Transportation on a greenhouse planet : a least-cost transition scenario for the United States..

American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.
DeCicco, John M. Bernow, Steven. Gordon, Deborah. Goldstein, David B. Holtzclaw, John W. Ledbetter, Marc R. Miller, Peter M. Sachs, Harvey M.

1993

05011528

This paper presents the projected outcome of a transportation energy stratery trough which the United States can achieve major reductions of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 2030. The results are based on an analysis of the U.S. economy that was performed to demonstrate the benefits of an economically and environmentally sound energy policy. An end-use based approach was applied to project transportation activity and energy demand associated with expected future growth in population and industrial output. Cost-effective levels of technological efficiency improvement and renewable fuels substitution were evaluated using a least environmental cost paradigm, in which externality costs are considered along with the direct investment and opetating costs of the technologies. Adopting the technology and infraestructure changes foreseen in this scenario would require addressing many significant barriers and uncertainties. These are identified along with the major policy initiatives that would be needed to begin a transformation of the U.S. transportation system to one compatible with significant constraints on CO2 emissions. Projections for the evironmental scenario highlighted in this paper are presented relative to a reference scenario which assumes no changes from present policies and trends. For year 2030, the environmental scenario achieves energy end-use reductions, relative to the reference case, of 73 percent for personal travel in light duty vehicles, 37 percent for freight modes, and 33 percent for domestic air travel. Overall, transportation sector energy use is cut 53 percent, from a reference projection of 28.6 Quads down to 13.4 Quads. Consistently across the subsectors, about three-fourths of the reduction is due to technology efficiency improvement and the remainder is from shifting to more efficient modes. Petroleum use, which is now nearly 100 percent of the 22 Quads used by the transportation sector, falls to 7 Quads by 2030 in the environmental scenario, versus 27 Quads in the reference case. These efficiency improvements, coupled with a moderate use of renewable fuels (3.2 Quads), reduce transportation sector CO2 emissions by 62 percent relative to the reference case in 2030. This is a 50 percent absolute reduction from 1990 transportation CO2 emissions of 1.9 billion tons per year. Emissions of other air pollutants are also greatly reduced, by 50 percent for nitrogen oxides and reactive hydrocarbons and by 30 percent for sulfur oxides and particulates, relative to the reference case in 2030..

Presenta gráfs., tbls. Tomado de: Transportation and global climate change. Con activo RECOPE O5011528

ESTADOS UNIDOS; TRANSPORTE; ANHIDRIDO CARBONICO; ESCENARIOS ENERGETICOS; CONTROL DE EMISION DE GASES; ESTRATEGIA ENERGETICA; POLITICA ENERGETICA; BENEFICIOS; COMBUSTIBLES ALTERNATIVOS; ANALISIS COSTO-BENEFICIO; PROYECCIONES; CONTAMINACION DEL AIRE;