The UT Energy Symposium welcomes Jesse Jenkins, Postdoctoral Environmental Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard University Center for the Environment to give a talk titled Getting to Zero: what will it take to decarbonize electricity and will the Green New Deal help?.
Jesse Jenkins is a postdoctoral Environmental Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard University Center for the Environment, where he harnesses methods from energy systems engineering, operations research, and applied economics to improve energy policy, regulation, and practice. He currently focuses on the evolution of electricity systems as they decarbonize, electrify a wider range of economic activities, and integrate distributed energy resources. Jesse completed a Ph.D. in Engineering Systems (’18) and S.M. in Technology and Policy (’14) at MIT's Institute for Data Systems and Society. Jesse has published peer-reviewed papers in the journals Joule, The Energy Journal, Economics of Energy and Environmental Policy, Applied Energy, Nuclear Technology, Energy Policy, and WIREs: Climate Change. His work has been supported by competitive fellowships from the National Science Foundation, MIT Energy Initiative, Martin Family Society for Fellows in Sustainability, and Harvard University Center for the Environment. Jesse has delivered invited testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and his research has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, National Public Radio, and other media outlets. Jesse worked previously as a researcher at the MIT Energy Initiative, the Director of Energy and Climate Policy at the Breakthrough Institute, and a Policy and Research Associate at the Renewable Northwest Project. He also earned a B.S. in Computer and Information Science at the University of Oregon.
Abstract:
Electricity is the linchpin in global efforts to confront climate change. Avoiding the worst effects of climate change requires the electricity sector to simultaneously transition to near-zero CO2 emissions by mid-century and expand to electrify (and consequently decarbonize) a greater share of economic activities. That makes finding both feasible and affordable paths to zero carbon electricity doubly important: fail to decarbonize electricity and we fail to mitigate climate change; fail to decarbonize affordably, and clean electricity will become a costly substitute for oil, gas, and coal used in transportation, heating and industry. Despite agreement on the need for “deep decarbonization” of the electric power sector, there remains considerable uncertainty and debate about the relative importance of various low-carbon electricity resources in near-zero-emissions power systems. Do recent cost declines for wind, solar, and batteries put us on a glide path to zero carbon? With new nuclear and carbon capture and storage projects struggling to compete—or even complete!—should we abandon these reliable low-carbon resources, as the Green New Deal suggests, or redouble efforts to overcome challenges to their adoption? What role does energy storage or demand flexibility play in all of this? In this seminar, Jesse D. Jenkins will present insights from two recent publications: a survey of 40 recent deep decarbonization studies, and a detailed modeling study systematically evaluating the role of various low-carbon resources under increasingly stringent CO2 limits while considering a wide range of uncertainty in technology costs, renewable resource quality, and demand patterns. This research finds that cost-effective deep decarbonization relies on at least one "firm" low-carbon resource capable of supplying energy on demand in any season and sustaining output for long durations. These firm resources augment the distinct roles played by "fuel-saving" variable renewables and "fast burst" resources like energy storage and demand response to complete an affordable low-carbon energy system.
The UT Energy Symposium meets every Thursday during the long semesters. Come early to attend a networking session before the talk.
