Response of electricity sector air pollution emissions to drought conditions in the western United States

Abstract

Water is needed for hydroelectric generation and to cool thermoelectric power plants. This dependence on water makes electricity generation vulnerable to droughts. Furthermore, because power sector CO 2 emissions amount to approximately one third of total US emissions, droughts could influence the interannual variability of state-and national-scale emissions. However, the magnitude of drought-induced changes in power sector emissions is not well understood, especially in the context of climate mitigation policies. Using multivariate linear regressions, we find that droughts are positively correlated to increases in electricity generation from natural gas in California, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington; and from coal in Colorado, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. Using a statistical model, we estimate that this shift in generation sources led to total increases in regional emissions of 100 Mt of CO 2 , 45 kt of SO 2 , and 57 kt of NO x from 2001 to 2015, most of which originated in California, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. The CO 2 emissions induced by droughts in California, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington amounted to 7%-12% of the total CO 2 emissions from their respective power sectors, and the yearly rates were 8%-15% of their respective 2030 yearly targets outlined in the Clean Power Plan (CPP). Although there is uncertainty surrounding the CPP, its targets provide appropriate reference points for climate mitigation goals for the power sector. Given the global importance of hydroelectric and thermoelectric power, our results represent a critical step in quantifying the impact of drought on pollutant emissions from the power sector-and thus on mitigation targets-in other regions of the world.

Impact of Agricultural Drought on Sunflower Production across Hungary

“…In the last few decades, drought cycles have become more intense and frequent all over the world due to rapid climate change [9,[68][69][70]; for instance, in Brazil [71], Syria [63], Hungary [52], China [72], and southern Europe [73]. Subsequently, many industries have been affected either directly or indirectly, such as the agricultural sector [74][75][76][77][78][79], hydrology [80][81][82][83], the economy [76,84], human health [85][86][87], and tourism [88][89][90]. In this sense, our research shows a negative trend in agricultural drought episodes across Hungarian counties (Figure 4; Table 5).…”

Toward sustainable climate change adaptation

“…Similarly, sectoral studies are informative but can miss important indirect impacts that occur across sectors through intersectoral linkages (O'Brien et al., ). There has been a growing body of research taking more integrated approaches to examine the impacts of climate change beyond the direct (Calvin & Fisher‐Vanden, ; Herrera‐Estrada, Diffenbaugh, Wagner, Craft, & Sheffield, ; Nicholls & Kebede, ; Nkhonjera & Dinka, ; Smithers & Blicharska, ). But substantial knowledge gaps remain (Melillo et al., ).…”

“…The , 2006). There has been a growing body of research taking more integrated approaches to examine the impacts of climate change beyond the direct (Calvin & Fisher-Vanden, 2017;Herrera-Estrada, Diffenbaugh, Wagner, Craft, & Sheffield, 2018;Nicholls & Kebede, 2012;Nkhonjera & Dinka, 2017;Smithers & Blicharska, 2016). But substantial knowledge gaps remain (Melillo et al, 2014).…”

Analyzing the Impact of Streamflow Drought on Hydroelectricity Production: A Global‐Scale Study

“…HP reduction due to drought is particularly problematic in countries that strongly rely on hydropower for their electricity supply, which include many countries in Africa and South America (EIA, 2019). For the western United States, it was found that frequent droughts had caused a notable shift toward conventional energy sources, thus leading to increases in air pollutant emissions of around 10% (Herrera‐Estrada et al., 2018).…”