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Last week, I joined my colleagues at COP28 in Dubai , as negotiators and civil society push for a fossilfuel phaseout to meet climate goals. The industry is pushing a narrative that misleadingly calls out emissions , not fossilfuels as the problem. Source: IPCC Sixth Assessment Report.
The end of every year is a great time for taking stock of what the year has broughtincluding in terms of clean energy in the power sector. Heres a taste, from US projects, technologies, electrons, and investment, to happenings in the world as a whole.
Utilities and grid operators prepared for the storm as it was coming down the pike, but they still underestimated the energy demand it would trigger, as well as the number of outages at fossilfuelpower plants—mainly natural gas-fired, plus some coal-fired plants.
Solarpower is expected to make up about half of all additions of US electric generating capacity in 2023, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). gigawatts (GW) of planned solar projects expected to come online this year is almost double the previous 13.4 Solar” only includes large-scale solar.
I was invited to speak at a panel discussion last Wednesday as part of The Economist ’s annual Sustainability Week, titled “What technologies are needed to avert a climate disaster?” True to the theme, I was asked about which technological innovations would be necessary to save our planet. And yet, we aren’t.
Minnesotans are facing concurrent crises of climate change, high energy prices and inflation, and the inequitable public health impacts of fossilfuel air pollution. Renewable energy will help with all of that—but we need a grid that is designed for wind and solar instead of having to rely on expensive coal and gas plants.
Here’s a taste: Wind power , the largest single source of renewable electricity in the country, grew the most of any renewable energy source in overall generation from 2021 to 2022. Solarpower increased the most among renewable electricity sources in percentage terms, up 24 percent. It supplied 10.5 percentage points).*
The legislation committed nearly $400 billion to support, among other things, wind and solarpower, battery storage, electric vehicles, and other clean energy technologies that will make a significant dent in US heat-trapping emissions. It also will save US consumers money because they will spend less on fossilfuels.
Earlier this month at COP28 countries committed to transitioning off of fossilfuels and massively scaling up renewable energy instead. So you’re excused if, like me, you’re baffled by Minister Freeland’s first move in the wake of COP28: a giant new fossilfuel subsidy, via the new Canada Growth Fund.
That’s a really good thing given the central role we expect and need solar to play in a just transition away from fossilfuels. The idea is to “create best practices that solar companies, local governments, and other stakeholders can use to effectively site solar projects.”
New research from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) confirms renewables are continuing to outpace fossilfuels on cost. They found that the share of renewable energy that achieved lower costs than the most competitive fossilfuel option doubled in 2020. C climate pathway.
The majority 6–3 decision sharply curtails the EPA’s authority to set standards based on a broad range of flexible options to cut carbon emissions from the power sector—options such as replacing polluting fossilfuels with cheap and widely available wind and solarpower coupled with battery storage.
But gas power plants have also played an important role in helping to maintain the overall reliability of the electricity grid by meeting peak power demands, such as on hot summer days when people turn on their air conditioners. In this plan, almost all of this coal and gas generation is replaced with wind and solar.
We have long been well aware of the devastating consequences of burning fossilfuels for Pennsylvania’s ecosystems and our health. This solar PPA is a first step in transitioning to clean, affordable energy for all," said Kartik Amarnath, Mid-Atlantic Regulatory Director for Vote Solar.
Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged on September 21 that his country would no longer finance coal-fired power plants abroad, making a high-profile commitment to move away from some forms of fossilfuel infrastructure less than six weeks before a pivotal global climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland. It is already 1.1
Perched at 3,730 metres above sea level in the community of Ancotanga, the Oruro solarpower plant is one of the flagship projects in Bolivia’s energy transition. million barrels of oil equivalent of useful energy that fossilfuels are expected to provide in Bolivia by 2040, according to a WWF Bolivia evaluation.
I’ve written recently about why a Cap on Vegetable Oil-Based Fuels Will Stabilize and Strengthen California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard , which addresses the bio-based diesel credits. The CI of an electric vehicle charged with solarpower is zero, and most of the biofuels fall somewhere in the middle [i].
However, make no mistake: Technological advancement did not create the production boom by itself. Our national overreliance on gas is evidently undermining energy access, not strengthening it, as some fossilfuel industry players would want you to believe. Don’t believe the industry spin.
Weifang Port’s “zero-carbon” certification was primarily achieved by transitioning away from fossilfuel use, according to China Electric Power News (CEPN). It has built a wind power system to provide green energy for its operations and deployed hydrogen-powered vehicles to replace fossil-fuel-powered trucks.
CCS is a multi-billion dollar boondoggle that doesn’t come close to the hype, has significant safety risks, and is a substantial distraction from real climate solutions, such as building more renewable energy, increasing electricity transmission infrastructure, and developing and using storage technology. Want proof?
Most prominently, because the approach is changing from rewarding specific technologies to rewarding anything that meets the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions threshold of “clean”—hence the “tech-neutral” label—exactly how the government goes about determining whether or not something is actually eligible will be enormously important.
The IRA gave us effective tools for cleaning up the power sector through dedicated support for the rapid and widescale deployment of renewable resources and the technologies that support them. But to bring those solutions fully to bear, we also need to force a reckoning with the problem itself. EPA decision, but it did not ground EPA.
In order to make their portfolio more sustainable and respond to lower fossilfuel demand, oil majors are increasingly snapping up renewable energy projects as the pressure grows to take action on climate change. This has incentivized oil and gas majors such as BP, Equinor and Shell to invest in wind power generation.
With several new power-intensive IT industries proposed to be established, Bhutan’s domestic demand for energy is projected to more than double in the next two years, and its winter energy deficit will worsen, officials at the Department of Industry told me. Solar energy has become competitive. Previous obstacles have been overcome.
Fossilfuels currently account for around 60% of electricity generation , a share that it aims to reduce to 35% by 2030 through the expansion of renewables, including hydropower, and in particular wind and solar. The transition away from fossilfuels has, however, been an elusive goal for Argentina to date.
Yes, in some cases, fossilfuels are burned to generate the electricity used to charge electric cars, but this highlights two of electric vehicles’ many advantages. They are much more efficient than gas powered vehicles and the electrical grid is getting greener. Taking a national average of 25.1 Recently that has changed.
“Why pay for polluting energy from a dirty power plant hundreds of miles away when Pennsylvanians can just soak up the sun on our rooftops?” Small-scale solar energy, of which rooftop solar is the largest component - is growing rapidly in the United States, producing 10 times as much power in 2022 as a decade earlier.
18 PA Renewable Energy Policy Webinar - Time To Take Action On Demand: ReImagine Appalachia: Solar-Powered Faith Communities And Houses Of Worship, Saving Money And Ethical Labor PA Interfaith Power & Light, Jewish Earth Alliance Aug. Potter County To Sept. Potter County To Sept. 1 Mountain Watershed Assn.
Globalization and technological evolution have brought a massive rise in energy consumption all around the globe. To be clear on the worth of solar panels we need to understand some basics of power generation and investment in solar energy technology. Petawatt hour and in the year 2019, it was 173.3 Petawatt hour.
A solarpower field in Kawasaki, near Tokyo. Last week, regulators in the local assembly of Tokyo , the capital of Japan , ruled that all new homes constructed by large-scale homebuilders after April 2025 must install solar panels to cut emissions. Poor solar uptake. Photo credit: Reuters / Toru Hanai. By Anders Lorenzen.
It can be disruptive, and then there are new habits to adopt around the different technology. The media, owned by people who often have investments in fossilfuels, has worked against the transition. Future editions will also be able to charge off surplus solarpower and work in tandem with domestic solar systems.
16 Webinar: Why Should We Care About, Advocate For A Climate-Friendly Federal Farm Bill? 16 Webinar: Why Should We Care About, Advocate For A Climate-Friendly Federal Farm Bill?
In 2010, the cost of onshore wind was almost twice that of the cheapest fossilfuel generation. By 2022, the positions were reversed: onshore wind cost half as much as the cheapest fossilfuelpower. The cost of solar PV fell even more steeply. Like solar, battery costs have dropped plunged since 2010.
“The Lancaster Solar Co-op is directly in line with the City’s Climate Action Plan, and we think the co-op will help City and County residents consider solar for their own homes and businesses, and to learn more about renewable energy alternatives as a community.” Megawatts of solarpower, $4.2 of lifetime carbon offsets.
Bill Gates hailed Bitcoin as a “technological tour de force” while Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, said that it “has the potential to do something like change the world.”. Once the mining company has paid for the solar panels, turbines, and other equipment, their energy expenditure is greatly reduced.
The other is to improve the energy structure, replacing fossilfuel sources with alternatives. Wind and solarpower can provide green electricity for those facilities, while the low local temperatures can help with cooling requirements. Neither of these will be easy for Inner Mongolia.
A small town generating its own power, a city school equipping its rooftop with solar panels, and a company building solar water heaters that help to cut energy bills: small-scale initiatives across Argentina are showing the active role people can play in building a renewable energy-powered future.
Renewable energy projects face significant disadvantages in the siting process compared to fossilfuel projects due to a three-year-old state law that allows counties to block large solar and wind projects—but not large fossilfuel projects. Smaller projects are permitted at the county level. Code 4906.10(A).
A solar-powered charging station in Yibin, south-west China. Two-way charging could give vehicles like these the potential to stabilise power supplies by discharging stored electricity back to the grid. Photo credit: Wang Xi / Alamy. In January, China’s biggest trial of two-way charging took place in Wuxi, Jiangsu.
A recent National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study shows that it would take less than 1 percent of the land in the Lower 48—that’s an area comparable to or even smaller than the fossilfuel industry’s current footprint. EIA also projects US battery storage capacity to more than double in 2023.
gigawatts of installed power capacity comes from fossilfuels like coal. The burning of fossilfuels is the main driver of climate change. Achieving a more ambitious target for renewables is doable because we have the technology and it is affordable.
By Jeremy Williams In his book The Switch , Chris Goodall argues that solartechnologies will eventually power the world. We know what a fossil-fuelled economy looks like, and the politics of fossilfuels. How would solar be different?
percent of the grid’s power. In his recent testimony to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, the coauthor of Princeton University’s Net-Zero America study noted that just because an energy technology is not reliable does not mean that it has no role in a reliable system. [8] GW from its 4.9
degrees–the goal of the Paris Agreement and a critical threshold for climate change–the world must stop approving fossilfuel projects AND significantly ramp down the production of all fossilfuels: coal, oil, and fossil gas. This is a huge deal. So what do we need governments to do? Starting now.
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