19-11-06

About 15 % of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions predicted for the US in 2025 could be avoided at almost no cost by expanding the use of renewables to provide 25 % of the country's electricity and motor fuels, according to a Rand Corporation study.
Increasing the renewables capacity to 25 % in these two sectors would mean US annual spending on energy would most likely change by only ± 2 % in 2025, the researchers said. Rand estimates annual US energy spending will hit $ 1.3 tn by then. In effect, Rand says it would cost the US nothing to avoid 1 bn tons of CO2 emissions in 2025 and it would lower emissions of other power plant pollutants, including sulphur dioxide and mercury.

Oil prices significantly lower than forecasted changed the conclusions only slightly, as the costs of renewables technologies were the biggest influence on future energy spending, the researchers said. On present trends, the cost of renewable technology is likely to fall by 20 % by 2025.
The 25 % by 2025 target -- adopted by the Energy Future Coalition, which commissioned the Rand research -- would also mean a cut in oil consumption of 2.5 mm barrels of oil per day, or about a fifth of forecasted consumption. The 25 % target also meant lower demand for -- and therefore reduced prices for -- conventional energy sources, with oil 4 %, natural gas 6 % and coal 16 % cheaper. However, electricity would be 16 % dearer, the researchers said.

They also found that in 2015, with a renewables penetration of 10 %, energy spending by the US would be less than in 2025, suggesting that renewables could produce significant savings soon. After 2015, sites for renewable power generation or biofuel production would become harder to find, and thus more expensive.
Renewables today provide about 6 % of total US energy demand.