John Carey, an experienced science, health, and environmental reporter, has written an outstanding article full of information and hope in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. In it he says that “we have the basic technologies we need to slay the monster of climate change.” He notes that, contrary to what some technology magnates or political people have said, we don’t need a miracle and we don’t need to hope for future technologies, we have almost everything we need right now.
He points out that the technologies are very affordable right now, and will continue to get cheaper. He notes that solar photovoltaic has plunged from $4.90 per watt in 1998 to $1.28 in 2011 to $0.20 (20 cents!) in 2020. The U.K. is generating 48% of its electricity needs from wind turbines on a windy day.
His advice: first: electrify everything possible (transportation, houses, businesses), second: generate all the electricity we need from renewables, and third: serious energy efficiency to reduce consumption.
He writes about all the current creavity and development happening in the clean energy area – solar, batteries, geothermal, and so much more.
He advocates for building overcapacity to deal with the varaiability of wind and solar – build enough for the slow days, and on the high production days use the excess energy for green hydrogen and other fuels for industries that are hard to run on solar, such as steel and shipping.
It’s such an excellent article and full of good advice and hope, please read it in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
06/01/2021
