A climate crisis is inevitable unless developing countries limit carbon emissions from the power sector in the near future. This will happen only if the costs of lowcarbon power production become competitive with fossil fuel power. We focus on a leading candidate for investment: solar thermal or...

South Africa and many other countries hope to aggressively expand wind and solar power (WSP) in coming decades. The challenge is to turn laudable aspirations into concrete plans that minimize costs, maximize benefits, and ensure reliability. Success hinges largely on the question of how and...

The Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA) database provides information about the carbon dioxide emissions, electricity production, corporate ownership, and location of more than 60,000 power plants in over 200 countries. Originally launched in 2007, CARMA is provided freely to the public at...

South Africa hopes to expand wind and solar power. Success depends on how and where to deploy the technologies. This study develops a 10-year database of expected power generation for these technologies across South Africa. A power system model simulates

Coal power generation in China and India is expected to double and triple, respectively, over the next 20 years, increasing exposure to fuel price volatility, exacerbating local air pollution, and hastening global climate change. Concentrating solar power (CSP) is a growing source of...

In this paper, Kevin Ummel provides high-resolution estimates of the global potential and cost of solar power technologies while identifying deployment patterns that minimize the cost of greenhouse gas abatement. His findings are based on a global simulation of providing 2,000 TWh of solar power...

This study provides an in-depth assessment of Concentrating solar power (CSP) potential in China and India using high-resolution spatial data for site selection and modeling of plant performance, assessment of alternative land-use scenarios, estimation of generating costs, and simulation of...

Among partisans of greenhouse gas emissions regulation, the Senate’s failure to pass the Warner-Lieberman cap-and-trade bill is often attributed to rampant denial, fueled by diehard political conservatism, energy-company propaganda, and government suppression of evidence on global warming. If...

This paper develops comparative indices of environmental policy and performance for 31 countries, using a quantified analysis of reports prepared for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). In cross-country regressions, we find a very strong, positive association...