This paper discusses the concept of differentiated gas, the emerging role of crediting mechanisms in promoting its adoption, and the prospects for demand growth and its evolution. After rapid growth in the supply of U.S. differentiated gas through late 2021 and 2022, demand is rising from domestic utilities and industry as well as European energy companies. Nascent crediting products that reflect the environmental attributes of specific differentiated gas volumes have also emerged. Environmental attribute crediting/tokenization facilitates the unbundling of these attributes from the underlying gas, offering the possibility to expand the potential market beyond those that can take delivery of differentiated gas volumes. Two entities offering these credits include Xpansiv, which produces Methane Performance Certificates (MPCs), and EarnDLT, which produces Certified Emissions Tokens (CETs) and expects to issue Quantified Emissions Tokens (QETs) before year-end 2023. These credits differ in their treatment of methane, with MPC issuance volume tied to zero emissions relative to the national average. Higher demand for differentiated gas can be expected in the short and medium term, from a few sources. These include: (1) domestic utilities, if their state governments authorize cost recovery of the modest premium associated with differentiated gas (generally less than 1% of the purchase price of conventional gas); (2) European, likely Asian, and other buyers of low methane emissions intensity liquefied natural gas; and (3) industrial buyers of natural gas as feedstock that are focusing on lowering their Scope 3 emissions. However, one would expect significant demand to be contingent on buyers having greater confidence in the methane emissions intensity and other environmental attributes of the differentiated gas. Such confidence is likely to include greater use of direct measurement of methane (and other) emissions for differentiated gas designation, versus. the primary use of emissions factors currently.

The utilization of greenhouse gas (GHG) life cycle assessments (LCAs) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) has increased over the past decade. In this study, a novel framework for improved supply chain-specific LCAs for GHGs is presented using a gas pathing algorithm aligned with how gas is purchased, sold, and transported within the U.S. Utilizing supply chain emissions and gas purchase data specific to two U.S. liquefaction facilities, we identify 138 distinct gas pathways with GHG emission profiles that can vary by nearly a factor of 6. Reference case GHG intensities are 22-53% lower than prior studies for U.S. LNG delivered to Europe (production through regasification, 100-yr GWP). This study also incorporates recent supply chain measurement data. GHG intensities based on measurement data for U.S. LNG delivered to Europe are 41-52% higher than the reference case (production through regasification 100-yr GWP) and 8-11% higher for production through power generation boundaries (all market destinations, 100-yr GWP) but 20-28% lower than prior estimates employing national or regional nonempirical data. Supply chain-specific LCAs and the integration of emission measurements in LCAs are critical to accurately characterize the differences in GHG emissions from natural gas and LNG supply chains.

Although coal plants in some countries are actively being retired ahead of their planned closure dates, there is yet to be sufficient clarity on which business model(s) might help to achieve this at scale.Policy-based and market-led closures, buyout of coal plants, auctioning them off, repurposing them, and swapping coal assets with renewables have all been tried in different parts of the world.In this paper, we first summarize these business models and reflect briefly on the insights gained from these experiences.We then focus on the core questions: How can coal retirements be scaled up?Is there a reason that one model unilaterally works better than others?Do these models need to be crafted specifically to fit the context of each country/system?Can they be combined in some shape or form to carry out retirements at scale more efficiently?We address these issues around some of the country/utility coal fleets where the World Bank team is having active dialogues under the aegis of the Accelerating Coal Transition (ACT) program.The broad conclusions that emerge from the discussion point to the need for a tailored hybrid model that best fits the policy, system, and ownership of a coal fleet.

Understanding the scale of energy poverty remains elusive. It is, however, a key metric in the global effort to eradicate poverty. The analysis presented in this paper provides insights into the true scale and impacts of unreliable electricity service provision. The paper introduces a simple and novel approach to quantifying the difference between electricity supply and demand, accounting for both met and unmet demand in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). To assess unmet demand, generator use, reduced utilization due to unreliable electricity service, unrealized demand from unelectrified households, and the effect of tariff reductions are considered. We find that at 2018 prices, SSA (excluding South Africa) on-grid power networks had annual unmet demand of 8.83 TWh for on-grid users and 42.9 TWh with the inclusion of the off-grid sector. With a 50% reduction in tariff by country, the on-grid power sector would face a 21.46 TWh of unmet demand in the region, rising to 55.53 TWh with the inclusion of off-grid.

The academic interpretation of the concept of just transitions has evolved considerably over the last two decades. What was generally addressed in academic research in a technocratic way, with a primary focus on job replacement and the costs thereof, has given way to broader societal thinking around the need to address injustice in legacy energy systems. Research produced by advocacy organizations and the lay-press has been especially practical with respect to policy recommendations; yet, the social-economic interactions of fossil energy in specific communities are not well studied or understood. Thus, when legacy fossil communities are disrupted as part of the energy transition, society lacks the understanding necessary for immediate, effective policy decisions about how to best respond. Here, we argue that further tools based in inter-disciplinary science, social science, and humanities approaches need to be adopted to evaluate communities’ experiences with transitions and to better design and implement policy and regulation.

The cost of wind, solar, and most recently battery storage has fallen dramatically over the last decade, providing the economic rationale for their widespread adoption to help mitigate climate change. This, coupled with the low cost of natural gas, has provided a key challenge in the power sector: how to economically and equitably decommission ∼2000 GW of installed coal capacity? Although a significant part of the existing coal capacity is older, inefficient, and unprofitable, there are complex technical, social and economic challenges that remain. This Comment provides a general framework for the key technical, policy, regulatory, and economic areas that need to be addressed.