Renewable portfolio standard

Two low-cost policies can jump-start this shift a renewable portfolio standard (rps) and a cap on co2 emissions in the electricity sector. An rps that requires 20 percent of U.S. electricity to be renewable by 2020 has very little net cost to the country and the huge benefit of reducing future natural gas prices.4 Under such an rps, electricity prices would be lower in 2020 than they are today, according to a 2001 study by the Energy Information Administration.5 Caps on electric utility emissions of sulfur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, and mercury have been proposed by many policy makers because they will dramatically improve air quality and save the lives of tens of thousands of Americans. Analysis by the epa has shown that a relatively modest additional cap on grid co2 emissions—returning to 2001 levels by 2013—would add a mere two-tenths of a penny per kilowatt-hour in 2020, about 3 percent of electricity costs.6... 

Tamminen did not structure the whole plan around any particular technology. Instead, he chose a renewable portfolio standard —a smorgasbord approach that used both mandates and market-based methods, an embodiment of his often repeated refrain There are no silver bullets for climate change, only silver buckshot. We have to... 

Some 18 states, including Texas, and the District of Columbia have Renewable Portfolio Standard requirements in state law that require minimum purchases of qualifying clean energy to be obtained by electric suppli-... 

In South Korea, the Renewable Portfolio Standard that will come into effect in 2012 demands an increasing share of power generated from renewable sources and fuel cells. It is estimated that the impact of the RPS will be an annual installation of renewable generation capacity including fuel cells of more than 300 MW in 2012 and reaching more than 900 MW toward the end of the decade. 

Portfolio Standard - The requirement that an electric power utility generate or purchase a specified percentage of the power it supplies/sells from renewable energy resources, and thereby guarantee a market for electricity generated from renewable energy resources. 

Materials (ASTM).94 In addition, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory95 (NREL) has developed and validated a collection of standard laboratory analytical procedures specifically for the compositional analysis of biomass including, but going beyond those of the ASTM. These wet chemical methods of analysis are based on the fractionation of the biomass sample and the isolation of purified fractions that can be quantified using conventional analytical instruments.96 These methods are primarily used in feedstock-specific portfolios containing analysis methods for each of the relevant constituents. In most cases, these portfolios enable the identification and quantification of greater than 95 percent of the dry mass of biomass feedstock and biomass-derived materials. 

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