by Patrice ‘Pete’ Parsons
Executive Director | Texas Solar Energy Society
Portions of this essay have been paraphrased from David Wallace-Well’s article, Beyond Catastrophe: A New Climate Reality is Coming into View in the New York Times. For a complete list of paraphrased sections, refer to the footnotes and citations for more information on the original source.
We’ve all heard the alarming news and statistics about climate change. Some of us, including me, have developed “eco-anxiety.” Why wouldn’t I? I’ve worked in the clean energy space and have been aware of all the distressing climate news my entire professional career; PLUS, I have children and now grandchildren.
Today, when we realistically evaluate the situation concerning water, disastrous extreme weather events, melting glaciers, etc., we admit that we have some serious problems to overcome. Lester Brown, American environmental analyst, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, founder and former president of the Earth Policy Institute, reminds us that the world population has doubled, and the world economy has expanded by 7x in the past 50 years. As to be expected, with this many people to feed worldwide and the ever-increasing concerns about water due to droughts and floods, we certainly have current and future concerns about producing and sustaining our global food supply.
Climatologists previously believed that a “business-as-usual” approach to carbon emissions would raise temperatures globally by 3.2-5.4 degrees Celsius, triggering sea level rise, famines, mass displacements and societal collapses2. Scientists now believe that warming this century will most likely fall between two or three degrees, and while still too high, it’s better than scientific predictions of five degrees hotter. Thanks to astonishing declines in the price of renewables, a truly global political mobilization, a clearer picture of the energy future and serious policy focus from world leaders, we have cut expected warming almost in half in just five years.
This good news indicates we are headed in the right direction. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in the previous year alone, 28.5 GW of energy were added by combined renewables. It’s now expected that by 2023, 23% of U.S. energy needs will come from renewables[1].
Additionally, renewables are rapidly becoming affordable. The price of lithium-ion batteries has dropped 85%, wind has dropped 55%, and solar is now almost universally cheaper than new non-renewables. Solar capacity is being built out on a large enough scale to produce enough energy to keep temperatures below the 2-degree Celsius point-of-no-return[2].
Will that be enough to meet future electricity demands?
If you consider everything that needs to be electrified, like residential and commercial buildings and the transportation sector, we really need to up our game. According to American Clean Power, we are still on track to achieve only 35% of the Biden Administration’s goals for 2035[3].
How do things look on the electric vehicle front?
Despite having greater up-front emissions from production, in the long run, EVs are cleaner than internal combustion engines, even after accounting for the mix of energy sources within the grid. Additionally, while cobalt has long been a worrying environmental factor in EVs, research is underway to produce cobalt-less battery technologies or recycle batteries altogether[4].
In fact, companies like BMW and Nissan are exploring the possibility of designing EV batteries to serve a secondary function as grid batteries. Though there is still much work to be done on this front, it’s expected that such capabilities would add up to 10 years to a battery’s lifespan[5].
How does distributed energy generation help?
According to the Solar Energy Industry Association (SEIA), distributed renewables are the cheapest energy option per watt, at $2.94 ($11k for a typical residential setup). They also tend to be cheaper, more reliable, and more stable than centralized plants, of which they ease the burden on, leading to reduced externalities on the environment from commercial-scale production[6].
What role does energy efficiency play?
Consider these stats of a typical household and think about how conservation can have huge implications for reducing the amount of energy produced.
- Heating – 26% energy used by heating system.
- Cooling – 17% energy used by cooling system.
- Water Heating – 13% energy used by water heaters for bathing, cleaning, etc.
- Lighting – 10% energy used for lighting your home.
- Appliances – 14% energy used for food storage, clothes washing and drying, cooking, etc.
- Electronics – 7% energy used for home entertainment systems, computers, etc.
- Other – 13% energy used for pool pumps, motors, and other miscellaneous devices.
The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy has been tracking the energy improvements of appliances and practices, determining that current trends show promising results in the efficiency of buildings and manufacturing processes. Much of that progress has been driven by improvements in the efficiency of motor appliances as a system – such as A/C systems – reducing electricity costs for the system function by 27-55%. This is in contrast to the meager 5% reduction attributable from the upgraded efficiency of a single appliance[7].
In conclusion
My takeaway from a presentation by Doug Lewin, President of Stoic Energy, is we have all the necessary technologies for energy-efficient homes. Future advances in systems analysis and optimization are expected to identify and realize even greater savings while also enabling the integration of emerging and transformative technologies crucial to the decarbonization of the economy.
And what about energy production? Currently, we are under-utilizing utility-scale generation capacity at night. As my friend Michael Osborne points out, “nighttime loads in the summertime are often less than half of the daytime loads. Nationwide, night loads are 60% of daytime loads during the summer, and in all seasons, nighttime loads are 15 to 30% less than daytime loads. It’s in these valleys that electric vehicles can be charged at maximum efficiency and minimum costs.”
This article doesn’t even address other technologies like geothermal, virtual power plants and others that can help reduce the electrical load.
Kate Marvel of NASA, and lead chapter author on the fifth National Climate Assessment stated, “The world will be what we make it.”
“We live in a terrible world, and we live in a wonderful world,” Marvel says. “It’s a terrible world that’s more than a degree Celsius warmer. But also, a wonderful world in which we have so many ways to generate electricity that are cheaper and more cost-effective and easier to deploy than I would’ve ever imagined. People are writing credible papers in scientific journals making the case that switching rapidly to renewable energy isn’t a net cost; it will be a net financial benefit,” she says with a headshake of near-disbelief. “If you had told me five years ago that that would be the case, I would’ve thought, wow, that’s a miracle.”
More robust clean energy policy is the answer!
The bottom line: to ramp up what we still need to get us to net-zero emissions is for citizens to vote for change at the local, state and federal levels. If we continue with “business as usual,” we will have little recourse against anti-solar and other critical environmental policies to keep us on the road to a net zero energy world.
“We’ve come a long way, and we’ve still got a long way to go,” says climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe, comparing the world’s progress to a long hike. “We’re halfway there. Look at the great view behind you. We actually made it up halfway, and it was a hard slog. So, take a breather, pat yourself on the back, but then look up — that’s where we have to go. So, let’s keep on going.”
PS: If you haven’t already, vote! And take a friend.
Citations:
“RCP 8.5: Business-as-Usual or a Worst-Case Scenario?” Climate Nexus. Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, September 26, 2019. https://climatenexus.org/climate-change-news/rcp-8-5-business-as-usual-or-a-worst-case-scenario/.
Wallace-wells, David. “Beyond Catastrophe: A New Climate Reality Is Coming into View.” The New York Times. The New York Times Company, October 26, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/10/26/magazine/climate-change-warming-world.html.
[1] Wallace-Wells “Beyond Catastrophe” 2022.
[2] Wallace-Wells “Beyond Catastrophe” 2022.
[3] Wallace-Wells “Beyond Catastrophe” 2022.
[4] Wallace-Wells “Beyond Catastrophe” 2022.
[5] Wallace-Wells “Beyond Catastrophe” 2022.
[6] Wallace-Wells “Beyond Catastrophe” 2022.
[7] Wallace-Wells “Beyond Catastrophe” 2022.