Quantifying operational lifetimes for coal power plants under the Paris goals

Ryna Yiyun Cui; Nathan Hultman; Morgan R Edwards; Linlang He; Arijit Sen; Kavita Surana; Haewon McJeon; Gokul Iyer; Pralit Patel; Sha Yu; Ted Nace; Christine Shearer

doi:10.1038/s41467-019-12618-3

Quantifying operational lifetimes for coal power plants under the Paris goals

Nat Commun. 2019 Oct 18;10(1):4759. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-12618-3.

Authors

Ryna Yiyun Cui^{1

2}, Nathan Hultman³, Morgan R Edwards³, Linlang He³, Arijit Sen³, Kavita Surana³, Haewon McJeon⁴, Gokul Iyer⁴, Pralit Patel⁴, Sha Yu⁴, Ted Nace⁵, Christine Shearer⁵

Affiliations

¹ Center for Global Sustainability, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, 2101 Van Munching Hall, College Park, MD, 20742, USA. ycui10@umd.edu.
² Joint Global Change Research Institute, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 5825 University Research Court, College Park, MD, 20742, USA. ycui10@umd.edu.
³ Center for Global Sustainability, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, 2101 Van Munching Hall, College Park, MD, 20742, USA.
⁴ Joint Global Change Research Institute, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 5825 University Research Court, College Park, MD, 20742, USA.
⁵ Global Energy Monitor, 1254 Utah Street, San Francisco, CA, 94110, USA.

Abstract

A rapid transition away from unabated coal use is essential to fulfilling the Paris climate goals. However, many countries are actively building and operating coal power plants. Here we use plant-level data to specify alternative trajectories for coal technologies in an integrated assessment model. We then quantify cost-effective retirement pathways for global and country-level coal fleets to limit long-term temperature change. We present our results using a decision-relevant metric: the operational lifetime limit. Even if no new plants are built, the lifetimes of existing units are reduced to approximately 35 years in a well-below 2 °C scenario or 20 years in a 1.5 °C scenario. The risk of continued coal expansion, including the near-term growth permitted in some Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), is large. The lifetime limits for both 2 °C and 1.5 °C are reduced by 5 years if plants under construction come online and 10 years if all proposed projects are built.