Abstract
The U.S. and much of the world sit on the cusp of an electrification
revolution – a moment driven largely by the need to reduce the emission
of greenhouse gases to limit the impacts of anthropogenic climate
change. The electrify everything movement aims to transition
combustion-powered sectors into technologies powered solely by
electricity, with the idea that the electric grid – currently comprised
of a mix of combustion, renewable, and nuclear generation units – will
become cleaner and greener over time. Studies indicate that electrifying
high-efficiency devices, appliances, and vehicles will reduce greenhouse
gas emissions regardless of the grid’s composition, however ancillary
air quality benefits and tradeoffs remain poorly resolved, particularly
at impact- and equity-relevant scales. Here, I use a fine-scale
CONUS-wide climate and air quality co-benefit and tradeoff analysis
framework (i.e., 4 km2 SMOKE-CMAQ-WRF simulations) to
assess sustainable climate solutions. Analyses utilize emission
scenarios that account for increased grid demand and uncertainties in
grid evolution, simulate the interaction of meteorological and chemical
processes, characterize changes in greenhouse gases and air pollutants,
and assess economic, social, and public health consequences of
sustainable transitions over two key, yet methodologically disparate,
residential/commercial sectors: transportation: via the replacement of
internal combustion vehicles with electric vehicles and lighting: via
the replacement of low efficiency bulbs with high-efficiency LEDs.