By increasing the use of renewable energy, the U.S. has not only reduced global warming emissions but also improved air quality, delivering hundreds of billions of dollars in benefits, a new report shows.
The study, published Wednesday in Cell Reports Sustainability and based on publicly available data, focuses on the revival of renewable energy in the US from 2019 to 2022.
“From 2019 through 2022, wind and solar energy generation increased by about 55%,” said Dev Millenstein, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “By 2022, wind and solar energy would supply approximately 14% of the U.S.’s total electricity needs.”
During that period, using wind and solar energy by reducing the use of fossil fuel power plants reduced CO2 emissions by 900 million tons, the authors found. That is equivalent to taking 71 million cars off the road every year.
These large climate benefits could obscure the air quality benefits that renewable energy provided, wrote the authors, from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the renewable consulting firm Clean Kilowatts. To clarify these additional benefits, the researchers quantified how much the use of wind and solar energy reduced toxic air emissions, focusing specifically on sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen dioxide (NOx), both of which are produced during the combustion of fossil fuels.
They found that emissions of SO2 and NOx – both linked to an increased risk of asthma and a variety of other health problems – fell by a total of 1 million tonnes over that three-year period.
To determine the impact of that reduction on public health, the authors used “air quality models to track the population exposed to pollution from power plants,” Millstein said. They also used epidemiological research to examine the effects of those emissions, and quantified the benefits using a dollar value from the Environmental Protection Agency, which established the value of reducing the risk of premature death for the entire population, said he.
All told, SO2 and NOx emissions reductions delivered $249 billion in climate and health benefits to the U.S., the authors found — a figure Millstein said he found “remarkable.”
The study continued by examining the benefits that wind and solar energy provide to certain regions of the United States. For example, wind energy is particularly beneficial to the central states because of the displaced emissions on local power grids; the same goes for solar in the Carolinas. It’s an aspect of the study that Jeremiah Johnson, a professor of climate and energy at North Carolina State University, who did not participate in the study, applauded.
“These findings can help us target future wind and solar energy development to deliver the greatest climate and health benefits,” said Johnson, whose work is cited in the study.
He said he hopes the article helps the public focus on the benefits wind and solar energy already create.
The public “is often focused on the challenges we face” when it comes to ecological damage, he said. “But it is also important to recognize when something is working.”
