Puerto Rico’s 2019 and 2021 Greenhouse Gas Inventories Report

Client: Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER)

Authors: Liz Stanton, PhD, Joshua R. Castigliego, Chirag T. Lala, Sachin Peddada,
Jay Bonner, Eliandro Tavares, Sumera Patel, Alicia Zhang, Myisha Majumder,
David Jiang, and Jordan Burt; Ramón Bueno and Kari Hewitt

July 2023

On behalf of the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER), AEC staff and partners prepared a report that presents the results for Puerto Rico’s 2019 and 2021 greenhouse gas emission inventories together with 20-year emissions projections under several scenarios and sensitivities. AEC established a methodology for conducting greenhouse gas emission inventories in Puerto Rico, which went through a comprehensive quality assurance and quality control process by an Expert Panel (established for this project and composed of experts in greenhouse gas emissions measurement and Puerto Rico climate and energy issues). Using AEC’s Emissions Measurement Inventory Tool (AEC-EMIT), AEC calculates net greenhouse gas emissions released in Puerto Rico’s seven emitting sectors: (1) Power Supply, (2) Direct Fuel, (3) Industrial Processes and Product Use, (4) Transportation, (5) Agriculture, (6) Forestry and Other Land Use, and (7) Waste Management.

Puerto Rico’s 2019 Climate Change Mitigation, Adaption, and Resiliency Law (i.e., Puerto Rico Act No. 33-2019) measures mandated emission reductions against an estimated 2005 emissions level of 53.3 MMT CO₂e and calls for a 50 percent reduction relative to 2005 emissions by 2025 (26.7 MMT CO₂e). Emission levels achieved in 2021 (34.3 MMT CO₂e) represent a 36 percent reduction in emissions from 2005 levels. With 14 percentage points and 4 years left to go, Puerto Rico must find another 7.7 MMT CO₂e to eliminate. Based on the Business-as-Usual projection in AEC’s analysis, Puerto Rico’s greenhouse gas emission levels will reach their mandated levels (50 percent of 2005 levels, or 26.7 MMT CO₂e) in 2035, 10 years later than the required 2025 target.

Based on the analysis presented in this report, AEC has identified several key recommendations to further facilitate Puerto Rico’s work towards achieving its ambitious and necessary decarbonization goals set out in Puerto Rico’s 2019 Climate Change Mitigation, Adaption, and Resiliency Law, including: (1) better data collection, (2) increased climate progress reporting (3) reprioritization in rebuilding its electric sector, and (4) a new focus in transportation planning.

Link to Report (English)

Link to Report (Español)

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Expert Memo: Review of Memphis Light, Gas, and Water RFP Update and Staff Power Supply Recommendation

Client: Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC)

Authors: Elizabeth A. Stanton, PhD, Joshua R. Castigliego, Myisha Majumder, Eliandro Tavares, Sachin Peddada

AEC staff conducted an assessment of Memphis Light, Gas, and Water (MLGW)’s 2020 Integrated Resource Plan on behalf of the Southern Environmental Law Center, finding multiple instances of biases in favor of gas resources and against renewables and batteries. In light of these discoveries, AEC staff recommend that the biases be addressed prior to the MLGW Board making a decision on power supply alternatives.

Link to Memo

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Making Clean Energy Decisions in New England

Client: Community Action Works

Authors: Bryndis Woods, PhD, Sachin Peddada, Eliandro Tavares, Elisabeth Seliga, and Myisha Majumder

April 2022

On behalf of Community Action Works, AEC staff developed a report that identifies and examines six on-going clean energy and energy justice advocacy campaigns in New England. AEC profiles and assesses each campaign to determine which decision makers possess the authority to act on the advocates’ goals. These six campaigns include opposition to the proposed peaker plant in Peabody, MA; continued operation of New England’s last coal-fired power plant in Bow, New Hampshire; three existing peaker plants in Berkshire County, MA; a proposed gas-fired power plant in Killingly, CT; a proposed gas pipeline between Longmeadow and Springfield, MA; and an approved electric substation in East Boston awaiting construction. In addition to profiling each project, the report clarifies the key role the Independent System Operator of New England (ISO-NE), governors, and state legislatures play in developing New England’s energy mix.

Across all six campaigns, we find that advocates have more opportunities to pursue their goals while a project is still in its proposal phase; it becomes more challenging to shut down an energy project once it is operational. In addition, we recommend changes at ISO-NE that have the potential to render many polluting New England energy projects less competitive.

Link to Our Report

Press Release

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Equity Measurement and Targeting Underserved Communities in Massachusetts’ 2022-2024 Energy Efficiency Plan

Client: Green Justice Coalition

Authors: Bryndis Woods, PhD, Sagal Alisalad, Eliandro Tavares, Myisha Majumder, and Liz Stanton, PhD

December 2021

On behalf of the Green Justice Coalition, AEC staff developed three white papers on equity measurement and how underserved communities will be served in the implementation of Massachusetts’ 2022-2024 Energy Efficiency Plan. The first paper, Equity Measurement for Massachusetts’ 2022-2024 Energy Efficiency Plan, builds on the equity recommendations of the Energy Efficiency Advisory Council’s (EEAC) Equity Working Group (EWG) and the Green Justice Coalition by describing metrics needed to evaluate progress towards equity goals. The second paper, Energy Efficiency and Equity Efforts Nationwide, provides examples from other jurisdictions around the nation on the state of equity programming in energy efficiency policies. The third AEC white paper, Targeting Underserved Communities in Massachusetts’ 2022-2024 Energy Efficiency Plan, is a detailed review of Massachusetts towns identified as underserved by the energy efficiency program administrators and their partners.

Link to White Paper 1: Equity Measurement for Massachusetts’ 2022-2024 Energy Efficiency Plan

Link to White Paper 2: Energy Efficiency and Equity Efforts Nationwide

Link to White Paper 3: Targeting Underserved Communities in Massachusetts’ 2022-2024 Energy Efficiency Plan

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What the COVID-19 Pandemic Can Teach Us About Climate Justice

Authors: Sagal Alisalad, Eliandro Tavares, Tanya Stasio, and Myisha Majumder

February 2021

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has had massive impacts on nearly all aspects of human life—from jobs to food security to healthcare. Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) are disproportionately impacted by this unprecedented health crisis as a result of preexisting socioeconomic and environmental disadvantages. Assistant Researchers Sagal Alisalad and Eliandro Tavares, and Research Assistants Tanya Stasio and Myisha Majumder prepared an AEC policy brief that focuses on the relationship between preexisting racial inequality and the economic and health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this brief, AEC finds a substantial overlap between vulnerability to COVID-19 and vulnerability to climate change. Much like the global climate crisis, some groups, especially Environmental Justice communities, are more likely to bear the brunt of the ongoing health crisis.

Link to Policy Brief

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Risks Outweigh Rewards for Investors Considering PJM Natural Gas Projects

Client: Energy Foundation

Authors: Bryndis Woods, PhD, Liz Stanton, PhD, Eliandro Tavares, Sagal Alisalad, Myisha Majumder; and Dennis Wamsted from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA)

October 2020

On behalf of the Energy Foundation, the Applied Economics Clinic and the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) prepared a report that assesses the substantial risks to financial entities investing in natural gas-fired power plant development in the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland (PJM) region—the largest independent power system operator (ISO) in the United States. 

AEC and IEEFA identify six overarching threats that pose growing risks for investors in new PJM gas-fired power plants: increasing price competitiveness of clean solar, wind, demand response and battery storage alternatives; significant existing over-capacity, flat demand growth and market turmoil; high-impact, unpredictable global events such as COVID-19 that radically reshape markets and expectations of future demand; uncertainty over the future direction of gas prices, particularly given the substantial increase in U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports; actions by state governments within the PJM market to limit future fossil fuel generation and/or even withdraw from the market entirely; and public opposition that can delay project development and raise overall costs.

Link to Report

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Municipal Light Plants and Energy Efficiency

Client: Massachusetts Climate Action Network

Authors: Bryndis Woods, Sagal Alisalad, Myisha Majumder, Liz Stanton, PhD

September 2020

On behalf of the Massachusetts Climate Action Network, the Applied Economics Clinic reviewed over 60 Municipal Light Plants (MLPs) and electric cooperatives across 27 states to identify leaders in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and beneficial electrification programs. This white paper includes case studies of effective programs implemented by electric providers in this assessment. Overall, AEC found that MLPs in Massachusetts can utilize energy efficiency, renewable energy, and beneficial electrification to improve their energy programs.

Link to White Paper

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Visualizations of Racial Inequity

Client: Renew New England
Authors: AEC Staff

August 2020

On behalf of the Renew New England coalition, AEC used publicly available data to produce visualizations of racial disparities. 

There are three sets of data graphics:

1) The first set shows disparities in rates of incarceration, average income, COVID-19 cases, and unemployment across as many as five racial categories: Asian, Black, Indigenous, Latinx and white. This data is presented for each of the New England states and the U.S.

2) The second set shows Black/white disparities across as many as 23 measures (e.g. homelessness, infant mortality, educational attainment). This data is presented for Massachusetts and the total U.S.

3) Black/white unemployment for all U.S. states and the U.S. average. 

The data demonstrate that racial inequalities are pervasive across common measures of well-being like employment, incarceration, poverty status and educational attainment. These inequalities are consistent across New England and the rest of the United States. For example, across the United States today, a Black individual is 6.4 times more likely than a white individual to be incarcerated, 2.4 times more likely to have a positive COVID-19 test, and 2.2 times more likely to be unemployed.

Link to Presentation

Link to Downloadable Images

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Health and Cost Benefits of Energy Efficiency Policies

Client: Green Energy Consumers Alliance (GECA)

Authors: Bryndis Woods, Hannah Brown and Myisha Majumder

March 9, 2020

On behalf of the Green Energy Consumers Alliance (GECA), Researcher Bryndis Woods and Research Assistants Hannah Brown and Myisha Majumder prepared a policy brief that assesses the impact of various efficiency policies on energy savings. We find that, on average, the more fully policies account for the benefits of energy efficiency, the more energy they save; states that account for participant health benefits, societal health benefits or mandate the implementation of all cost-effective efficiency measures save more energy than states that do not. In states that do not consider participant and societal health benefits, fewer efficiency measures are implemented—leaving both energy savings and benefits on the table.

Link to Policy Brief

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Comparative Costs of Alaska Fire Management

Client: Union of Concerned Scientists

Authors: Liz Stanton, PhD, Sagal Alisalad, and Myisha Majumder

September 2019

Clinic Director and Senior Economist Liz Stanton, PhD, Assistant Researcher Sagal Alisalad, and Research Assistant Myisha Majumder prepared a report that estimates the cost of fire management per tonne of CO₂ in Alaska using data on fire incidents in Alaska from 2007 to 2015. The report used econometric analysis to estimate the effects of fire management on the number of acres burned and calculate the cost to avoid forest fire per tonne of CO₂ saved. The report also presented costs of fire damages for a number of categories including property losses and timber lost.

Link to Report

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Petrochemical Company Research

Client: Louisiana Bucket Brigade

Authors: Liz Stanton, PhD, Eliandro Tavares, Tanya Stasio, and Myisha Majumder

May 2019 - Present

Applied Economics Clinic staff supported Louisiana Bucket Brigade in their research into petrochemical company ownership and decision-making.

Updated Costs of Community Choice Energy Aggregation in Boston

Client: Barr Foundation

Authors: Tyler Comings, Bryndis Woods and Myisha Majumder

February 2019

On behalf of the Barr Foundation, Senior Researcher Tyler Comings, Researcher Bryndis Woods, and Research Assistant Myisha Majumder prepared a policy brief with updated electric CCE and basic service rates for towns in Massachusetts with similar CCE programs to what has been proposed in Boston.

Link to Policy Brief

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