| 1. |
- Leclere, David, et al.
(författare)
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Bending the curve of terrestrial biodiversity needs an integrated strategy
- 2020
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 585:7826, s. 551-556
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Increased efforts are required to prevent further losses to terrestrial biodiversity and the ecosystem services that it provides(1,2). Ambitious targets have been proposed, such as reversing the declining trends in biodiversity(3); however, just feeding the growing human population will make this a challenge(4). Here we use an ensemble of land-use and biodiversity models to assess whether-and how-humanity can reverse the declines in terrestrial biodiversity caused by habitat conversion, which is a major threat to biodiversity(5). We show that immediate efforts, consistent with the broader sustainability agenda but of unprecedented ambition and coordination, could enable the provision of food for the growing human population while reversing the global terrestrial biodiversity trends caused by habitat conversion. If we decide to increase the extent of land under conservation management, restore degraded land and generalize landscape-level conservation planning, biodiversity trends from habitat conversion could become positive by the mid-twenty-first century on average across models (confidence interval, 2042-2061), but this was not the case for all models. Food prices could increase and, on average across models, almost half (confidence interval, 34-50%) of the future biodiversity losses could not be avoided. However, additionally tackling the drivers of land-use change could avoid conflict with affordable food provision and reduces the environmental effects of the food-provision system. Through further sustainable intensification and trade, reduced food waste and more plant-based human diets, more than two thirds of future biodiversity losses are avoided and the biodiversity trends from habitat conversion are reversed by 2050 for almost all of the models. Although limiting further loss will remain challenging in several biodiversity-rich regions, and other threats-such as climate change-must be addressed to truly reverse the declines in biodiversity, our results show that ambitious conservation efforts and food system transformation are central to an effective post-2020 biodiversity strategy. To promote the recovery of the currently declining global trends in terrestrial biodiversity, increases in both the extent of land under conservation management and the sustainability of the global food system from farm to fork are required.
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| 2. |
- Roura-Pascual, Núria, et al.
(författare)
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Alternative futures for global biological invasions
- 2021
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Ingår i: Sustainability Science. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1862-4065 .- 1862-4057. ; 16:5, s. 1637-1650
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Scenario analysis has emerged as a key tool to analyze complex and uncertain future socio-ecological developments. However, currently existing global scenarios (narratives of how the world may develop) have neglected biological invasions, a major threat to biodiversity and the economy. Here, we use a novel participatory process to develop a diverse set of global biological invasion scenarios spanning a wide range of plausible global futures through to 2050. We adapted the widely used two axes scenario analysis approach to develop four families of four scenarios each, resulting in 16 scenarios that were later clustered into four contrasting sets of futures. Our analysis highlights that socioeconomic developments and technological innovation have the potential to shape biological invasions, in addition to well-known drivers, such as climate and human land use change and global trade. Our scenarios partially align with the shared socioeconomic pathways created by the climate change research community. Several factors that drive differences in biological invasions were underrepresented in the shared socioeconomic pathways; in particular, the implementation of biosecurity policies. We argue that including factors related to public environmental awareness and technological and trade development in global scenarios and models is essential to adequately consider biological invasions in global environmental assessments and thereby obtain a more integrative picture of future social-ecological developments.
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| 3. |
- Bednar, Johannes, et al.
(författare)
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Role of removals in contributing to the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement
- 2023
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This report delves into the multifaceted dimensions of carbon dioxide removal methods. The report discusses the role of carbon dioxide removal methods in contributing to attaining the long-term goal of the Paris Agreement and investigates best practices in the implementation of the collaborative instruments under Article 6 for their incentivisation and scaling. The present climate policy and actual decision-making are still centred on achieving net-zero carbon emissions but the long-term challenge is the inevitable reversal of the overshoot, requiring carbon removal to outpace residual emissions, leading to net negative emissions globally. The report discusses the need to assign responsibility for climate overshoot reversal in order to guarantee the viability of a global net-negative GHG economy. The report analyses and proposes ways to address risks associated with carbon removal, including mitigation deterrence, that carbon removed from the atmosphere might be re-released, carbon-leakage effects, and challenges related to monitoring mitigation outcomes. It offers recommendations based on these deliberations.
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| 4. |
- Bolin, Bert, 1925-, et al.
(författare)
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Climate Risk Management: Are we ignoring the obvious?
- 2004
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The climate problem can be characterized by a curious concurrence of phenomena: universal agreement that something bad or even catastrophic might be happening, and universal inability to manage risks ex ante. This dilemma can, in a nutshell, be attributed to the fact that substantial costs of reducing human forcing of climate change would start biting now, but evidence of benefits from early action will remain cloudy for decades and worst effects might not be felt for centuries. We argue that due to ignorance about Abrupt Climate Change (ACC) and Negative Emission Technologies (NET) in the assessment of climate risk management strategies, the scientific and political discussion has so far been socially constructed.We show that the only GHG concentration policy in conformity to the UNFCCC is to bring concentrations back to its stable bounds within which it oscillated for the past 420 thousand years. A low GHG concentration target will not only minimize the risk of irreversible extreme weather and abrupt climate events, but also reduce the associated uncertainties. We will illustrate this point by simulations of ecosystem collapse and economic underdevelopment induced by events of ACC.Despite enormous efforts in building emission scenarios, the attainability of such an obvious concentration target has never been assessed. We are able to show that NET, that have been so far ignored in GHG control assessments, are an additional option that could enable reduction of atmospheric CO2 concentrations to levels lower than what could otherwise have been achieved within certain time frames. In addition, NET can substantially reduce the cost of low-emission scenarios. NET can, thus, as a preventive mitigation technology help to control risk exposure and improve mankind’s ability to manage climate risks ex ante.
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| 5. |
- Leduc, Sylvain, et al.
(författare)
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Methanol production by gasification using a geographically explicit model
- 2009
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Ingår i: Biomass and Bioenergy. - : Elsevier BV. - 0961-9534 .- 1873-2909. ; 33:5, s. 745-751
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Methanol mixed with 15% gasoline appears to be a viable alternative energy source for the transportation sector. Produced from gasification of certified wood coming from well-managed forests, its production could be considered as sustainable and the well-to-wheel emissions can be reduced significantly. The physical flows of the entire bio-energy chain consisting of harvesting, biomass transportation, methanol production by gasification, methanol transportation, and methanol distribution to the consumers are assessed and costs are estimated for each part of the chain. A transportation model has been constructed to estimate the logistic demands of biomass supply to the processing plant and to the supply of gas station. The analysis was carried out on a case study for the geography of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It has been found that a typical optimal size for methanol production of some 130,000 m3, supplies about 100 gas stations, and the biomass supply requires on average 22,000 ha of short-rotational poplar, with an average transportation distance of biomass of some 50 km to the methanol processing plant. The methanol production costs appear to be most sensitive with respect to methanol plant efficiency, wood cost, and operating hours of the plant. In an area where biomass is spread heterogeneously, apart from the demand, the geographical position of the plant would appear to have a major impact on the final biofuel cost.
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| 6. |
- Leduc, Sylvain, et al.
(författare)
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Optimal location of wood gasification plants for methanol production with heat recovery
- 2008
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Ingår i: International Journal of Energy Research. - : Hindawi Limited. - 0363-907X .- 1099-114X. ; 32:12, s. 1080-1091
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Second generation biofuels from wood gasification are thought to become competitive in the face of effective climate and energy security policies. Cost competitiveness crucially depends on the optimization of the entire supply chain-field-wheel involving optimal location, scaling and logistics. In this study, a linear mixed integer programming model has been developed to determine the optimal geographic locations and sizes of methanol plants and gas stations in Austria. Optimal locations and sizes are found by the minimization of costs with respect to biomass and methanol production and transport, investments for the production plants and the gas stations. Hence, the model covers competition in all levels of a biofuel production chain including supply of biomass, biofuel and heat, and demand for bio- and fossil fuels.The results show that Austria could be self-sufficient in the production of methanol for biofuels like M5, M10 or M20, using up to 8% of the arable land share. The plants are optimally located close to the potential supply of biomass (i.e. poplar) in Eastern Austria, and produce methanol around 0.4 is an element of(-1). Moreover, heat production could lower the methanol cost by 12%.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Leduc, Sylvain, et al.
(författare)
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Optimizing biodiesel production in India
- 2009
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Ingår i: Applied Energy. - : Elsevier. - 0306-2619 .- 1872-9118. ; 86:Suppl. 1, s. S125-S131
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- India is expected to at least double its fuel consumption in the transportation sector by 2030. To contribute to the fuel supply, renewable energies such as jatropha appear to be an attractive resource for biodiesel production in India as it can be grown on waste land and does not need intensive water supply. In order to produce biodiesel at a competitive cost, the biodiesel supply chain - from biomass harvesting to biodiesel delivery to the consumers - is analyzed. A mixed integer linear programming model is used in order to determine the optimal number and geographic locations of biodiesel plants. The optimization is based on minimization of the costs of the supply chain with respect to the biomass, production and transportation costs. Three biodiesel blends are considered, B2, B5 and B10. For each blend, 13 scenarios are considered where yield, biomass cost, cake price, glycerol price, transport cost and investment costs are studied. A sensitivity analysis is carried out on both those parameters and the resulting locations of the plants. The emissions of the supply chain are also considered. The results state that the biomass cost has most influence on the biodiesel cost (an increase of feedstock cost increases the biodiesel cost by about 40%) and to a lower effect, the investment cost and the glycerol price. Moreover, choosing the right set of production plant locations highly depends on the scenarios that have the highest probability to occur, for which the production plant locations still produce a competitive biodiesel cost and emissions from the transportation are minimum. In this study, one set of plant locations happened to meet these two requirements.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- Marland, Gregg, et al.
(författare)
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The carbon benefits of fuels and forests
- 2007
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Ingår i: Science. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). - 0036-8075 .- 1095-9203. ; 318:5853, s. 1066-1066
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)
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| 11. |
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| 12. |
- Möllersten, Kenneth, 1966-, et al.
(författare)
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Efficient energy systems with CO2 capture and storage from renewable biomass in pulp and paper mills
- 2004
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Ingår i: Renewable energy. - : Elsevier BV. - 0960-1481 .- 1879-0682. ; 29:9, s. 1583-1598
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper investigates the impact of combining CO2 capture and storage with alternative systems for biomass-based combined heat and power production (CHP) in Kraft pulp and paper mills. We compare heat, power, and CO2 balances of systems with alternative configurations of the CHP and CO2-capture systems. Because the captured CO2 comes from renewable biomass, the studied systems yield negative CO2 emissions. It is shown that pulp mills and integrated pulp and paper mills have the potential to become net exporters of biomass-based electricity while at the same time removing CO2 from the atmosphere on a net basis. The study shows that that the overall best CO2 abatement is achieved when CO2 capture is carried out within a biomass integrated gasifier with combined cycle where the syngas undergoes a CO-shift reaction. This configuration combines efficient energy conversion with a high CO2 capture efficiency. Furthermore, cost curves are constructed, which show how the cost of CO2 capture and storage in pulp and paper mills depends on system configuration and the CO2 transportation distance.
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| 13. |
- Möllersten, Kenneth, 1966-, et al.
(författare)
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Negative emission biomass technologies in an uncertain climate future
- 2006
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Ingår i: Progress in Biomass and Bioenergy Research. - New York : Nova Science Publishers, Inc.. - 1600213286 ; , s. 217-
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Mitigation of and adaptation to climate change belong to the most pressing global challenges for the 21st century. Major mitigation options include improved energy efficiency, shifting towards less carbon-intensive fossil fuels, increased use of energy sources with near-zero emissions, such as renewables and nuclear, CO2 capture and permanent storage (CCS), and carbon sequestration by protection and enhancement of biological absorption capacity in forests and soils.Bioenergy is one of several energy sources which could provide society with energy services with near-zero emissions. Bioenergy has a unique feature, however, which distinguishes it from other low-emitting energy supply options, such as solar, wind, nuclear, and clean fossil energy technologies. Bioenergy conversion could be integrated with a process which separates carbon. If the biomass feedstock is sustainably produced and the separated carbon is subsequently isolated from the atmosphere for a very long time the entire process becomes a continuous carbon sink – in other words such technologies yield negative CO2 emissions. Negative emission biomass technologies can be centralised or distributed; Centralised negative emission biomass technologies, biomass energy with CO2 capture and storage (BECS), build on the conversion of biomass into energy carriers in centralised conversion plants integrated with CO2 capture. The captured CO2 is subsequently transported and stored in geological formations. Distributed negative emission biomass technologies are based on the production of long-term carbon-sequestering charcoal soil amendment, with or without co-production of biofuels.In this chapter a BECS implementation scenario study is presented. The study analyses investments in BECS in a pulp and paper mill environment. The investment analysis is carried out within a real options framework taking into account the potential revenue from trading generated emission allowances on a carbon market. Uncertainty is considered in the economic modelling through the use of stochastically correlated price processes of one input price (biomass) and two output prices (electricity and CO2 emission permits) that are consistent with shadow price trajectories of a large-scale global energy model. The results suggest that BECS can be economically feasible within approximately 40 years.The chapter also discusses Research and Development needs for better understanding of the future overall potential of negative emission biomass technology implementation.
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| 14. |
- Obersteiner, Michael, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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Biomass Energy, Carbon Removaland Permanent Sequestration : A ‘Real Option’ for Managing Climate Risk
- 2001
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) calls forstabilization of greenhouse gases (GHGs) at a safe level, and it also prescribesprecautionary measures to anticipate, prevent, or minimize the causes of climate changeand mitigate their adverse effects. In order to achieve this goal, such measures should becost-effective and scientific uncertainty on threats of serious or irreversible damageshould not be used as a reason for postponing them. In this sense, the UNFCCC can beunderstood as a responsive climate management scheme that calls for precautionary andanticipatory risk management, where in a continuous sense-response mode, expectedclimate-related losses are in an uncertainty augmented analysis balanced againstadaptation and mitigation costs.In this paper we investigate a component of a wider technological portfolio of climaterisk management. In particular, we will investigate the properties of biomass-basedsequestration technologies with respect to their potential role in climate riskmanagement. We use the theory of modern asset pricing, commonly known as realoption valuation, in order to assess this technology on global and long-term scales.Biomass energy can be used to produce both carbon neutral energy carriers, e.g.,electricity and hydrogen, and at the same time offer a permanent CO2 sink by capturingcarbon from the biomass at the conversion facility and permanently storing it ingeological formations. To illustrate the long-term potential of energy-related biomassuse in combination with carbon capture and sequestration, we performed an ex postanalysis based on a representative subset of the Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange (IPCC) reference scenarios developed with the MESSAGE-MACRO modelingframework. The cumulative carbon emissions reduction in the 21st century may exceed450 gigatons of carbon, which represents more than 35% of the total emissions of thereference scenarios, and could lead, in cases of low shares of fossil fuel consumption, tonet removal of carbon from the atmosphere (negative emissions) before the end of thiscentury. The long-run technological potential of such a permanent sink technology islarge enough to neutralize historical fossil fuel emissions and cover a significant part ofglobal energy and raw material demand. The economic potential might turn out to besmaller, if the signposts of climate change do not require that negative emissions, as areal option, need to be exercised.The main policy conclusion is that investments in both expanding the absorptivecapacity for carbon (expanding carbon stocks) and research and development (R&D)investments for developing negative emission technologies as a viable technologycluster should not only be (socially) priced against all other mitigation technologies bysimple Net Present Value calculation (working only with the average expected loss), butaccording to a real option valuation given the full uncertainty spectrum of expected(economic) losses due to human induced climate change. The questions of how muchand when sinks have to be committed as real options for robust climate managementdepend on the properties of the climate signal and the nations’ degree of risk aversion― both are yet to be fully quantified.
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| 15. |
- Obersteiner, Michael, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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Managing Climate Risk
- 2001
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- At the heart of the traditional approach to strategy in the climate change dilemma liesthe assumption that the global community, by applying a set of powerful analyticaltools, can predict the future of climate change accurately enough to choose a clearstrategic direction for it. We claim that this approach might involve underestimatinguncertainty in order to lay out a vision of future events sufficiently precise to becaptured in a discounted cost flow analysis in integrated assessment models. However,since the future of climate change is truly uncertain, this approach might at best bemarginally helpful and at worst downright dangerous: underestimating uncertainty canlead to strategies that do not defend the world against unexpected and sometimes evencatastrophic threats. Another danger lies on the other extreme: if the global communitycan not find a strategy that works under traditional analysis or if uncertainties are toolarge that clear messages are absent, they may abandon the analytical rigor of theirplanning process altogether and base their decisions on good instinct and consensus ofsome future process that is easy to agree upon.In this paper, we try to outline a system to derive strategic decisions under uncertaintyfor the climate change dilemma. What follows is a framework for determining the levelof uncertainty surrounding strategic decisions and for tailoring strategy to thatuncertainty.Our core argument is that a robust strategy towards climate change involves thebuilding of a technological portfolio of mitigation and adaptation measures that includessufficient opposite technological positions to the underlying baseline emission scenariosgiven the uncertainties of the entire physical and socioeconomic system in place. In thecase of mitigation, opposite technological positions with the highest leverage areparticular types of sinks. A robust climate risk management portfolio can only workwhen the opposite technological positions are readily available when needed andtherefore they have to be prepared in advance. It is precisely the flexibility of thesetechnological options which has to be quantified under the perspective of the uncertainnature of the underlying system and compared to the cost of creating these options,rather than comparing their cost with expected losses in a net present value typeanalysis. We conclude that climate policy ― especially under the consideration of theprecautionary principle ― would look much different if uncertainties would be takenexplicitly into account.
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| 16. |
- Patrizio, Piera, et al.
(författare)
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Killing two birds with one stone : a negative emissions strategy for a soft landing of the US coal sector
- 2019
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Ingår i: Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage. - : Elsevier. ; , s. 219-236
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In a modeling study, optimizing the transformation of the US coal sector to achieve emissions reductions consistent with the 2°C target, we include all current coal-fired power plants of the US fleet, a large part of which will need to be replaced due to their high age. Coal-fired power plants can either be (1) replaced by higher efficiency coal plants or (2) natural gas plants while units are not yet at the end of their lifetime and can be (3) retrofitted with carbon capture and storage (CCS) or (4) retrofitted to cofire coal and biomass coupled with CCS (BECCS) thereby achieving negative emissions. Our results show that if the 2°C emissions mitigation target should be achieved, the cost-optimal way of doing so is through an early implementation of BECCS. This strategy also helps to address the US Administrations’ concern for coal workers: there is a more gradual phaseout of coal, which allows to retain 40,000 jobs that would be loss due to the fleet retirement for aging. In addition, 22,000 new workers would be permanently employed in the coal sector by the end of midcentury, especially in areas where the deployments of BECCS would start already by 2030. Our modeling results indicate the Great Lakes area and the southeast United States as the greatest winners of this negative emissions strategy. If planned in an integrated and forward-looking way, climate change mitigation can boost employment and competitiveness.
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| 17. |
- Patrizio, Piera, et al.
(författare)
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Reducing US Coal Emissions Can Boost Employment
- 2018
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Ingår i: Joule. - : Elsevier. - 2542-4351. ; 2:12, s. 2633-2648
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Concerns have been voiced that implementing climate change mitigation measures could come at the cost of employment, especially in the context of the US coal sector. However, repurposing US coal plants presents an opportunity to address emission mitigation and job creation, if the right technology change is adopted. In this study, the transformation of the US coal sector until 2050 is modeled to achieve ambitious climate targets. Results show that the cost-optimal strategy for meeting 2050 emission reductions consistent with 2°C stabilization pathways is through the early deployment of BECCS and by replacing 50% of aging coal plants with natural gas plants. This strategy addresses the concerns surrounding employment for coal workers by retaining 40,000 jobs, and creating 22,000 additional jobs by mid-century. Climate change mitigation does not have to come at the cost of employment, and policymakers could seek to take advantage of the social co-benefits of mitigation.
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| 18. |
- Yan, Jinyue, 1959-, et al.
(författare)
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Negative Emission Technologies - NETs
- 2019
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Ingår i: Applied Energy. - : Elsevier BV. - 0306-2619 .- 1872-9118. ; 255, s. 1-3
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 19. |
- Zhang, Haoran, et al.
(författare)
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1.6 Million transactions replicate distributed PV market slowdown by COVID-19 lockdown
- 2021
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Ingår i: Applied Energy. - : ELSEVIER SCI LTD. - 0306-2619 .- 1872-9118. ; 283
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Solar PV has seen a spectacular market development in recent years and has become a cost competitive source of electricity in many parts of the world. Yet, prospective observations show that the coronavirus pandemic could impact renewable energy projects, especially in the distributed market. Tracking and attributing the economic footprint of COVID-19 lockdowns in the photovoltaic sector poses a significant research challenge. Based on millions of financial transaction records and 44 thousand photovoltaic installation records, we tracked the spatiotemporal sale network of the distributed photovoltaic market and explored the extent of market slowdown. We found that a two-month lockdown duration can be assessed as a high-risk threshold value. When the lockdown duration exceeds the threshold value, the monthly value-added loss reaches 67.7%, and emission reduction capacity is cut by 64.2% over the whole year. We show that risks of a slowdown in PV deployment due to COVID19 lockdowns can be mitigated by comprehensive incentive strategies for the distributed PV market amid market uncertainties.
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| 20. |
- Zheng, Xiaoqi, et al.
(författare)
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Drivers of change in China’s energy-related CO2 emissions
- 2020
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America. - : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. - 0027-8424 .- 1091-6490. ; 117:1, s. 29-36
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- CO2 emissions are of global concern because of climate change. China has become the largest CO2 emitter in the world and presently accounts for 30% of global emissions. Here, we analyze the major drivers of energy-related CO2 emissions in China from 1978 when the reform and opening-up policy was launched. We find that 1) there has been a 6-fold increase in energy-related CO2 emissions, which was driven primarily (176%) by economic growth followed by population growth (16%), while the effects of energy intensity (−79%) and carbon intensity (−13%) slowed the growth of carbon emissions over most of this period; 2) energy-related CO2 emissions are positively related to per capita gross domestic product (GDP), population growth rate, carbon intensity, and energy intensity; and 3) a portfolio of command-and-control policies affecting the drivers has altered the total emission trend. However, given the major role of China in global climate change mitigation, significant future reductions in China’s CO2 emissions will require transformation toward low-carbon energy systems.
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