Impacts of EPA’s Finalized Power Plant Greenhouse Gas Standards
Emissions reductions may be met with relatively small costs.
A new article in the journal Science finds that the US Environmental Protection Agency’s May 2024 rules limiting emissions from power plants could reduce US power-sector carbon emissions by 73 to 86 percent below 2005 levels by 2040, compared with 60 to 83 percent without the rules.
The findings, which are the results of modeling conducted by EPRI, Resources for the Future (RFF), and other institutions, represent the most detailed modeling to date on this landmark policy. The nine models used by the research team not only found notable emissions reductions, but a change in power generation: coal-fired power plants retire at quicker rates under the rules while the use of natural gas, renewables, and nuclear either increases or holds steady relative to trends without the rules.
In a range of scenarios with and without the rules, the authors find that the United States falls short of the emissions reductions needed to meet its 2030 economy-wide emissions target and its 2050 net-zero goal.
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Authors
John Bistline
EPRI
Geoffrey Blanford
EPRI
Maxwell Brown
Colorado School of Mines
Allen Fawcett
Center for Global Sustainability
Anne Hamilton
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Gokul Iyer
University of Maryland, College Park
Jesse Jenkins
Princeton University
Ben King
Rhodium Group
Hannah Kolus
Rhodium Group
Amanda Levin
Natural Resources Defense Council
Qian Luo
Princeton University
Molly Robertson
Associate Fellow
Molly Robertson is an associate fellow at Resources for the Future.
Daniel Steinberg
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Anna van Brummen
Rhodium Group
Grace Van Horn
Center for Applied Environmental Law and Policy
Aranya Venkatesh
EPRI
John Weyant
Stanford University
Ryan Wiser
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Alicia Zhao
University of Maryland, College Park
