A Long Way to Go to Renewable

Spectator

By Stephen Tuttle | May 4, 2024

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, we now get almost 20 percent of our electricity generation from renewable sources, about twice what we were generating just two decades ago. But we are still getting at least 60 percent of our electrical power from fossil fuel sources. We’re doing better but still have a long way to go.

It’s not as if the majority of Americans don’t support the movement to renewables. Pew Research does a regular deep dive on the issue and reports about two-thirds of Americans believe we should prioritize the development of renewables like solar and wind. But, almost inexplicably, some 25 percent believe we should discourage the development of renewable energy, and 32 percent said we should prioritize the exploration and development of fossil fuels.

While 97 percent of climate scientists actively publishing believe climate change is human caused, the non-scientific communities have been a bit less sanguine, and almost a third of us are still unconvinced. Not surprisingly, the numbers are almost completely politically driven, with overwhelming majorities of those self-describing as liberal, progressive, or Democrat believing climate change is real and human caused while those self-identifying as conservative, Republican, or MAGA are significantly more skeptical or believe climate change is part of a natural cycle. (We have to start categorizing MAGA supporters differently than traditional Republicans because the two groups no longer share the same political values.)

So we’re approaching a consensus on the source of the problem, and there are solutions, or at least alternatives, already available. All are getting more efficient and reliable, but all still have drawbacks.

Solar energy is the best bet for moving individual businesses and residences off the power grid and reliance on fossil fuels. Solar cells are now efficient enough to power an average home in most circumstances, and batteries, and their storage capabilities, are sufficiently improved to easily provide power in the evenings.

We are not yet at a point where solar is practical for large applications, simply because such a solar array would require enormous amounts of land and space. The largest solar plants in the world are in China, India, and the Middle East and consume hundreds of square miles of land. Additionally, we’ve not yet figured out how to best utilize the land under the solar panels, and there are issues with the mining and production of the rare earth minerals used in solar panels and how to best recycle or dispose of them at the end of their life cycle.

We’re closer with solar than we are with wind, though wind is a cheaper way to produce electricity. Improved turbine efficiency and battery storage capacity have helped. A wind farm already exists 14 miles off the Massachusetts coast, and Maine has long considered a similar offshore installment.

Resistance comes mostly from neighbors and communities who find the ever-larger turbines unsightly. However, it should be noted that despite what you might have heard from some fear-mongering politicians, wind turbines do not cause cancer or autism or hearing loss, and they are not even remotely close to being a leading cause of accidental bird deaths. The American Bird Conservancy says most deadly bird strikes occur on medium-height buildings and vehicles, but by far the biggest culprit of bird deaths are domestic cats allowed to roam outside that kill up to 2.4 billion birds just in the U.S. every year.

We’re trying to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, which are responsible for about 80 percent of greenhouse gasses. Electric power production creates the most carbon dioxide, but cars and trucks are next in line. Fossil fuel power plants are slowly being taken offline and electric vehicles will also help.

Used car experts Edmunds report there are now more than 3.3 million all electric vehicles (EVs) on U.S. roads, nearly tripling the number in just three years. And EVs now have much better range, the batteries have more storage capacity, and as more manufacturers move to EV production, the costs will decrease and quality and reliability will increase.

But there are also still 285 million gas-powered vehicles out there, and our entire transportation infrastructure has been developed for gas-powered vehicles. We don’t yet have anywhere near the number of charging stations we need, there are issues manufacturing and then disposing of depleted batteries, the batteries are manufactured mostly in China (as are solar panels), and, as we should have known, the batteries operating EVs are less efficient in extreme heat or cold.

Even though we’re making progress on several fronts, our efforts to create grid-wide, macro renewable solutions may be a long time coming to fruition. But powering individual homes and buildings with off-grid renewables can happen right now and is already a more viable grid alternative than could have been imagined even a decade ago.