Massachusetts needs congestion pricing now
In an Op-ed in the Boston Globe, CEEPR faculty member and MIT Sloan Mitsui Career Development Professor David Keith provides insights in response to MassDOT’s report on traffic congestion.
Implementing Negative Emissions Technologies
Negative emissions technologies (NETs) are increasingly looked to as a lever to achieve committed decarbonization goals. However, such technologies raise urgent technical questions around their risks, costs, and benefits. In a new CEEPR Working Paper, MIT Institute Professor John Deutch presents several options for the creation of a NET innovation program to promote their development and deployment, and discusses their implications.
Spatial and Temporal Variation in the Value of Solar Power across U.S. Electricity Markets
Researchers combine electricity prices, emissions rates, and weather data to map the changing value of PV at ~10,000 locations across the US. Cost declines are found to have outrun value declines, such that the energy, capacity, health, and climate benefits of PV outweigh utility-scale PV costs at the majority of locations modeled.
Decentralized Economic Dispatch for Radial Electric Distribution Systems
Innovative methods for dispatching power at the residential level must be explored as more DERs are entering the market. This CEEPR Working Paper explains how power dispatching works today, and introduces an alternative, decentralized method that accounts for DERs such as rooftop solar and electric vehicles.
On the Efficiency of Competitive Energy Storage
FERC recently issued Order 841, which is intended to open wholesale energy markets to merchant storage providers. In this Working Paper, Prof. Richard Schmalensee explores the validity of the Order's presumption that existing markets will provide at least approx. optimal incentives for investment in both storage and generation: it does not contemplate the establishment of new markets or new policies.
Optimal Commodity Taxation with a Non-renewable Resource
When governments need to raise public revenues, they should tax non-renewable resources more than regular commodities according to a dynamic rule. For carbon resources, that means augmenting the carbon tax in a way that further reduces their development and slows down their exploitation, which goes further in the direction of resolving the climate problem.
In The News
Jul 1, 2019
MITEI awards seven Seed Fund grants for early-stage energy research
Namrata Kala and Christopher Knittel plan to examine key policy levers for meeting electricity demand and renewable energy growth without jeopardizing system reliability in the developing world.
Jun 28, 2019
The Rise Of American Oil
On the Indicator, an NPR podcast show, Stacey Vanek Smith talks to Christopher Knittel, an economist at MIT, about what caused the turnaround in the oil dynamic between the US and OPEC, and what it...
Jun 13, 2019
Researchers: Bitcoin's Carbon Footprint Equal to Las Vegas
In The New York Times, Christian Stoll discusses findings first published in a CEEPR Working Paper on the carbon footprint of virtual currency.
May 6, 2019
Why reducing carbon emissions from cars and trucks will be so hard
In this article on The Conversation, CEEPR faculty Professors David Keith and Christopher Knittel point out the difficulties facing the transition away from internal combustion engine vehicles.
May 1, 2019
State would benefit from preserving nuclear power
In an article on Press&Journal, John Parsons discusses a vital decision about the place nuclear power will have in Pennsylvania's future.
Apr 16, 2019
Shared Capacity and Levelized Cost with Application to Power-to-Gas Technology
Power-to-Gas could become a central enabler of the transition towards a sustainable economy by reversibly converting electricity to hydrogen. A new paper shows that it will be competitive with...
Apr 1, 2019
Generational Trends in Vehicle Ownership and Use: Are Millennials Any Different?
Professor Christopher Knittel and CEEPR graduate Elizabeth Murphy delve into the data to determine if conventional thinking regarding Millennials pans out. Their findings indicate there is little...