Replac­ing Coal: Dri­vers of Lower Emis­sions in the US Power Sec­tor from 2007 to 2014

Eric G. Gimon

Senior Fel­low

Energy Inno­va­tion, Pol­icy and Tech­nol­ogy LCC

RAEL Lab Meeting

12 — 1 pm, 2 Decem­ber 2015

310 Bar­rows Hall, Room 323

—WEDNESDAY—

Eric Gimon will exam­ine the drop in U.S. power gen­er­a­tion green­house gas emis­sions from 2007 to 2014, a period where the U.S. econ­omy grew by 8.1% in real terms. This trend is the result of both a drop in over­all demand and an improve­ment in the emis­sions inten­sity of the power sec­tor.   He will show how a vari­ety of analy­ses explain how demand is way below trend due to a com­bi­na­tion of the gen­eral eco­nomic effects and policy-​​driven energy effi­ciency upgrades. On the sup­ply side, where the over­all fleet emis­sions inten­sity dropped mainly due to decrease in coal gen­er­a­tion, Eric will demon­strate a con­struct, the sub­sti­tu­tion matrix, for orga­niz­ing the var­i­ous fuel-​​switching effects behind this trend.  Using national and regional data, he finds that while a major­ity frac­tion of coal elec­tric­ity gen­er­a­tion was likely replaced by nat­ural gas, the result­ing annual green­house emis­sion reduc­tions are below those from increased renew­able elec­tric­ity pro­duc­tion (sig­nif­i­cantly lower if fuel upstream emis­sions are also included) and less than half of sav­ings achieved from energy effi­ciency.  he will dis­cuss some of the tech­nol­ogy and pol­icy impli­ca­tions of these results.

Eric Gimon con­sults as a tech­ni­cal expert, research scholar, and pol­icy adviser with Energy Inno­va­tion. He is a main con­trib­u­tor to their power sec­tor trans­for­ma­tion work, work­ing on ques­tions of renew­able energy inte­gra­tion both in the con­text of today’s chal­lenges as well as for future path­ways. Eric also acts as an adviser for non-​​profits and foun­da­tions inter­ested in these ques­tions and broader cli­mate and energy issues. Eric holds a B.S./M.S. from Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity in math­e­mat­ics and physics, as well as a Ph.D. in physics from the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia in Santa Bar­bara. He had a 15-​​year active career as a researcher in quan­tum grav­ity and high energy physics in some of the world’s top research insti­tu­tions. Eric’s work at Lawrence Berke­ley National Lab­o­ra­tory and UC Berke­ley, as well as an AAAS fel­low­ship with two Offices in the Depart­ment of Energy inspired his tran­si­tion to cli­mate and energy policy.