Publications
Primer on GHG Regulation of Stationary Sources under the Clean Air Act: Interaction of Tailoring Rule and Proposed NSPS
May 2012 - by Jonas Monast and Jeremy M. Tarr
On March 27, 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed a performance standard to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from new fossil-fuel-fired power plants. This primer begins with a background summary of Clean Air Act regulations that control GHG emissions. Subsequent sections discuss the regulation of large stationary sources, such as power plants, refineries, and industrial facilities. Finally, this primer explains the interaction of the proposed new source performance standard (NSPS) with other regulations controlling GHG emissions from large stationary sources.
Coming to the table: Early stakeholder engagement in marine spatial planning
April 2012
From 2009 to 2011, marine spatial planning (MSP) rapidly gained visibility in the United States as a promising ocean management tool. During that same time period, the authors engaged a variety of U.S ocean stakeholders in a series of dialogs with several goals: to share information about what MSP is or could be, to hear stakeholder views and concerns about MSP, and to foster better understanding between those who depend on ocean resources for their livelihood and ocean conservation advocates. The stakeholder meetings were supplemented with several rounds of in-depth interviews and a survey. Despite some predictable areas of conflict, project participants agreed on a number of issues related to stakeholder engagement in MSP: all felt strongly that government planners need to engage outsiders earlier, more often, more meaningfully, and through an open and transparent process. Equally important, the project affirmed the value of bringing unlike parties together at the earliest opportunity to learn, talk, and listen to others with whom they rarely engage.
Groundwater Quality and its Health Impact: An assessment of Dental Fluorosis in Rural Inhabitants of the Main Ethiopian Rift
April 2012
Increased intake of dietary calcium may be key to addressing widespread dental health problems faced by millions of rural residents in Ethiopia’s remote, poverty-stricken Main Rift Valley, according to a new Duke University-led study published in the journal Environment International. As many as 8 million people living in the valley are estimated to be at risk of dental and skeletal fluorosis as a result of their long-term exposure to high levels of naturally occurring fluoride in the region’s groundwater. Most efforts to combat fluorosis in the region have focused primarily on treating drinking water to reduce its fluoride content. Increasing the amount of calcium in villagers’ diets, or finding alternative sources of drinking water may be necessary in addition to these fluoride-reducing treatments, the study found. Support came from the Duke Global Health Institute and Duke’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.
Building Change towards Full Cost Water: Lessons from the Rate Setting Process
April 2012 - by David Gordon, Bill Holman
To ensure the country's changing water demands and evolving environmental challenges are met, the water industry must find new strategies and partners to map a new way forward. A new paper by the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions highlights the importance of rate setting strategy. By analyzing disparate rate cases, the authors show that common strategies can exist with regard to rate setting procedures no matter how different the utility.
OptimaCCS Carbon Capture and Storage Infrastructure Optimization: North Carolina Case Study
April 2012 - by Darmawan Prasodjo and Lincoln Pratson
The use of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in the United States will allow coal-fired power generation to remain a major component of the nation’s energy mix while also reducing its carbon emissions. The cost of capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) will affect the deployment of CCS, as will the costs for CO2 pipeline transport and underground injection. Transportation and storage costs can be minimized, however, by optimizing the design of the transport system. This report examines how a software program created at Duke, OptimaCCS, maps out cost-efficient options for overall CCS network design, including pipeline routes, necessary pipe diameters and lengths, efficiencies from using shared pipelines, and the impact of sequestration costs.
Why Value the Oceans?
April 2012 - by Yannick Beaudoin and Linwood Pendleton
This discussion paper by UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme)/GRID-Arendal and the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, in collaboration with the UNEP TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) Office and the UNEP Regional Seas Programme, is based on contributions from an international group of experts. It highlights areas of ocean and coastal management for which a better understanding of the economic value of marine ecosystem services could substantially improve the management of critical marine resources; improve governance, regulation, and emerging ocean policy; and provide a better understanding of the potential economic challenges that arise from a rapidly changing ocean environment.
Freshwater, Climate Change and Adaptation in the Ganges River Basin
April 2012
Climate change is one of the drivers of change in the Ganges river basin, together with population growth, economic development and water management practices. These changing circumstances have a significant impact on key social and economic sectors of the basin, largely through changes in water quantity, quality and timing of availability. This paper evaluates the impact of water on changing circumstances in three sectors of the Ganges basin: agriculture, ecosystems and energy. Given the inherent interconnectedness of these core sectors and the cross-cutting impact of changing circumstances on water resources, we argue that adaptation should not be viewed as a separate initiative, but rather as a goal and perspective incorporated into every level of planning and decision making. Adaptation to changing circumstances will need to be closely linked to water resource management and will require significant collaboration across the sectors.
What Makes Carbon Work? A Sensitivity Analysis of Factors Affecting Forest Offset Viability
March 2012 - by Christopher S. Galik and David M. Cooley
Early implementation experience and a handful of empirical analyses in the literature indicate that the supply of forest carbon offsets may be constrained by, among other factors, transaction costs, access to markets, and carbon accounting rules and regulations. To more fully explore this issue, we use a forest growth and carbon accounting model to assess the relative influence of several key accounting, financial, and market variables on forest carbon offset project viability. We find that project performance, indicated by sequestration rate and project profitability, varies widely across the three project/forest type combinations evaluated here. The effects of carbon price and project length vary in both magnitude and direction from project to project. Project accounting considerations, including baseline establishment method and deductions for “leakage” and other factors, tend to figure prominently in each project, but vary in their absolute effect. These initial results suggest that choice of accounting protocol is a critical decision facing landowners considering forest offset projects. Results also suggest that a one-size-fits-all accounting approach may fail to maximize either landowner participation or the representation of forest types or management systems.
Greenhouse Gas Mitigation with Agricultural Land Management Activities in the United States—A Side-by-Side Comparison of Biophysical Potential
March 2012
Responsible for 6% of U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) production, agricultural land use has significant potential to reduce these emissions and capture additional carbon in the soil. Many different activities have been proposed for such mitigation, but assessments of the biophysical potential have been limited and have not provided direct comparison among the many options. We present an in-depth review of the scientific literature, with a side-by-side comparison of net biophysical GHG mitigation potential for 42 different agricultural land management activities in the United States, many of which are likely applicable in other regions. Twenty of these activities are likely to be beneficial for GHG mitigation and have sufficient research to support this conclusion. Limited research leads to uncertainty for 15 other activities that may have positive mitigation potential, and the remaining activities have small or negative GHG mitigation potential or life-cycle GHG concerns. While we have sufficient information to move forward in implementing a number of activities, there are some high-priority research needs that will help clarify problematic uncertainties.
Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Existing Sources: Section 111(d) and State Equivalency
March 2012
On December 9, 2011, the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions convened a broad range of stakeholders to explore the legal and policy issues presented by the regulation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under 111(d) (existing source performance standards) of the Clean Air Act. The workshop focused primarily on the options for states to demonstrate that existing GHG policies are equivalent to the 111(d) requirements. The Nicholas Institute distributed this document to workshop participants prior to the event to provide a framework for the issues that would be discussed. Nothing in this document should be interpreted as expressing the Institute’s opinion of the path the EPA should take on any given issue.
The Effect of Assessment Scale and Metric Selection on the Greenhouse Gas Benefits of Woody Biomass
February 2012 - by Christopher S. Galik and Robert C. Abt
Recent media attention has focused on the net greenhouse gas (GHG) implications of using woody biomass to produce energy. In particular, a great deal of controversy has erupted over the biomass accounting techniques used to evaluate these GHG effects. This paper informs the present debate over the GHG effects of woody biomass use by conducting a comparative analysis of these accounting techniques. It compares these techniques in a hypothetical scenario in which coal-fired power plants in Virginia add woody biomass to their fuel mix—a process known as “cofiring.” It finds that these techniques strongly influence the calculated GHG balance. The paper also assesses the relative effect of the accounting approach on differences in GHG balance, and concludes with implications for policy makers.
Determining the Least-Cost Investment for an Existing Coal Plant to Comply with EPA Regulations under Uncertainty
February 2012 - by David Hoppock, Dalia Patino Echeverri, and Etan Gumerman
Low natural gas prices and forthcoming Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations for coal plant emissions, coal wastes, and thermal-generation cooling systems are forcing utilities and utility regulators to decide whether to retrofit or to retire and replace existing coal plants. To help utility commissions and other interested parties make informed investment decisions and quantify cost risk for ratepayers, researchers at Duke University will make the Risk Based Decision Model available to the public. The model can be employed to estimate the impact of abrupt changes, or “shocks,” and the cost of making “bad” investments that are later abandoned. To demonstrate the model, this paper models the least-cost investment decision for Louisville Gas and Electric’s Mill Creek coal-fired power plant to meet the forthcoming EPA regulations under uncertainty using publicly available data.
Stacking Ecosystem Services Payments: Risks and Solutions
February 2012
Healthy ecosystems provide many services to society, including water filtration, biodiversity habitat protection, and carbon sequestration. A number of incentive programs and markets have arisen to pay landowners for these services, raising questions about how landowners can receive multiple payments for the ecosystem services they provide from the same parcel, a practice known as stacking. Stacking can provide multiple revenue streams for landowners and encourage them to manage their lands for multiple ecosystem services. However, if not well-managed, it may also lead to a net loss of services.
The Potential Role for Management of U.S. Public Lands in Greenhouse Gas Mitigation and Climate Policy
January 2012
Management of forests, rangelands, and wetlands on public lands, including the restoration of degraded lands, has the potential to increase carbon sequestration or reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions beyond what is occurring today. In this paper we discuss several policy options for increasing GHG mitigation on public lands. These range from an extension of current policy by generating supplemental mitigation on public lands in an effort to meet national emissions reduction goals, to full participation in an offsets market by allowing GHG mitigation on public lands to be sold as offsets either by the overseeing agency or by private contractors. To help place these policy options in context, we briefly review the literature on GHG mitigation and public lands to examine the potential for enhanced mitigation on federal and state public lands in the United States. This potential will be tempered by consideration of the tradeoffs with other uses of public lands, the needs for climate change adaptation, and the effects on other ecosystem services.
Reducing the Energy Penalty Costs of Postcombustion CCS Systems with Amine-Storage
January 2012
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) can significantly reduce the amount of CO2 emitted from coal-fired power plants, but its high capital and operating costs are an important barrier. In this paper we analyze one alternative to reduce operating costs of amine-based CCS systems.
Green Economy in a Blue World
January 2012 - by United Nations Environment Programme, et al.
This report highlights how ecological health and economic productivity of marine and coastal ecosystems, which are currently in decline around the globe, can be boosted by shifting to a more sustainable economic paradigm that taps their natural potential. Released by the United Nations Environment Programme and partners, it further highlights how the sustainable management of fertilizers would help reduce the cost of marine pollution caused by nitrogen and other nutrients used in agriculture, which is estimated at $100 billion per year in the European Union alone.
Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Potential of Agricultural Land Management in the United States: A Synthesis of the Literature (Third Edition)
January 2012 - by Alison J. Eagle, Lydia P. Olander, Lucy R. Henry, Karen Haugen-Kozyra, Neville Millar, and G. Philip Robertson
The Net Global Effects of Alternative U.S. Biofuel Mandates: Fossil Fuel Displacement, Indirect Land Use Change, and the Role of Agricultural Productivity Growth
January 2012 - by Aline Mosnier, Petr Havlík, Hugo Valin, Justin S. Baker, Brian C. Murray, Siyi Feng, Michael Obersteiner, Bruce A. McCarl, Steven K. Rose, and Uwe A. Schneider
One of the declared objectives of U.S. biofuel policy is the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from fossil fuel combustion, but many studies have questioned whether such a reduction would actually occur and, if so, how large it would be. This report describes the global market, land use, GHG emissions, and nitrogen use impacts of the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2) and several alternative biofuel policy designs, which differ in terms of mandate magnitude and feedstock composition, over the 2010–2030 period.
Climate Change Mitigation and Agriculture
December 2011 - by Eva 'Lini' Wollenberg, Marja-Liisa Tapio-Bistrom, Maryanne Grieg-Gran, Alison Nihart
A new book features two chapters on reducing agricultural greenhouse gas emissions penned by researchers at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions—Brian Murray and Lydia Olander. The 456-page book reviews the state of agricultural climate mitigation globally and focuses on the design and implementation of activities to reduce emissions and increase carbon storage.
OptimaCCS Carbon Capture and Storage Infrastructure Optimization: Texas Case Study
December 2011 - by Darmawan Prasodjo and Lincoln Pratson
The use of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in the United States will allow coal-fired power generation to remain a major component of the nation’s energy mix while also reducing its carbon emissions. The cost of capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) will affect the deployment of CCS, as will the costs for CO2 pipeline transport and underground injection. Transportation and storage costs can be minimized, however, by optimizing the design of the transport system. This report examines how a software program created at Duke, OptimaCCS, maps out cost-efficient options for overall CCS network design, including pipeline routes, necessary pipe diameters and lengths, efficiencies from using shared pipelines, and the impact of sequestration costs.
Document Actions
