[Graeme]

How The Northeast Could Cut Carbon Pollution By 75 Percent In 5 Simple Steps

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.

thinkprogress

[Outcast_Searcher]

So words like "Fukushima" don't count, I guess. There is no free lunch for energy or anything else, no matter how many times cornies demand it is so.

[kuidaskassikaeb]

The simple fact that people in Europe and Japan emit half as much carbon as the U.S. per capita shows it could be easy. Raise the price and people will find a way, beg em and they won't.

[Newfie]

Presumably we don't have that much extra generating capacity, in fact we don't. That means you would need to build that capacity, and the distribution grid to support it. And you have to power it with nukes or something, hydro is pretty tapped out already.

Comparing US to Europe doesn't really work. Our entire culture, including our housing stock placement was driven by cheap gas. Europe's infrastructure is more amenable to energy efficiency, even compared to the dense NE.

Not to say that there are not savings to be got, just not quite as easy as it is made out. Still no excuse for not trying.

[Plantagenet]

Encouraging people in the NE to cut their CO2 emissions is a great idea. The first thing to do is get more people out of their cars and onto mass transit. Higher gas taxes, bridge and road tolls, downtown parking fees, etc. are all ways to increase the cost to drivers to the point that it hurts. Only when it starts to hit them in the pocketbook will folks in the NE switch in droves to mass transit.


Higher gas prices will result in more people using mass transit

[Newfie]

"Mass transit" covers a lot of ground.

To over simplify, in Philly we have the city system of busses and subway and trolly lines. I have long advocated to make that free. It's a huge investment, why not encourage its max use?

But we also have the commuter rail system, augmented by Amtrak, and NJT. The remains of the PRR. That is largely a subsidy for the middle class. Things such as the Amtrak Accela train make no sense, it is just a vanity subsidy for businessmen, an offset to air travel at best.

But even the buss systems are often a net energy loss because they are running 40 and 60 passenger busses to service a very few folks in off periods.

A rational thing to do would be to further encourage telecommuting and to stager business hours so that the transport resources are not subject to shock loads. As it is we try to move every body, in one direction, in three hours twice a day. How much more efficient to move people evenly over the entire 24 hour period.

Of course that would require a cultural shift, which we won't do.

So, yes, there are lots of things we could do to save energy (turn off billboards?) but we won't. We would rather exterminate our species.

[Keith_McClary]

Via boingboing.net
:Map: US bus and Amtrak routes

The 5mb PDF of the map wouldn't open for me.

[Plantagenet]

There are no none zippo nada high speed train routes in the US.

O, in spite of his promises and rhetoric, hasn't delivered on HSR.

Its past time to start building HSR connecting major cities....LA-SF, Sea-Port, Boston-NYC-DC, Chicago-STL, Dallas-Houston, etc. etc.

Airplanes are hugely inefficent....all the short haul domestic air routes could be replaced with HSR, saving oil and reducing CO2.

[yellowcanoe]

There are no none zippo nada high speed train routes in the US.

O, in spite of his promises and rhetoric, hasn't delivered on HSR.

Its past time to start connecting major cities....LA-SF, Sea-Port, Boston-NYC-DC.

Airplanes are hugely inefficent....all the short haul domestic air routes could be replaced with HSR, saving oil and reducing CO2.

High speed rail is also inefficient and expensive. Electrification of the existing rail system would save a considerable amount of oil. One thing people forget is that even during the golden age of passenger rail, train travel was relatively expensive and the average family wasn't able to afford to travel as much as they can now. High speed rail is of more benefit to business people and the well to do who can afford the higher prices and who appreciate the ability of high speed rail to go directly from downtown to downtown.

Air transport is very expensive if you are talking about cargo -- rail can move cargo at a much lower fuel cost, even without electrification of rail. However, people are not cargo. Because air travel is so fast, all you are getting in terms of creature comforts is a relatively small seat. Commuter rail can be very energy efficient, especially if you are talking about double decker cars. Long distance rail is a different story -- you are going to have a lower density of people per car due to the need to include a dining car, snack/lounge car and possibly sleeping accommodation. If you are traveling across the country you'll be consuming less energy flying than taking a long distance train.

[Timo]

There are no none zippo nada high speed train routes in the US.

O, in spite of his promises and rhetoric, hasn't delivered on HSR.

Its past time to start building HSR connecting major cities....LA-SF, Sea-Port, Boston-NYC-DC, Chicago-STL, Dallas-Houston, etc. etc.

Airplanes are hugely inefficent....all the short haul domestic air routes could be replaced with HSR, saving oil and reducing CO2.

Musk is working on it.

And this goes to the thread topic, more than anything else, but even Obama can't build high speed rail. If he did, the Haters would be all over him, accusing him of wasteful spending. Pick your battles wisely. Trains are Biden's business, anyway. Even more than that, though, the recommendations to lower CO2 with existing technologies, all it takes is money and the will to spend it correctly. That, and a dictatorial government, neither of which exist in the U S of A. If it could be done anywhere in the world, i suspect it would be China, and it ain't happening over there, so i guess it probably won't be happening over here here any time soon.

[basil_hayden]

Encouraging people in the NE to cut their CO2 emissions is a great idea. The first thing to do is get more people out of their cars and onto mass transit. Higher gas taxes, bridge and road tolls, downtown parking fees, etc. are all ways to increase the cost to drivers to the point that it hurts. Only when it starts to hit them in the pocketbook will folks in the NE switch in droves to mass transit.


Higher gas prices will result in more people using mass transit

Mass transit, in Connecticut at least, only exists where the housing is unaffordable and less than desirable (i.e., city).

Yup, keep whacking us in the wallet and 75% of us will move to North Dakota and drive alone in the car ten times as much distance while scratching a new homestead into the northern prarie. This will reduce emissions by 75% in NE. Then the remaining NE folks can pay for welfare and pensions for state workers, but it won't be me.

[yellowcanoe]

Buses are more energy efficient than diesel powered passenger trains for intercity travel but few people can stomach long bus rides. Despite higher costs for air travel the vast majority of travelers would rather spend more money to travel faster by air. In Canada there is now only one bus per day that travels from Ontario to Western Canada so the number of people traveling long distances by bus is insignificant.

I commended a Scouter I knew who traveled by bus all the way from St. Johns, Newfoundland to Vancouver, British Columbia to attend a Scouts Canada AGM and back again -- a total distance of 14,400 km! He replied that he really should learn to overcome his fear of flying!

[Plantagenet]

Buses are more energy efficient than diesel powered passenger trains for intercity travel

Trains used in high speed rail in Europe, Japan and China are electric. They are highly efficient, highly fast, and highly not CO2 emitting.


travelling 300 km/hr on a train feels G R E A T, and when you travel by train you go downtown to downtown, so no time wasted driving out to the airport, no parking hassles, and no long TSA lines.

[Plantagenet]

Amtrak was never designed for commuter efficiency, the lines were cut across wide-space American rural regions to support farmers/ranchers.

Amtrak is outdated. TO start with, it has no high speed track and no high speed trains......

A new high speed rail network should be built so travelers can go from DOWNTOWN in one city to DOWNTOWN in another using HSR --- following the example of the EU, Japan and China.

[Plantagenet]

And you'd have to quit the socialist party.

Tell you what---lets start a new High Speed Rail party and make a push to reindustrialize, cut carbon emissions, cut oil use, and revitalize cities.

[Plantagenet]

If I am not mistaken, real live socialists (by policy and name) have actually designed, installed, controlled, and operated modern bullet trains and electric freight lines all over the world.

You are indeed totally mistaken. There are no HSR systems in socialist Cuba or socialist North Korea today and High Speed Rail was never built by the socialist USSR or the socialist countries of eastern Europe. Not even an inch of it.

The countries where there are well-established HSR are in the EU, and in Japan. The nations of the EU and Japan are all capitalist countries, similar to the US. You suggestion that socialist countries are the ones who have built HSR is clearly wrong----there is no reason the capitalist US couldn't also build HSR, just as Spain (a capitalist country) is building HSR right now in the EU (an association of capitalist countries).

My contention is that HSR would help cut CO2 pollution in the NE by getting fat lazy Americans out of their cars and onto mass transit systems. I gather you are in favor of continuing with the cars?