Multi-dimensional and region-specific planning for coal retirements

Nada Maamoun; Ryan Kennedy; Wei Peng; Durand D'souza; Matthew Gray; Stefan Lavelle; Lily Chau; Nicolás González-Jiménez; Valeria Ehrenheim; Magali Joseph; Johannes Urpelainen

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.106739

Multi-dimensional and region-specific planning for coal retirements

iScience. 2023 May 6;26(6):106739. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106739. eCollection 2023 Jun 16.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Economics, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Wilhelm-Seelig-Platz 1, R. 313, 24118 Kiel, Germany.
² Department of Political Science, University of Houston, 3551 Cullen Boulevard Room 447, Houston, TX 77204-3011, USA.
³ School of International Affairs and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Penn State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
⁴ Carbon Tracker Initiative, 40 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3UD, UK.
⁵ Transition Zero, 28 St. John's Square, London EC1M 4DN, UK.
⁶ Camco Clean Energy, 28 St John's Square, London EC1M 4DN, UK.
⁷ Energy Exemplar, Building 3, Chiswick Park 566 Chiswick High Road Chiswick, London W4 5YA, UK.
⁸ Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), 1619 Massachusetts Avenue, NW. Washington, DC 20036, USA.

Abstract

Early retirement of coal-fired power is essential for remaining in line with the 2°C target set in the Paris Agreement. Plant age plays the major role in designing retirement pathways, however, this overlooks the economic and health costs associated with coal-fired power. We introduce multi-dimensional retirement schedules that account for age, operating cost, and air pollution hazards. Results show that regional retirement pathways vary substantially with different weighting schemes. Schedules based on age would retire capacity mostly in the US and EU, whereas those based on cost or air pollution would shift the majority of near-term retirements to China and India, respectively. Our approach emphasizes that a "one-size-fits-all" strategy is ineffective in addressing global phase-out pathways. It provides the opportunity for devising region-specific pathways that are sound to the local context. Our results involve emerging economies and highlight incentives for early retirement that surpass climate change mitigation and address regional priorities.

Keywords: Energy resources; Energy sustainability; Energy systems; Environmental science; Pollution.