Climate Crisis Driving New Energy Boom

Amid climate crisis, renewable energy poised for rapid growth

Lynn Jurich, May 22, 2019 (The Hill)

“…[There are only have about 12 years to act before [climate crisis] damage is irrevocable. The good news is that we have the technology and solutions…and the public is overwhelmingly supportive…Thanks to federal clean energy tax incentives and supportive state policies…[New Energy} already accounts for 18 percent of our electricity production, up from 9 percent just a decade ago…Solar capacity has almost tripled since 2015, from 19,000 megawatts to 48,000 megawatts in 2018…Wind production has also almost tripled since 2009, from 35,000 megawatts to more than 90,000 megawatts in 2018…In combination, total solar and wind potential is more than 14 million megawatts – or 14 times current electric power capacity…Companies are deploying battery storage today, and prices are dropping quickly, falling by 76 percent between 2012 and 2018…

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…[S]tate policymakers should continue their leadership enacting policies that maintain our country’s clean energy momentum…We will still need to have a transmission grid, and large-scale centralized renewable power, but we also need to increasingly deploy local energy resources if we are to achieve a fully decarbonized grid…Ten years ago, few Americans could have imagined a nation powered by renewable energy. But, renewable energy now provides nearly 20 percent of our electricity and we have more than enough capacity to produce all of our energy from wind and solar, according to the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory…We simply have to choose the policies that accelerate the transition…” click here for more

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