Tag Archives: Carbon Dioxide

Tracking GHG Emissions in a Regional ISO: California Stands Alone in the West

When the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) released its original Proposed Principles of Governance for a regional independent system operator (ISO), it included a proposal for the development of a methodology to track and account for emissions that are attributable … Continue reading

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Does Your Rooftop Solar System Reduce Your Carbon Footprint? It Depends…

At first glance this is a pretty straight forward issue. If you put solar modules on your home or business, you are generating clean, emissions-free electricity. Right? Well, it depends…in part on how you paid for your system. If you … Continue reading

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GHG Emission Targets v. Limits: The Constitutionality of Executive Orders S-3-05 and B-30-15

Recently, Legislative Counsel Dian F. Boyer wrote an opinion answering questions from State Senator Jean Fuller of California’s 16th Senate District regarding California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (commonly known as AB 32) and Executive Branch Authority. The nonbinding … Continue reading

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Achieving Mandatory GHG Reduction under a Regional Independent Systems Operator

A structural question arises when evaluating the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) expansion. What will drive the greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions in a regional independent system operator (ISO) or regional transmission operator (RTO) that spans multiple states and out of … Continue reading

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Renewable Energy Credits and Carbon Offset Credits

(Many thanks to Cameron Bernhardt for research and writing for this post) While EPIC has written about renewable energy credits in California in the past, this constitutes the first of a series of blog posts related to renewable energy credits … Continue reading

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Estimating the GHG Emissions Impacts of Reducing or Displacing Electricity: Is it time for a standard method in California?

California has adopted legislation and has executive orders in place laying out aggressive, long-term greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets. There are also specific energy policies including those to increase efficiency, generate more renewable electricity, and to reduce fossil fuel use … Continue reading

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Splitting the Emissions Baby: Allocating GHG Reductions in the Electricity Sector Part II

In my last post, I discussed the dilemma of how to allocate the avoided greenhouse gas (GHG) emission between policies that policies to increase renewable electricity and reduce electricity consumption. Estimating the effects of increased renewable first will artificially increase … Continue reading

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Half-Empty Planes: Utilization Rates for California’s Electric Grid Part II

In Part I of this post, we discussed the concept of asset utilization — or load factor — and looked at recent trends for California’s investor-owned utilities (IOU). The trend over the past two decades for IOU load factors has been … Continue reading

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How many pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) does a gallon of gas produce?

Before answering this question it helps to first know how much a gallon of gasoline weighs. Gasoline has a weight of just over 6 pounds per US gallon. A natural guess could then be that about 6 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) … Continue reading

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