Research by the Rapid Decarbonization Initiative

Peer-reviewed journal articles, working papers, and other publications apply Stanford’s interdisciplinary strengths in engineering, economics, business, and energy policy to increase global knowledge of low-carbon energy technologies.

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Working Paper

Fair Market Value of Used Capacity Assets: Forecasts for Repurposed Electric Vehicle Batteries

Amadeus Bach, Simona Onori, Stefan J. Reichelstein, Jihan Zhuang
July2025

Responding to economic and environmental pressures, a growing number of companies seek to repurpose products (assets) that retain functional capacity beyond their initial first life. This paper examines a generic valuation model for used capacity…

Working Paper

An Accounting Architecture for CO2-Statements

Stefan J. Reichelstein, Amadeus Bach, Christoph Ernst, Gunther Glenk
June2025

It remains a continuing challenge for companies worldwide to reliably assess the greenhouse gas emissions incurred in connection with their operations. Here we argue that financial accounting offers an architectural template for corporate carbon…

Working Paper

Policy Support for Electrolytic Hydrogen: Impact of Alternative Carbon Accounting Rules

Gunther Glenk, Philip Holler, Stefan J. Reichelstein
June2025

Governments worldwide have recently launched policy support programs for hydrogen, where the level of support is to be tied to the carbon intensity of the hydrogen produced. Here we analyze the impact of alternative accounting rules for assessing…

Working Paper

Constructing Carbon Abatement Cost Curves

Gunther Glenk, Rebecca Meier, Stefan J. Reichelstein
May2025

Companies across industries face increasing pressure to assess the costs of decarbonizing their operations. This paper develops a generic model for constructing abatement cost curves in connection with carbon dioxide emissions. The resulting…

Working Paper

Assessing the Costs of Industrial Decarbonization

Gunther Glenk, Rebecca Meier, Stefan J. Reichelstein
August2024

Companies in various industries are under growing pressure to assess the costs of decarbonizing their operations. This paper develops a generic abatement cost concept to identify the cost-efficient combination of technological and operational…

Working Paper

Fair Market Valuation of Electric Vehicle Batteries in Second Life Applications

Amadeus Bach, Simona Onori, Stefan J. Reichelstein, Jihan Zhuang
August2024

The rapidly growing number of lithium-ion battery packs deployed in electric vehicles (EVs) entails enormous economic potential for used EV batteries to be redeployed in a second life application, e.g., for behind-the-meter stationary energy…

Journal Article

Corporate Carbon Accounting: Balance Sheets and Flow Statements

Stefan J. Reichelstein
Review of Accounting Studies July2024 Vol. 29

Current corporate disclosures regarding carbon emissions lack commonly accepted accounting rules. The carbon accrual accounting system described here takes the rules of historical cost accounting for operating assets as a template for generating…

Working Paper

Do Mergers and Acquisitions Improve Efficiency? Evidence from Power Plants

Mert Demirer, Ömer Karaduman
July2024

Using rich data on hourly physical productivity and thousands of ownership changes from U.S. power plants, we study the effects of acquisitions on efficiency and underlying mechanisms. We find a 2% average increase in efficiency for acquired…

Working Paper

The Gas Trap: Outcompeting Coal vs. Renewables (R&R, JPE)

Bård Harstad, Katinka Holtsmark
July2024

We analyze a fundamental dilemma and time-inconsistency problem facing a climate coalition producing natural gas. In the short term, it is tempting to export more to outcompete coal. When this policy is anticipated, however, investments in…

Journal Article

Advances in Power-to-Gas Technologies: Cost and Conversion Efficiency

Gunther Glenk, Philip Holler, Stefan J. Reichelstein
Energy & Environmental Science November2023

Widespread adoption of hydrogen as an energy carrier is widely believed to require continued advances in Power-to-Gas (PtG) technologies. Here we provide a comprehensive assessment of the dynamics of system prices and conversion efficiency for…