At the end of last year the Energy Information Administration (EIA) released an assessment of the impact of a potential national Clean Energy Standard as requested by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Based on this analysis, a new Clean Energy Standard Bill has been introduced in the Senate.
The new CES defines clean energy very broadly to include not only wind, solar, geothermal, solid waste, and landfill gas, but also new and incremental hydro and nuclear, coal and gas plants with carbon sequestration (CCS), natural gas combined cycle (GCC) plants, and coal gasification combined cycle plants.
The EIA analysis also predicted that a properly designed CES would have almost zero impact on GDP growth, and little to no impact on national electricity rates for the first decade of the program.
CES impacts
According to the EIA analysis, the CES changes the generation mix, reducing the role of coal technologies and increasing reliance on natural gas, non-hydro renewable and nuclear technologies. Coal-fired generation decreases by 41 percent in the BCES case betwwen 2009 to 2035. Natural gas generation increases by 53 % in 2035. Non-hydro renewable generation grows at the fastest rate, becoming 75 percent greater in 2035 than in the AEO2011 projection. Nearly 65 GW of new nuclear capacity are installed by 2035. 14 GW of existing nuclear capacity are taken out of service. 47 GW of coal capacity is retrofitted with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) equipment by 2035. Most of these retrofits occur in the final 10 years with less than one gigawatt of capacity retrofitted by 2025.
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