Full Title: Tackling America’s Electricity Challenges
Author(s): Shane Londagin
Publisher(s): Third Way
Publication Date: April 11, 2024
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
The electrical grid is the largest and most complex machine humankind has ever built. It spans continents and oceans, producing, transforming, transmitting, and consuming electricity instantaneously. But as impressive as our current system is, it is not prepared for the challenges of the future. Hitting the US’ 2050 net-zero commitment requires the rapid electrification of our economy.
This approach to decarbonization—known as “electrify everything”—calls for increasing the use of electricity in traditionally fossil fuel-dependent sectors like transportation and heavy industry. But electrifying these sectors will only help reduce greenhouse gas emissions if that electricity itself is generated by clean sources of energy. That’s why the first stop on the path to a net-zero economy is a 100% clean electricity target, set by the Biden Administration for 2035. Despite some progress, we remain far from hitting those sequential targets. Today, electricity only powers a fraction of key sectors in the United States, or ~20% of final energy consumption.