California Energy Futures Report Points Way to Lower-Emissions Energy Future in State

"California's Energy Future - The View to 2050" looks a generation ahead at what's required to reach the goal of reducing the state's greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent below the 1990 level by 2050. Several researchers in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division participated in developing this study, the result of a multi-institutional partnership to examine energy futures to reduce California's emissions.

The report finds that the technology to do more with less energy and produce the electricity and fuel we need to get to the 60 percent mark is either in demonstration, or already available for sale. Pushing on to a full 80 percent reduction in emissions will require significant levels of research, development, invention and innovation, the report states.

The two-year study summarized in this California Council for Science and Technology report was funded by the California Energy Commission, the S.D. Bechtel Foundation, and the California Air Resources Board, and completed by committee of volunteers from major energy research institutions in the state.

The co-chairs of the committee are Jane C.S. Long, Associate Director at Large, and Fellow, Center for Global Security Research Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Miriam John, Former Vice President, Sandia National Laboratories.

Lead authors of the report include Jeffery Greenblatt and Max Wei of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Chris Yang of the University of California, Davis; Burton Richter, Director Emeritus, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University; Bryan Hannegan, Vice President, Environment and Renewables for the Electric Power Research Institute, and Heather Youngs, Energy Biosciences Institute, University of California, Berkeley.

James McMahon, Head of EETD's Energy Analysis Department, was one of more than two dozen other distinguished experts who participated in the working committee. Experts were drawn from universities, Department of Energy national laboratories, and the private and government sectors throughout California.