search results for: Wind Energy

Climate Now: Jan 23, 2023

How to fix the clean energy bottleneck

In 2021, U.S. President Biden signed an executive order with the directive to achieve 100% carbon-pollution free electricity in the United States by 2030. The goal is certainly achievable: currently wind and solar are the cheapest forms of electricity generati

Climate Now: Jan 9, 2023

Inside the DOE: Understanding the role of the US Department of Energy in the energy transition

“We’ve built an entire industrial economy around a set of energy sources, and we’re now thinking about diversifying way beyond that. And that’s a big set of changes.” What will it take to diversify our energy economy, and how do we actual

Climate Now: Dec 19, 2022

A star in the west was brightly shining…

Last week, LLNL’s National Ignition Facility successfully ‘ignited’ a nuclear fusion reaction equivalent to what takes place in the sun: the conversion of hydrogen to helium + energy. In a first, the experiment produced more energy than was

Climate Now: Dec 12, 2022

What lies beneath? Efficient heating and cooling.

Can Earth’s geothermal heat warm – and cool – your home? The hottest day ever recorded on Earth was on July 10, 1913. Thermometers in California’s Death Valley measured 134 degrees F. The coldest day ever recorded on land (not on an Antarctic i

Climate Now: Dec 5, 2022

The role of microgrids in the energy transition

A micro-grid is a local grid. That means that energy generation occurs locally (no giant transmission lines) to support local energy demand, and it has the option to operate independently from a traditional regional power grid. These kinds of grids are attract

Climate Now: Nov 28, 2022

Battery power: the future of grid-scale energy storage

Renewable energy sources – wind and solar – have become the cheapest and fastest growing form of electricity generation. But the industry has not yet escaped the perennial criticism that keeps many from believing that the world could run entirely o

Climate Now: Oct 3, 2022

The solarcoaster: adoption curves and business models

Mitigating climate change is a race against time, requiring “rapid, far reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society,” according to the IPCC, who says we need to halve global emissions by 2030. But Tom Dinwoodie of Epic Institute argues tha

Climate Now: Sep 6, 2022

What’s in the Inflation Reduction Act for climate?

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), signed into U.S. law by President Joe Biden on August 16th, might be the biggest climate investment in history, but it does not look much like the kinds of policies that have been most championed by climate activists and econ

Climate Now: Jul 26, 2022

Do we need nuclear power to solve climate change? Amory Lovins says no

In 2017, the V.C. Summer Nuclear Plant expansion – meant to hail the renaissance of nuclear power in the US – came screeching to a halt. The project, to build two new reactors at an existing South Carolina facility, was canceled after being delayed

Climate Now: Jun 7, 2022

Are we undervaluing energy efficiency as a decarbonization strategy?

Are we underestimating the potential of increased efficiency? It wouldn’t be the first time. In 2021, the International Energy Agency and the U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasted a 50% increase in global energy demand by 2050. Such forecasts hav

Climate Now: May 31, 2022

Financial innovations for climate and clean energy impact

In the 2019/2020 fiscal year, the global climate finance sector reached a record 632 billion US dollars. Unfortunately – that is a little short of the more than $3 trillion US dollars needed each year to keep warming under 2 degrees C, according to the I

Mini Explainer Series Ep 4

Three energy transition scenarios with Doyne Farmer

Dr. Doyne Farmer, Director of the Complexity Economics program at the Oxford Martin School, and co-author of the recent working paper, Empirically grounded technology forecasts and the energy transition, sat down with Climate Now to explain why, even without c

Climate Now: May 23, 2022

How to meet electricity demand while greening the grid

Lawrence Livermore National Lab, Princeton University, and the IPCC have all published proposed climate mitigation pathways: strategies for economically reaching net-zero emissions by mid-century for California, the U.S., and the world, respectively. And they

Climate Now: May 17, 2022

Will the clean energy transition be cheaper than we thought?

The recent working paper by Rupert Way, Matthew Ives, Penny Mealy, and Doyne Farmer, Empirically grounded technology forecasts and the energy transition, suggests that the high estimates of the expense to transition to renewable energy have been inflated, and

Climate Now: May 9, 2022

Diluting dependence on Russian oil: How renewable energy can defund a war

Among the top importers of Russian oil are the EU, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, and France. The EU accounted for 71% of oil imports from Russia 2 months after the war in Ukraine began. But cutting off oil and gas imports from Russia completely can pose gre

Climate Now: May 2, 2022

The bottom line on sustainable shipping: Can the shipping industry reach zero emissions?

If the international shipping sector were a country, it would be the sixth largest CO2 emitting nation in the world. Every year, 11 billion tons of goods – about 80% of all the goods we use or consume – reach us by ship, emitting nearly a billion t

Climate Now: Mar 29, 2022

Can ammonia or wind propel carbon-free shipping?

In the race for decarbonization, the shipping industry faces major challenges. Fuel is cheap, almost half the price of gasoline. And, most ships last between 20-25 years, meaning that the turnover to cleaner shipping could take far longer than road transportat

Climate Now: Mar 22, 2022

How the electricity grid works

One of the most efficient ways to get to a net-zero economy is to generate electricity from renewable sources, and then make as many things run on electricity as possible.  But, as more end-use services (transportation, heating, industry) are electrified, and

Technologies Ep 8

Wind Energy

In order to reach global net-zero emissions by the middle of the century, modeled pathways project that wind energy will need to be a primary source of electricity, accounting for 19-43% of global electricity production. Today, though, wind produces only 6% of

Climate Now: Dec 9, 2021

Scaling wind energy: What it will take to reach global net-zero, with Simon Watson

Wind energy is one of the cheapest sources of energy today, but it accounts for only ~6% of global electricity generation. To limit global warming to 2 degrees C or less, wind energy will need to scale up to about 5 times its current size. So, how can this b

Technologies Ep 3

Building stars on Earth: the potential of nuclear fusion

Energy from nuclear fusion has the potential to cleanly and safely power the world. But, when do fusion experts expect this to happen? What technical challenges must be overcome before we can power our homes using fusion energy? Which technologies are lead

Climate Now: Aug 27, 2021

Nuclear Energy: What are the real risks? with David Keith

Despite being a reliable, zero-emissions alternative to energy derived from fossil fuels, nuclear energy remains mired in controversy. Opponents often cite four reasons not to include nuclear in the portfolio of alternative energy sources that will replace fos

Climate Now: Aug 20, 2021

Investing in the Energy Transition with Salim Samaha

Transitioning to a sustainable energy economy will require significant input of investment capital. But how do investors decide which companies and technologies to back as society moves toward a carbon neutral future? Salim Samaha heads energy project investme

Technologies Ep 1

Clean Fuel: Hydrogen Fuel

Hydrogen is uniquely qualified as a storage of clean energy because it is abundant – the most abundant element in the universe – and it can be produced using renewable energy. When consumed in a fuel cell, its only byproduct is water, making it