The Challenge
Traditionally, energy production and the environment have been at odds.
Energy production creates things such as greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution, land degradation, and acid rain.
At the same time, environmental considerations and regulations have limited energy production, which is essential to humankind.
Argonne’s Solution
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory has combined its expertise in energy production and systems, environmental science, and techno-economic analysis to develop an integrated assessment framework that can help find the win-win for these traditionally competing interests.
Beyond the previously noted areas of expertise, Argonne is also home to powerful supercomputing resources that enable this type of analysis on a large scale.
The Argonne framework generates economic information at high spatial resolution for energy developers/producers, regulating agencies, and stewards of ecosystem services to support energy security and environmental sustainability.
Benefits for the Environment
- Improved biodiversity
- Lower environmental impacts
Benefits for Energy Developers/Producers
- Options for incentives design
- Profit maximization
- Risk reduction
- Cost reduction