After a year or so of work, I’ve finished up my thesis, which you can find in PDF format here. I’ve also posted in on my website in sections:
Chapter 1: Introduction talks about the importance of reaching a zero-carbon power grid, current progress toward that goal, how far we might have to go, and why just building a ton of wind and solar isn’t as great of a solution as it might seem.
Chapter 2: Getting to Zero talks about the technologies that will enable the zero-carbon transition: short-term and long-term energy shortage, the need to improve electricity transmission, why we should build more generation capacity than we need, and a brief discussion of nuclear and carbon capture. Finally, I turn to some studies and discuss how these technologies can work together in grids with high levels of renewable penetration.
Chapter 3: Policies talks about some of the policies that will drive the transition: Renewable Portfolio Standards, carbon pricing, region-based transmission planning, and supporting research and development efforts.
Appendix 1: Nomenclature talks about the difference between energy and power. It’s a great place to start in case you don’t know the difference!
Appendix 2: Emissions Costs from US Electricity Production details the costs we’re already paying when we pollute to produce electricity.
Appendix 3: Demand Response discusses some ways we can reduce electricity demand in crucial times.
Appendix 4: Bridge Fuels and Stranded Assets talks about how we’ll transition from today’s power grid to tomorrow’s, and some of the costs associated with that.
Appendix 5: Green Investing discusses ESG investing (and the limited impact that it has).
Appendix 6: Land Use discusses how much space we’ll need for a fully decarbonized power grid.
Appendix 7: Abbreviations Used lists out some of the abbreviations I’ve used.
Reading the PDF is a bit better, since the footnotes are actually visible on the bottom of the page (and I’m not sure how to jump to a particular point on a webpage using Squarespace) and since the photos are a bit higher quality (again, blame Squarespace). If you’re looking for the presentation, you can find that here.
This has been a wonderful project to work on, one that I’ve found incredibly fulfilling. I came into this project quite opinionated (especially since this is how I spend a large portion of my free time reading about clean energy and transportation), and I leave it with fresh perspective, hopefully a little bit further away from Mt. Stupid.
Some of the things that I’ve learned, in bullet-point format:
There’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding how much electricity we’ll need to produce in 2050, driven by uncertainties in how much electrification occurs in industry and transport. This has huge implications for how tractable the cost of decarbonizing the power sector is.
I went into this project thinking that hydrogen is totally useless. As it turns out, long-term energy storage is a pretty decent use case for hydrogen - though I don’t think you’ll be driving a hydrogen fuel cell car anytime (Chatper 2.2 has more information).
Electricity transmission is critically important, though it’s quite difficult to plan and permit. A regional planning model seems superior to our current build-as-you-go model, but there are many NIMBYs to overcome.
I previously had no real opinion on nuclear; I’m now fairly opinionated on it (but you’ll have to read Chapter 2.5 to learn what I think).
I previously thought that carbon capture was a waste of time; I’m now realizing just how necessary it’s going to be (see Chapter 2.6).
ESG investing doesn’t seem to have a high impact, at least for retail investors (Appendix 5 isn’t too clear about this caveat, but I chose to preserve the original text of my thesis).
Achieving net-zero emissions is going to be hard - but reducing emissions might not be.
There’s a large role to play for policies that support technologies taking the first steps down the experience curve (think Wright’s Law).
Much of my research came from Bloomberg, especially their wonderful New Energy Finance division. Nat Bullard and Michael Liebriech are great writers that I’d highly recommend, and the Switched On podcast is quite excellent also. Bill Gates’ book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster is great at breaking down the zero-carbon problem at large, and is a great first-read for anyone interested. Finally, the academic studies in Chapters 2.7, 2.8, and 2.9 were quite useful in doing modeling work that I wasn’t equipped to do well.
As far as my original contributions, there was a bit of number crunching here and there, though I’d argue that the main effort that I put in was weaving the narrative together. Ideally, you’ll find all of my writing above easy-to-approach, such that even a first-time reader who knows little about electricity could understand it all.
Future projects could build off of my work by discussing offshore wind, modeling future cost reductions using experience curves and marginal production costs, and in turn asking the question of how much storage vs. excess generation is optimal, given projected costs.
Finally, this work would not be possible if it were not for my wonderful supervising professor, Dr. Kara Kockelman, and my excellent second reader, Amon Burton. I only met Dr. K through excellent student-mentor pairings by Zia Lyle and Greg Ross, to whom I give my greatest thanks for introducing me to a professor that has motivated me and pushed me to do work that I’m incredibly proud of. I must also thank Amon Burton and Lee Walker both for their work with organizing and leading the Skaaren Climate Fellowship. I want to thank those that have aided me in my work – namely Dr. Dave Tuttle and Dr. Ross Baldick. I thank the support, love, and help from my family and friends in this endeavor. Finally, I want to give my thanks to the tireless and often thankless work of the researchers and engineers that develop the technologies needed to move the world to a zero-carbon future. It is truly representative of pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, and it gives great reason for hope.