Global warming: least-cost electricity planning to meet CO2 emissions limits

✍ Scribed by Andriana Vlachou; Spyros Vassos; Andreas Andrikopoulos

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 198 KB
• Volume: 9
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1180-4009
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-095x(199807/08)9:4<359::aid-env306>3.0.co;2-1

✦ Synopsis

This paper explores least-cost strategies for reducing CO 2 emissions from the electric power industry. It uses an economic-engineering model for electric generation capacity expansion to investigate expansion plans which meet alternative CO 2 emissions constraints in the lowest cost. The model selects the mix of various energy technologies, which are either presently in use or will possibly be in use in the future, to meet a speci®c carbon emissions limit and, furthermore, estimates the optimal tax required to achieve the least-cost strategy for reducing emissions to the desired level. Using Greece as a case study, the study suggests that to stabilize CO 2 emissions at their 1990 level by the year 2005 and thereafter, the industry should move away from lignite generation to hydro and renewables and to coal or lignite technologies with CO 2 removal capabilities. An optimal tax of $105 per ton of carbon is required to achieve this target in the lowest cost.