Julian Spector reports that it might be technically feasible, but that does not mean it is the best plan to pursue. But it is not clear that a U.S. energy grid based on 100 percent renewables is the best way to achieve a zero-carbon future. On the contrary, there is a strong environmentalist case for approaching that goal with caution. Limiting a zero-carbon future to wind, water, and solar means greater costs of storing this energy, discarding other existing zero-carbon sources like nuclear, and generally blanketing the earth with panels and turbines as a means to save it, plus likely greater actual cost to produce the electricity because of the O and M involved.
As primary energy sources advanced from firewood to coal to natural gas to nuclear, Shellenberger says, humans have managed to get consecutively more energy out compared to what they put in. Neither solar nor wind are actually substitutes for coal or natural gas or oil, he says. The new product has to be equal to or superior than the predecessor and solar and wind are totally different than those fuels and inferior in that they are intermittent.
Nuclear energy is an extremely reliable source of zero-carbon energy, Wolak writes via email. It makes very little economic sense to phase it out, particularly given how successful the U.S. nuclear industry has been over the past 30 years.
Stanford economics professor Frank Wolak, director of the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development, agrees that nuclear should play a role in a zero-carbon grid. He notes that American nuclear generators are safer than ever and have an extremely high capacity factor, meaning they produce almost all of their potential energy. American nuclear set a record high capacity factor of 91.8 percent for 2014. Wind and solar have capacity factors less than half as large.
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