Nature Reviews Clean Technology - The transition to a low-carbon energy system is expected to have both pollution and health impacts, across multiple scales. This Perspective provides an overview...

The transition to a low-carbon energy system is expected to have both pollution and health impacts, across multiple scales. This Perspective provides an overview of the factors that determine the scale and distribution of these impacts and outlines potential approaches to including health benefits in decision-making about energy transitions.

Nature Reviews Clean Technology - The transition to a low-carbon energy system is expected to have both pollution and health impacts, across multiple scales. This Perspective provides an overview...

Nature Reviews Clean Technology - The transition to a low-carbon energy system is expected to have both pollution and health impacts, across multiple scales. This Perspective provides an overview...

Climate actions not only reduce carbon emissions but also lower the health damage from air pollution. This study finds substantial air quality and health co-benefits from combined federal and subnatio...

Dean Andrea Goldsmith and Vice Dean Antoine Kahn are proud to recognize the following faculty for their outstanding teaching during the fall 2024

Princeton SPIA’s Research Record series highlights the vast scholarly achievements of our faculty members, whose expertise extends beyond the classroom and into everyday life.If you’d like your work c...

Establishing best practices for modeling multi-day energy storage in deeply decarbonized energy systems, Gabriel Mantegna, Wilson Ricks, Aneesha Manocha, Neha Patankar, Dharik Mallapragada, Jesse Jenkins

Transitioning to electric vehicles (EVs) is a central strategy for reducing carbon dioxide and air pollutant emissions. Although the emission impacts of reduced gasoline combustion and increased power...

In a recent perspective, Chris Greig and Sam Uden call for a reconsideration of how to navigate the risks of transforming energy systems in only a handful of decades.

A series of swipes at American companies show how China could take the initiative in a new trade war, using its economic dominance to exact pain.

Department of Engineering and Public Policy

Retiring coal power plants can reduce air pollution and health damages. However, the spatial distribution of those impacts remains unclear due to complex power system operations and pollution chemistry and transport. Focusing on coal retirements in Pennsylvania (PA), we analyze six counterfactual scenarios for 2019 that differ in retirement targets (e.g., reducing 50% of coal-based installed capacity vs generation) and priorities (e.g., closing plants with higher cost, closer to Environmental Justice Areas, or with higher CO2 emissions). Using a power system model of the PJM Interconnection, we find that coal retirements in PA shift power generation across PA and Rest of PJM, leading to scenario-varying changes in the plant-level release of air pollutants. Considering pollution transport and the size of the exposed population, these emissions changes, in turn, give rise to a reduction of 6–136 PM2.5-attributable deaths in PJM across the six scenarios, with most reductions occurring in PA. Among our designed scenarios, those that reduce more coal power generation yield greater aggregate health benefits due to air quality improvements in PA and adjacent downwind regions. In addition, comparing across the six scenarios evaluated in this study, vulnerable populations─in both PA and Rest of PJM─benefit most in scenarios that prioritize plant closures near Environmental Justice Areas in PA. These results demonstrate the importance of considering cross-regional linkages and sociodemographics in designing equitable retirement strategies.