Renewable energy

Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, waves, and geothermal heat. Renewable energy stands in contrast to fossil fuels, which are being used far more quickly than they are being replenished. Although most renewable energy sources are sustainable, some are not. For example, some biomass sources are considered unsustainable at current rates of exploitation.

"I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power!" - Thomas Edison in a conversation shortly before his death. (1931) (A combined heat and power solar installation on a barn roof in Germany.)

"Wind [power cost] has plunged by 80% just in the past 11 or 12 years. . . . Things like wind and solar power really can already out-compete dirtier forms of electricity, and we just need to build more of them quickly; we’re not adding them fast enough." - Daniel Cohan, Rice University. (May 30, 2022) (Wind turbines in Gansu province, China.)

Quotes

Before 2001

• I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.
  • Thomas Edison (in a conversation shortly before his death in 1931), as quoted in a June 3, 2007 essay entitled "Current Thinking" by the journalist and documentary filmmaker Heather Rogers published in The New York Times Magazine.

2001 to 2010

• Although photosynthesis typically has an energy conversion efficiency below three percent, it is, together with heat from the sun, the main energy source of all living organisms, and the energy source from which biomass and fossil fuels are derived. Each year the earth receives an energy input from the sun equal to 15,000 times the world's commercial energy consumption and 100 times the world's proven coal, gas and oil reserves.
  • Bernhard Scheffler, quoted by J. Clarke and D. Holt-Biddle in Coming Back to Earth, p. 78 (2002)

• There is one forecast of which you can already be sure: someday renewable energy will be the only way for people to satisfy their energy needs. Because of the physical, ecological and (therefore) social limits to nuclear and fossil energy use, ultimately nobody will be able to circumvent renewable energy as the solution, even if it turns out to be everybody’s last remaining choice. The question keeping everyone in suspense, however, is whether we shall succeed in making this radical change of energy platforms happen early enough to spare the world irreversible ecological mutilation and political and economic catastrophe.
  • Hermann Scheer, member of the German Bundestag and President of the European Association for Renewable Energy, in his book Energy Autonomy: The Economic, Social and Technological Case for Renewable Energy (2006). Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN 9781844073559.

2011 to 2020

"The only way you can get to the very positive {CO₂ reduction} scenario is by great innovation. Innovation really does bend the curve." - Bill Gates, global philanthropist and founder of Microsoft. (June 25, 2015)

"The next big act belongs to the engineers. Energy transformation for climate safety is our twenty-first-century moonshot." - Jeffrey Sachs, development economist. (Dec. 20, 2018) (Pictured above is Thomas Edison, considered one of the greatest inventors and engineers of all time.)

"A carbon tax will send a powerful price signal that harnesses the invisible hand of the marketplace to steer economic actors towards a low-carbon future." - "Economists’ Statement on Carbon Dividends" signed by more than 3,500 economists. (Jan. 16, 2019) (Signatories included every then-living former chair of the US Federal Reserve, from left to right: Janet Yellen, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and Paul Volcker).

"Offshore wind is in a category of its own, as the only variable baseload power generation technology." - IEA special report, "Offshore Wind Outlook 2019." (Nov. 2019) (The East Anglia ONE offshore windfarm under construction in the North Sea about 43 kilometers east of the English coast.)

• [The] solar-energy firm known as Solyndra, which the [US] Energy Department had backed with a $535 million loan guarantee [made the] unexpected announcement last week that it is filing for bankruptcy, leaving hundreds of workers jobless - and taxpayers on the hook for almost all of its government-backed loan. . . . [I]t’s not too early to draw some policy lessons from Solyndra’s ignominious downfall. . . . [G]overnment is no better than the private sector at picking industrial winners - and usually worse. . . . To the extent that government creates jobs by subsidizing particular companies, it does so by shifting resources that might have created jobs elsewhere. Political favoritism, or the appearance thereof, is an inherent risk . . . . When "green jobs" promises don’t pan out, it does the environmental cause more harm than good.
  • The Washington Post Editorial Board, in an editorial entitled "Lessons from the Solyndra debacle." (September 8, 2011)

• More solar energy falls on Earth in one hour than all the energy our civilization consumes in an entire year. If we could harness a tiny fraction of the available solar and wind power, we could supply all our energy needs forever, and without adding any carbon to the atmosphere.
  • From the twelfth episode of the U.S. science documentary television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, first broadcast on June 1, 2014.

• Every percentage point increase in homegrown renewable energy makes us that much more energy secure. The progress in electricity is encouraging, but growth is not yet strong enough in renewable heat and transport to meet the government's objectives.
  • Nina Skorupska, chief executive of the UK's Renewable Energy Association, as quoted in "Wind and other renewables generated a fifth of Britain's electricity in early 2014" The Guardian. June 26, 2014.

• One of the real breakthroughs is when someone figures out long-term storage capacity.
  • George Shultz, US statesman and economist, discussing the need for improvements in batteries or other energy storage technology to better integrate solar and wind energy into the electrical grid, as quoted in "George Shultz: 'Climate is changing,' and we need more action: Former secretary of state - and former MIT professor - urges progress on multiple fronts" MIT News. October 1, 2014.

• The only way you can get to the very positive scenario is by great innovation. Innovation really does bend the curve.
  • Bill Gates, global philanthropist and founder of Microsoft, arguing that the cost of reducing CO₂ emissions using existing technologies is "beyond astronomical." From "Gates to double investment in renewable energy projects: Microsoft co-founder takes interest in new areas of research like in solar, high wind and new nuclear" Financial Times. June 25, 2015.

• If you told me that innovation had been frozen and we just have today's technologies, will the world run the climate change experiment? You bet we will. We will not deny India coal plants; we will run the scary experiment of heating up the atmosphere and seeing what happens. The only reason I'm optimistic about this problem is because of innovation. . . . I want to tilt the odds in our favor by driving innovation at an unnaturally high pace, or more than its current business-as-usual course. I see that as the only thing. I want to call up India someday and say, "Here's a source of energy that is cheaper than your coal plants, and by the way, from a global pollution and local pollution point of view, it's also better."
  • Bill Gates, in "We need an energy miracle" (Interview with Bill Gates). The Atlantic. November 2015 issue.

• Cheaper coal and cheaper gas will not derail the transformation and decarbonisation of the world’s power systems. By 2040, zero-emission energy sources will make up 60% of installed capacity.
  • Bloomberg New Energy Finance report entitled "New Energy Outlook 2016 (An annual long-term view of how the world's power markets will evolve in the future)".

• We have long supported a carbon tax as the best policy of those being considered. Replacing the hodge-podge of current, largely ineffective regulations with a revenue-neutral carbon tax would ensure a uniform and predictable cost of carbon across the economy. It would allow market forces to drive solutions. It would maximize transparency, reduce administrative complexity, promote global participation and easily adjust to future developments in our understanding of climate science as well as the policy consequences of these actions.
  • Rex Tillerson, Chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil, in a speech entitled "The Path Forward in Today’s Energy Environment" delivered at the 37th Annual Oil and Money Conference in London on October 19, 2016.

• Rather than an eyesore on the roof, it becomes actually a feature of the home. People are going to start wanting to put {building-integrated photovoltaics} on the front side of their home to show that they have solar.
  • Christopher Klinga, technical director of the (U.S.-based) Architectural Solar Association, as quoted in "The Next Solar Energy Revolution Is Hiding in Plain Sight." NBCNews.com. April 10, 2017.

• [W]ind and solar power have been rapidly winning market acceptance. Last year, the installed capacity of solar power in the United States nearly doubled. And wind is now being harnessed to produce 5.5 percent of America’s electricity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
  • Norm Alster, journalist, in "Investing in Solar and Wind in a Coal and Oil Moment." The New York Times. April 15, 2017.

• The transition to renewable energy can be greatly accelerated if the world’s governments finally bring the engineers to the fore... I was recently on a panel with three economists and a senior business-sector engineer. After the economists spoke... the engineer spoke succinctly and wisely. “I don’t really understand what you economists were just speaking about, but I do have a suggestion... Tell us engineers the desired ‘specs’ and the timeline, and we’ll get the job done.” This is not bravado.... The next big act belongs to the engineers. Energy transformation for climate safety is our twenty-first-century moonshot.
  • Jeffrey Sachs in For Climate Safety, Call in the Engineers, Project Syndicate (20 December 2018)

• A carbon tax offers the most cost-effective lever to reduce carbon emissions at the scale and speed that is necessary. By correcting a well-known market failure, a carbon tax will send a powerful price signal that harnesses the invisible hand of the marketplace to steer economic actors towards a low-carbon future. . . . A consistently rising carbon price will encourage technological innovation and large-scale infrastructure development.
  • "Economists’ Statement on Carbon Dividends: Bipartisan agreement on how to combat climate change." (Statement signed by more than 3,500 economists, including every living former chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve and 27 Nobel laureates.)
    • Economists’ Statement on Carbon Dividends (The statement's original publication - subscription required to view in full.) The Wall Street Journal. January 16, 2019.
    • Economists’ Statement on Carbon Dividends (Republication - no subscription needed to view.) Republished by the Climate Leadership Council. Originally published on January 16, 2019.

• Offshore wind's remarkable potential: The global offshore wind market grew nearly 30% per year between 2010 and 2018, benefitting from rapid technology improvements and about 150 new offshore wind projects . . . in active development around the world. . . . Yet today's offshore wind market doesn't even come close to tapping the full potential - with high-quality resources available in most major markets, offshore wind has the potential to generate more than 420,000 [terawatt-hours] per year worldwide. This is more than 18 times global electricity demand today.
  • "Offshore Wind Outlook 2019: World Energy Outlook special report." International Energy Agency. (November, 2019)

• Offshore wind is in a category of its own, as the only variable baseload power generation technology. . . . Offshore wind output . . . hourly variability is lower than that of solar [photovoltaics]. Offshore wind typically fluctuates within a narrower band, up to 20% from hour-to-hour, than is the case for solar [photovoltaics], up to 40% from hour-to-hour.
  • "Offshore Wind Outlook 2019: World Energy Outlook special report." International Energy Agency. (November, 2019)

• The clean energy portfolios of some of the largest corporate buyers rival those of the world’s biggest utilities. These companies are facing mounting pressure from investors to decarbonize - clean energy contracts serve as a way to diversify energy spend and reduce susceptibility to the tangible risks associated with climate change.
  • Kyle Harrison, sustainability analyst at BloombergNEF and lead author of its 1H 2020 Corporate Energy Market Outlook report, as quoted in a summary discussing the report entitled "Corporate Clean Energy Buying Leapt 44% in 2019, Sets New Record", published on January 28, 2020.

• [N]ew renewable power generation projects now increasingly undercut existing coal-fired plants. On average, new solar photovoltaic (PV) and onshore wind power cost less than keeping many existing coal plants in operation, and auction results show this trend accelerating – reinforcing the case to phase-out coal entirely.
  • International Renewable Energy Agency press release entitled "Renewables Increasingly Beat Even Cheapest Coal Competitors on Cost: Competitive power generation costs make investment in renewables highly attractive as countries target economic recovery from COVID-19, new IRENA report finds." June 2, 2020.

• I think it’s clear now that energy has to be clean. . . . And we should do it in ways that give jobs to everybody. . . . There’s so much to do in renewable power, there is so little to do in coal.
  • William McDonough, as quoted in "Eliminating the concept of waste from the economy", from the Marketplace Morning Report segment of the US National Public Radio Morning Edition program, August 19, 2020.

2021

"[W]e can remake our economies, build new businesses, and put millions upon millions of people to work. . . . For too long, the climate conversation has been viewed as [one] of trade-offs: the climate or the economy. No longer." - US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, addressing the 2021 Leaders Summit on Climate. (Apr. 23, 2021)

"Deploying today’s renewables and improving transmission couldn’t be more important. [And] even as we deploy, deploy, deploy solar and wind, the world is going to need some new clean electricity inventions too." - Bill Gates, from his book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. (Feb. 16, 2021)

"We can get real on coal, cars, cash and trees. . . . [W]e cannot and will not succeed by government spending alone. . . . [Let us] in the next days . . . not only continue with . . . a green industrial revolution, [but let] us also do enough to save our planet and our way of life." - UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, welcoming the COP representatives to Glasgow. (Nov. 1, 2021)

"[W]ithin the growing [climate] catastrophe, I believe there’s an incredible opportunity . . . . We have the ability to invest in ourselves and build an equitable clean-energy future and in the process create millions of good-paying jobs [while we] create an environment that raises the standard of living around the world." - US President Joe Biden, addressing the COP26 international climate conference. (Nov. 1, 2021)

"India will take its non-fossil energy capacity to 500 gigawatts by 2030, [and] India will meet 50 percent of its energy requirements from renewable energy by 2030." - Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India since 2014, addressing the COP26 international climate conference. (Nov. 2, 2021)

• An old proverb states: When the winds of change blow, some build walls . . . others build windmills. So, fellow windmill builders: Let’s push back on doubt and fear. Climate disasters worldwide tell us that the scariest thing we could do is nothing at all. . . . [W]e’ll all gain when we succeed - starting with jobs! We’re looking at a $23 trillion global market in the clean energy transition by 2030. . . . That means we can remake our economies, build new businesses, and put millions upon millions of people to work. . . . For too long, the climate conversation has been viewed as a zero-sum game. One of trade-offs: the climate or the economy. No longer.
  • US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, addressing the Leaders Summit on Climate organized by the Biden Administration. Excerpted from "Remarks as Delivered by Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm, President Biden's Leaders Summit on Climate, Session 4: 'Unleashing Climate Innovation.'" (April 23, 2021)

• Future Outlook: Global offshore wind energy deployment is expected to accelerate in the future, with forecasts from 4C Offshore and Bloomberg New Energy Finance indicating a sevenfold increase in global cumulative offshore wind capacity - to 215 [gigawatts] or more by 2030 (BNEF 2020; 4C Offshore 2021). As part of that predicted surge, the U.S. offshore wind energy market continues to expand, primarily driven by increasing state-level procurement targets in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, an increased number of projects clearing major permitting milestones, as well as growing vessel, port, and infrastructure investments needed to keep pace with development.
  • "Executive Summary" for "Offshore Wind Market Report: 2021 Edition." US Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy. (August, 2021)

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster (book)

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need. Book by Bill Gates. Published by Alfred A. Knopf on February 16, 2021. ISBN 9780385546133 (hardcover), ISBN 9780385546140 (e-book).
Main Wikiquote page for How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
Wikipedia page for How to Avoid a Climate Disaster

• When it comes to climate change, I know innovation isn’t the only thing we need. But we cannot keep the earth livable without it. Techno-fixes are not sufficient, but they are necessary.
  • Bill Gates, from page 14 of his book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster (2021).

• [W]e’re going to need much more clean electricity in the coming years. Most experts agree that as we electrify other carbon-intensive processes like making steel and running cars, the world’s electricity supply will need to double or even triple by 2050. And that doesn’t even account for population growth, or the fact that people will get richer and use more electricity. So the world will need much more than three times the electricity we generate now.
  • Bill Gates, from page 79 of his book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster (2021).

• Deploying today’s renewables and improving transmission couldn’t be more important. . . . Unless we use large amounts of nuclear energy . . . every path to zero [net emissions] in the United States will require us to install as much wind and solar power as we can build and find room for. It’s hard to say exactly how much of America’s electricity will come from renewables in the end, but what we do know is that between now and 2050 we have to build them much faster - on the order of 5 to 10 times faster - than we’re doing right now. And remember that most countries aren’t as lucky as the United States when it comes to solar and wind resources. The fact that we can hope to generate a large percentage of our power from renewables is the exception rather than the rule. That’s why, even as we deploy, deploy, deploy solar and wind, the world is going to need some new clean electricity inventions too.
  • Bill Gates, from pages 83 and 84 of his book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster (2021).

• [I]t's . . . possible that some innovation will come along and make [other energy storage] ideas obsolete, the way the personal computer came along and more or less made the typewriter unnecessary. Cheap hydrogen could do that for storing electricity. . . . We could use electricity from a solar or wind farm to create hydrogen, store the hydrogen as a compressed gas or in another form, and then put it in a fuel cell to generate electricity on demand. [This] would solve the location problem; . . . although you can't ship sunlight in a railcar, you can turn it into fuel first and then ship it any way you like.
  • Bill Gates, from pages 93 and 94 of his book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster (2021).

• Over the past decade, installed wind capacity has grown by an average of 20 percent a year, and wind turbines now provide about 5 percent of the world's electricity. Wind is growing for one simple reason: It's getting cheaper.
  • Bill Gates, from page 193 of his book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster (2021).

COP26 Climate Conference in Scotland, UK

26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (or "COP26"), held in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom from October 31st to November 13th, 2021. (The quotes below are listed in the order used in the UNFCCC's "COP 26 Speeches and statements" webpage. The quotes are from the speeches as delivered; some of the English language speeches deviate slightly from the submitted speech transcripts.)

• [W]e [must] make this COP 26 in Glasgow the moment when we get real about climate change, and we can. We can get real on coal, cars, cash and trees. . . . But we cannot and will not succeed by government spending alone. . . . [T]he task now is to work together to help our friends to decarbonise using . . . the funds we have in development assistance and working with all the multilateral development banks so that in the key countries that need to make progress, we can jointly identify the projects that we can help to de-risk so that the private sector money can come in . . . . [Let us] in the next days devote ourselves to this extraordinary task. So that we not only continue with . . . a green industrial revolution, that is already creating millions of high wage, high skill jobs in power and technology, taking our economies forward. Let us also do enough to save our planet and our way of life.
  • Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, welcoming the COP representatives to Glasgow during the opening ceremony of the World Leaders Summit. Excerpted from a UN video of the speech on Youtube and the PDF text of the speech from the website for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (Nov. 1, 2021)

• Climate change and biodiversity loss . . . pose an even greater existential threat [than the COVID-19 pandemic], to the extent that we have to put ourselves on what might be called a war-like footing. . . . Putting a value on carbon . . . [is] absolutely critical. . . . [W]e need a vast military style campaign to marshall the strength of the global private sector[, which has] trillions at its disposal . . . . [E]ach sector needs a clear strategy to speed up the process of getting innovations to market [and we] need to align private investment behind these industry strategies. . . . If we can develop a pipeline of many more sustainable and "bankable" projects, at a sufficient scale, it will attract greater investment. . . . CEOs and institutional investors have told me that alongside the promises countries have made, their nationally determined contributions, they need clear market signals, agreed globally, so that they have the confidence to invest without the goal posts suddenly moving. . . . [W]e are working to drive trillions of dollars in support of transition across ten of the most emitting and polluting industries [including] energy, agriculture, transportation, health systems and fashion. . . . I can only urge you, as the world’s decision-makers, to find practical ways of overcoming differences so we can all . . . rescue this precious planet and save the threatened future of our young people.
  • Charles, Prince of Wales, addressing the COP26 representatives during the opening ceremony of the World Leaders Summit. Excerpted from a Sky News video of the speech on Youtube and the pre-submitted text of the speech from princeofwales.gov.uk. (Nov. 1, 2021)

• Climate change is already . . . costing our nations trillions of dollars [and] we know that none of us can escape the worst that’s yet to come if we fail to seize this moment. . . . But . . . within the growing catastrophe, I believe there’s an incredible opportunity . . . . We have the ability to invest in ourselves and build an equitable clean-energy future and in the process create millions of good-paying jobs [while we] create an environment that raises the standard of living around the world. . . . When I talk to the American people about climate change, I tell them it’s about jobs. It’s about workers [and the] communities that will revitalize themselves around new industries and opportunities. . . . So, let’s get to work.
  • Joe Biden, President of the United States, on Day 2 of the climate conference (excerpted from "Remarks by President Biden at the COP26 Leaders Statement" at whitehouse.gov). (November 1, 2021)

• We are aware that the industrialised countries have a particular responsibility. . . . The financing is essential if the industrialised countries are to maintain their credibility. . . . Ladies and gentlemen, with government activities alone we will not make progress. For this requires radical transformation of how we live, work and conduct business. I therefore want to take this opportunity to make a very clear appeal for pricing for CO2 emissions. With this form of pricing, which we already have in the European Union, which is to be introduced in China and which needs to be developed together with many others throughout the world, we could get our industries and businesses to find the technologically most effective and efficient ways to achieve climate neutrality. We need to work out how we can best integrate CO2-free mobility, CO2-free industry and CO2-free processes into our lives. My clear call in the Decade of Action, in the decade in which we now live, is for us to become more ambitious at a national level and at the same time to find global instruments that not only make use of taxpayers’ money but are also economically viable. And for me, the answer is CO2 pricing.
  • Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021, on Day 2 of the COP26 climate conference (excerpted from "Speech by Federal Chancellor Dr Angela Merkel on the occasion of the World Leaders’ Summit at the 26th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP26) in Glasgow on 1 November 2021" at bundesregierung.de). (November 1, 2021)

• In the midst of this global brainstorming on climate change, on behalf of India, I would like to present five [commitments] to deal with this challenge. First - India will take its non-fossil energy capacity to 500 gigawatts by 2030. Second - India will meet 50 percent of its energy requirements from renewable energy by 2030. . . . And fifth - by the year 2070, India will achieve the target of Net Zero. . . . Today, when India has resolved to move forward with a new commitment and a new energy, the transfer of climate finance and low cost climate technologies have become more important. . . . India also understands the suffering of all other developing countries, shares them, and will continue to express their expectations.
  • Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India since 2014, on Day 3 of the COP26 climate conference (excerpted from "National Statement by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi at COP26 Summit in Glasgow" at mea.gov.in). (November 2, 2021)

2022 and later

[A] decarbonisation strategy [has been] accepted by those determined to stabilise the climate. Make the power on electric grids emissions-free, cheap and copious. Start electrifying all processes that now require fossil fuels . . . where electrification is clearly possible. It does not deliver everything that is needed. But it delivers a lot. - Vijay Vaitheeswaran, writing as climate innovation editor at The Economist. (June 25, 2022)

"If you want to [get to 100% renewable energy], you're going to have to solve that problem of . . . long-term storage for the grid . . . . [Y]ou could do that with gravity storage [or] with a chemical energy carrier [like] hydrogen or ammonia or another chemical energy medium which is yet to be discovered." - George Crabtree, Director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research at Argonne National Laboratory. (Nov. 17, 2022)

• [T]he solution has to be real economy government regulations to ban or to make higher [the] cost of the brown and polluting industries. That said, there are parts of finance which are longer-term and [evaluate] climate risks . . . and these are asset owners, the pension funds, the wealth funds and the insurance companies who are not so transactional [and] they’re not [as] interested in a deal to be done today. And they are in fact often mandated by their governments to take into account climate risk. So, I think those players will step up in this instance [turmoil in energy markets following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine] and [now who might be] investing for [an electricity generation project with a] 10-year horizon which you have to do with gas they will [say], "Let’s do it with renewables." And we’ve seen movements like that in the UK, where they’re pivoting towards onshore wind, which before the invasion was politically unviable because of the NIMBY factor. . . . [T]he pension funds and the actual asset owners . . . have a longer term of perspective. And they are actually driving the issue to their commercial managers who have to service them and they’re saying, "Look, we want you to act on climate change," and that's a huge driver.
  • Dylan Tanner, executive director of Influence Map (a London-based think tank "that provides data and analysis on how business and finance are affecting the climate crisis"), in an interview on the Climate One podcast entitled "Big Money: Investment Managers Driving Corporate Action". (May 6, 2022)

• [A]s an atmospheric scientist and environmental engineer, I focus most on technologies — that’s what we think about most of what we need to be able to clean up electricity, what we need for cleaner cars. But those aren’t going to make it to market and those aren’t going to help cool the climate unless there are policies that get those to be deployed domestically. And what we do domestically isn’t enough because we’re only 1/7th of the world’s emissions, so we need diplomacy to take what we do here in the U.S. and make sure that that starts being applied in other parts of the world as well. . . . [A]s I was looking at the diplomacy [I noticed that what] the United States really gets right is being reciprocal . . . when we do something, we usually insist that our trading partners go along as well. You even hear in Congress talk about if we ever did have a carbon tax, being sure it got applied as tariffs on goods that got brought in.
  • Daniel S. Cohan, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice University, in an interview on the Marketplace Morning Report radio program entitled "A 3-pronged approach for adopting clean power", in which he discusses his book Confronting Climate Gridlock: How Diplomacy, Technology, and Policy Can Unlock a Clean Energy Future (March 29, 2022). Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300251678. (May 30, 2022)

• Solar has plunged by 90% in cost. Wind has plunged by 80% just in the past 11 or 12 years. . . . Things like wind and solar power really can already out-compete dirtier forms of electricity, and we just need to build more of them quickly; we’re not adding them fast enough. There are other technologies where we really need a big breakthrough. We don’t yet have affordable enough heat pumps. We don’t yet have a next generation nuclear technology that’s cheap enough, if we ever will. Geothermal is really at the cusp of becoming something that I think could really take off. What I also see, though, is that what carries those cutting-edge technologies to the cheaper cost can’t just happen in the lab. We need policies that pull those into the market, that get them adopted more — because if we can adopt them while they’re at that edge; while they’re not quite cheap enough, that can drive the economies of scale; that can drive what technologists call learning by doing.
  • Daniel S. Cohan, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice University, in an interview on the Marketplace Morning Report radio program entitled "A 3-pronged approach for adopting clean power", in which he discusses his book Confronting Climate Gridlock: How Diplomacy, Technology, and Policy Can Unlock a Clean Energy Future (March 29, 2022). Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300251678. (May 30, 2022)

• The ability to use renewables for the lion’s share of a grid’s supply, coupled with the fact that renewables have been made cheap and are getting yet cheaper, is the basis of a decarbonisation strategy all but universally accepted by those determined to stabilise the climate. Make the power on electric grids emissions-free, cheap and copious. Start electrifying all processes that now require fossil fuels - such as powering cars, or heating homes and steel foundries - where electrification is clearly possible. It does not deliver everything that is needed. But it delivers a lot.
  • Vijay Vaitheeswaran, writing as an identified author in a special section of the June 25, 2022 edition of The Economist entitled "Technology Quarterly: Climate Technology / The Energy Transition." This quote comes specifically from an article in that section entitled "Electrical tension: Electrifying everything does not solve the climate crisis, but it is a great start. Vijay Vaitheeswaran reports on what the transition still needs." The Economist. (June 25, 2022)

• [Storing energy using] hydrogen . . . is getting a lot of play now. You could burn hydrogen in a gas turbine to produce electricity. You could use hydrogen in fuel cells that produce electricity without combustion; still a chemical reaction. Or you could simply use hydrogen to create ammonia, NH₃, which is another liquid, as opposed to gaseous, chemical storage medium. . . . [E]xperts say that we could probably convert the grid 80% to renewable - that's wind and solar - without having to deal with [the] long-duration storage problem. We'd still use gas peaker plants for . . . 20% of the electricity that we need. If you want to do the other 20%, you're going to have to solve that problem of . . . long-term storage for the grid, days in a row. And you could do that with gravity storage. You could do that with a chemical energy carrier. It's done with methane now. So we've got to get rid of the methane. But you could have hydrogen or ammonia or another chemical energy medium which is yet to be discovered. That's the challenge. We can get to 80%, but we can't get to 100%.
  • George Crabtree, Director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research at Argonne National Laboratory, in an interview on the US National Public Radio Morning Edition program entitled "The crucial need for energy storage is key to the future of clean energy." (November 17, 2022)

• We have taken the first tentative steps towards a clean energy source that could revolutionize the world.
  • Jill M. Hruby, Administrator of the US National Nuclear Security Administration, announcing that scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility had achieved nuclear "fusion ignition" (a controlled nuclear fusion reaction which produced more energy than was required to initiate it), as quoted in "Nuclear fusion breakthrough: Scientists generate more power than used to create reaction." CNBC. (December 13, 2022)

Confronting Climate Gridlock (book)

Confronting Climate Gridlock: How Diplomacy, Technology, and Policy Can Unlock a Clean Energy Future. Book by Daniel S. Cohan. Published by Yale University Press on March 29, 2022. ISBN 9780300251678 (hardcover).
(All page references below are to the hardcover version of the book).

• Offshore wind turbines reach even higher and wider than land-based ones. Though twice as expensive as land-based wind, their costs are falling fast. That’s making offshore wind increasingly attractive in coastal regions of Europe and the northeastern United States, where population density is high, land is scarce, and winds over the ocean far outpace those over land.
  • Daniel S. Cohan, from page 83 of his book Confronting Climate Gridlock (2022).

• [W]e’ll never build enough batteries to back up the grid. Batteries are costly to build and costly to operate, since energy is dissipated each time they are charged and discharged. Transmission moves power more efficiently. Complementary resources smooth out supply. Demand flexibility narrows gaps and surpluses between supply and demand. The more robustly we deploy complementary resources, transmission, and flexibility, the less storage we will need to build and the less often we will have to deploy it, reducing the overall costs of electricity.
  • Daniel S. Cohan, from page 96 of his book Confronting Climate Gridlock (2022).

• [H]ydrogen has many potential uses, including electricity storage, trucking, chemical production, and industrial heat - which means options for producing and distributing hydrogen deserve a closer look. "Hydrogen is hard to make, hard to move, and hard to store, but once you’ve got it, it is a brilliant ingredient," [Professor Michael] Webber told me.
  • Daniel S. Cohan, from page 119 of his book Confronting Climate Gridlock (2022).

US Inflation Reduction Act

• The [provisions of the proposed Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, including] expansion of the wind and solar credits, the exciting expansion, or creation, of additional credits in green hydrogen, the inclusion of hydrogen cars in electric car credits, the extension of the electric car credits - all those things are good [but they're] not enough. The question now is, what do we do next?
  • Bob Inglis, former Republican congressman from South Carolina and current executive director of RepublicEn, as quoted in "Carrots not sticks? Senate bill may offer template for climate action." The Christian Science Monitor; article by Stephanie Hanes. (August 1, 2022)

• The Inflation Reduction Act calls for spending less than $500 billion over a decade, compared with the American Rescue Plan’s $1.9 trillion in a single year . . . . But if the spending isn’t very large, how can it have such a big impact? The answer is that right now we’re sitting on a sort of cusp. Renewable energy technology has made revolutionary progress, and renewables are already cheaper in many areas than fossil fuels. A moderate push from public policy is all that it will take to transition to a much greener economy. And the Inflation Reduction Act will provide that push.
  • Paul Krugman, winner of the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, in a New York Times op-ed column entitled "Did Democrats Just Save Civilization?" (August 8, 2022)

• [The Inflation Reduction Act] . . . doesn’t solve the climate challenge. This is the beginning . . . and the implementation is going to be everything. This is . . . like a starting gun for a race that's going to . . . hopefully define the coming decade of building something better.
  • Sam Ricketts, a co-founder and senior advisor for the climate change advocacy group Evergreen Action, in a Climate One podcast episode entitled "The Inflation Reduction Act: What's in the Sausage?" (August 10, 2022)

• I’m about to sign the Inflation Reduction Act into law . . . . The [climate component of this legislation] invests $369 billion to take the most aggressive action ever . . . in confronting the climate crisis and strengthening . . . our energy security.
  • US President Joe Biden, excerpted from "Remarks by President Biden At Signing of H.R. 5376, The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022" at whitehouse.gov. (For more extensive excerpts from Biden's remarks see the "Remarks upon signing the Inflation Reduction Act" section of the "Joe Biden" Wikiquote page). (August 16, 2022)

• {The US Inflation Reduction Act of 2022} is really good for a developing economy like Indonesia due to spillover effects because of lower costs {for technologies that help mitigate climate change}.
  • Fabby Tumiwa, Executive Director of the IESR, an Indonesian energy and environmental policy think tank, as quoted in "The Biggest Thing to Happen in International Climate Diplomacy in Decades: The Inflation Reduction Act could change the world in at least five ways." The Atlantic. (Quote transcribed by and article written by Robinson Meyer.) (August 31, 2022)

• [T]he analogy [regarding the three recent US climate laws] we’ve been thinking about is the backbone, the brain, and the lungs. So, the backbone being the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law {November 2021} . . . . That law [includes] investment in US infrastructure [such as] roads and bridges, but including significant energy infrastructure. Then there's the brain, the CHIPS and Science Act {August 2022}, and chips being the semiconductors that are in {electric vehicles, energy infrastructure, etc.} . . . and the science part authorizes additional investments from Congress in science {related to grid upgrades, zero emissions research, etc. by the} National Science Foundation and DOE {Department of Energy}. And then the third piece is the lungs. So, [taking a deep breath] breathing into that clean energy economy, the Inflation Reduction Act {August 2022} incentivizes deployment of clean technologies and really focuses on lowering costs for American families.
  • Carla Frisch, Acting Executive Director of the Office of Policy at the US Department of Energy, in an interview segment from a Climate One podcast entitled "The Inflation Reduction Act Passed. Now What?" (September 23, 2022)

• [I]f you think about how many times [US] politicians have tried and failed to pass climate legislation, it's really notable that the Inflation Reduction Act went through. So in the past, basically legislators tried to have sticks: . . . there would be a cap and trade bill; people had debated a carbon tax. The Inflation Reduction Act includes no sticks, it's only carrots. . . . [T]his law is kind of a complicated way to try to go about decarbonizing America, but it proved to be the only politically viable option that American politicians had yet come up with. And so, I think, on those terms, it's absolutely a victory . . . for those who were trying to advance some kind of climate legislation through Washington.
  • Charlotte Howard, Executive Editor and New York Bureau Chief at The Economist, in a segment on the Marketplace Morning Report radio program entitled "How could federal dollars transform American manufacturing?" (February 20, 2023)

COP27 Climate Conference in Egypt

27th United Nations Climate Change Conference (or "COP27"), held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt from November 6th to 18th, 2022

• [COP27] ended on Sunday morning with researchers largely frustrated at the lack of any ambition to phase out fossil fuels. However, there was one silver lining: delegates from low and middle income countries (LMICs) came away with an agreement on a new 'loss and damage' fund to help them cover the costs of climate-change impacts. . . . Many blamed the energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for a lack of progress on fossil fuels.
  • Ehsan Masood, Jeff Tollefson and Aisling Irwin, journalists writing for the science journal Nature, in "COP27 climate talks: what succeeded, what failed and what’s next: Researchers are frustrated at the glacial pace of decarbonisation - but cheered the commitment to create a 'loss and damage' fund." (November 21, 2022)

See also

• Green New Deal

Wikipedia Articles)

• List of renewable energy topics by country
• Solar energy
• Sustainable energy
• Wave power
• Wind power