Costs of Carbon Dioxide Abatement in the United States Available to Purchase

We present an analysis of the costs of reducing CO₂ emissions in the US in the near-term (the next ten years), by taking a bottom-up engineering-economic approach and covering a broad spectrum of technology-based abatement measures. In this meta-study technology cost-performance data are extracted from publicly available literature and “normalized” to a standard set of economic parameters and assumptions to assure consistency. Although the normalization is most complete for electric power and vehicles, the work covers buildings and industry as well. Costs of CO₂ transport and sequestration are also discussed, but we have not considered emission reductions achievable by changes in the management of forest and agricultural land. Abatement costs are calculated with respect to a baseline, for which we have chosen the EIA forecast of the Annual Energy Outlook 2005. The emissions data are expressed as equivalent CO₂, including CH₄ and N₂O; they also include upstream emissions, e.g. for fuel production. We also estimate the potential near-term emission reductions, as well as the uncertainties in abatement cost and reduction potential. The results are used to derive a supply curve, along with confidence intervals.