Reports

This report offers case study observations that could be informative in efforts to create a more predictable, efficient, and expedient permitting process for utility-scale solar facility construction in Virginia. From examining the 12 case studies, this report finds two major impediments to solar permitting.

Access the article through the University of Chicago Press.

Price-responsive supply can enhance the performance of real-world regulatory environments through an adjustment mechanism that responds instantaneously to new information about abatement costs. 

This paper explores potential strategies for achieving least-cost decarbonization by 2045, using Resources for the Future's electricity planning model. The Cooper Center researchers were responsible for reporting the modeling results and evaluating other potentially important elements of a least-cost approach to decarbonizing Virginia’s electricity sector.

Supporting a net-zero attributable emissions policy would help clear the way for transformation to carbon neutrality.

Scenarios for meeting ambitious climate targets rely on large-scale deployment of negative emissions technologies (NETs), including direct air capture (DAC). However, the tradeoffs between food, water and energy created by deploying different NETs are unclear. 

This paper is a review of some current issues in the field of environmental federalism. Environmental spillovers among political jurisdictions are ubiquitous and likely to increase with increasing population and consumption, so the centralization or decentralization of environmental governance is of pressing concern. 

We use the Global Change Analysis Model (GCAM) to understand the role of DACCS across all 5 SSPs for the below 2˚C and below 1.5˚C end-of-century warming goals. We assess DACCS deployment relative to other carbon capture methods, and its side effects for global energy, water, land systems. 

We discuss recent trends in Virginia's electricity demand, including the effect of the Coronavirus pandemic. We then forecast how Virginia's electricity demand will change through 2050 and discuss what will drive these changes.

We explore smart grid applications, including their costs and benefits. We also review Virginia's recent efforts to develop a smarter grid, and provide recommendations to promote smart grid development that will benefit ratepayers and help Virginia achieve its clean energy goals.

Recent policy initiatives in Virginia reflect an increased urgency in addressing the state’s contribution to global warming. We analyze quantitatively and comprehensively the actions needed to make Virginia's economy carbon neutral by 2050.

We review existing soft costs of adopting distributed solar in the united states. Reducing these costs will play a key role in building a carbon-free economy.

We review technologies that can potentially help Virginia cost-effectively reach net zero carbon energy. We summarize how they function and their development path, assess and compare them along multiple criteria, and provide recommendations for how Virginia should move forward.

We evaluate existing laws and regulations that will either aid or hinder Virginia in meeting its decarbonization targets. We also assess several clean-energy policy initiatives, including regulatory innovations in Virginia and other states.

We examine energy, water, and land use tradeoffs from three NETs (afforestation, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, and direct air capture).

We discuss difficulties of modeling Negative Emissions Technologies to study climate change mitigation strategies, and provide insight into how to better do so.

We evaluate instrument design and the evolution of environmental pricing in a sequential policy environment. We find a price-responsive supply schedule offers multiple advantages

We theoretically investigate the effects of hard and soft price floors in the stochastic, competitive storage model.

We use experiments to examine the effects of California’s greenhouse gas emissions controls, and find that they have the potential to cause higher price variability and market manipulation.

We discuss the effects of price and quantity “collars” on emission allowance experiments with random firm-specific and market-level structural shocks.

We discuss the importance of environmental federalism, spillovers, and linked socio-ecological systems on decentralized resource governance.