In this week’s episode, Daniel Raimi talks with Erin Mayfield, a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University. Mayfield is part of a team of researchers that recently released a report titled “Net-Zero America,” which lays out a variety of pathways for the United States to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. In the conversation, Mayfield discusses key findings from the report, including how much the transition might cost, how much new infrastructure we’ll need to build, what effects we might see on energy sector employment, and the models the team used to generate these results—including a discussion of the limitations of models in addressing complex social issues.

References and recommendations:

“Net-Zero America” by Eric Larson, Chris Greig, Jesse Jenkins, Erin Mayfield, Andrew Pascale, Chuan Zhang, Joshua Drossman, Robert Williams, Steve Pacala, Robert Socolow, Ejeong Baik, Rich Birdsey, Rick Duke, Ryan Jones, Ben Haley, Emily Leslie, Keith Paustian, and Amy Swan; https://acee.princeton.edu/rapidswitch/projects/net-zero-america-project/

“The Foxes” painting by German expressionist artist Franz Marc; https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/the-foxes/dwF1pkUhw9uZpg

The art of Erin Mayfield’s eight-year-old nephew, Vinny

“Accelerating Decarbonization of the U.S. Energy System” from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, by Stephen W. Pacala, Colin Cunliff, Danielle Deane-Ryan, Kelly Sims Gallagher, Julia Haggerty, Christopher T. Hendrickson, Jesse D. Jenkins, Roxanne Johnson, Timothy C. Lieuwen, Vivian Loftness, Clark A. Miller, William A. Pizer, Varun Rai, Ed Rightor, Esther Takeuchi, Susan F. Tierney, and Jennifer Wilcox; https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25932/accelerating-decarbonization-of-the-us-energy-system