Choosing Climate Policies in a Second-best World with Incomplete Markets
A new Working Paper considers how optimal climate policy choices depend on the completeness of long-term contracting in liberalized electricity markets. Surprisingly, the researchers observe that renewable subsidies can be more cost-effective than a carbon tax if electricity generation investors cannot sign long-term contracts with consumers. This occurs because, by increasing investment in renewables, subsidies can reduce exposure to unhedged risk from uncertain gas generation costs.
Commentary: A Roadmap for Advanced Transmission Technology Adoption
In addition to building more transmission, there is an opportunity to meet U.S. needs for near-term grid capacity growth quickly and cost-effectively with advanced transmission technologies (ATTs). This research commentary by Brian Deese, Rob Gramlich and Anna Pasnau proposes a framework for supporting adoption and highlights the limitations of this framework for overcoming barriers to adoption in their entirety and proposes a more transformative change, shifting the responsibility of ATT planning altogether to a third party, to accomplish that.
The Impact of Interregional Transmission on Emissions and Reliability
The decline in the cost of wind and solar generation over recent decades has significantly altered the energy landscape. With these technologies becoming economically viable, even without stringent decarbonization policies, the role of interregional transmission has become increasingly important. A new Working Paper examines the value of interregional transmission to the U.S. grid under current policies and deep decarbonization scenarios as it is implemented through transmission legislation.
The Impact of Financing Structures on the Cost of CO2 Transport
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a promising decarbonization technology. However, deployment of CCS hinges on the availability of CO2 transport, necessitating policymakers to assess how the financing of CO2 transport infrastructure will be realized. By studying the impact of financing structures on the total cost of CO2 transport, a new CEEPR Working Paper explores this topic further.
Climate Policy Reform Options in 2025
With the expiration of many tax cuts and unmet climate targets, 2025 could be a crucial year for climate policy in the United States. Using an integrated model of energy supply and demand, a new Working Paper aims to assess climate policies that the U.S. federal government may consider in 2025 and to evaluate emissions reductions, abatement costs, fiscal impacts, and household energy expenditures across a range of policy scenarios.
Three Mile Island owner seeks taxpayer backing for Microsoft AI deal
The US Department of Energy is weighing a $1.6 billion loan guarantee for a plan to reopen the nuclear plant with Microsoft as its sole customer. In this case, the loan guarantee could save Constellation up to $122 million in borrowing costs for restarting Three Mile Island, according to John Parsons, an energy economist and Deputy Director for Research at MIT CEEPR. It would come on top of the federal tax credits on the sale of the power — passed in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Read more in the full article at the Washington Post.
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Liftoff: The Climate Project at MIT takes flight
The leaders of The Climate Project at MIT met with community members at a campus forum on Monday, helping to kick off the Institute’s major new effort to accelerate and scale up climate change solutions. “The Climate Project is a whole-of-MIT mobilization,” MIT President Sally Kornbluth said in her opening remarks. “It’s designed to focus the Institute’s talent and resources so that we can achieve much more, faster, in terms of real-world impact, from mitigation to adaptation.”
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How Simple Monitors Can Prevent Air Pollution-Related Illness
Air pollution is the world’s second-largest cause of death globally, leading to 8.1 million premature deaths annually from lung cancer, heart disease, and emphysema, among other diseases. Regular forest fires are a reminder for many in the U.S. that our air quality can be precarious, but in much of the world’s cities, foul air has been a fact of life for decades. In this article, a group of researchers including Benjamin Krebs, discuss the importance of air quality monitors and how tracking can be improved. Read the full story at Time Magazine.
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Clean Investment
Monitor
The Clean Investment Monitor (CIM) is a joint project of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research (CEEPR) and the Rhodium Group. The CIM tracks public and private investments in climate technologies in the United States. Through this data and analysis, the CIM provides insights into investment trends, the effects of federal and state policies, and on-the-ground progress in the U.S. towards net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.
The CIM covers dozens of different technologies and their input components across all sectors of the economy, including for clean electricity and transportation, building electrification, low-emission industrial production, and carbon management.
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Climate Action
Through Education
The MIT Climate Action Through Education (CATE) program, directed by Professor Christopher R. Knittel, has developed an MIT-informed interdisciplinary, place-based climate change curriculum for U.S. high school teachers in the following core disciplines: History/Social Science, English/Language Arts, Math, and Science.
Curricular materials – labs, units, lessons, projects – will be aligned with Next Generation Science Standards, and MA education standards. The solutions-focused curriculum aims to inform students about the causes and consequences of anthropogenic climate change, while equipping them with the knowledge and sense of agency to contribute to climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience.
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Driving Towards
Seamless Public
EV Charging
Widespread electric vehicle (EV) adoption is critical to confronting climate change – but a lack of sufficient public charging infrastructure is holding many potential EV drivers back. A team of researchers from Harvard and the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research will work to accelerate progress on public EV charging as a gating requirement to achieving widespread EV adoption. The team will contribute by working directly with stakeholders and stakeholder groups to identify barriers to seamless public EV charging, build consensus for solutions, and advance those solutions.
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The Roosevelt
Project
Transitioning the United States economy toward deep decarbonization will have unequally distributed effects, positive and negative, across socio-economic groups, geographies and economic sectors. The concerns of workers and communities adversely affected by the transition must inform the discussion around decarbonization, associated policy changes and institutional development. The goal of the Roosevelt Project is to provide an analytical basis for charting a path to a low carbon economy in a way that promotes high quality job growth, minimizes worker and community dislocation, and harnesses the benefits of energy technologies for regional economic development.
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