in both the benefits and costs of projects within broad infrastructure asset classes, it is important to recognize that the returns to some additional highway lanes are much higher than others, and that the costs of extending wire-line broadband coverage in some locations may exceed the benefits relative to the next-best alternative technology. Because comprehensive project evaluation is enormously information-intensive and can be gamed, many of the widely discussed estimates of the infrastructure gap in the United …
View Full ResourceThe US EPA estimates that abandoned oil and gas wells in the United States emit roughly 280,000 metric tons of methane each year, though this estimate is uncertain. Per ton, methane’s global warming potential (GWP) is 34 times that of carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period and 86 times the impact over a 20-year period. Using the 100-year GWP, annual methane emissions from abandoned wells are roughly equivalent to the CO2 emissions emitted by all of the power plants in Massachusetts each year. Plugging abandoned wells presents an opportunity to provide jobs in the oil and gas industry while …
View Full ResourceThis issue brief examines the potential reduction in greenhouse gas emissions resulting from forest fuel treatments on federal land proposed in West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin’s draft Energy Infrastructure Act.
In 2020, 58,950 wildfires burned more than 10 million acres across the United States. Seventy percent of burned acreage was on US federal lands. Fuel treatments can reduce wildfire hazard potential and, if strategically located, lower burned area, fire intensity, loss of life, and damage to structures and other property. Fuel treatment may also reduce greenhouse gas emissions through declines in the extent and intensity of future wildfires which, in …
View Full ResourceAdvanced energy technologies have received growing attention in recent years as nations look to decarbonize power sectors and drive dramatic emissions reductions goals. These low-, no-, and negative-carbon options may undergird power sector decarbonization, but they are more likely to be able to function at scale and in a cost competitive manner if they receive funding to support additional research, development, and demonstration (RD&D). The Energy Infrastructure Act, proposed by West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, would appropriate funding for advanced nuclear, geothermal, diurnal storage, and carbon capture technology RD&D. The legislation would also appropriate funding for electricity transmission investment and …
View Full ResourcePresident Joseph Biden’s infrastructure negotiations with Congress have renewed interest in infrastructure investment policy proposals. Due to this interest, it is worth returning to the topic of the National Environmental Policy Act’s (NEPA) role in infrastructure deployment timelines. Delayed infrastructure deployment can result in economic impacts from delayed productivity, as well as reduced incentives for infrastructure investment. Further, from an environmental perspective, NEPA is increasingly becoming an involuntary impediment to clean energy and conservation-related projects. This is especially problematic given that this analysis finds 42 percent of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) active NEPA projects are related to clean energy, …
View Full ResourceThe home is the keystone of our national infrastructure. We spend a lot more time in our homes than on our highways — more time on our porches than in our ports. The great news is that a public investment in electrifying our 120 million American households can reap significant benefits for every U.S. resident, and all of the technology we need to electrify our homes already exists.
Electrifying the U.S. economy will have immense benefits in terms of climate, household savings, and job creation, as well as the health benefits of improving indoor and outdoor air quality. In this …
View Full ResourcePresident Joe Biden has reached a deal with a bipartisan group of Senators on an important package that delivers on the President’s promise to make long-needed upgrades to the nation’s infrastructure and put Americans back to work. The package would take critical steps toward cutting carbon pollution by investing in clean energy technologies, upgrading our grid, and making transportation cleaner. These specific provisions should be celebrated and supported.
The bipartisan infrastructure proposal alone, however, is not sufficient to put the country on a path to avoid the worst damages of climate change or to keep the nation competitive in growing …
View Full ResourceThis report presents a strategic policy framework for federal action to support the development of the necessary infrastructure, the associated jobs, and robust pathways to net-zero emissions by midcentury. It focuses on the CO2 transport and storage infrastructure that collects CO2 from any source—for example, from CO2 captured at an industrial plant or through direct air capture (DAC)—and moves it to a location where it is used or permanently stored deep underground. Capturing and removing carbon at a large scale will require support from existing industries and workers to build and operate infrastructure while helping to create new businesses and …
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