Scaling Electric Vehicles in the U.S.: A Federal Investment in Jobs and Clean Transportation

On August 5th, President Biden issued an executive order for the United States to reach 50% light duty electric vehicle (EV) sales by 2030. Electric vehicles offer multiple advantages over gas-powered vehicles, and as we wrote in 2019, the US is already moving toward EVs. It still, however, lags behind global competitors like the E.U. and China in terms of EV production and charging infrastructure. Today the U.S. is at 4% EV sales and is projected to reach around 20% EV sales by 2030 under “business as usual.” Our goal is to help make sure these vehicles are made in …

Concrete Solutions Guide: Six Actions to Lower the Embodied Carbon of Concrete

Concrete and cement are some of the most carbon-intensive materials in our built environment. The carbon “embodied” in concrete and other materials makes up more than one-quarter of the greenhouse gas emissions from the global building sector. These embodied carbon emissions arise from the manufacture, transportation, installation, maintenance, and disposal of building materials.

With efforts to reduce embodied carbon emissions in buildings and infrastructure, the demand for low-embodied-carbon concrete is growing rapidly.

The Concrete Solutions Guide provides a user-friendly overview of proven and scalable solutions to reduce concrete’s contribution to climate change. This guide highlights six key opportunities to reduce …

Retained Transportation Fuel Spending in the Southeast: Electric vs Internal Combustion Vehicles

“Retained Transportation Fuel Spending in the Southeast: Electric vs Internal Combustion Vehicles” developed by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) analyzes how much consumers spend on gas and diesel, how much of that transportation fuel spending remains in a given Southeast state, and how much leaves. The analysis then looked at what happens if all on-road gas and diesel-powered cars, trucks, and buses are replaced with vehicles that drive entirely on electricity. We found that electrifying transportation could provide an economic boon for Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina, and Tennessee and that currently $47 billion is currently …

The Future of Gas Utilities Series: Transitioning Gas Utilities to a Decarbonized Future

The natural gas utility industry is facing increased uncertainty and risk in the current environment of decarbonizing the energy sector.

With approximately $150–180 billion of unrecovered gas distribution infrastructure at risk, gas utilities will need to organize and become a proactive and innovative participant in a clean energy transition. If utilities defer the decarbonization planning needed to build a long-term strategy, the prospect of declining growth or under-recovery of costs for gas utilities increases in the long run.

In this three-part series, The Brattle Group presents a framework for how gas utilities can assess risk and opportunities related to the …

5 Steps the Next Federal Reserve Chair Must Take to Address Climate-Related Financial Risk

Here’s a stark reality: In 2020, climate disasters cost the United States $95 billion, nearly double the losses of 2019. At 4 degrees of warming, the global economic losses could reach $23 trillion by 2100, several times the cost of the 2008 crash. The climate crisis is here, and it is threatening our lives and our economy.

And yet, Wall Street has failed to take the steps needed to protect our financial system, and to stop fueling the risks of the climate crisis. In fact, big banks have only increased their investments in the fossil fuels that are driving climate …

BloombergNEF New Energy Outlook 2021

The New Energy Outlook (NEO) is BloombergNEF’s annual long-term scenario analysis on the future of the energy economy.

In this edition, we present scenarios that reach net-zero emissions in 2050 and achieve the goal of the Paris Climate Agreement, reflecting growing interest in climate pathways. With much of the route to net-zero still uncertain, we have designed three climate scenarios that reflect dominant technology paradigms common in the public discourse. We investigate these energy futures and discuss what it means to get on track for net-zero by 2030. We hope this year’s analysis is a valuable input …

30 Million Solar Homes Implementation Guide

The 30 Million Solar Homes Implementation Guide is a companion piece to the 30 Million Solar Homes policy platform — developed by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Solar United Neighbors, and the Initiative for Energy Justice — and our recent report, The National Impact of 30 Million Solar Homes. The policy platform identifies new and existing federal policies and programs that could catalyze widespread and equitable adoption of rooftop and community solar, to power the equivalent of one in four households across the United States.

The success of this proposal relies not only on the initial passing of …

Green Hydrogen in a Circular Carbon Economy: Opportunities and Limits

As global warming mitigation and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reduction become increasingly urgent to counter climate change, many nations have announced net-zero emission targets as a commitment to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Low-carbon hydrogen has received renewed attention under these decarbonization frameworks as a potential low-carbon fuel and feedstock, especially for hard-to-abate sectors such as heavy-duty transportation (trucks, shipping) and heavy industries (e.g., steel, chemicals). Green hydrogen in particular, defined as hydrogen produced from water electrolysis with zero-carbon electricity, could have significant potential in helping countries transition their economies to meet climate goals. Today, green hydrogen production faces …

Weaponizing Economics: Big Oil, Economic Consultants, and Climate Policy Delay

The role of particular scientists in opposing policies to slow and halt global warming has been extensively documented. The role of economists, however, has received less attention. Here, I trace the history of an influential group of economic consultants hired by the petroleum industry from the 1990s to the 2010s to estimate the costs of various proposed climate policies. The economists used models that inflated predicted costs while ignoring policy benefits, and their results were often portrayed to the public as independent rather than industry-sponsored. Their work played a key role in undermining numerous major climate policy initiatives in the …

How Much Do Consumers Value Fuel Cost Savings? Evidence from the Passenger Vehicle Leasing Market

Vehicle leasing involves a consumer renting a car for an average of three years. Given the typical lease length, we show that estimating valuation of leased vehicle fuel costs is fundamentally different from estimating valuation of purchased vehicle fuel costs. We find that new vehicle lessees and buyers both undervalue lifetime fuel costs. But because leasing periods last about three years, new vehicle lessees fully value lease-specific fuel costs. Our estimates also imply that leasing companies set residual values, defined as the post-lease expected value of the vehicle, with the expectation that used vehicle buyers undervalue post-lease fuel costs.…