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Open Access Publications from the University of California

Scholarly Works (9 results)

  • Article
  • Peer Reviewed
LBL Publications (2004)
    Cover page: Do indoor environments in schools influence student performance? A review of the literature
    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    LBL Publications (2016)
    We model scenarios of the U.S. electric sector in which wind generation reaches 10% of end-use electricity demand in 2020, 20% in 2030, and 35% in 2050. As shown in a companion paper, achieving these penetration levels would have significant implications for the wind industry and the broader electric sector. Compared to a baseline that assumes no new wind deployment, under the primary scenario modeled, achieving these penetrations imposes an incremental cost to electricity consumers of less than 1% through 2030. These cost implications, however, should be balanced against the variety of environmental and social implications of such a scenario. Relative to a baseline that assumes no new wind deployment, our analysis shows that the high-penetration wind scenario yields potential greenhouse-gas benefits of $85–$1,230 billion in present-value terms, with a central estimate of $400 billion. Air-pollution-related health benefits are estimated at $52–$272 billion, while annual electric-sector water withdrawals and consumption are lower by 15% and 23% in 2050, respectively. We also find that a high-wind-energy future would have implications for the diversity and risk of energy supply, local economic development, and land use and related local impacts on communities and ecosystems; however, these additional impacts may not greatly affect aggregate social welfare owing to their nature, in part, as resource transfers.
      Cover page: Long-term implications of sustained wind power growth in the United States: Potential benefits and secondary impacts
      • Article
      Development and Technology (2005)

      Private sector and governmental organizations have been promoting the deployment of small-scale, distributed electricity generation (DG) technologies for their many benefits as compared to the traditional paradigm of large, centralized power plants. While some researchers have investigated the impact of a shift toward DG in terms of energy use and even air pollutant concentrations, it is also important to evaluate the air pollutant exposure implications of this shift. We conducted a series of case studies within the state of California that combined air dispersion modeling and inhalation exposure assessment. Twenty-five central stations were selected and five air pollutant-emitting DG technologies were considered, including two that meet the 2003 and 2007 California Air Resources Board DG emissions standards (microturbines and fuel cells with on-site natural gas reformers, respectively). This investigation has revealed that the fraction of pollutant mass emitted that is inhaled by the downwind, exposed population can be more than an order of magnitude greater for all five DG technologies considered than for large, central-station power plants in California. This difference is a consequence mainly of the closer proximity of DG sources to densely populated areas as compared to typical central station, and is independent of the emissions characteristics of the plants assessed. Considering typical emission factors for the five DG technologies, the mass of pollutant inhaled per unit electricity delivered can be up to three orders of magnitude greater for DG units as compared to existing California central stations. To equalize the exposure burden between DG and central station technologies, DG emission factors will need to be reduced to a range between the level of the cleanest, new central stations in California and an order of magnitude below those levels, depending on the pollutant and siting. We conclude that there is reason to caution against an unmitigated embrace of DG technologies that emit air pollutants so that they do not pose a greater public health burden than the current electricity generation system.

        Cover page: Quantifying the Air Pollution Exposure Consequences of Distributed Electricity Generation
        • Article
        • Peer Reviewed
        LBL Publications (2016)
        We estimate the environmental and public health benefits that may be realized if solar energy cost reductions continue until solar power is competitive across the U.S. without subsidies. Specifically, we model, from 2015 to 2050, solar power–induced reductions to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, air pollutant emissions, and water usage. To find the incremental benefits of new solar deployment, we compare the difference between two scenarios, one where solar costs have fallen such that solar supplies 14% of the nation's electricity by 2030 and 27% by 2050, and a baseline scenario in which no solar is added after 2014. We monetize benefits, where credible methods exist to do so. We find that under these scenarios, solar power reduces GHG and air pollutants by ∼10%, from 2015 to 2050, providing a discounted present value of $56–$789 billion (central value of ∼$250 billion, equivalent to ∼2 ¢/kWh-solar) in climate benefits and $77–$298 billion (central value of $167 billion, or ∼1.4 ¢/kWh-solar) in air quality and public health benefits. The ranges reflect uncertainty within the literature about the marginal impact of emissions of GHG and air pollutants. Solar power is also found to reduce water withdrawals and consumption by 4% and 9%, respectively, including in many drought-prone states.
          Cover page: The environmental and public health benefits of achieving high penetrations of solar energy in the United States
          • Article
          • Peer Reviewed
          LBL Publications (2021)
          Methane (CH4) emissions from oil and natural gas (O&NG) systems are an important contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. In the United States, recent synthesis studies of field measurements of CH4 emissions at different spatial scales are ~1.5-2× greater compared to official greenhouse gas inventory (GHGI) estimates, with the production-segment as the dominant contributor to this divergence. Based on an updated synthesis of measurements from component-level field studies, we develop a new inventory-based model for CH4 emissions, for the production-segment only, that agrees within error with recent syntheses of site-level field studies and allows for isolation of equipment-level contributions. We find that unintentional emissions from liquid storage tanks and other equipment leaks are the largest contributors to divergence with the GHGI. If our proposed method were adopted in the United States and other jurisdictions, inventory estimates could better guide CH4 mitigation policy priorities.
            Cover page: Closing the methane gap in US oil and natural gas production emissions inventoriesCreative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
            • Article
            LBL Publications (2016)
              Cover page: A Retrospective Analysis of the Benefits and Impacts of U.S. Renewable Portfolio Standards:
              • Article
              • Peer Reviewed
              LBL Publications (2024)
              To demonstrate how a mega city can lead in decarbonizing beyond legal mandates, the city of Los Angeles (LA) developed science-based, feasible pathways towards utilizing 100% renewable energy for its municipally-owned electric utility. Aside from decarbonization, renewable energy adoption can lead to co-benefits such as improving urban air quality from reductions in combustion-related emissions of oxides of nitrogen (NOx), primary fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and others. Herein, we quantify changes to air pollutant concentrations and public health from scenarios of 100% renewable electricity adoption in LA in 2045, alongside aggressive electrification of end-use sectors. Our analysis suggests that while ensuring reliable electricity supply, reductions in emissions of air pollutants associated with the 100% renewable electricity scenarios can lead to 8% citywide reductions of PM2.5 concentration while increasing ozone concentration by 5% relative to a 2012 baseline year, given identical meteorology conditions. The combination of these concentration changes could result in net monetized public health benefits (driven by avoided deaths) of up to $1.4 billion in year 2045 in LA, results potentially replicable for other city-scale decarbonization scenarios.
                Cover page: Air quality and public health co-benefits of 100% renewable electricity adoption and electrification pathways in Los AngelesCreative Commons 'BY' version 4.0 license
                • Article
                • Peer Reviewed
                UC Santa Barbara Previously Published Works (2015)
                Decarbonization of electricity generation can support climate-change mitigation and presents an opportunity to address pollution resulting from fossil-fuel combustion. Generally, renewable technologies require higher initial investments in infrastructure than fossil-based power systems. To assess the tradeoffs of increased up-front emissions and reduced operational emissions, we present, to our knowledge, the first global, integrated life-cycle assessment (LCA) of long-term, wide-scale implementation of electricity generation from renewable sources (i.e., photovoltaic and solar thermal, wind, and hydropower) and of carbon dioxide capture and storage for fossil power generation. We compare emissions causing particulate matter exposure, freshwater ecotoxicity, freshwater eutrophication, and climate change for the climate-change-mitigation (BLUE Map) and business-as-usual (Baseline) scenarios of the International Energy Agency up to 2050. We use a vintage stock model to conduct an LCA of newly installed capacity year-by-year for each region, thus accounting for changes in the energy mix used to manufacture future power plants. Under the Baseline scenario, emissions of air and water pollutants more than double whereas the low-carbon technologies introduced in the BLUE Map scenario allow a doubling of electricity supply while stabilizing or even reducing pollution. Material requirements per unit generation for low-carbon technologies can be higher than for conventional fossil generation: 11-40 times more copper for photovoltaic systems and 6-14 times more iron for wind power plants. However, only two years of current global copper and one year of iron production will suffice to build a low-carbon energy system capable of supplying the world's electricity needs in 2050.
                  Cover page: Integrated life-cycle assessment of electricity-supply scenarios confirms global environmental benefit of low-carbon technologies
                  • Article
                  • Peer Reviewed
                  UC Berkeley Previously Published Works (2019)
                  The strategic engineering of solar energy technologies—from individual rooftop modules to large solar energy power plants—can confer significant synergistic outcomes across industrial and ecological boundaries. Here, we propose techno–ecological synergy (TES), a framework for engineering mutually beneficial relationships between technological and ecological systems, as an approach to augment the sustainability of solar energy across a diverse suite of recipient environments, including land, food, water, and built-up systems. We provide a conceptual model and framework to describe 16 TESs of solar energy and characterize 20 potential techno–ecological synergistic outcomes of their use. For each solar energy TES, we also introduce metrics and illustrative assessments to demonstrate techno–ecological potential across multiple dimensions. The numerous applications of TES to solar energy technologies are unique among energy systems and represent a powerful frontier in sustainable engineering to minimize unintended consequences on nature associated with a rapid energy transition.
                    Cover page: Techno–ecological synergies of solar energy for global sustainability
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