The United States could reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from power production sector within the next 15 years by raising their investment in renewables like solar and wind, according to experts at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Colorado Boulder.
The study found that the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions could be nearly 78% below the 1990 levels while at the same time maintaining cost and meeting the anticipated increase in demand. The research utilized a highly refined mathematical model to gauge future scenarios like demand, transmission, generation, and cost.
According to the study, with developments in transmission structure, the renewable resources driven by climatic changes could provide most of the country's electricity at a price similar to the present day. The researchers at NOAA and University of Colorado Boulder also said that these renewable resources are basically periodic and the utilities have spent in additional generation capacity to support renewable energy resources with reserves like natural gas-fired producers.
Alexander MacDonald, co-lead author and director of NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, said, "Our research shows a transition to a reliable, low-carbon, electrical generation, and transmission system can be accomplished with commercially available technology and within 15 years."
Utilizing NOAA's meteorological data, Alexander MacDonald along with his team of four NOAA researchers constructed a model to gauge the cost of merging various sources of power into a single energy system. The model predicts energy demand, the capacity of the renewable resource, emissions of CO2 and cost of operating and expanding transmission system for future demands.
Even in circumstances when renewable resource costs over the experts' prediction, the model generated a system that reduces carbon-di-oxide emissions 33% below 1990 levels by next 15 years and also produced electricity of around 8.6 cents an hour.
According to Fox News Science, the Obama Government could utilize the research to battle concerns regarding the cost of Clean Power Plan, which requires the United States to reduce CO2 emissions primarily from power plants fuelled by coal 32% from 2005 levels within 2030.
High global temperature has been caused by greenhouse gas emissions from burning of oil and coal, Mail Online said citing a recent study. Since the beginning of millennium, the globe has witnessed a series of hottest years on record. According to the researchers, human activities are the cause for high annual world temperature.
Mark Jacobson from Stanford University said that the periodically renewable resources along with transmission could reduce electricity derived from fossil-fuel while maintaining the power need at a lower price than the fossil-fuel powered grid. With this new model, researchers believe US will achieve its Paris summit goal to reduce CO2 emissions nearly 78% below the 1990 levels within 2030.
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