ML14304A703
| ML14304A703 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Indian Point  |
| Issue date: | 09/10/2013 |
| From: | Ecology & Environment, State of NY, Dept of Public Service |
| To: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, State of NY, Public Service Commission |
| Shared Package | |
| ML14304A441 | List: |
| References | |
| F-2012-1028 | |
| Download: ML14304A703 (60) | |
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The Role of MicrogndsMicrogrids, or neighborhood-scale networks of shared DG resources, have the potential to provide both resiliencybenefits and reduce emissions, but have very few precedents in New York City. After Hurricane Sandy, while lowerManhattan was without power, a cluster of New York University buildings was powered by a 6 MW cogeneration sys-tem serving the campus.At Hudson Yards, the development team of Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group are planning a large 12MW cogeneration plant, which will generate power at twice the efficiency of a conventional natural gas power plantand enable "functional occupancy" of its retail, restaurant and office complex during even an extended grid outage.The complex Is thermally connected to the developments' other 3 residential and office buildings to enable the dis-tribution of thermal energy from the cogeneration plant throughout the mixed use neighborhood and the exchangeof hot and chilled water so that the development's 5 individual building plants can be operated like a single plant foroptimum energy and operational efficiency as well as maximum capacity and resiliency.Microgrids that connect multiple customers are a promising new concept that could be applied elsewhere In the city,offering an opportunity to innovate alternative power generation and delivery models while accelerating adoptionof smart grid technologies that are key to modernizing the electric grid. The City has several projects underway tostudy the implementation of microgrids, working closely with New York State, the Pace Energy and Climate Center, theNew York State Smart Grid Consortium, and Con Edison to evaluate optimal technologies and business models for ml-crogrids. This collaborative is currently analyzing the feasibility of a microgrid cluster In East Harlem that would serveboth the Metropolitan Hospital and the Washington and Lexington NYCHA facilities, and possibly others.The City is also evaluating distributed power options for the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center in the Bronx, a criticallocation for the city's food supply. Ensuring continuous power will limit supply chain disruptions by enabling uninter-rupted facility operation and the maintenance of refrigerated storage capacity In the Meat, Fish, and Produce Markets.These options include cogeneration and trigeneration systems (generating electricity, heating, and cooling), the pro-curement and installation of backup generators, and the protection or elevation of existing utility infrastructure.Metropolitan Hospital Area Hunts Point Food Distribution Center (HPFDC) V -m FUMA Prelimninry FIRI4% 100 Year Floodplain E ý.qMA i dfi ý -~r ftm.O mffldWlim HICHA Properties S -or n r rE? P rksCritical Infrastnruture FWiftldet -himAmn ri o -Z "i0K=Source: NYC Mayor's OfficeSourcr. NYC maws Othice I
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- S --6 0-.New Yor Cit has th motefiintasdrv 75 pecn les than avrg Ameri-6can an as a reul the emi arcinotin aroun ton Noehees th citful htpo e alla of ths veice rsins whc maeu0 peren of totalcit emsios Reucn emsin in thesave bilin on a n al liui fu l expes -to ad tr ani accsil locations, desae an more attactv fo Swalkn andbikng -and aggesvl fote th adop-tionof leanr atomoivetecholoi7s TrasporttioOverviewIn a city of endless destinations, New Yorkers are always on themove. Subways run round the dock, stetching from RockawayBeach to Van Cortlandt Park. Federal and state highways are over-laid on a dense grid of busy local streets. A neddace of new ferryterminals and bike paths adorn the "tys waterfront Bustling in-ternational airports connect the city tD every major destination inthe worddWith the exception of walking and biking, all of this movement re-quires energy-and 99 percent of this eneryoriginates from fos-sil fuels. All told, the citys transportation system is responsible for11 million tons of emissions every year, or 20 percent of the city'stotal emissions. On a per capita basis, this compares well to othercities. Still, the potential exists to reduce transportation emissionsfurther. More New Yorkers, particularly the newest arrivals, couldlive in dense, mixed-use, tranitsl:h neighbrhoods; new trans-portation options like bus rapid transit and bicydcing could reducethe need for driving, and, most vehicles on the streetscould be far deaner.Several major challenges will make it difticult to reduce emissionsin the transportation sector. Parts of the city are simply out of reachof mass transit, leaving residents with few options other than todrive. City steets are often bettersuited for cars and unwelcomingto pedesians and bicyclists-although the City has made majorimprovements in recent years Biofuels and electric vehicles offergreat potential for reducing emissions, but demand growth forthese new technologies is very gradual. Individuals do not con-sider the health and economic impacts of traffic congestion-ndo they have a price signal to do so-when they decide o drive. -nally, the City has only limited ability to influence the transportationsystem, which numerous other entities, public and private, play arole in operatingCity govemment and its partners nevertheless have tools that canbe used to accelerate carbon reductions and put the city onto alwer-carbon pathway. The City is already using some of thesetools to advance the goals of PlaNYC and can expand these efforts.Zoring and land use planning can encourage density and mixed-use development in parts of the city that are most accessible totransit. The City can work with the State to improve mass transitservice, including expanding the Select Bus Service program that isnow saving all five boroughs. The City can expand efforts to makesteets safer for walking and biking. And it can foster deaner trans-portation technologies like electric vehicles and biodiesel throughpilots, purchasing in the City fleet, and early infrastructure develcpment. These efforts will not only help to reduce carbon, but alsoimprove quality of life, clean the air, and make the economy morecompetitive.SNYC's Pathways to Deep Carbon Reductions TrasprtaioTransportation FundamentalsThe city's transportation system is a dazzling mix of activity,and New Yorkers place upon it high demands for service andreliability. From the city's extensive network of mass tran-sit--rail, subways, buses, and ferries-to its crisscrossingstreetscapes that accommodate cars, bikes and pedestriansmoving in every direction. Daily commuters, business trav-elers and tourists are also growing in record numbers andaccentuate demand on the transportation system. In fact,on Thursday, October 24, 2013, New York City's subways hitan all-time high for ridership, just shy of 6 million rides in asingle day.The city's on-road transportation system touches every cor-ner of the five boroughs and allows for the greatest flexibilityin travel. Over 13 thousand taxis, 6 thousand buses, hundredsof thousands of bikes, and more than two million private carsand trucks move on more than 6,000 miles of streets, nearly800 bridges, and through 9 tunnels, connecting points in thecity in millions of daily combinations. The bus system offersthree types of service: regular local service, express servicebetween boroughs, and Select Bus Service-a form of busrapid transit that operates at greater speeds thanks to dedi-cated lanes, fewer stops, and off-board fare collection. TheCity has over 300 miles of bike lanes and recently launchedthe nation's largest bike-share system, Citi Bike, coveringManhattan below 59th Street and some parts of Brooklyn.The subway and rail systems do not offer the range or flex-ibility of roadways because they operate along fixed tracksto a finite number of destinations, but their strength lie intheir scope and capacity. The city's subways carry more than1.7 billion riders each year along 21 interconnected routesthat span 660 miles and connect 468 stations across the fiveboroughs. Subways are synonymous with density: 42 per-cent of the city's landmass is within a 10-minute walk to asubway stop, and these areas are home to 75 percent of theI Transportation Usage Patterns, 2000-ZO1Z% change (adjusted for population growth)251 9/11Financial Crisis20151050*~-5-10-152000+17%Public transitAirplanesDrivingCommuter rail+2%_r__T_2002 2004 2006 2008 20102012Source: MTA, PANYNJ, NYMTC, NYC Mayor's Office Built Density and Distance to SubwayPopulation density per acre in thousands-<15-15-7575, -o5,150150,- 350-350+/ Subway StationsFJ 1/2 Mile Buffer from Subway Station0 I T ansprtaiocity's built area and 72 percent of its population. (See chart:Built Density and Distance to Subway)Marine transport used to be extremely important as well,mainly for delivering goods into the city -as recently asthe 1970s, the waterfront bustled with commercial activityas ocean going vessels and local barges exchanged theirwares. Containerized shipping caused much of this activityto disband throughout the region and the transport of goodsshifted to truck. Recently, however, there has been a resur-gence of marine deliveries with, for example, the opening ofRed Hook Container Terminal; efforts are also underway toimprove the connectivity of marine terminals and the freightrail network. The waterfront has also seen a recent renais-sance in passenger transportation as ferry lines and termi-nals have sprung up across the city, including the East RiverFerry Service, which launched in 2011 and has exceeded rid-ership expectations.Farther into the surrounding region, Port Authority's PATHtrains go to New Jersey, Metropolitan Transportation Author-ity's Long Island and Metro-North railroads connect to townsas far as Montauk and New Haven, and Amtrak's service car-ries passengers up and down the Eastern seaboard, mostimportantly to Boston and Washington, D.C. For longer dis-tance trips, airplanes shuttle more than 54 million passen-gers a year out of the area's three major airports.Multiple agencies own and operate different parts of thetransportation system. The New York City Department ofTransportation manages the city's streets and many of itsbridges. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a NewYork State agency, runs the city's subways, buses, and re-gional rail. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, apublic authority, manages some of the city's largest bridges,most of its tunnels, and the region's airports. Private com-panies operate taxis and livery cars under the supervisionof the City's Taxi and Limousine Commission. And privatecompanies operate most of the city's ferry terminals andport infrastructure, with some public support. Funding forthe transportation system comes from a mix of sources, fewof which the City directly controls.During the past decade, the city's population increased bynearly 300,000 people. Over the same time period, transitridership grew by 17 percent over this period, while drivingonly went up 2 percent and commuter rail stayed nearly flat.(See chart: Transportation Usage Patterns, 2000-2012) Inresponse to increasing demand, major investments are be-ing made to improve the city's mass transit infrastructure:two new subway lines are being built on the Upper East Sideand in Midtown West; a new terminal for PATH trains is risingup next to the new World Trade Center building; tunnels forEast Side Access, one of the largest public works projectsin decades, are under construction and will ultimately savecommuters nearly one quarter of a billion hours a week.Several other new transportation options were launched in2013, including the bike share program, Citi Bike, and lime-colored Boro Taxis that are authorized to pick up passengersanywhere in the city except airports and Manhattan south ofWest 110th and East 96th Street.
I~~~6 TrnprttoSources of GHG EmissionsThe transportation system is responsible for 20 percent ofthe city's total emissions -10.9 million tons in 2011. Of thatamount, passenger cars account for 70 percent while trucksand public transit make up the remainder. Aviation, whichis not counted as part of the city's greenhouse gas baselineor its 30% reduction goal, amounts to another 15.0 milliontons. Without aviation, the city's per capita emissions fromtransportation are roughly 6.4 tons per year; by comparison,a single round-trip flight to London creates 1.2 tons of emis-sions (See chart: Transportation Emissions)Emissions per capita vary by borough. Residents of StatenIsland and Queens drive more than those who live in Brook-lyn and Manhattan -but still far less in the rest of the U.S.,with an average American producing roughly five times thedriving emissions of an average New Yorker. (See chart: PerCapita Emissions from Driving)Emissions fell nearly 5% since 2005, when they stood at 11.5million tons -even as the city's population grew. Most of thedecline was due to less carbon intensive electricity for masstransit; lower per capita VMT; and improved vehicle fueleconomy. (See chart: Drivers of Change to TransportationEmissions, 2005-2012)I Transportation EmissionsMtCO e.Subway & Commuter Railheavy TrucksLight TrucksSource: NYC Mayor's OfficePassenger Cars0SNYC's Pathways to Deep Carbon Reductions Ie Trns r aI Per Capita GHG Emissions from DrivingMetric tons CO e per year, 2011Bronxj 0.9BrooklynManhattanQueensStaten IslandNYC AverageU.S. Average-0.7-0.71.31.7-0.9 ., 80% '- -14.6Source: NYC Mayor's OfficeI Drivers of Change to Transportation Emissions, 2005-2012Metric tons COe12.5 -12.011.511.010.510.01.00.511.66 l -0.02- 1O.092u ......-0.01-Per capitatransitusage-.. -0i.wo06=11.120.02005 Populationemissions growthOn-roadvehicle fueleconomy-passengercars andlight trucksOn-road Per capitavehicle fuel VMTeconomy-heavy trucksMoreefficientelectricitygenerationfor transitPer capita 2012solid waste emissionsexportSource: NYMTC; UC Berkeley, NYC Mayor's Office TechnicaAs % of total ZO(ofL-ý,LII I Tra spottoEmissions Abatement PotentialMaintaining the City's DensitySteering growth towards dense, diverse, walkableneighborhoodsThe city's density is one of its greatest assets. Many NewYorkers simply do not need to travel as far as most otherAmericans, whether because their friends live up theblock or because the pharmacy is around the corner -and when they do, they can typically take mass transit.Over the past decade, over 94 percent of new buildingpermits filed with the city were for construction locatedwithin 36 mile of transit. Continuing to encourage transit-accessible density as the city grows will help make surethat emissions remain low for new arrivals and existingresidents alike.Expanding Mass TransitSubway serviceSubways make the city's density possible. The system'sreach is extensive-72 percent of the city's populationlives within a half-mile walk of a subway station. Two ex-pansion projects are also underway. The Second AvenueSubway will connect 96th Street to 63rd Street in the firstphase and stretch all the way to Financial District at Ha-nover Square in later phases, while the 7 line extensionwill go west along 42nd Street and then down 11th Ave-nue to 34th Street. Carbon abatement is not these lines'primary function and therefore they are not quantified aspart of the 80 by 50 reduction strategy. The Second Av-enue Subway will relieve congestion on the 41516 line andmake living farther east on the Upper East Side easier forexisting residents and more attractive for new ones. The7 line extension will support impending large-scale de-velopment in Hudson Yards that would not be possibleotherwise. Nevertheless, creating additional lines andconnections over the coming decades could encouragemode shifting and densification in areas that are poorlycovered by subways.Ferry serviceFerries have enjoyed remarkable success in New York Cityin recent years. Use of the new East River Ferry, for ex-ample, more than doubled initial estimates within a yearof its launch in June 2011. There is potential to add moreferry service and connect new points along the water-front-which could help to foster density, improve travelexperiences, and make it possible to live in parts of thecity that were previously less attractive because of theirdistance from mass transit. But new ferries are not likelyto have a significant effect on reducing New Yorker's driv-ing or carbon emission and so they were not quantifiedas part of the 80X50 reduction plan.Commuter trainsCommuter trains are extremely important for the region,as millions of commuters use Metro North, Long IslandRailroad, and New Jersey Transit to get into New York Cityon a typical workday. The train lines have shaped settle-ment patterns in the NYC metropolitan area, and theyhave so effectively displaced driving that only 16 percentof workers commute to Manhattan's central businessdistrict by car. New commuter lines are not in the workscurrently, but service will improve once the East Side Ac-cess project-one of the region's largest public worksprojects in decades-allows travelers from Long Island toarrive into Grand Central Terminal instead of Penn Stationif so desired. Construction of additional lines or expan-sion and improvement of existing ones would have simi-lar effects: better access to the city and better servicefor existing commuters. For the purposes of this reporthowever, the direct emissions potential of any additionallines was not estimated.
I~ ~ I Trnprtto IShifting to Less Energy-Intensive Forms ofTransportBus rapid transitA BRT line can cost 50 times less than a newsubway line and take months instead of de-cades to build. It is also faster than convention-al buses. The city's Select Bus Service, whichuses dedicated lanes and off-board fare collec- 0.4tion, and is now located in all five boroughs, of-fers a 20 percent speed advantage comparedto convention lines. Introducing additionalSelect Bus Service routes throughout the city $n/aIwould have two effects: first, it would savetime for passengers who were riding the sameroutes on regular buses, which would have no effect oncarbon emissions, and second, it would encourage thosewho were previously driving to switch to the bus instead,which would reduce emissions. The exact cause-and-ef-fect abatement potential from expanding SBS coverageis difficult to estimate, but, as an example, increasingthe share of trips taken on Select Bus Service to 7 per-cent -in line with what Ottawa and Bogota achieved withlarge-scale implementations of their respective systems-would reduce emissions by 0.4 MtCO2e compared tothe business as usual case. Because of the uncertainty inthe range of possible reductions attributable to SBS, thecost per ton of carbon abated was not quantified.BicyclingOf all the car trips in New York City, 10 percentare under half-mile, 22 percent are less than 1mile and 56 percent are less than 3 miles -dis-tances that could be readily served by bicycle.In recent years, cycling in New York City has 0.5grown much more popular than it used to be: ,22 percent of New Yorkers ride a bike at least L7IJa few times a year, and NYC DOT's CommuterCycling Indicator grew 2.5 times since 2000 --$300though the share of New Yorkers who use bi- LIIJcycles for their daily commutes is still relativelylow, at 1 percent. (See charts: NYC Population Bike UsageStatus and NYC DOT Commuter Cycling Indicator)The carbon emissions impact of higher cycling rates isdifficult to estimate because of limited data about mode-shifting potential, but it is certainly positive. Bikes do notreduce emissions when new riders switch from subways,buses, or walking, but they do reduce emissions whenthey replace rides in taxis or private cars. Carbon abate-ment potential of bikes is highest in areas that rely oncars, whereas in dense areas the expansion of biking andassociated infrastructure is likely to bring about moreconvenience, health benefits, and traffic safety improve-ments than carbon emissions reductions. A detailed siz-ing of the carbon reduction potential of biking is beyondI NYC Population Bike Usage Status% of total population, 2012A few timesa yearAt least oncea monthSeveral timesa monthNever or 78%physically unableSource: NYC DOHMH Community Health SurveyI NYC DOT Commuter Cycling IndicatorThousands403010I Percentage sector wide reductionb Amount of COze abated'Cost to abate carbon0~1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010Source: NYC DOTSNYC's Pathways to Deep Carbon Reductions Traspotaiothe scope of this report, but for the sake of illustration,if New Yorkers' share of trips taken by bike increased to15 percent (which Berlin achieves and Copenhagen farexceeds with its record 33 percent) and just half of thosetrips displaced car travel-carbon emissions would fall by0.5 MtCO2e.Adopting Cleaner Vehicles and FuelsNo matter how good the city's transit system is, or howdense and mixed-use its neighborhoods, some trips willstill require cars. Moving two tons of metal throughspace will always require a lot of energy, and reducingthe emissions from this movement comes down to threeoptions: switching to different vehicle technologies (hy-brid electric and battery electric, for now), making con-ventional vehicles more efficient, and using biofuels. (Seechart: Vehicles on Road by Powertrain Technology)Battery electric vehiclesRegional trains and busesOf the four options for traveling along theEastern Seaboard -driving, taking a bus, tak-ing a train, or flying -driving and flying are byfar the most carbon intensive. Reliable data isnot available for the exact number of bus orcar travelers between New York and Bostonand Washington, D.C., but the share of traintravel has risen from 37 percent to 75 per-cent between Washington, D.C. and New Yorkfrom 2000 to 2011, and from 20 percent to 54percent between New York and Boston in the%n/aImilliontonsBattery electric vehicles (EVs), which rely ona large battery pack for all (or nearly all) oftheir energy and need to plug into the grid torecharge, emit 70% less carbon per mile trav-eled than conventional vehicles do. Over time,conventional and electric vehicles alike will be-come cleaner (due, in large part, to strict CAFEstandards), but the EV advantage will persist,especially as the grid becomes cleaner. (Seechart: Carbon Intensity of Battery Electric andConventional Vehicles)tonssame period. The share could be higher yet: in countrieswhere true high-speed rail took off -Spain and China aretwo examples -regional trains and buses have becomeso popular that airlines have largely stopped servingroutes under 300 miles. From an emissions standpoint,shifting all existing passengers on routes to Boston andWashington DC from planes to trains would lead to emis-sions savings of at least 0.1 MtCO2e. Cleaning up thegrid in line with the 80 by 50 pathway would increase thispotential to 0.29 MtCO2e.14 As with subway expansions,high-speed trains are not primarily about carbon emis-sions abatement; therefore, the direct cost per ton of car-bon abatement was not calculated.Electric vehicles could play an extremely important rolein carbon abatement, but all across the country, they stillrepresent a tiny share of new purchases. Even in SanFrancisco, they amounted to only 0.9 percent of new reg-istrations between 2010 and 2012; in New York City, theshare was lower yet at 0.2 percent. (See chart: ElectricVehicle Share of New Auto Sales by Location)Today's electric vehicles are far superior to prior incar-nations that were plagued by limited range, chargingchallenges and high cost. Today's vehicles have sufficientrange for daily driving, charging is simpler and more op-tions are available, and prices are falling. In 1995, GM'sEV1 -the first electric vehicle sold to consumers by amajor automaker -was almost twice as expensive as anaverage vehicle, but today's Nissan Leaf, costs essentiallythe same as an average car after accounting for federaltax credits. (See chart: Electric Vehicle Price Dynamics)Technology will improve further yet, and if, as modeled,battery electric vehicles represent 2 percent of all vehi-cles by 2020, 8 percent by 2030, and 41 percent by 2050,they could abate 0.1, 0.4, and 1.6 MtCO2e, respectively.The societal cost of abatement would come in at $80/ton I Tra Isportaio 7in 2020 (not taking tax credits into account, EVs wouldstill be more expensive than conventional vehicles), thendrop to -$1 0/ton in 2030 as EV prices drop.Plug-in hybrid electric vehiclesToday's plug-in hybrids can only rely on their iibatteries for between 7 and 35 miles. Once 2.5%the battery is depleted, a small gasoline en-gine engages to extend the vehicle's range (to340 miles in the case of one such vehicle, the 1.6Chevy Volt). Plug-in hybrids are not as benefi-cial as battery-only EVs, but they are nearly asgood, especially for in-city driving. And com-pared to EVs, they do not induce range anxiety -or require as robust a charging network, andbecause of their smaller batteries they costless. As modeled, PHEVs could account for 6 percent ofall vehicles on the road by 2020, 11 percent by 2030, and47 percent by 2050, abating 0.3, 0.5, and 1.6 MtCO2e,respectively. The cost of abatement would be $90/ton in2020 and -$10/ton in 2030 as vehicle prices continue todrop.I Vehicles on Road by Powertrain Technology% of total vehicle stock (Millions)I Carbon Intensity of Battery Electric and Conventional VehiclesCo2e (lbs/mile): NYC-specific grid intensity along 80 by 50 pathway0.700.600.500.400.300.200.100.00l Internal Combustion EngineElectric Vehicle2013 20202025Source: US EPA, NYC Mayor;s OfficeI EV Share of New Auto Sales by Location; 2010-2012Battery EV and PHEV as % of total registrations; total registrations in thousands467 1,489 678 1.112 2.qqq2010 l I931.96MM100.0%99.5%.,-100%2U92030 WdI112.21 99.0%MM 2.0%205047I 229NMM1.5%1.0%0.5%0.0%0 MDVO0 LOW battery electric (BEV)'L.0W d*b vdehLDV plug-in hybrid (PHEV)a LOV hybridM LDV advanced powertrainLDV standard powertrainSan LosFrancisco AngelesBoston ChicagoNewYork CitySource: NYC Mayor's OfficeSource: Polk AutomotiveSNYC's Pathways to Deep Carbon Reductions IS TrasprI Electric Vehicle Price DynamicsMSRP in thousands (all values indexed to CPI inflation$70* General Motors$80 EV 1* Eli--Av* Toyota5u CD KAv 4$40 NissaLEAF$30-$20$10$0 .... .....'94 '96 '98 '00 '02 '04 '06 'o8Source: US DOE; TransportationConventional hybrid vehiclesThe carbon benefits of conventional hybrid %hicles, which recharge their battery from thiinternal combustion engines, are small but neertheless helpful and very cost-effective asinterim step towards 80X50. These vehicles aexpected to represent 30 percent of all vehiclin 2030, but practically disappear by 2050,battery electric and plug-in alternatives cotinue to improve. The abatement potential0.2 MtCO2e in 2020 and 0.1 MtCO2e in 203achieved at large societal savings: -$170/ton2020 and -$530/ton in 2030.Advanced internal combustion enginesFederal CAFE standards are leading to dramaic improvements in the fuel efficiency of coventional vehicles, and their impact is alreaicaptured in the business-as-usual emissioscenario. However, the standards only dictaimprovements through 2025, and their impaon vehicle emissions will be limited by tispeed of vehicle turnover. The potential exisfor additional emissions reductions from conventionalof 2011) vehicles, whether through more aggressive vehicle stan-dards in the future or through accelerated upgrading toerage Vehicle vehicles that meet the standards that are in force today.By 2020, accelerated uptake of more efficient vehiclesTesla could abate up to 0.7 MtCO2e; by 2030 and 2050, tighterModel S standards and accelerated switching could abate 0.6-0.7MtCO2e. Because the incremental costs of cleaner vehi-Chevrolet cles pay off through fuel savings, the range of abatementVOLT costs would be between -$170/ton and -$150/ton.anAlternative bus powertrains* In recent years, MTA has upgraded portions of-* its 6,000-unit bus fleet to cleaner-burning die- 0.2%SMART sel, compressed natural gas, and hybrid elec-Electric Drive tric units. There is a balance to be struck in theupgrade process: hybrid vehicles may be the 0.2cleanest of the three, but they also cost more.............. to purchase and maintain, and the incremental10 '12 '14 money may be better directed -at least in theshort term -to replacing old diesel vehicles in -$230Department, NYC their fleet with more cleaner models. A cleaner L.1I.tomix of buses featuring predominantly hybridshas the potential to abate approximately 0.1-0.2 MtCO2eat a cost of between -$190/ton and -$230/ton.e-Oir 0.1% Biofuelsev-an Different biofuel technologies have been avail-ire 0.1 able for some time, but it was only in recent 1es ,,, l years that their cost and availability expandedas L enough to make them a viable option for localin- car fleets. All city vehicles running on diesel 1.2is -$530 currently use B5 year-round and over the next"0, two years the entire fleet will be increased toin B20 for the non-winter months. Scaling up bio-fuel use could abate 0.2 MtCO2e in 2020, and 1$701up to 1.2 MtCO2e between 2030 and 2050. Bio-fuels command virtually no cost premium overat- conventional fuels which means that the they would leadto negative abatement costs at -$701ton in 2030.)n-dynsteicthestsLI.0%~L0.7 ICarbonAbatement Costs for Selected Transportation Measures Employment Impacts of Transportation Sector Carbon Abatement% of total; total emissions reduced in MtCOe I Thousands of Jobs0 NegativeBetween So and $iooAbove loo20206% 1.74 -.--Net ImpactLong term shift in competitiveness-Capital expenditures3 iOpportunity cost of local spending 2.72,1.l203020505.40tinEt100%Source: NYC Mayor's Office-12015 2020 2025 2030Source: NYC Mayors Office I TrnsoraioChallengesThe transit network is vast but still finite andinfrastructure is in need of modernization.Subways make the city run, but they don't go every-where: 28 percent of New Yorkers do not live within ahalf-mile of a subway station. Even if a subway stationis near, not all routes are convenient: traveling from theBronx to Queens or from Manhattan to JFK can take along time -and driving may become the preferred op-tion. Where subways do go, they may not always providea speed and frequency of service or level of comfort thatpotential travelers find preferable to other modes.Walking and biking can be uninviting, unsafe,or bothThe city's street grid was laid out in the days of the horsebuggy, but more than two million vehicles traverse it to-day, and it shows. Cars, buses, bicycles, and pedestrianscompete for limited space, and while a neighborhood likethe West Village can be very pedestrian and bike-friend-ly because of its small right-of-ways, walking or bikingalong Queens Boulevard is a different story altogether.The city has made great strides in reducing traffic fatali-ties through a raft of street design measures, but there ismore to be done.New technologies are available, but adoptionhas been slowEVs and biofuels hold a lot of promise, but their adoptionis gradual and will take time to get to scale. EVs accountfor just 0.1 percent of all new vehicles purchased in themetropolitan area since 2010, and biofuels are mainlyavailable only through bioethanol added to gasoline,which does not lead to a significant emissions reduc-tion. Unlike ethanol, biodiesel use is not required andnot available in the retail market even though it is far bet-ter environmentally. For EVs, the incremental cost, con-tinued concerns about range, and scarcity of chargingstations are obstacles to growth despite their increasingaffordability.The economics of driving are not fully efficientFor any practice that carries a cost, reflecting it directly isusually a good idea -charging for electricity per kilowatt-hour instead of monthly makes people watch their usage,and taxing cigarettes deters smoking and recovers someof the indirect costs imposed on society at large fromthe illness they cause. Driving comes with a multitude ofcosts, but the only costs that are tied directly in propor-tion to the amount of miles driven are fuel and mainte-nance costs. Insurance is priced based on a measure ofrisk for accidents, but not amount driven, and the nega-tive externalities of driving -congestion and air pollution-are not priced at all.Planning jurisdiction and operational author-ity spans agencies and levels of governmentAll of the city's systems feature a complex mix of players-but transportation is perhaps the most varied of themall. City government may control streets and zoning, butagencies at other levels of government fund, construct,and operate major components of the city's transporta-tion infrastructure. As a result, major projects often takedecades to materialize. Most importantly, vehicle choicescome down to millions of individual decisions -and un-like with buildings, where the local building code governsconstruction, the parameters of those choices are set atthe federal level, and then only loosely.
TrasportaioCapturing the PotentialStrategy 1Zone for Neighborhood Density and DiversityMuch of the city is already dense and mixed-use, butopportunities for improvement still exist -and zoning,which determines how a given plot of land can be usedand how much can be built on it, is the best tool at theCity's disposal. Over 120 City-initiated rezonings werecompleted in the city in the last decade, allowing greaterdensity in areas close to transit while limiting growth inauto-dependent areas. The combination of City policyand market activity ensured that more than 87 percentof new building permits between 2007 and 2012 were is-sued in areas within % mile of a subway or commuter railstation. (See chart: New Building Permits and Transit Cov-erage). As the city continues to attract new residents andgrow,- careful use of zoning proceeding in tandem withtransit improvements could ensure that opportunitiesfor development continue to get created in areas wheremany residents will find car ownership is not a necessity.I Daily Citi Bike Ridership TrendsThousands; 2013; normalized for weekly fluctuations40302 220 10 8'033Z338JuneJulyAugust September OctoberSource: Citi BikeI New Building Permits and Transit Coverage2007-2012; all construction typesStrategy 2Build and Maintain Transit Infrastructure[11 /2 Mile Buffer from Subway StationTransit infrastructure takes time to build and is expen-sive to maintain -but it is indispensable when it comesto carbon abatement. Putting the city onto an 80 by 50pathway would require improving transit where it alreadyI Taxi and Transit Ridership by Share of Total Monthly TripsPercent of total; 2013100% o-0.5% ---1o.6%
- Citi Bike7.3% Taxi6.0% Wk Commuter Rail80% M Subway60%40% 86.1%20%May July SeptemberSource: NYC Mayor's OfficeSource: MTA, NYCTLC, Citi Bike, NYC Mayor's Officeý NYC's Pathways to Deep Carbon Reductions IIra sporI Possible Bike Share Expansion Areas from 2009 StudySegmented into 3 phasesBicycle share expansionCiti Bike, the city's bike share-program, saw excellentgrowth since its launch in May 2013: by October, morethan 90,000 annual members had joined, and the dailynumber of rides was on track to reaching 40,000 -still farbelow 470,000 daily taxi trips, let alone millions of sub-way rides, but picking up quickly. (See chart: Daily CitiBike Ridership Trends and Taxi and Transit Ridership byShare of Total Monthly Trips)The system, however, is only in its first phase -andthere is potential for it to expand. The 2009 study fromthe Department of City Planning that evaluated the po-tential for bike share in New York City envisioned threestages of implementation: the first one, with 10,500 bi-cycles, would cover the densest areas of Manhattan andBrooklyn; the second one, bringing the system to 30,000bicycles, would expand into Queens and the Bronx, andfurther into Northern Manhattan and Brooklyn; and thethird one, increasing the capacity to 50,000 bikes, couldcover the city as far as Coney Island and Pelham Bay Park,spanning 81 square miles. (See map: Possible Bike ShareExpansion Areas from 2009 Study)V__*440./Iexists and taking it to areas that it does notwhile being careful to invest in the optionsthe greatest marginal benefit for the amounspent.Bus rapid transitOf all the transit options, BRT lines may havto contribute to carbon abatement: they areup and require little enough investment thones could be set up along major transporThe city's BRT offering, Select Bus Service, aon four routes, and several route expansionworks, including on Webster Avenue in theNostrand Avenue in Brooklyn. More SBS rccontinue to encourage drivers to shift awaysave time for existing commuters, and makhoods more attractive.The damage from Hurricane Sandy to bike share infra-structure stored in the Brooklyn Navy Yard shrank firststage deployment, but most of the area mentioned in theSource: NYC DCP original study is now covered. Covering the remaining ar-eas would make it possible to reduce short car trips andwould also make it easier for New Yorkers to access newyet cover -Select Bus Service routes. However, the main obstaclethat deliver to the program expansion is funding, both for capital andt of money operating costs. For the first phase, sponsorships by Ci-tibank and MasterCard paid all of the initial capital costsand membership fees are covering the operating costs.The financing model, for subsequent phases, is yet to beestablished. City capital or private sponsors could paye the most for the capital costs, but membership revenues may notquick to set be enough to cover the operating costs because the num-at multiple ber of users per bike would decline as residential densityt corridors, falls. In that case, an ongoing financial commitment fromIready runs either the City or a private sponsor would be required tos are in the expand the system.Bronx and)utes could'from cars, Subwayse neighbor- Because subways are so expensive and take so long tobuild, new lines would not serve as a marginal carbon I~ ~ m Trnprto 7abatement method for the short or even the mediumterm. The more immediate concern for the system is tomaintain the quality of service on existing lines, and thebiggest challenge to that is funding. As with any othertransportation option, the system requires taxpayer sup-port and cannot be funded by user fees alone. The financ-es of the MTA, the New York State agency that runs thecity's subway system, would need to be strengthened inorder for service to remain convenient and reliable.One possible exception that could reduce emissions inthe short to medium term is the extension of the N lineto serve LaGuardia airport, which was last seriously dis-cussed last decade. Because the only transit option forgetting to LGA is the bus, the project would have the po-tential to reduce emissions directly. In the longer term,better connections between Queens and Brooklyn -in-cluding possibly those that rely on existing unused right-of-ways -would merit consideration, though as with thecurrent two extensions, economic development con-cerns would likely drive the decision-making.FerriesThe East River Ferry service already brings commutersfrom Long Island City and Brooklyn waterfront to WallStreet. As the city's waterfront continues to be redevel-oped, ferries will grow in importance, and opportunitiesfor new routes will arise. The former Domino factory inWilliamsburg is just one example of a new project thatcould benefit from ferry connectivity. As with subwaysthough, new ferry projects would be driven primarily byeconomic development considerations and would re-quire near-term subsidies.StreetcarsStreetcars ran in the city's streets up until the 1950s -then, the service was shut down and the rails were re-moved; the last remaining cars from that era are nowrusting behind a Fairway supermarket in Red Hook. Pro-posals exist to resurrect streetcar service in parts of thecity but the marginal cost of construction is still substan-tial enough that any projects would have to be weighedcarefully against cheaper alternatives such as bus rapidtransit.Regional and commuter railFor rail, the greatest abatement potential lies in launch-ing true high-speed service between Washington D.C.and Boston -and displacing car and airline travel as aresult. Amtrak recently proposed a plan to upgrade thespeed of its trains by 2041, and while a discussion of thefunding and planning challenges of the endeavor are be-yond the scope of this report, local support would still beimportant. For commuter rail, the drivers of expansionwould be less about incremental abatement and moreabout the availability of funding and need for capacity in-creases. Two rail tunnels connecting to New Jersey underthe Hudson River are more than 100 years old and bothare over capacity. A new link, perhaps following in thefootsteps of the now-suspended project called ARC (Ac-cess to the Region's Core), could improve the passengerflow into and out of the city.Strategy 3Improve the StreetscapeSafer, pedestrian-friendly streetsNeighborhood plazas, wider sidewalks, pedestrian is-lands, and an assortment of traffic calming measures havebeen popping up across the city and making streets bet-ter and safer for all New Yorkers. Seniors and schoolchil-dren have received special attention through programslike Safe Streets for Seniors and Safe Routes to Schools.Thanks to these and other measures, the city's streetsare safer than they have been at any point in the last 100years. As the city grows and changes, more will need tobe done. The difficulty lies in the extremely fragmentednature of needed improvements: no two intersectionsare the same, and many changes require long approvaland community engagement processes. A methodical fo-cus on incremental improvements all over the city -oftenrelying on piloting and testing to quickly establish whatworks and what does not -has proven to work and couldbe a template for the future.Bike lane expansionCycling is most effective as a marginal carbon abatementtool in areas that are not well served by transit -it is inthose areas that it replaces driving instead of subwayrides. Incidentally, these are the areas that aren't wellserved by the existing bike lane network either (See map:Built Density and Distance to Bike Lanes) -which meansthat focusing the network expansion efforts on those ar-eas may be the best way to capture the carbon abate-ment potential of cycling. The process can be lengthyand challenging, and each mile of a new bike lane wouldSNYC's Pathways to Deep Carbon Reductions Built Density and Distance to Bike LanesPopulation density per acre in thousands-l <151 15 75 -150/ 150 -350-350 +Bike Lanes--' 1/4 Mile Buffer from Bike Lane I ~ S Trnsoraio0serve fewer riders than it would in a dense neighborhood-but with the bike lane network already well-developedin denser parts of the city, the less dense areas representthe next frontier.Bike bridge accessThe bike lane network may be well developed withinsome neighborhoods, but the city's boroughs could beconnected better. Bridges are part of the answer -andwhile Manhattan, Williamsburg, and Queensboro bridgesall have separate paths for cyclists, the same is not trueof all the major connections. Some, like the Verrazano,from Brooklyn to Staten Island, and the Whitestone, fromQueens to the Bronx, have no accommodations for bi-cyclists at all. Others, like the Henry Hudson, Robert F.Kennedy and Marine Parkway bridges, require riders todismount. Still others have bike paths that could use im-provement: on the Brooklyn Bridge, the narrow walkwaycan be congested for cyclists and pedestrians alike, whileon the Pulaski bridge from Long Island City to Greenpoint,the shared pedestrian and bike path can be as narrow as8 feet. Creating bike paths where none exist and improv-ing them where they do will be critical to making bikingin the city more viable.Strategy 4Support Cleaner VehiclesClean vehicle incentivesMost incentives for clean vehicles arrive in the form offederal tax credits -those for EVs, for example. Still,there are options at the state and local level to encourageclean vehicle ownership among private and commercialusers alike. For commercial vehicles, two programs arealready available: the Hunts Point Clean Truck Program,managed by City DOT, aims to take at least 500 of the old-est, most polluting trucks off of the streets of the Bronx;the Citywide Private Fleet Alternative Fuel Programs, co-managed by DOT and NYSERDA, offers rebates of up to80 percent of the increased cost of choosing an electricor alternative fuel vehicle over a conventional one. TheNYSERDA Program has been operating for over 10 yearsand has funded hundreds of clean advanced technologyvehicles. Another program is on the way as well: NYSER-DA will be providing rebates to commercial sector fleetsexclusively for the purchase of new electric trucks. No in-centive programs are in place for private vehicles yet, butone option is a local or regional "feebate" program -arevenue neutral initiative that encourages vehicle buyersand car manufacturers to invest in efficiency. Under thisframework, vehicles with above average efficiency wouldreceive a rebate while those with below average efficien-cy would be assessed a fee.EV charging infrastructureCharging is perhaps the biggest barrier to EV adoption:although there are over 180 public charging stationsthroughout the city, it is not enough -and only three areof the fastest variety that can charge a vehicle in 30 min-utes or less.. To improve charging infrastructure aroundthe city, three strategies could help. First, there couldbe more EV charging points in garages and parking lots(which is where most of the existing 180 are today). TheCity has been partnering with the private sector, as wellas Federal and State governments to develop these -and more are on the way. (See map: Existing EV ChargingPoints) Second, the issue of parking would need to beaddressed: at least some street chargers would need tobe available if EVs are to be adopted en masse. A pilot toevaluate the feasibility and utilization levels of dedicatedEV parking spots could be a helpful starting point. Final-ly, the City can implement a recently passed local law thatwill require 20 percent of new residential and workplaceparking to be "charger ready." The incremental cost todevelopers will be negligible -the measure only requiresthe installation of wiring and not of actual chargers -butwill help prevent costly retrofits in the future.Electric taxi pilotIf an electric taxi can make it in New York it can makeit anywhere. Few vehicles drive as much every day andsuffer as much abuse as the New York City's yellow cabs.Several electric taxis, all Nissan Leafs, are already cruis-ing the city's streets as part of an electric taxi pilot, anda Taxi and Limousine Commission study of what it wouldtake to electrify 1/3 of the fleet is underway. Such a fleetwould reduce emissions by 90,000 tons a year -but atleast three issues arise.The choice of vehicle is one: the Leaf is not custom-builtfor full-time taxi operation, and it does not have muchpassenger space. An electric version of the NissanNV200, a custom-built taxi designed just for New York ora similarly sized vehicle would likely replace the Leaf inany large-scale electrification, but that vehicle is still be-ing tested and developed.SNYC's Pathways to Deep Carbon Reductions I Trnprtto II Existing EV Charging Points2013A.'6 A.added costs are particularly problematic if a chargerhas low utilization. Within the taxi electrification effort,it may be possible to rely on mobile technology to in-&cease charger utilization But in the longer term, the City,the electric utilities and regulators may need to addressthe fundamental economics of standby charges to makequick chargers more viable.EVs at Hunts Point marketThe Hunts Point Food Distribution Center (FDC) is the.-City's primary food hub, with more than 100 wholesaledistributors supplying more than 50 percent of the City'sproduce, meat, and fish. Most commodities arrive bytruck, and most trucks run on conventional diesel. To pro-mote the conversion of truck fleets to alternative fuels,r the City is partnering with a private developer to builda retail alternative fueling station in the FDC. In additionto offering biodiesel, CNG, ethanol, and limited conven-tional fuel, this project also plans to offer electric vehiclecharging stations, which will make electric vehicles moreattractive and help electrify some of the 12,000 dailytruck trips to the FDC.Source: NYC Mayor's OfficeThe charging network -or lack thereof -is another ob-stacle. Because each taxi drives more than 50 passengermiles per 12-hour shift (as well as additional miles spentcruising for fares and traveling to and from home or afleet garage), it would need to recharge after each shift-and existing chargers are too slow to work with theeconomics of the industry. A citywide network of quickchargers, which can recharge a battery to 80 percent in30 minutes or less, would have to be installed instead.Quick chargers would require more space and coulddraw up to 15 times more power. To get the network in-stalled, City, State, and the private sector would have tocooperate. (See map: Potential Quick Charge Network forElectric Taxis)The economics of the electric sector present a final chal-lenge: electricity is billed not just on the amount of en-ergy consumed, but on the speed it is used. The rationaleis that just as it costs more to build and maintain a high-way than a dirt road, it costs more to build and maintaina higher voltage electricity distribution system that cansupply large amounts of energy quickly. At the price of$12-22 per kW for demand charges could add $30,000a year to the cost of running a quick charger -thesei Potential Quick Charge Network for Electric TaxisNumber of chargers per district212333 Bi4"tyhIN1 *4 A3 2ISource: NYC Mayor's Office Traspotaio0Strategy 5Support BiofuelsBiofuels are already available, but just as with EVs, theiradoption has been gradual. Supply is not the limiting fac-tor -plenty of capacity is available locally, however littleretail infrastructure exists. To promote biofuel adoption,City and State governments could work to explore biofu-el mandates. The City's own fleet could serve as a testingground for progressively higher biofuel blends. New YorkCity's municipal fleet has emerged as one of the largestpurchasers of biofuels on the East Coast: some City ve-hicles already use blends of up to 30 percent, and blendsof up to 90 percent are being tested. The municipal fleetaverage could approach 30 percent by 2020 already, set-ting an example for other large fleets around the city.Biofuels requirements for City contractors have not beenintroduced yet, but could be considered.Strategy 6Make Driving More Economically EfficientUse fees for vehicle travelUse fees -a regional vehicle miles travelled charge orcongestion pricing -can help reduce VMT and increaseavailable funding for transit. New York City proposeda congestion pricing program in 2008, with the idea ofcharging drivers for entering the Central Business Districtand using the revenues to fund transit -but it did not ad-vance past the State Assembly despite support from theCity Council. Several European cities have successfullyput similar programs in place: in one example, bus use inStockholm's core rose 9 percent after the city introduceda congestion charge; in another, Singapore experienceda 73 percent decline in the use of private cars, a 30 per-cent increase in carpools, and a doubling of buses' shareof work traffic.1s In the case of New York, a similar usefee tool could offer a 0.3 MtCO2e reduction and generatenearly a billion dollars a year for transit investment.Dynamic pricing for parkingDynamic pricing for parking helps match parking supplyto parking demand and avoids situations in which driv-ers cruise endlessly for available parking spots, whichcontribute to congestion. San Francisco (SFPark) and LosAngeles (LAExpresspark) already have such programs inplace, and New York City is conducting pilots in Green-wich Village, Park Slope, Jackson Heights, and Atlantic/Smith/Court Streets as part of the PARK Smart program.Depending on the results of the pilots, the program couldbe expanded further, making parking in the city moreefficient.Pay as you drive insuranceAs its name suggests, "pay as you drive" insurance (PAYD)allows drivers to pay for insurance based on the amountof miles they drive. Newly available thanks to simple de-vices that car owners can install to share driving datawith their insurance companies, PAYD rewards driversfor driving less, thereby contributing to reductions in thenumber of miles traveled. Two insurance companies be-gan offering PAYD insurance in New York in early 2013; inthe longer term, if the experience proves successful, a 50percent switch to PAYD insurance could abate as muchas 0.5 MtCO2e.ý NYC's Pathways to Deep Carbon Reductions Asise aipln to in Improv*e ed frih o p erainlo 0xug07sam 11S1 n M4 Y% o.e 1 loci ino *..l To Uo UWWl Yo 06o waotkISaMn 0a T gh6Ctp1.005 ~ ~ e to Wo to toPWWo s-t pgwo,5itet11Mff no aq am 0.J5& caw? .we W wofo~tt will* 101 an Unis .ola xlsm- 4fota v
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I1I11I1 in'A'fl LI'l 1:I~.-4L'~A N Soid WatOverviewOn the city's sidewalks, black bags pile up at night; bymorning, they disappear into the bellies of garbage trucks.Leftover food and old clothes, used paper cups and coffeeshop grinds, wood and metal and concrete debris all addup to 10 million tons of waste a year -enough to fill theEmpire State Building 21 times over, or to load up morethan 3,000 large trucks every day. Around 15 percent ofthis material ends up at recycling plants; another 10 to 15percent is converted to energy at facilities in New Jersey;less than 1 percent becomes compost; and the remaindertravels as far away as Virginia and South Carolina to endup in landfills. City taxpayers fund the residential part ofthe system, spending more than $100 for every ton thatgoes to landfills, but earning back up to $20 for every tonthat is recycled, for a net expenditure of more than $300million a year for the export of waste. Collection costs runan additional $700 million. Commercial waste is paid for bybusinesses directly.Annual emissions from waste amount to 2.1 million metrictons -most from paper and organic waste as they de-compose in landfills, and the rest from waste-to-energy fa-cilities and from the trucks and trains that move the wastewithin the city and away from it. Emissions fell more than20 percent in recent years because New Yorkers generateless waste, and because some of the waste now travels byrail and barge instead of truck -but reductions consistentwith an 80 by 50 goal would need to go far beyond that. Onthat pathway, the volumes of waste would have to drop,most recyclable waste would have to be recycled, mostorganic waste would need to be composted or turnedinto biogas, and the rest would be converted to energywith minimal environmental impact. Very little would belandfilled.The potential does exist to achieve these outcomes -andnearly all of the individual measures to get there wouldlead to savings in the long term. Yet unlocking this poten-tial will be challenging. New Yorkers would need to im-prove recycling habits, which will be aided by the recentsimplification of rules and improved messaging. Wasteprocessing infrastructure improved significantly this fallwith the opening of the new Sims recycling facility in SouthBrooklyn -but the infrastructure to process organic wastewould need to be expanded. Plants in New Jersey convertsome of the waste-to-energy -but newer, cleaner, andmore efficient plants are yet to be built.These challenges are real, but they may be possible toovercome -and initiatives of the last years have alreadypushed New York City towards a more sustainable solidwaste system. With the appropriate long-term commit-ment, emissions from solid waste could continue to dropand potentially even be neutralized.SNYC's Pathways to Deep Carbon Reductions I oidWSolid Waste FundamentalsNew York City's residents, workers, and visitors generatemore than 10 million tons of waste every year. Approxi-mately two-thirds of this waste is generated from every-day activities and typically left for pickup on the curb.The remaining third is debris from the construction anddemolition of buildings (also called C&D waste). An addi-tional 4.8 million tons of fill -essentially dirt from excava-tions -is generated each year but nearly all of it is reusedwithin the city and thus is not a major source of exportedwaste or GHG emissions.Uniformed City workers from the Department of Sanita-tion (DSNY) pick up waste from residents, City govern-ment buildings, and some large institutions like hospitalsand universities. More than 200 commercial carters pickup waste from businesses. Residents are required toseparate their waste into three streams: paper and card-board, metal/glass/plastic, and all the rest.17 Businessesare also required by law to recycle and some are nowrequired to source separate organic waste. (See chart:Residential Waste Composition)Once picked up, residential and commercial waste istypically transported to one of four types of destinations:recycling facilities, organic waste processing facilities,waste-to-energy facilities, or landfills. A small but poten-tially growing amount of organic waste is processed atthe City's wastewater treatment plants; several hundredtons a year are also composted locally at neighborhoodcommunity gardens. In 2011, recycling rates for residen-tial, commercial, and C&D waste were at 20 percent, 46percent, and 45 percent, respectively. Between 8 and 19percent of waste was converted to energy, one percentwas composted, and the rest was sent to landfills. (Seecharts: New York City Solid Waste by Source and Mode ofDisposal and New York City Residential and CommercialSolid Waste Flows)Solid waste transfer and processing facilities are spreadthroughout the city and far beyond it as well. The major-ity of DSNY's recyclable content is managed at the newSims facility in South Brooklyn; composting is taken tolocations in Staten Island, Rikers Island, and most recent-ly, to the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant;and everything left over is taken to waste-to energy fa-cilities outside of the city or to transfer stations in thecity that coordinate delivery to landfills as far away asVirginia and South Carolina. In the case of commercialcarters, recyclables are taken to a variety of private pro-cessing facilities; compostable waste mostly travels to afacility in Delaware -though large commercial facilitiesare now under development closer by; and the remainingwaste either goes directly to waste-to-energy facilitiesor is offloaded at a network of private transfer stationsin and around the city and exported to remote landfills,mostly by truck. (See chart: New York City's Solid WasteInfrastructure)The costs of managing the city's waste are substantial.DSNY spends more than $700 million a year to collect thewaste, and more than $300 million to export it, payingon the order of $100/ton for landfill exports, around $60/ton to recycle metal, glass, and plastic, and earning $20/ton on paper recycling. Businesses spend comparableamounts.The system has evolved over the years. In the first halfof the twentieth century, building-based incineration wascommon, and disposal in local landfills was the standarduntil municipal landfills started closing, culminating in theclosure of Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island in 2001. In2006, the City's Comprehensive Solid Waste ManagementPlan (SWMP) addressed the issues of geographic equityin the siting of waste transfer infrastructure. Historicallythe Bronx and Staten Island hosted a disproportionatepart of the city's waste infrastructure. The SWMP soughtto minimize in-city waste truck traffic by committing toconstruct a network of marine transfer stations through-out the city, where waste would be loaded onto bargesand then taken to transfer stations outside the city, in or-der to be put into rail cars and trucks and exported tolandfills. Each borough would manage the waste it gener-ates at facilities located within the borough. The City isin the process of signing long-term export contracts withlandfills in the Northeast; five marine transfer stations areunder construction and are scheduled to become opera-tional in 2018.Approaches to managing waste are also evolving: in the2011 update to PlaNYC, the City committed to divert-ing 75 percent of solid waste from landfills by 2030 (thenumber includes fill). In 2013, the City also undertook thelargest expansion of the recycling program in its 25 yearhistory by accepting all rigid plastics for recycling for thefirst time.
I oid atNew York City Solid Waste by Source and Mode of DisposalMillions of tons of waste; %, 20114.1Residential Waste by CompositionMillions short tons; % of total; 2004-20054Recy cldMuonveeEandfteD 417%3.4%,ResidentialCommercial Construction and demolitionSource: NYC Mayor's OfficeNew York City Residential and Commercial Solid Waste Flows"8Thousands of tons; 2011Source: NYC Mayor's OfficeMetal/ glass/plasticPaperFood wasteOtherorganicsInorganicRecycledCompostedConvertedLandfilledSource: NYC Mayor's OfficeSNYC's Pathways to Deep Carbon Reductions I oid atNew York City's Solid Waste InfrastructureAs of 2013Waste typeLo il tracspriTransterno- output:Source-separatedorganicsOrganicstrucksse ra edr c ,PaZt gourceecyc IngM i IS Source-UnIc paMunicipalpa t'wassolid waste'cConstructionand demolitionlecyclingtruccktsMSW trucksC&D trucksWastewatertreatmentRikes a%ten islandI ýpmpostlngrpst1.; C Cornmerý""compo:tingr7ities'fcaoc i .1?d ZioeSimSimsrecyclingfacillity (2014)recyclingfacilitiesEssex wasteto energyfacilityLandfillSecondarymarketsFlaredConverted toelectririty andheat onsiteInjected intonatural gasgridReleased intoatmosphereFlaredTransferstationsConverted toelectricity andheat onsiteInjected intonatural gasgridAlso releases hiogenio (Source: NYC Mayor's OfficeMost recently, the processing of organic waste has cometo the fore as the City is beginning to pilot curbside corn-posting pickup in several neighborhoods in all five bor-oughs. In addition, working with the restaurant sectoron a Food Waste Challenge requires participants to com-mit to diverting at least 50 percent of their food wastefrom landfill, and most recently, passing a requirementthat large generators of organic waste source separatethat content, beginning in 2015, in order to divert it fromlandfills. The City is also working with a waste manage-ment company to process food waste collected fromPublic Schools into a slurry and then use spare anaero-bic digester capacity at the Newtown Creek WastewaterTreatment Plant to turn the food waste into biogas thatcan then be fed back into the utility grid.
II Soi WatSources of GHG EmissionsNew York City's solid waste emissions come from threesources -landfill methane, waste-to-energy, and trans-portation -that in 2011 added up to more than 2.1 mil-lion tons.Landfill methane is by far the biggest source: it is re-sponsible for 89 percent of all solid waste emissions(See chart: Solid Waste GHG Emissions by Source). Themethane is generated when paper and organic wastedecompose in landfills without oxygen (if oxygen werepresent, the decomposition would produce C02 instead).Most landfills install equipment that captures up to 90-95 percent of the leaking methane and either flares it,produces electricity with it, or cleans it and feeds it intothe gas grid. However, because the global warming effectof methane is 25 times as high as that of C02, even therelatively small amounts of fugitive emissions should beavoided.Emissions from processing waste at waste-to-energy fa-cilities are the second, but far smaller, source of emis-sions, with a 6 percent overall share. Transportation rep-resents an even smaller share of the overall emissions,but has been a source of emissions reductions in recentyears as export of municipal solid waste has shifted fromtruck-based to rail- or barge-based transportation.The relative composition of these three components hasremained relatively unchanged since 2005, but the totalfell by 21 percent, mostly because New Yorkers began togenerate less waste per capita and because of the afore-mentioned mode shift. Exact reasons for the decline willnot be known until DSNY completes a new waste charac-terization study (the previous one dates from 2005), butthe technology-related decline in paper use and news-print circulation might offer a partial explanation.I Solid Waste GHG Emissions by Source% of total; 2012LandfilledSource: NYC Mayor's OfficeI Solid Waste EmissionsMtCO e; % of total3P0-2.72.7 2.62,52.01.51 .0.50,0TransportIWaste -to- energyE Landfills,52.3 2.3I I i 2.12005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011Source: NYC Mayor's OfficeMNYC's Pathways to Deep Carbon Reductions Technical Potential of GHG Reduction MeasuresAs % of total 2005 emissionsF-Waste PreventionUUUIp, ~fT ~It I SomlWatEmissions Abatement PotentialThe "three R's" of solid waste management -reduce, reuse, recycle -are also a strong framework for limitinggreenhouse gas emissions from the sector. On the 80 by 50 pathway, volumes of waste would need to drop asconsumers use fewer disposables and manufacturers of goods pay greater attention to packaging. Nearly allorganic waste would need to be composted or processed in anaerobic digesters within the region; nearly all re-cyclable material would need to be recycled; and most of what remains would need to be turned into to energyat state-of-the-art, low-emission conversion facilities. Only a very small portion of remaining waste would besent to landfills, which would lead to savings both for businesses and residents. The sector that produces morethan 2.1 million tons of emissions today would need to be nearly carbon free to reach 80 by 50.Waste preventionThe best way to reduce carbon emissions from waste isnot to generate it in the first place. Volumes of waste gen-erated per capita usually go hand in hand with prosper-ity. The wealthier a city, the more its residents tend toconsume, and the less they tend to reuse. For example,New York City residents generate nearly 1,800 pounds ofwaste per year on average, while residents of the aver-age city in China generate nearly half that -a reflectionof higher consumption and income levels in the U.S. com-pared to China.In recent years though, New York City's waste generationvolumes have been falling. Since 2005 they have fallen bymore than 20 percent. While the reasons behind the de-cline are not entirely clear -explanations include lighterpackaging, a decline in paper use because of computer-ization, and a shift in consumption patterns away fromgoods and towards services), they mirror the nationaltrends: solid waste generation in the U.S. stood at 980pounds per year back in 1960, climbed to 1,730 in 2000,and has since declined to 1,606 -a drop of more than7 percent.Still, potential exists to reduce the volumes of waste fur-ther -for example, another 20 percent reduction wouldeliminate 0.4 million tons of emissions. For example,reducing the use of disposable paper and plastic bagsby 75 percent -the kinds of reductions that cities likeWashington DC and Dublin that introduced bag fees orbans are seeing -could reduce emissions by almost20,000 tCO2e. In another example, reducing the use ofplastic foodservice packaging by 55 percent could re-duce emissions by 11,000 tons. These numbers arehighly understated given that they only capture localemissions and not the upstream emissions embedded inthese disposables -a factor that is important to consid-er in any discussions of the impact of better solid wastemanagement. This study however assumed, conserva-tively, that per capita generation rates will remain flat.Organic waste processingOrganic waste makes up about 35 percent ofthe city's waste stream but less than one per-cent of that amount is composted or otherwiseprocessed. The rest goes to landfills, includingover 1.2 million tons of discarded food waste 0.81millionalone. Organic waste is the greatest contribu- tonsbtor to New York City's solid waste emissionsbecause the decomposition of organic mate- -$60rials in landfills in the absence of oxygen pro- pertoo'Iduces methane -a greenhouse gas that is25 times stronger than carbon dioxide. Whilemodern landfills can capture as much as 90 percent oftheir methane -which they either flare, feed back intothe natural gas grid, or convert to electricity onsite -older landfills may emit methane at higher rates. Two fa-vorable alternatives to landfilling organic waste can helpto reduce emissions.The first alternative, composting, involves the decom-position of organic waste in the presence of oxygen ateither small-scale facilities in backyards or communitygardens, or at a larger scale in windrows. Because the de-composition is aerobic, organic compounds break downinto C02 instead of methane -and because these ma-terials (plants, for example) originally captured C02 fromthe air, the net impact on global emissions is zero (suchemissions are also called biogenic).The second option, anaerobic digestion (AD), involvesthe accelerated decomposition of organics without thepresence of oxygen in the same process that sewage un-dergoes at wastewater treatment plants after it receivedinitial treatment. Digesters break down the waste intowater, methane, and sludge. The sludge is then exportedI Percentage sector wide reductionb Amount of CO2e abatedI Cost to abate carbonSNYC's Pathways to Deep Carbon Reductions I S lWto specialized landfills or turned into fertilizer, while themethane is captured and, just as with landfill methane,is either flared, burned to produce heat and energy, orcleaned and returned into the natural gas distributiongrid, as will be the case at the City's Newtown CreekWastewater Treatment facility.Of the two options, scaling up of anaerobic digestionholds the greatest carbon reduction potential. Initiativeslike backyard and community garden composting are im-portant, particularly to build public awareness, but regu-lar composting fails to capture all of the energy embed-ded in organic waste (which is why composting heapsheat up), whereas AD captures most of it. Anaerobicdigestion also makes economic sense. Societal cost ofcarbon reductions is on the order of negative $60/ton in2030 because processing waste locally and turning it intoenergy is far cheaper than sending it to landfills by truck.The GHG reduction potential from it amounts to at least0.8 MtCO2e in 2050.Of the two options, scaling up of anaerobic digestionholds the greatest carbon reduction potential. Initiativeslike backyard and community garden composting are im-portant, particularly to build public awareness, but regu-lar composting fails to capture all of the energy embed-ded in organic waste (which is why composting heapsheat up), whereas AD captures most of it. It also makeseconomic sense: societal cost of carbon reductions is onthe order of negative $60/ton in 2030 because process-ing waste locally and turning it into energy is far cheaperthan sending it to landfills by truck. The GHG reductionpotential from it amounts to at least 0.8 MtCO2e in 2050.RecyclingNon-organic recyclables that end up in landfillscontribute less to the City's Scope 2 emissions %than organics do. This is because of the recy-clables that New York City collects, only paperdecomposes, while metal, glass, and plastic 0[5only contribute to transportation emissions. millonThat said, the real benefit of recycling comes ton,from reducing upstream emissions by temper-ing demand for virgin materials like paper and -$130aluminum that require large amounts of ener- pertongy to produce (aluminum smelters require somuch energy that they are usually sited based on prox-imity to cheap electricity). The avoided emissions fromrecycling far outweigh those emissions that New YorkCity's current carbon inventory would capture.Just like anaerobic digestion, recycling is also attractiveeconomically: the City is currently paying around $60/tonto process metal, glass, and plastic -an almost 50 per-cent reduction from the cost of landfilling, and it is actu-ally earning up to $20/ton for paper. As a result, improv-ing recycling rates can offer cost-negative reductions at acost of around -$130 per ton of carbon.The city's current recycling rate is relatively low com-pared to other major cities which is why such aggres-sive efforts are underway to increase participation. Onlyabout 20 percent of residential waste is recycled. Recy-cling rates in the commercial sector are higher -around46 percent, in part because much of it is paper, which isa valuable commodity. If recycling rates were to increaseto 30 percent on the residential side -which is the City'scurrent 2020 goal -and, very conservatively, stay atleast unchanged on the commercial side, the city couldreduce annual GHG emissions by at least 0.5 MtCO2e by2050.Waste-to-energy conversionApproximately 19 percent of the city's non-recycled residential waste and 7 percent of itsnon-recycled commercial waste travels to con-version facilities in Essex County, New Jerseyrather than to landfills. These facilities utilizehigh temperatures to combust waste and thenuse the heat from the combustion to producesteam, which then powers the turbines thatgenerate electricity.3.9%2.5milliontons-$100per tonA newer technology called plasma gasification is begin-ning to emerge as a viable alternative: in gasification fa-cilities, waste is not combusted, but is rather heated upto such a high temperature that it breaks down into basicmolecules that form synthetic gas (syngas) which is thenused to produce electricity -a cleaner and more efficientway of turning waste into energy. The technology is notyet available in or around New York City, but the plantsare clean enough and can be small enough to potentiallysite them in or near the city and connect them to eitherthe local district heating systems or even potentially thesteam system. Plasma gasification facilities could also beretooled to turn syngas into methane and then export itto the grid or to turn it into liquid fuels.
Soid atSeveral pilots have already been constructed around theU.S. and globally and the technology is becoming morepromising. Although the siting of waste-to-energy facili-ties within or close to the city could be met with oppo-sition from local residents, other cities -most notablyCopenhagen -have successfully integrated small scalewaste-to-energy facilities into their district heating sys-tems, ultimately gaining public acceptance for the idea ofprocessing waste closer to where it is generated.The total potential carbon abatement from plasma gas-ification is 2.5 MtCO2e by 2050, which would enable thewaste sector overall to become a carbon sink -i.e. itwould create a net reduction in the city's overall emis-sions inventory. It is important to note, however, that al-though waste conversion using plasma gasification maybe attractive from a carbon accounting point of view, itshould not become a replacement for waste prevention,recycling, and composting, all of which are preferablefrom an overall environmental standpoint. As with organ-ics processing and recycling, the cost per ton of carbonabated would be negative -around -$1 00/ton in 2030.Low-emission waste transportWaste transport accounts for just 4 percent of the city'ssolid waste emissions. A small share comes from thetrucks that collect waste within the city; the majority isfrom larger long-distance export trucks that travel hun-dreds of miles to landfills out of state because landfillingis cheaper where land values are lower. The City's 2006Solid Waste Management Plan called for transitioning torail and barges for exporting waste as an alternative totrucks and implementation of the plan has already re-duced emissions by 50,000 tons. Transport emissionscould be reduced further through additional mode-shifting or through using more efficient vehicles andcleaner fuels for the long-haul export trucks. Because ofthe small size of the impact of mode-shifting, the exactpotential was not quantified.Capture and reuse of landfill gasAll landfills to which the city exports its waste capturefugitive methane, which they flare, turn to energy, or sellinto the natural gas. The average landfill capture rateis around 85 percent. At landfills within the city, all ofwhich are now capped, generation of methane is declin-ing and methane capture is improving, which in recentyears contributed to a 30,000 tCO2e reduction in emis-sions. While small additional improvements may be pos-sible with better technology, further analysis was notconducted.SNYC's Pathways to Deep Carbon Reductions Soli WChallengesThe solid waste system could one day be nearly carbon-free -but three challenges stand in the way, having todo with choices, incentives, and infrastructure.The right choice is not always the easy choicewithin the existing systemEvery day, eight million New Yorkers make decisionsabout waste -whether to reuse, or recycle, or to com-post, orto send something into a landfill. These decisionscompete with hundreds of others -and if it comes to achoice between putting a water bottle in the trash, re-cycling it, or not buying it in the first place, the simplestoption will often win. Recycling is available, but can becomplicated; composting is thought of as an option foronly the most environmentally minded. And even envi-ronmentalists can be frustrated by resource choices andpackaging decisions that are made upstream, where theconsumer has little influence. As a result, most wasteends up in landfills -even if the people who send it therewould prefer that it did not.Many residents and businesses are not con-cerned and have no incentive to beSome New Yorkers pay enough attention to recycling andcomposting that they will begin to recycle new types ofwaste on the first day a new option is announced. Butothers will express little or know interest in learning newrules or changing behavior. They might benefit from hav-ing more information -but that may not stop them fromfeeling that "green" options are too varied or inconve-nient. They might choose to modify their behavior if theyhad the incentive -but with waste pickup included inthe tax bill, they have few reasons to do so.Infrastructure to support new waste handlingmethods is unavailable locallyNew York City exports most of its waste, and local facili-ties for processing it are in limited supply. The situationimproved this fall with the opening of the Sims RecyclingFacility in South Brooklyn, but more infrastructure is need-ed, particularly for organic waste processing. Small-scale,community- based composting programs are spreadingto Greenmarkets and neighborhood facilities throughoutthe city thanks to a partnership between GrowNYC andthe NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, but thesesites do not offer sufficient processing capacity for a city-wide organic composting effort. Additional processinginfrastructure is expected to come online now that theCity passed legislation that will require large generatorsto divert organic waste from landfills by 2015.
I oid atCapturing the PotentialStrategy 1Making it Easier to Compost and RecycleRecycling in the public realmNew Yorkers can recycle at home and at work-but untilrecently their only option on most city streets was to tosstheir recyclables in garbage cans. In March 2013, MayorBloomberg launched the city's first public space recyclingpilot, inaugurating 30 BigBelly solar-powered recyclingcompactors in Times Square that will serve more than500,000 people who pass through the area every day.Conventional recycling containers are on the way as well:by the end of 2013, the City will place more than 1,000 ofthem around New York. Future efforts to encourage recy-cling would have to continue expanding the availability ofpublic recycling options.Recycling in apartment buildingsMany of the city's apartment dwellers may want to recy-cle but may not know enough about their options or maylack room for separate recycling bins in their buildings.To expand the availability of space for recycling in apart-ment buildings, the Green Codes Task Force-a groupof more than 200 design and real estate professionalsthat were convened by the Urban Green Council at therequest of Mayor Bloomberg and New York City CouncilSpeaker Christine Quinn-recommended that new andfully renovated buildings with more than 12 units includea designated waste and recycling room. This proposalwas enacted into law.Existing buildings without dedicated recycling rooms canstill benefit from better information and simpler recyclingrules. To this end, DSNY recently expanded the recyclingprogram to include for the first time the recycling of allrigid plastics, including toys, hangers, shampoo bottles,coffee cups and food containers, which will reduce confu-sion about which plastic types are recyclable and whichare not. The City also simplified its information materialsand messaging about recycling to educate New Yorkersabout these changes.Composting optionsIn 2013, DSNY started collecting organic waste from sev-eral neighborhoods in Staten Island, Queens and Brook-lyn, picking it up from single- and multi-family homesseveral times a month and delivering it to transfer sta-tions, from where it is sent onward to composting andanaerobic digestion facilities. The program has provensuccessful and is now being expanded to other neighbor-hoods and building types.Strategy 2Changing Behaviors through Education,Challenges and IncentivesImproving marketing and educationIndividual actions can have a huge impact in chang-ing the marketplace. New Yorkers are certainly open tothe idea of changing their behaviors: a recent study byGreeNYC, PlaNYC's public education arm, found that thecity's residents were collectively willing to take simpleactions that could reduce up to 200,000 tons of paper,textile, and food waste per year-2 percent of the city'swaste stream. Converting this willingness into real re-ductions will be challenging. Collection for commercialand residential waste streams operates entirely indepen-dently and this can cause confusion and frustration. Toaddress the issue, the City is already working to improveits educational tools and is working with the commercialwaste sector to achieve consistent messaging; the workwill need to continue.Food waste challengesMayoral Challenges, where several organizations withinan industry are asked to commit to sustainable goals ona voluntary basis have worked well for greenhouse gasemissions -and the model can be expanded to solidwaste. The Mayor's Food Waste Challenge, a voluntarychallenge to the private sector to commit to divert fromlandfills at least 50 percent of the food waste that theygenerate is doing just that. The program requires partici-pants to conduct a baseline waste generation audit andthen use simple tracking techniques to measure divertedwaste on an ongoing basis. It will also be complementedby a professionally branded, "consumer facing" cam-paign that could engage diners and the public to buildawareness and support for organic waste composting. Ahigh-profile group of participants and a successful pro-gram could prove that organic waste diversion is feasi-ble, affordable, and good for business.NYC's Pathways to Deep Carbon Reductions I S l WatPrice signalsWaste collection and export may cost the City hun-dreds of millions of dollars annually, but most New York-ers would not notice since they are not billed directlybut rather indirectly through their tax bills. As a result,households have no monetary incentives -other thanfines for non-compliance -to either recycle more or toreduce the amount of waste they generate. Cities acrossthe country have developed creative solutions to settingprice signals that incentivize waste reduction. For exam-ple, the City of Philadelphia and others have partneredwith private companies to incentivize recycling by pro-viding discounts and gift certificates at leading retailers.Other cities have set direct price signals through Pay-As-You-Throw programs in which homes are charged fornon-recyclable waste they generate, which becomes anincentive to produce less waste. In New York City, imple-menting these programs in multifamily housing could bechallenging; one and two-family homes could presentless of an obstacle.Strategy 3Spurring Action through Mandates andEnforcementTargeted waste reduction measuresAccording to the City's 2005 Waste CharacterizationStudy, paper and, plastic bags represent 3.4 percent ofthe city's residential waste stream, or 120,000 tons ayear. Cities like Dublin and Washington DC have alreadylaunched targeted campaigns to reduce disposable baguse -one program to impose small bag fees succeededin reducing their volume by as much as 90 percent andsignificantly reduced pollution in rivers and water bod-ies. In New York City, similar measures to manage baguse could divert large amounts of waste from landfills ata negligible consumer cost.Organics collection from the largest generatorsThe top 10 percent of food waste generators -largehotels, banquet halls, cafeterias, and food wholesalers-produce approximately 40 percent of organic waste.Policies and programs to introduce organics collectionfor at least these largest generators -including throughmandates-would help jumpstart organics processing. Tothis end, the City recently passed into law a requirementthat large generators of organic waste -those that gen-erate at least one ton per week -divert it from landfillsthrough source separation. When fully enacted in 2015,the law could result in up to 30 percent of the city's or-ganic waste being diverted from landfills while only af-fecting less than 5 percent of businesses that generateorganic waste and less than 0.5 percent of businessesoverall.Diversion of construction and demolition wasteConstruction and demolition accounts for more than aquarter of the city's waste. The City is already addressingthe issue through the Green Codes process: a recentlypassed local law requires at least 30 percent recycled as-phalt in new streets, which will divert up to than 300,000tons of asphalt away from landfills every year. Two moreproposals are moving through City Council: one estab-lishes requirements to recycle C&D waste from construc-tion sites; the other requires a minimum percentage ofrecycled concrete in certain types of building materials.The proposals are expected to be introduced in the firsthalf of 2014.Packaging waste reductionGovernments, corporations and institutions across thecountry have begun to implement "Extended ProducerResponsibility" (EPR) programs that allow large purchas-ing entities to use their buying power to encourage prod-uct suppliers to reduce packaging waste and end of lifedisposal costs without imposing an explicit tax. Theseprograms allow producers to find the most efficientmeans of reducing waste, which can include reuse, buy-back, or recycling, often with the assistance of a thirdparty. These typically occur at the level of states -Cali-fornia's EPR programs have achieved significant reduc-tion in the types and volume of packaging that end up inthe waste stream, for example -but city-level measurescould be just as viable.Recycling enforcementIn 2010, Mayor Bloomberg signed legislation to raise thepenalties for failing to recycle for the first time in overa decade. The new system created tiered penalties de-pending on building size; the penalties increase withbuilding size. As new recycling programs come into ef-fect, strong and effective enforcement will be crucial.
I oidStrategy 4Developing New Infrastructure to SupportBetter Waste DisposalFor years, New York City's waste processing infrastruc-ture was focused on sending waste to landfills quicklyand efficiently -first locally, in places like Fresh Kills, andthen to other nearby states. Recycling infrastructure isbeginning to catch up, but modern waste-to-energy andanaerobic digestion facilities would still need to be con-structed if the city is to achieve its diversion goals andsupport the processing of higher volumes of waste di-verted from landfills as education and incentives beginto take effect.RecyclingThe city's recycling infrastructure is improving: workingin partnership with Sims Metal Management, the City isnow constructing a state-of-the-art recycling facility at theSouth Brooklyn Marine Terminal that will process metal,glass, and an expanded variety of plastics. Another facil-ity key to increasing the diversion rate is the GansevoortMarine Transfer Station, located on the Hudson River indowntown Manhattan. The station, now under construc-tion, will accept metal, glass, and plastic, along with pa-per from residential and commercial sources, and willbecome Manhattan's primary recycling marine transferstation, connecting by barge to the Sims facility and theVisy paper mill in Staten Island. Not only will this allowManhattan to collect and transport its own recyclablesfor the first time, it will also eliminate nearly 14,000 trucktrips per year to the Bronx and New Jersey.Construction of the Gansevoort Station will also allowthe City to convert Manhattan's West 59th Street MarineTransfer Station to the borough's only construction anddemolition transfer facility. This will make it possible forC&D waste to leave Manhattan by barge instead of bytruck, which is how the 400,000 tons of waste generatedby construction activities in Manhattan leave the bor-ough today.Anaerobic digestionAnaerobic digestion would have to play a major role incapturing the abatement potential of organic waste -butno dedicated facilities are yet available anywhere nearNew York City. The closest major organics processingfacility is located in Delaware -but it uses the aeratedwindrow method, which ensures that the waste releasesC02 instead of methane as it decomposes but does notcapture its full energy potential. A pilot AD facility in ornear the city could help improve the economics of com-posting, make it more attractive to local businesses, andbegin to solve the self-reinforcing problem of constrainedprocessing capacity preventing the takeoff of demand,and vice versa.Organics processing at wastewater plantsIf food waste challenges and, down the road, a potentialorganics mandate succeed in generating high enoughfood waste volumes, the private sector will inevitablystep in to offer processing solutions. Yet the necessaryAD infrastructure might take several years to permit andbuild -and in the meantime, processing capacity is read-ily available within the city. Of the city's 14 wastewatertreatment plants, 4 have spare capacity to process upto 560 tons a day of organics, of which 500 tons are atNewtown Creek, the city's newest plant. There, the De-partment of Environmental Protection (DEP) is partner-ing with a private company called Waste Management toprocess up to 60 tons of food waste a day, increasing to250 tons by 2017 as long as all technical challenges areresolved. DEP will also launch a study to examine the eco-nomic and technical feasibility of repairing the digestersthat are currently out of service or even potentially build-ing new ones to handle higher volumes of organic waste.Onsite food waste processingLarge-scale AD facilities are central to processing thecity's organic waste, but not all of the waste needs to bepicked up for processing. Where enough of it is gener-ated in one place, it can be processed locally. Technolo-gies to do so are available and large waste generatorslike produce markets could be possible candidates forpiloting on-site processing of food waste.Waste conversionFully capturing the abatement potential of waste conver-sion through plasma gasification or other comparabletechnologies would require constructing a network offacilities throughout the city -but a pilot would have tobe developed first. A small-scale advanced conversiontechnology facility could serve as a proof concept forNew York City, making it possible to test the economicsSNYC's Pathways to Deep Carbon Reductions I SoldWatof the project, potentially integrate it into local heatingsystems, and develop it into a blueprint that could laterbe used citywide.Strategy 5Improving Solid Waste TransportationTransportation only represents a small proportion of sol-id waste emissions, but opportunities to improve it doexist for both municipal and commercial fleets.Biofuel use in City waste fleetsThe Department of Sanitation has pioneered the useof biodiesel in its fleets and over time this practice hasbeen adopted across agencies. All diesel-powered Cityvehicles now utilize a 5 percent blend of biodiesel (B5)and as of 2016, these vehicles will be required to use B20between the months of April and November. Expandingto higher concentrations of biodiesel in City fleets wouldpresent an opportunity to "close the loop" in solid wastemanagement because biodiesel can be processed fromwaste cooking oil and agricultural by-products at localfacilities.Modernization of private waste fleetsMany of the city's more than 200 commercial cartersoperate trucks that are over 15 years old and inefficientcompared to newer models. Carters will gradually re-place their trucks with models that comply with recentfederal fuel efficiency standards -but the process couldbe accelerated through a mixture of requirements and in-centives, helping reduce not only carbon emissions, butalso emissions of airborne pollutants, which would havea direct positive impact on public health.
I~)0U,0~~19 1111111 I cnm icAayiAbatement Cost-EffectivenessAs described in the preceding chapters, reaching 80 by 50would require a portfolio of actions to reduce carbon acrossall sectors, year in and year out. Many of these measureswould come with an incremental cost or need for upfront in-vestment. However, as long as measures are timed to coin-cide with natural replacement and retrofit cycles, the majoritywould more than pay for themselves because of savings inenergy consumption, solid waste export fees or other op-erational expenditures. At a 4 percent discount rate, thesemeasures would be beneficial from a societal standpoint or, inother words, they would have a "negative-cost."In 2030, for example, nearly 80 percent of carbon abatementmeasures are estimated to be cost-negative. Another 8 per-cent of measures would cost less than $100/ton, and only 12percent cost more than $1 00/ton. As 2050 approaches, moreexpensive measures would eventually need to be implement-ed to achieve an 80 percent reduction, but overall, two-thirdsof measures would be cost-negative.The cost effectiveness of abatement measures would varysignificantly by sector. In the solid waste sector, for example,100 percent of measures would be cost-negative becausethe fees that the City and private companies currently pay forwaste export are so high and diverting waste to recycling andcomposting is nearly guaranteed to save money. Likewise,over 80 percent of abatement measures in buildings wouldbe cost-negative because savings from reduced energy con-sumption would typically exceed upfront costs.In the power sector, however, approximately 95 percent ofmeasures would cost above $1 00/ton.19 This does not includebehind-the-meter technologies such as solar PV, which areassumed to enter the market on an economic basis (e.g. atgrid parity). Large-scale renewables might reduce the needfor fossil fuels in electricity production, but the amount of up-front capital investment they would require would exceed anysavings over time. Nevertheless, achieving 80 by 50 withoutcleaning up the electric grid would be nearly impossible. Butat the same time it is essential to reduce electricity demandas much as possible in order to reduce the amount of cleanpower generation that would need to be built and therefore tominimize costs. (See chart: 2030 Abatement Costs by Sector)I Abatement Potential by Cost per Ton% of total; Metric tons Co-e20207%120%20301 %113205 1 27% 18*<$o/tCO2e>So and <$100/tCO2eM >100/tCO2eSource: NYC Mayor's OfficeRanking abatement measures by their cost effectiveness ona marginal abatement cost curve demonstrates a theoreticalpathway to reach 80 by 50. The lower cost abatement mea-sures like plug load reduction and lighting upgrades-appear-ing on the left hand side of the abatement curve-are tappedfirst and consistently over time as more and more buildingsreplace their equipment on a natural time cycle. In contrast,more expensive measures like electrifying heating systems orbuilding out large-scale renewable energy resources are de-layed until later years when technology costs fall and otherabatement options becomes scarce enough that capturingthis potential becomes necessary. (See graphics: EmissionsAbatement Potential by Year)I 2030 Abatement Costs By Sector% of sectoral abatement: Metric ton CO eBllilcling,TrartspuitaticirSdid ivaste951451.83.52.9Wt*:* 0rd$0/C~-, * /C~* does not include behind the meter technologiesSource: NYC Mayor's OfficeM NYC's Pathways to Deep Carbon Reductions
,I EcnmiI Emissions Abatement Potential; 2020MtCo~eU Solid wasteM TransportPowerM Buildings3002001000100200300400-500-600700B00Off shore windSolar thermalHydropowerWaste conversionBuilding facadesRetcyclIminrgP owerit r a Irimprove meritsis40 45I Central systems and lightingDemand reduc~tionConversion to gabPlug load reductionI Emissions Abatement Potential; 2030MtCo e300200100Ott-shore windSolar thermi;!HydropowerBuligfacadesOrganic waste processingAlternative fuelsWaste conversionPowertrainmproveientsPecyc tngM Solid wastea TransportPowerI Buildings35 40 45-100-200300-400-500-60o-700-0o0Central systems and lightingIN Demand reductiolnPlug load reductionConversion to gasI Emissions Abatement Potential; 2050MtCo~e2001000-100200Organic-300 RecyclingWaste conversi400000-600 Conversion to pasCentral systems and lighting-700Solar PV-00d-900 Plog load redortion* Solid wasteN TransportPowetBuildings electrilrratior, I BuildingsOff shore windHydr opower IAlternative fuels40 45ISolar thermalBuilding facadeswaste proc essngonSource: NYC Mayor's Office I1 Ecnmc nlChanges to Capital and OperationalExpenditure FlowsTo achieve 80 by 50 would require billions of dollars of incre-mental capital investment. Over the next twenty years, themajority of this incremental investment would go towards en-ergy efficiency retrofits in buildings. Investments in clean powerwould ramp up after 2030, while incremental spending on moreefficient and less polluting transportation would be smaller butsteady throughout the next several decades. The effect of theseinvestments would be felt in the near term as buildings beginto utilize less electicity natural gas and liquid fuels, and as ve-hicles become more efficient. As a result, annual savings on op-erational expenditures (opex) would exceed the required annualcapital investments by 2020. By the 2030s, the annual savingswould equal more than $6 billion a year. (See chart: Changes inAnnual Capital Spending and Opex)The amount of capital investments required -$1 billion a year in2015 and scaling up to more than $4 billion a year by the 2030s-is comparable to the entire capital investment programs of ConEdison or the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP),the city's water and sewer utility. However, the number needs tobe seen in the context of citywide investments that occur everyyear in the course of normal construction and activity. In 2012,I Changes to Annual Capital Investment Flows by Sector$ billionsI Solid wasteN TransportationPower8,3* Buildings 6.25.3 m 4.64.8 1.90.827 0-0.22015 2020 20252030 2035 2040 2045 2050Source: NYC Mayor's OfficeChanges to Annual Opex Flows by Sector under 80 by 50 BAU$ billionsW* Solid wasteE TransportationfoDNipeIr example, more than $30 billion was spent on construction in Power 164ew York City;, an additional $4 billion a year would represent 13 N Buildings 146ercent of this amount. 13 0Changes in Annual Capital Spending and Opex 1O2$ billions; net difference in bold IM*Capex spending 6.7NOpex savings 3.70. II -1. :W K IEIIII2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045Source: NYC Mayor-8.2-1018312050's Office2015 2020 2025 2030 2035 2040 2045 2050Source: NYC Mayor's OfficeMNYC's Pathways to Deep Carbon Reductions Ecnmi nayiI Changes to Energy Demand on the 80 by 50 Pathway vs. BAUIndexed to 201o-Business as usual.80x5o pathway--Box 5o pathway withbuilding electrificationElectricity140Gasoline+33%12010 0 ----- ---- ---- ---- --- ----------80-60-36%402002010 2020 2030 2040 2050Natural gas14012010080 -35%4020 -73%02010 2020 2030 2040 2050Oil14012010080N -21%60140+28%120 ,100-- ---------- ----------80 S 27%40200 -90%2010 2020 2030 2040 2050Changes to Energy DemandReductions in energy demand would be the primarydriver of operational savings in the economy. Electricitydemand would initially drop as buildings become moreefficient, but recover partially as vehicles (and potentiallybuilding heating systems) electrify. By 2050, electricitydemand would be 12 to 36 percent below 2012 levelsdepending on how many buildings electrify. Gasolinedemand is expected to drop even under the businessas usual case because of aggressive federal standardsto improve automobile efficiency-Corporate AverageFuel Economy or CAFE standards. On the 80 by 50 path-way, gasoline demand would decline even faster due toan accelerated switch to electric vehicles, reaching a 7340200-79%2010 2020 2030 2040 2050Source: NYC Mayor's Officepercent reduction from today's levels by 2050. Naturalgas demand would first increase to accommodate build-ings moving away from heavy fuel oils and then gradu-ally drop as investment in energy efficiency grows. Theextent of declining natural gas demand by 2050 woulddepend on how widespread electrification of buildings is,but it would exceed 25 percent and could be much high-er. Demand for heating oil is also expected to drop in thebusiness as usual (BAU) case because of the current pac-ing of oil-to-gas conversions, as well as the competitiveeconomics of natural gas, but demand reductions couldexceed 70 percent by 2050 on the abatement pathway.(See chart: Changes to Energy Demand on the 80 by 50pathway vs. BAU)
Ecno i AnlyiI Employment Impacts by TypeThousands; by type of impact25 -Net impactLong term shift in competitivenessU Capital expenditures20 U Opportunity cost of local spendingI Jobs Created Through Capital Expenditure, by SectorThousands1510509876543210* WasteE Transportation* BuildingsPower-520152020 202520302015 2020 2025 2030Source: NYC Mayor's OfficeImpact on Local EconomyThe changes to the patterns of capital investment and op-erational expenditures would impact the economy directly:jobs would be created in some sectors and lost in others,personal income would increase, and gross regional productwould grow. The economic impact, only estimated through2030 due to the level of uncertainty past that date, wouldoccur via three main channels:* Direct impact of capital expenditures: Capital invest-ment directly creating jobs in construction and relatedsectors" Opportunity cost of local spending: The diversion ofspending from other sectors to pay for the investmentin (1) leads to negative economic impacts in other sec-tors of the economy" Long-term shift in competitiveness: Decrease in en-ergy use resulting from capital investment helps tolower production costs and make the economy morecompetitive in the long termThe jobs impact from the combination of these three chan-nels would be positive: by 2030, the 80 by 50 pathway couldcreate up to 18,000 jobs -mainly because the economywould become more competitive. While the direct job cre-ation spurred by capital investment would be offset bySource: NYC Mayor's Officelosses in other sectors, the resulting energy savings fromcapital investments would have enough of an impact on theeconomy's production costs to create thousands of net-newjobs over the next two decades. (See chart: EmploymentImpacts by Type)Capital expenditures in buildings would play the most im-portant role in the creation of jobs, contributing between60 and 80 percent of all the new jobs. Power investmentswould account for most of the remaining job benefits,with solar PV installations contributing the most and off-shore wind playing a role as well. The employment im-pact of transportation and solid waste measures wouldbe negligible. (See chart: Jobs Created Through CapitalExpenditure, by Sector)Gross regional product (GRP) -or the measure of thestrength of the region's economy -would benefit as well.By 2030, GRP would increase by nearly $1.9 billion a year.Investments in buildings, again, would provide the greatestcontribution. Investments in cleaner power, on the otherhand, would lead to losses because of its relatively highercosts. Personal income levels would experience similar ef-fects, with cost savings from using less energy more thanoffsetting the higher prices consumers would pay for clean-er energy -leading to a net increase in income of $2.2 bil-lion a year by 2030.MNYC's Pathways to Deep Carbon Reductions Economic Disruptions of Carbon AbatementImpact on Energy Sector JobsEvery year, New Yorkers spend almost $30 billion on energy-approximately $11 billion on electricity, $10 billion on natu-ral gas and liquid fuels in buildings, and $8 billion on trans-portation fuels. Part of this spending goes towards the ex-traction and refining of fossil fuels, which takes place outsideof New York Cit, but other parts support local jobs- 20,000in total, or 0.2 percent of the city's total 2011 private sectoremployment of 3.1 million. More than half of these jobs arein electricity distribution (primarily Con Edison); the rest arein naurlgas dsrbuin fuel ditibto, and retai gaso-line operations (See chart: Energy Sector Employment InNew York City).On the 80 by 50 pathway, the 12,500 jobs in power transmis-sion and would be relatvely unaffected. Thecitywould still have to malntain its electrical grid regardless ofchanges to either demand or the carbon intensity of electric-it The 500 jobs in power generation would be unaffectedby 2030 -gas-fired power plants would still be playing aprominent role -but by 2050, the importance of gas-firedgwould decline, and at least some of those jobswould likely shift to other power generation technologies.The 2,300 jobs in natural gas distribution would remain rel-atively unaffected as well -just as with electricity, the cityEnergy Sector Employment in New York CityThousands: based on NAICS-6 classification; 201114would still have to maintain its natural gas grid, though de-mand for natural gas would likely fall off because of energyefficiency and building electrification. Businesses servingthe gasoline marketplace -4,400 jobs in all -would likelyfeel the Impact of decarbonizatlon the most. Some of thesebusinesses would reorient their services (gas stations, forexample, could add EV charging); some would go out ofbusiness.Impact on Lower Income Residents and EnergyIntensive BusinessesPursuing 80 by 50 could also have equity implications: totalenergy costs might drop for the city overall, but electrcityprices would Increase, affecting energy intensive manufac-turing and residents who live on fixed income or low wages.Both cases would call for some form of assistance -and thenecessary programs may already exist.Manufacturing no longer accounts for as many New YorkCity jobs as it used to- but Industrial companies still employtens of thousands of New Yorkers. These companies wouldstand to benefit less from energy efficiency than, for exam-pie, office buildings. Two existing programs administeredby the New York City Economic Development Corporation,BIR (the Business Incentive Rate), and NYCPUS the NewYork City Public Utility Service), have for years been provid-ing discounts and rebates of up to 20 percent to local manu-facturers. These and similar programs could be used tohpenergy intnsv buiese miigt th Imat of hgeelectricity prices rltdt eabnzto in ordrtomain-tain competitiveness of local Aspreviously, decarbonization would ideally occurat a nationalor at least regional scale in order to level the playing field,so that New York City's industries are not disproportionatelyimpacted.1312111098765432101;>:city residents that live on fixed incomes or low wages couldbenefit from energy effici meay if they were ableto partake in them, but practical obstacles could limit up-14. take and help would be required to mitigate cost of living1.4 Fuel dealers Impacts. NYSERDA's EmPower New York program providesincome-elIgible New Yorkers with energy efficiency services3.0 Gas stations forno cost, while the NewYorkState ofand Community Renewal provides free and low-cost weath-erization services through its network of contractors. Thefined federalfUldd L Iyoductsistics; NYC Mayor's Office costs of home heating. These programs could betto help residents cope with higher power prices that resultfrom switching to a lower carbon grid.Electricity Natural gas Redistribution proSource: Bureau of Labor Stat 0IA Next StepsVi $1 IfII l I Next StepsI GHG Emissions PathwaysMetric tons Co e; % reduction vs. 2005 in a give year50 --Historic Reduction--30x3o Pathway-- 8ox5o Pathway40 20 0-0200520122020203020402050Source: NYC Mayor's OfficeEven though the exact shape of a low-carbon city is un-certain today -and the 80 by 50 goal itself may well betoo aggressive for a relatively efficient city like New York-the city has both the tools and the momentum to ac-celerate carbon reduction efforts this decade. As the cityis now close to two-thirds of the way to the PlaNYC 30percent greenhouse gas reduction goal, it could consideraccelerating the target date for reaching the goal, from2030 to 2020. Doing so could put New York City on atrajectory to achieve 80 by 50 while maintaining focus onwhat is achievable today.To reach a 30 percent reduction, emissions would needto fall another 6.4 million tons below 2012 levels. If theCity aggressively implements and strategically expandsseveral existing initiatives it could achieve the 6.4 mil-lion ton reduction within this decade. These reductionactions are focused on the buildings, transportation andwaste sectors. Given the long-lead times and expenseof projects it is not assumed that any major abatementswill accrue from the power sector. However, severalpromising near-term opportunities exist and couldbe pursued in tandem with the hope of providing anI Citywide CO e Emissions Reduction SummaryMtCOze555ff454030-------------- ---- 414---36 51e2ý(005f v~o (020 2 00 fons Addtlitoff0 fileredwftfons jibmoed edurtions edued2030 C02e targetSource: NYC Mayor's OfficeSNYC's Pathways to Deep Carbon Reductions NetStpadditional buffer to achieve 30 by 20. The following sec-tion briefly describes these possible efforts.Achieving 30 by 20 will require tremendous effort andconsistent reductions of 2 percent per year through theend of the decade. This will not be easy, but New Yorkersstand to gain along the way. Reducing energy consump-tion in buildings will lower operational expenses andGHG Reduction Potential of Existing and New PoliciesSector and GHG reduction potentialcreate jobs. Converting to cleaner fuels in buildings andelectrifying or using biodiesel in vehicles will improveair quality. And diverting waste from landfills will savecity residents and businesses on waste export costs andcould promote local industries. These and other mea-sures could reinforce and strengthen New York City'sglobal leadership in responding to climate change, whilemaking the city more competitive, livable, and resilient.Sector and measureGHG reduction potential04XL.LJIII Energy code tightening and enforcement2 Oil to gas conversionsMayor's Carbon ChallengeCity government energy efficiencyOrganic waste -anaerobic digestion40 Expanded recyclingPower reductions couldcontribute another 1.5 Mt103.0 Mttotal0.50.5040.21/3 taxi electrification 0-Biofuels for City fleet <0.1Citywide vehicle electrification 02* Buildings energy efficiency accelerator 13o.6 Mttotal0.3 Mttotal1 Biofuels for building fuels0.9 2.5 Mttotal0.3I Carbon Challenge expansionTotal captured64Power, not counted towards main reductions, would add 1.5 MT1 Canadian hydro1,000 MWOffshore wind2 350 MWSolar buildout3 300 MW0.241.10
- Support transmissionriting in PSC process" Work with NYPA and State to accelerate pilotproject" Reform solar interconnect rules and incentiveso.18Total: 1.5 MtSource: NYC Mayor's Office Emissions Abatement and Climate ResiliencyEven as the City works to reduce greenhouse gas emis-sions, the climate is still changing, and the climate risksthat the city has always faced are becoming worse. How-ever, the very strategies that help reduce emissions canalso make the city more resilient.Storm surges and heat waves are the two most impor-tant climate risks for New York City. Both struck in recentyears, and both affected the city's energy infrastructure:Hurricane Sandy left 800,000 customers in the dark anddevastated liquid fuels supply infrastructure in 2012, Hur-ricane Irene came close to shutting down the electric gridin 2011, and intense heat waves led to highest-ever pe-riods of peak demand in the summers of 2012 and 2013-though the electric grid held up relatively well in bothcases.These risks will intensify: according to the New York CityPanel on Climate Change, a scientific advisory body thatMayor Bloomberg originally convened in 2008, by the2050s, sea levels around New York City could rise by asmuch as 2.5 feet, and heat waves would become a farmore regular occurrence, with more than 50 days everyyear above 900F, compared to less than 20 today.In this context, any strategy that reduces emissions byreducing energy demand and diversifying its sources canhelp make the city more resilient to storm surge and heatwave-related disruptions to energy supply infrastructure.Measures that advance building energy efficiency, pro-mote distributed generation, and increase the penetra-tion of electric vehicles help do just that.Building energy efficiency measures reduce baselineelectricity demand -and that alleviates the strain on theelectric grid during periods of high demand that occurduring heat waves. To mitigate the consequences of heatwaves, utilities rely on programs that pay large custom-ers to reduce their demand if necessary (called demandresponse), but an 8 percent reduction in citywide elec-tricity demand achieved through energy efficiency wouldprovide double the demand reduction available throughdemand response programs today and obviate the needfor hundreds of millions of dollars in spending to upgradethe electric distribution system that would otherwise berequired. An additional benefit of energy efficiency is thatif outages do occur, more efficient buildings can remaincomfortably habitable longer because it takes longer forthem to heat up in summer or cool down in winter.Distributed generation systems allow customers to pro-duce their own electricity -including when the grid isdown. Properly installed combined heat and power sys-tems and fuel cells -both running on natural gas -cansupply buildings with enough electricity to operate nor-mally even if the electric grid is completely down. Smallerscale distributed generation systems -primarily rooftop-mounted solar panels -usually cannot cover a build-ing's electricity needs during an outage, but if properlyinstalled, they could provide enough energy to operateat least several lights and power outlets in a typical oneor two-family home.Electric vehicles lessen the city's dependence on liquidfuels for mobility at the cost of greater reliance on theelectric grid -but the electric grid is generally more reli-able in the face of storm surges than the liquid fuels infra-structure is. They also make it possible to provide powerto one or two-family homes during power outages: a fullycharged EV with a 26 kwh battery could power a one ortwo-family home for at least a day, as long as the home ispre-wired to be able to connect to the vehicle. In the nextfew years, once the necessary interconnection standardsare developed, EVs might also be able to help shave peakload, feeding their stored energy back into the grid dur-ing periods of high demand.These and other strategies are discussed in detail in thecontext of resiliency in PlaNYC: A Stronger, More Resil-ient New York, a 438-page report that Mayor Bloomberglaunched in the aftermath of Sandy and released on June11, 2013. The report puts forward more than 200 initia-tives to protect New York City's residents, buildings, andinfrastructure from climate threats today and in the fu-ture and is available online at nyc.gov/resiliency.S
I ~g ApedieAppendix: AssumptionsAssumptions used to evaluate the emissions reductionpotential throughout this study include the following in-formation below.Population and economyPopulation, employment, and GDP growth figures weretaken from the New York Metropolitan TransportationCouncil (NYMTC) forecasts for 2010-2030 and 2031-2040.This information was proportionally adapted to forecastfigures through 2050. On average: population growthincreases at 0.4 percent annually; employment increas-es at 0.8 percent annually; and GDP grows at 3 percentannually.Energy consumptionAccording to Consolidated Edison, Inc. Annual EnergyOutlook, annual energy demand grows by 0.7 percentfor electricity, 0.7 percent for natural gas, 0.1 percent ayear for steam, and -0.8 percent a year for oil. 2031-2050growth across energy sources is driven by growth inresidential and nonresidential floor space, or residentialcompound annual growth (CAGR) of 0.3 percent and non-residential CAGR of 0.4 percent.Energy consumption figures for the report presumesno new energy efficiency policies, programs, nor useof current technologies. Additionally, GHG emissionsreductions from the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan andthe Green Codes Task Force were not taken into account.BuildingsPopulation growth drove an increase in residential squarefootage from 3.6 billion sq ft in 2010, and is expected torise to 3.9 billion sq ft in 2030. By holding the 2010 sqft per capita figure constant, a 2050 square footage of4.1 billion sq. ft. is projected. For nonresidential squarefootage, holding the 2010 figure of 1.8 billion sq ft con-stant, square footage for 2030 and 2050 is projected forincreases of 1.9 billion and 2.1 billion sq ft, respectively.Although building stock is divided into low and high risecategories, new growth was evenly allocated betweenthe two groups. For low rise buildings, an additional im-pact of demolition is included; 0.6 percent of buildingsare demolished annually, which translates into an aver-age building lifetime of less than 150 years. With the oc-currence of low rise demolitions, the 2050 share of highrise buildings increases.Climate changeAccording to the New York City Panel on Climate Change,average temperatures may rise up to 3 degrees Fahren-heit by 2050.OtherOther analysis includes the following assumptions:* Waste per capita remains constant, according to theNew York City Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planningand Sustainability (OLTPS).* NYMTC forecasts also include an increase in vehiclemiles traveled by 17 percent.* All non-City measures currently in place take effect,such as Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE)standards, electricity grid upgrades, and transit sys-tem upgrades from the NYMTC Regional Transporta-tion Plan.MNYC's Pathways to Deep Carbon Reductions I AppedicsEndnotes1. Compared to 2005 levels.2. RCPs, or Representative Concentration Pathways,are an evolution of the IPCC's approach to forecast-ing emissions. Instead of trying to develop emis-sions scenarios from economic and social ones, theRCP approach develops carbon pathways first; fromthose, economic and social scenario combinationscan be derived if necessary.3. 2010, an EU nonprofit had already set a precedentfor releasing a comprehensive study of this type:Roadmap 2050, a report funded by the EuropeanClimate Foundation, analyzed the technical potentialand costs of deep union-wide emissions reductions,with a particular focus on the energy sector. In 2013,a study by Urban Green Council, the New York Chap-ter of the U.S. Green Buildings Council called "90x50"examined the technical potential for deep carbon re-ductions in New York City, focusing most heavily onbuildings and finding that even with existing technol-ogy, such reductions indeed appear possible in thelong term. Also in 2013, a study by the InternationalEnergy Agency drew renewed attention to the issueat the global level by suggesting that targeted en-ergy efficiency measures, partial phase-out of coal-fired power plants, reduction in fugitive emissionsfrom fossil fuel production, and a partial phase-out offossil fuel subsidies could stop the growth in world-wide emissions by 2020 at no net cost to the globaleconomy."ROADMAP 2050." Roadmap 2050. N.p., n.d. Web.31 Dec. 2013. <http://www.roadmap2050.eu/projectVroadmap-2050#>."90 By 50: NYC Can Reduce its Carbon Footprint 90%By 2050." Urban Green Council. Urban Green Coun-cil, 14 Feb. 2013. Web. 31 Dec. 2013. <http://www.urbangreencouncil.org/servlet/servlet.FileDownload?file=01 5UOOOOOOOnD3r>."Redrawing the Energy-Climate Map." World EnergyOutlook Special Report. N.p., 10 June 2013. Web.31 Dec. 2013. <http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/media/weowebsite/2013/energyclimatemap/Re-drawingEnergyClimateMap.pdf>.4. In the energy sector, fugitive emissions are mostlycaused by methane escaping from gas pipelines andby sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)-a highly potent GHGthat utilities used for insulation in the past--leakingfrom electric equipment.5. Scope 1 and 2 only.6. Although it is possible to assess these impactsthrough 2050, the usefulness of this analysis is lim-ited by the very long time horizon, which becomesmore of a constraint in economic modeling than inthe estimation of technical reduction potential.7. Full abatement potential would be achieved by 2050,but unless otherwise noted cost per ton is for 2030given greater cost uncertainty in the outer years.8. Cost per ton value shown is for 2050, since heatpumps do not play a significant abatement role in2050.9. The potential for having GSHPs replace cooling loadswas not estimated given the added costs of integrat-ing them into building cooling systems -particularlyif cooling is provided by packaged terminal air con-ditioners (PTACs) installed directly in windows andwalls.10. In the Bronx and in Manhattan, the forecast adoptionrates could be 15 percent and 10 percent respec-tively, mostly from standing column systems servinglow-rise buildings. In Staten Island, the rate could behigher: 25 percent served by open loop and standingcolumn systems. In Queens and Brooklyn, the ratescould be up to 35 percent and limited only by theneed to balance heat extracted from the aquifer inwinter and returned for cooling in summer.11. Approximately 50 percent of New York City's build-ings use steam radiators for heat, with the balancebeing hydronic, forced air, and electric window units.Air source heat pumps can integrate with most hy-dronic and forced air heating systems at a negligiblecost. Integration with steam radiators is prohibitivelyexpensive, but it can be bypassed at least in residen-tial applications through replacing PTACs directly,where ASHPs -unlike GSHPs -could provide coolingas well for no added cost.12. 2050 cost.
Appendic13. A 20 MW Goteborg Energi facility in Sweden is underconstruction, a 12 MW unit sponsored by the EnergyResearch Centre of the Netherlands is in planning,and a 200 MW plant by E.ON, also in Sweden, is tar-geted for a 2015 completion.14. This number does not take into account the impactof shifting car passengers onto trains, which is wasbeyond the scope of this exercise.15. "Congestion Pricing: A Primer." Federal Highway Ad-ministration Publications. U.S. Department of Trans-portation Federal Highway Administration, n.d. Web.31 Dec. 2013. <http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/congestionpricing/congestionpricing.pdf>.16. "Opportunities for Reducing Surface EmissionsThrough Surface Movement Optimization." Techni-cal Report #: ICAT-2008-7. MIT International Centerfor Air Transportation (ICAT) Department of Aeronau-tics & Astronautics Massachusetts Institute of Tech-nology, n.d. Web. 31 Dec. 2013. <http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1 721.1/66491 /Balakrishnan-ICAT-2008-07.pdfsequence=l >.17. Residential waste is at least 41 percent recyclableand 40 percent compostable18. Excludes fill.19. This does not include solar energy, which is consid-ered a demand-side or building sector measure.MNYC's Pathways to Deep Carbon Reductions AppeniceThis page left blank intentionally.
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