Clifford reported in late December, 2022 that generating electricity to power homes and businesses is a significant contributor to climate change. In the United States, one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions come from electricity production, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Solar panels are set up in the solar farm at the University of California in Merced, California
[Note that dust is covering the panels, requiring more O&M and $ to keep the efficiency stable.]
- The technology to generate electricity with renewable resources like wind and solar has existed for decades.
- So why isn't the electric grid already 100% renewable?
- Technologies like batteries and transmission lines would need to be scaled up dramatically.
- There would also have to be profound cultural and political shifts with an eye toward solving tomorrow's problems, instead of maintaining the status quo.
Solar panels and wind farms can generate electricity without releasing any greenhouse gas emissions. Nuclear power plants can too, although today's plants generate long-lasting radioactive waste, which has no permanent storage repository. [Note: Misinformation is being spread here...there is no used fuel (waste issues, see Conca (more).
But the U.S. electrical sector is still dependent on fossil fuels. In 2021, 61 percent of electricity generation came from burning coal, natural gas, or petroleum. Only 20 percent of the electricity in the U.S. came from renewables, mostly wind energy, hydropower and solar energy, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Another 19 percent came from nuclear power.
The contribution from renewables has been increasing steadily since the 1990s, and the rate of increase has accelerated. For example, wind power provided only 2.8 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 1990, doubling to 5.6 billion in 2000. But from there, it skyrocketed, growing to 94.6 billion in 2010 and 379.8 billion in 2021. That's progress, but it's not happening fast enough to eliminate the worst effects of climate change for our descendants.
"We need to eliminate global emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050," philanthropist and technologist Bill Gates wrote in his 2023 annual letter. "Extreme weather is already causing more suffering, and if we don't get to net-zero emissions, our grandchildren will grow up in a world that is dramatically worse off."
And the problem is actually bigger than it looks.
"We need not just to create as much electricity as we have now, but three times as much," says Saul Griffith, an entrepreneur who's sold companies to Google and Autodesk and has written books on mass electrification. To get to zero emissions, all the cars and heating systems and stoves will have to be powered with electricity, said Griffith. Electricity is not necessarily clean, but at least it it can be, unlike gas-powered stoves or gasoline-powered cars.
The technology to generate electricity with wind and solar has existed for decades. So why isn't the electric grid already 100% powered by renewables? And what will it take to get there?
[Read on .... the article presents the standard talking points that optimize wind and solar, while minimizing or even misrepresenting nuclear power. But reality remains. Neither solar nor wind are sturdy enough to provide the need power in the future. Only nuclear power will meet the needs.]
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