Kaffine

Not all Renewable Energy is Created Equal

Daniel Morton — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 18:20:53 +0000

Not all Renewable Energy is Created Equal Daniel Morton Fri, 07/31/2026 - 12:20

Daniel Morton

Solar panels in California and wind turbines in Indiana both produce clean, non-polluting electricity, but one of them consistently delivers greater benefits to the environment, according to new research from RASEI Fellow Dan Kaffine.

On paper, a megawatt-hour is just a megawatt-hour, it will charge your phone or run your dishwasher the same way, regardless of the source. However, the value to, or impact on, the environment is not fixed. It depends almost entirely on what power plant it replaces. A new wind turbine only helps the climate and local air quality to the extent that it pushes a more polluting plant offline. If instead it is just competing with another clean energy source, the environmental benefit effectively disappears.

Think of it like carpooling. Taking one car off the road does a lot more good during a gridlocked rush hour than it does taking it off an empty highway at 3 AM. Same action, but vastly different impact, depending entirely on what else is going on in the system. In many cases, renewable energy works the same way. A wind turbine spinning at 3 AM in Indiana is like carpooling during rush hour, it is likely pushing a coal plant offline, cutting real emissions. That same turbine spinning at 3 PM in California, when the grid is already flush with solar generated electricity, is more like carpooling on an empty road; the energy is clean, but it is not actually reducing emissions.

To get a more accurate picture of the environmental value of energy, and how it changes across time and location, required significant analysis. “You can have a technically identical megawatt-hour of energy from a wind farm or a solar plant” explains Kaffine “but the value to society of that megawatt-hour, from an environmental standpoint, can be very different.” Kaffine and Fell show that the magnitude of a renewable energy source’s environmental value hinges on which “marginal” power plant it displaces, and that this displacement can actually follow predictable patterns. The paper that appears in The Energy Journal, explores the different factors and implications at play in this determination. The team explored a range of different scenarios. The analysis included how location and energy transmission constraints impact which generators are offset, it looked at how the timing of renewable production plays a role and how policies such as renewable production subsidies and regulations around Green Hydrogen impact the energy value of new projects. Through this detailed analysis some headline findings emerged.

The time of day matters. Displace power at night and you are more likely to displace a coal plant. Displace it midday, and you are most likely competing with gas, or worse, another renewable source.

Location is key. Wind in the coal-heavy upper Midwest is likely offsetting coal near population centers, delivering real air-quality improvements. Wind or solar in California is more often competing with the state’s already abundant renewable sources.

Understanding that the value varies is essential for building policies that drive change in the grid. In California, wind turbines that turn in the middle of a sunny day often don’t displace fossil fuels at all, instead it forces solar generation to be curtailed. “You don’t want to be subsidizing a wind generator that is just bumping off solar in the middle of the day” explains Kaffine. Until we recognize that we need to take the environmental value into account, and install renewable generators in locations where they can displace the most polluting plants, then we are not maximizing the possible change.

Currently, most environmental policy treats renewable energy as fungible: a megawatt-hour is a megawatt-hour. Production tax credits pay a flat rate per MWh of wind or solar, with no consideration of when or where it is generated. Many renewable portfolio standards just require a fixed percentage of power to come from renewables, with little attention to their environmental value. Renewable Energy Credits (RECs), which are the tradable certificates that are woven into many of these programs are priced simply on energy output, and no concern about environmental value.

This kind of flat-rate logic assumes that all renewable energy generation delivers roughly equivalent environmental benefit. Kaffine and Fell’s work shows how this assumption breaks down when you look deeper into the details.

Two ideas emerge from this study as the researchers look forward. First, you can only manage what you can measure. Regulators need something close to real-time data on which power plant is getting displaced at any given moment. Historical estimates are not good enough. The infrastructure required for such measurements is starting to emerge. For example, grid operators in the upper Midwest have begun piloting dashboards that track local marginal emissions, using the same framework that electricity markets already employ to track local marginal prices.

Second, integrating this data into policy tools. Currently, subsidies don’t distinguish quality. A wind farm gets the same subsidy whether it is offsetting a 40-year old coal plant, or just curtailing a neighboring solar array. Think about how food labels distinguish an organic, farm-identified chicken breast from a generic one. This gives buyers, in the case of energy the regulators and utilities, a way to tell higher-impact renewable energy apart from lower-impact renewable energy, rather than treating every megawatt-hour as interchangeable.

“We know clean air is valuable to people. We know that the environment is valuable to people” says Kaffine, “But there’s no market for it, so we don’t have a price for it. How do you put a number on that?”. Kaffine sees the work as ultimately in service of a simple goal. “At RASEI, the end game is always a better environment” he says “All the technical research is in service of making a cleaner environment. It is really cool to be able to trace these advances all the way through to the end impact.”

JULY 2026

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Competitive electricity markets help clean up the U.S. energy sector

Daniel Morton — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 14:41:56 +0000

Competitive electricity markets help clean up the U.S. energy sector Daniel Morton Fri, 07/25/2025 - 08:41

July 2025

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2025 BEaRS Workshop

Daniel Morton — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 22:38:29 +0000

2025 BEaRS Workshop Daniel Morton Mon, 07/21/2025 - 16:38

Daniel Morton

The 2025 BEaRS Workshop brought together researchers from across the front range (and beyond, with our guests from Japan) to participate in cross-cutting interdisciplinary discussion focused on energy and resilience.

This inaugural �ֲ��ý Energy and Resilient Sustainability (BEaRS) workshop brought together scientists from across a range of disciplines, from the social sciences to fundamental physics, from buildings and control to electronics and computing, all discussing how we can better use energy to develop a more resilient future.

The program for the three-day workshop was made up from seven session, with topics including sustainability and the built environment, active matter and chiral materials, building energy technologies, energy systems and the economics of renewable integration, energy policy, grid optimization and energy efficient computing. We welcomed guests from across the Front Range, from Golden to Fort Collins, and further afield, with collaborators from the WPI-SKCM2, based at Hiroshima University.

The program was designed to include a range of speakers, from invited plenary speakers to student researchers, the aim was to provide opportunities for connection and discussion and to seed cross-disciplinary ideas. The plenary speakers really set the tone for each of the days, striking notes of optimism and encouragement, while also instilling urgency and impatience for change.

Amory Lovins, a co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, joined us from Stanford to present on how integrative design can be used to enhance efficiencies and drive down costs in buildings, everything from the house Amory lives in, to factories for Intel. Using this design principles for today’s technologies can have significant lasting impact in reducing energy use. We have the technology, and we know how to design for it.

Chuck Kutscher, who has spent decades at the cutting-edge of renewable energy research at NREL and now as a RASEI Fellow, gave an overview talk on the clean energy transition with a focus on air pollution and human health. Chuck highlighted all the ways in which we can drive down air pollution as we move to cleaner energy and the impacts, both on human health and societal economics that these changes would make. Central to this change is the drive toward electrification, it will provide cheaper electricity that will significantly reduce the impact on human health.

Ian Lange, an economist from the Colorado School of Mines, an expert in global mineral policy, gave an insightful overview of the status of the global mineral market and provided perspectives on how to think about and understand this industry. The knowledge imparted, both on how to think about the minerals in the soil, and some of the factors that are real drivers in this discussion provided a great way to better understand this important market for technology.

Thank you to everyone who was able to attend and participate in the lively questions, panels, and discussion. The opportunity to spend time with experts from a wide range of fields and approach current ideas from new perspectives is extremely valuable and a great opportunity to explore some of the intersectional ways in which disparate fields can work together.

The workshop was capped off with some of the workshop participants, after a busy three days, finding the motivation to hike up Bear Peak on Saturday morning,

July 2025

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14th Annual Front Range Energy and Environmental Economics Camp

Daniel Morton — Fri, 16 May 2025 19:15:17 +0000

14th Annual Front Range Energy and Environmental Economics Camp Daniel Morton Fri, 05/16/2025 - 13:15

Daniel Morton

This May CU �ֲ��ý hosted the 14^th Annual Front Range Energy and Environmental Economics Camp. Held at the Institute of Behavioral Sciences on the CU �ֲ��ý Campus, this two-day meeting brought together researchers from across the Front Range region, including participants from CU �ֲ��ý, Colorado State University, University of Wyoming, Colorado School of Mines, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and included guests from as far away as British Columbia (Thompson Rivers University).

The meeting brought together an interdisciplinary mix of interested participants to consider a wide range of topics, cutting across the academy, government and private sectors. Topics of discussion included small modular reactors, retail electricity, rural electrification, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, electrification of trucks, and renewable energy generation and systems.

Thanks to all who presented and participated and looking forward to next year’s camp!

May 2025

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Do Competitive Markets Clean Up the US Electricity Sector?: Evidence From the Southwest Power Pool

Daniel Morton — Mon, 27 Jan 2025 22:32:44 +0000

Do Competitive Markets Clean Up the US Electricity Sector?: Evidence From the Southwest Power Pool Daniel Morton Mon, 01/27/2025 - 15:32

THE ENERGY JOURNAL, 2025

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Decarbonization and electricity price vulnerability

Daniel Morton — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 18:06:12 +0000

Decarbonization and electricity price vulnerability Daniel Morton Tue, 01/07/2025 - 11:06

NATURE SUSTAINABILITY, 2025

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The importance of integrating energy justice into chemistry graduate student research and the associated pathways and barriers

Daniel Morton — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 03:11:21 +0000

The importance of integrating energy justice into chemistry graduate student research and the associated pathways and barriers Daniel Morton Mon, 11/25/2024 - 20:11

NATURE CHEMISTRY, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-024-01681-z

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POSE Fall 2024 Kickoff Workshop

Daniel Morton — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 22:43:24 +0000

POSE Fall 2024 Kickoff Workshop Daniel Morton Mon, 10/07/2024 - 16:43

Daniel Morton

In early October of 2024, RASEI hosted the kickoff workshop for POSE, a new community being brought together to address some of the most critical challenges we face to do with plastics and polymers.

Polymer Solutions for the Environment, or POSE, seeks to establish a Center that will bring together expertise around the development of a circular polymer economy.

Plastics and polymers are critical materials in the modern age, forming the building blocks of everything from electronics to packaging, but this versatility comes with a cost, namely the waste and infiltration of the environment by microplastics.

This workshop brought together thought leaders in the polymer sector, from a cross section of academic, national lab and industrial organizations. The goal was to explore how best the POSE community can build a program that complements existing efforts in the field to drive the science and policy forward.

Three areas of focus were discussed, including the development of a circular polymer economy, the development of polymers that are needed for a just clean energy transition, and the integration of the science and technology research with policy, economics and social sciences.

It was a great meeting with more than 60 participants who came together to discuss ideas, present their research and approaches, and help shape the goals and directions of this nascent community.

10/07/2024

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Polymer Solutions for the Environment Fall 2024 Workshop

Anonymous — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 15:52:40 +0000

Polymer Solutions for the Environment Fall 2024 Workshop Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/09/2024 - 09:52

Polymer Solutions for the Environment Fall 2024 Workshop

Monday October 7, 2024 | 9:00 AM - 4:30 PM

CU �ֲ��ý, East Campus, SEEC Building C120

Join us at this kick-off workshop for the Polymer Solutions for the Environment initiative. This will be held at CU �ֲ��ý, on the East Campus in the SEEC Building, Room C120 on Monday October 7, 2024. This one-day workshop brings together key collaborators and stakeholders from across the region, with a focus on discussing and developing a roadmap for POSE. Talks will have a spotlight on how POSE can join and amplify the existing regional community of researchers in tackling Colorado's most pressing sustainability challenges and exploring the role of polymer science in addressing these issues. We plan to define the goals, milestones, and target research areas for POSE.

10/07/2024

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