Analyzing the health co-benefits of renewable energy deployment in the United States

The Third National Climate Assessment emphasized that actions for climate change mitigation can have immediate health benefits. Because most of these climate change mitigation actions involve other sectors, the concept of health benefits from mitigation is an excellent example of “Health for all Policies”, the APHA 2015 theme. This presentation will review the results of a comparative scoping analysis of the health co-benefits from different scenarios of renewable energy deployment in the United States. 

Numerous studies have suggested that a significant decrease in carbon emissions would also bring about a decrease in criterion air pollutants, which in turn would lead to significant short-term health co-benefits. Building off the results of a series of electricity sector modeling studies done by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the health co-benefits from air quality improvements associated with each study were assessed. The modeling studies used NREL’s Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) model for the electricity grid to estimate changes in electrical generating capacity mix and consequent reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.  Emission factors derived by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were used to convert the modeled changes in electrical generating capacity into reductions in emissions of particulate matter air pollution.  The EPA’s Co-benefits Risk Assessment (COBRA) tool was then used to estimate the health co-benefits for each scenario by converting changes in air pollutant emissions to changes population health outcomes, including premature mortality, asthma exacerbation, and hospitalization for heart and lung disease. This scoping analysis provides an initial estimate of the magnitude of potential health benefits from expanded deployment of renewable energy for generating electricity and brings a crucial public health perspective to decisions about expanded use of renewable energy.