Full Title: Clean Energy Opportunities and Dirty Energy Challenges - 2019
Author(s): Amanda Levin
Publisher(s): Natural Resources Defense Council
Publication Date: November 6, 2019
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
The U.S. energy sector has entered a new phase in the energy transition. Although there is still much left to do, we are making real progress in many clean energy arenas. Solar and wind energy are thriving, and the technologies to help smooth out the highs and lows of renewable energy generation and integrate these clean resources into the electric grid are becoming commercial realities. The costs of clean energy continue to fall rapidly. Wind and solar already outcompete coal power and are likely to put similar
economic pressure on natural gas within the next decade and a half. Meanwhile, coalfired generation has sunk to a four-decade low. In fact, coal consumption economy-wide in 2018 was 47 percent lower than the Department of Energy (DOE) projected it would be a decade ago, while wind and solar power capacity in 2018 was four times higher than DOE anticipated. But at the same time, natural gas and oil infrastructure is expanding, incentivized by the influx of cheap fracked oil and gas. This threatens to undermine climate progress in the U.S. by locking in the use of climate-warming fossil fuels.