Minimizing habitat conflicts in meeting net-zero energy targets in the western United States

The scale and pace of energy infrastructure development required to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are unprecedented, yet our understanding of how to minimize its potential impacts on land and ocean use and natural resources is inadequate. Using high-resolution energy and land-use m...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2023-01, Vol.120 (4), p.e2204098120-e2204098120
Main Authors: Wu, Grace C, Jones, Ryan A, Leslie, Emily, Williams, James H, Pascale, Andrew, Brand, Erica, Parker, Sophie S, Cohen, Brian S, Fargione, Joseph E, Souder, Julia, Batres, Maya, Gleason, Mary G, Schindel, Michael H, Stanley, Charlotte K
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological Sciences
Electrification
Emissions
Energy
Energy costs
Energy policy
Fossil fuels
Green buildings
Greenhouse gases
Habitat loss
Land use
Natural resources
Net zero
Nuclear fuels
Physical Sciences
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Summary:The scale and pace of energy infrastructure development required to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are unprecedented, yet our understanding of how to minimize its potential impacts on land and ocean use and natural resources is inadequate. Using high-resolution energy and land-use modeling, we developed spatially explicit scenarios for reaching an economy-wide net-zero GHG target in the western United States by 2050. We found that among net-zero policy cases that vary the rate of transportation and building electrification and use of fossil fuels, nuclear generation, and biomass, the "High Electrification" case, which utilizes electricity generation the most efficiently, had the lowest total land and ocean area requirements (84,000 to 105,000 km vs. 88,100 to 158,000 km across all other cases). Different levels of land and ocean use protections were applied to determine their effect on siting, environmental and social impacts, and energy costs. Meeting the net-zero target with stronger land and ocean use protections did not significantly alter the share of different energy generation technologies and only increased system costs by 3%, but decreased additional interstate transmission capacity by 20%. Yet, failure to avoid development in areas with high conservation value is likely to result in substantial habitat loss.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.2204098120