This blog was originally published August 15, 2019. The calculator was updated in 2023 to include a mechanism that allows users to input EV charging station customer pricing by the kilowatt-hour instead of only by the minute. Please contact the Transportation & Fuels team with any questions about the calculator. Continue reading »
The Great Plains Institute has just released a first-of-its-kind publication titled An Atlas of Carbon and Hydrogen Hubs for United States Decarbonization. The atlas identifies areas of the United States that offer the capacity to help our nation expand and accelerate emissions reductions and carbon removal through focused coordination, deployment, and policy. Continue reading »
The US—and the world—must dramatically accelerate emissions reductions this decade to prevent dangerous increases in global temperature and achieve a net-zero carbon economy by midcentury. The speed and scale of required reductions can be visualized by looking at our carbon budget. Just like a financial budget sets your spending limits, the carbon budget sets our carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions limits to avoid additional global temperature rise. Continue reading »
A clean transportation standard is a technology-neutral, performance-based policy that reduces the use of high-carbon transportation fuels while providing incentives to deploy lower-carbon alternatives such as electricity, hydrogen, and biofuels. We developed this 101 blog to help inform decision makers considering a Midwestern clean transportation standard as well as others that would like to know more about the initiative. Continue reading »
The Great Plains Institute (GPI) is excited to announce the final results of more than two years of research and modeling on carbon capture and storage opportunities throughout the US. The white paper, Transport Infrastructure for Carbon Capture and Storage: Regional Infrastructure for Midcentury Decarbonization, summarizes our findings and details our analytical approach. The analysis identifies near-term capture and storage opportunities, then designs and plans the regional transport infrastructure required to maximize CO2 abatement while minimizing cost and land use impact. Continue reading »
When it comes to solar energy, a common question is how electricity generation will be affected by seasonal shifts or daily changes in the weather. These variations become especially important when households and businesses consider using rooftop solar panels to serve their electricity needs, such as for charging electric vehicles (EVs). By analyzing a full year of data collected from the solar array on the Great Plains Institute’s own rooftop, paired with the electric vehicle chargers at our building, we have gathered insights to answer to this question.
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Carbon capture is an essential part of GPI’s work to achieve a zero-carbon energy system by midcentury. GPI engages a broad set of interests at the state and federal levels to increase the deployment of carbon capture projects and infrastructure. We developed a carbon capture 101 fact sheet (PDF and text below) as a starting point for learning about what carbon capture is and why it’s an important economic and environmental strategy.
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Game-changing technology that models the lowest-cost, best placement, and most effective use of carbon capture, transport, and storage has earned a prestigious research and development award. A technology that happens to be at the heart of GPI’s work on carbon capture for the past few years. Continue reading »
GPI recently released a white paper analyzing the economics of direct current fast charging (DCFC) as part of our work with the Midcontinent Transportation Electrification Collaborative (MTEC). DCFC stations are critical for widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) because they provide access to much faster battery charging in public places and along major driving routes and highways. The white paper focused on a specific barrier to increased DCFC stations in the region: electric utility demand charges. Continue reading »
The Great Plains Institute recently released A Road Map to Decarbonization in the Midcontinent Electricity Sector as part of its work with the Midcontinent Power Sector Collaborative, a diverse group of stakeholders including investor-owned utilities, merchant power companies, electric cooperatives, environmental groups, and state regulators.
The road map is the first-of-its-kind for any region in the US and was developed by the collaborative to provide utilities, policy makers, and stakeholders with a better sense of what will be needed to inform sound near-term decisions that position the region to meet the challenges ahead.
