Wade Shepard reports for Forbes about a new study released by two Chinese advisory groups, the National Center for Climate Strategy (NCSC) and Energy Research Institute (ERI). The groups used Energy Innovation’s Energy Policy Simulator to measure the combined effects of 35 different climate, energy, and environmental policies across more than 10,000 scenarios.

The result? The report found that by switching to renewable power, improving efficiency of buildings, automobiles, and appliances, and the continued shift from heavy industries to services, China can continue to cut emissions without spending more than it would to maintain its “smoggy status quo,” as Shepard puts it.

“We looked at the costs of doing all these improvements vs. energy savings, and the upshot is that they can move to a very rapid reduction of CO2 emissions at essentially zero costs,” Hal Harvey, the CEO of Energy Innovation, explained to Forbes. “The trade off is slightly more capital costs vs. reduced operating costs. If you include health costs in there with burning coal, they are paying very dearly for inefficiency today. But without even considering health benefits, it’s on the whole cheaper to move to efficient renewables compared to fossil fuel alternatives.”

The simulator, peer-reviewed by academic institutions including MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, as well as various Chinese research groups, is open source and open access. Try it out for yourself here.

Image: Wind power plants in Xinjiang, China | Image Credit: 林 慕尧 / Chris Lim