Thread by @emilygrubert

As a Californian who now lives in a state that doesn't have an RPS, I share the rage about slow climate action, + questions about what it means to move faster.

Contribution for now: new paper + model of CA utility-specific committed emissions to 2050.

iopscience.iop.org/article/10.108…

Open-access at ERL (with @JennStokesDraut, Arpad Horvath, and Bill Eisenstein).

The model is SI and won't be posted for a bit, but I've uploaded it here if you want to play with it sooner:

emilygrubert.org/wp-content/upl…

What we find: CA's targets are reasonable. A 2045 decarbonization deadline doesn't strand much infrastructure -- just letting plants retire at the end of their typical lifespans essentially results in full decarbonization by 2047, assuming you don't build more FF plants.

Our model allows you to look at utility-specific emissions profiles under a bunch of different scenarios -- it's an asset-based model, with emissions bounded by existing plants, policy targets, and user assumptions about what you replace the power with.

Existing plant futures:

And, a well-known caution that people usually don't put in quite these terms: methane leakage boosts natural gas power plants' emissions intensity by about 30%, assuming national average emissions.

I think CA's gas supply is worse than that (that paper is in process).

I really hope this model is useful and interesting for folks -- I designed it to be usable, so read the paper, but also download the model and mess around with it. Change plant retirement dates, move up RPS / CES deadlines, etc. -- and see where the pressure points are.

As @cleantechsonia points out: getting to 0 by 2035 is totally possible.

I might mess around with some recent changes and post more about that next week -- gas plant lifetime extensions, etc., so hit me up if you want to see specific results. Good air and safe weekends to all!