A major initiative by C-MACC in collaboration with the Power Research Group
The objective of this study is to provide an analytical framework for planning what is possible on the path to net-zero, identifying the constraints and necessities that will guide that path, and avoiding the likely distractions. The path is far from set, and as commentators like Bill Gates and analysts like the IEA have made clear, the path will be highly dependent on technology we do not have yet, at least not outside a laboratory. Consequently, any top-down approach must include a plan that is flexible enough to embrace technologies as they materialize but does not stand still waiting for them.
We will examine the potential for carbon abatement in the power, transportation, and industrial sectors, which are the largest emitters, as well as energy use in residential and commercial buildings.
Our analysis will focus on:
- How carbon abatement can evolve economically, achieving the desired goals without penalizing the consumer through much higher prices for power and fuel
- What works now and what might work later – and how what might work later could affect the lowest cost path to carbon abatement today
- The challenge of maintaining historical levels of grid reliability solely with intermittent renewable resources and short term energy storage
- Carbon capture and sequestration as a means of mitigating the emissions of fossil fuel power plants capable of providing firm capacity to the grid, as well as of industrial processes, such as cement manufacture, whose feedstocks emit CO2
- The need for high energy density, non- or low-emitting fuels, such as green hydrogen, biodiesel, and jet fuel, or biomethane, for difficult to electrify uses of energy including heavy-duty vehicles, ships, and aircraft, as well as industrial processes requiring extremely high temperatures.
