A new report says the northeastern U.S. could cut its carbon dioxide emissions in half — just by taking advantage of technology that’s already available.
“It’s really about heating buildings and powering transportation,” said Jamie Howland, the director of the Climate Energy Analysis Center at ENE, and the report’s lead author. “Those are two things that have traditionally been done directly by fossil fuels.”
The ENE EnergyVision report covers Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, and New Jersey. It notes that over the last decade, oil and coal collapsed as power sources for the electrical grids of those states. Hydroelectric, other renewables, nuclear, and natural gas rose to take their place, making electrical power there greener. So simply switching things like building heat and transportation over to electric power — using technology that’s already commercialized — could deliver huge gains.
“If you just hypothetically did that, greenhouse gas emissions would be cut in half. I don’t think most people realize that,” Howland said. “You get cost reductions in many cases. And you get those today, with today’s electricity generated by natural gas.”
Beyond that, combining such a move with a big push onto renewables to power the electrical grid, and the northeast’s emissions could drop 75 percent by 2050. Here are the key points:
Building electrification.
Electric Transportation.
Modernize the grid.
More energy efficiency.
Keep pushing renewables.
Between the electrification, grid modernization, and the renewables push, ENE thinks the northeast could cut its carbon emissions 75 percent by 2050. They could also conceivably serve as an example for the rest of the country. Texas, for example, is heavily reliant on automobile travel, has hot summers where the need for cooling is widespread, and boasts a massive potential for solar and wind energy. It also released more carbon dioxide in 2011 than all the states covered by the ENE report combined.
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