Just how fast will clean energy grow in the U.S.?
To slash U.S. emissions of climate-warming carbon pollution, many experts have settled on a plan that can be largely described in two steps: Clean up the power grid and electrify everything.
If electric vehicles, heat pumps, induction stoves, and some industrial processes can be powered by clean electricity and replace fossil-fueled alternatives, that transition will do most of the work toward decarbonizing the economy and helping the U.S. meet its commitments under the Paris climate agreement.
Carbon pollution from the U.S. power sector had already been declining, albeit too slowly to meet the country’s Paris commitments. Then in 2022, President Biden signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes over a decade’s-worth of tax credits for clean electricity sources. That financial certainty along with the rapidly falling costs of solar and wind power and energy storage are set to unleash an explosion of clean-energy deployment in the coming years.
A plethora of energy modelers and renewables and financial experts have published reports and studies projecting just how quickly this transition will occur. The consensus is that the amount of solar and wind generation in the U.S. will nearly double between now and 2025 — and then nearly double again by 2030, supplying about half the country’s power by the turn of the decade. [Continue reading…]
Nearly one year after President Biden enacted a sprawling package to combat harmful emissions and boost clean energy, his administration is struggling to demonstrate the law’s value to weary voters — and stave off a widening array of new political threats.
Most Americans — 57 percent — disapprove of Biden’s handling of climate change, according to a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll, which also finds that few adults say they know a good amount or great deal about the Inflation Reduction Act, a law that includes massive new investments in response to global warming.
The low approval and lack of public awareness underscore Biden’s top challenge entering the 2024 presidential race, as he looks to sell an unknowing electorate on an agenda that — in the eyes of the White House — has created jobs, boosted manufacturing and lowered costs for families. [Continue reading…]