future of energy essay

Renewable energy could power the world by 2050. Here’s what that future might look like

Switching to renewable energy could prevent 4 to 7 million deaths from air pollution annually worldwide. Image:  Unsplash/Science in HD

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Stay up to date:, energy transition.

• It’s possible to switch to a fully sustainable global energy landscape within the next 30 years, according to research.
• Greater geographical connectivity of solar, wind and hydro power, can reduce energy use and cut costs.
• Without the support of policymakers, businesses and other organizations, the transition may not happen quickly enough to stay under the 1.5° Paris global warming target.

What would a more sustainable world powered by renewable energy look like? We have a better sense, thanks to a special collection of research from experts from around the globe. Collated by Stanford University, a collection of 47 peer-reviewed research papers by 91 authors analysed different scenarios to examine whether individual countries or entire regions could get by solely relying on renewables.

Have you read?

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The papers look at a range of different situations and geographies, including small island states, major powers and countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In each case, they found energy for electricity, transport, building heating or cooling, and industry can be supplied reliably with 100% — or near-100% — renewable energy, at different locations around the world. Renewable world One study in the collection looked at global warming, air pollution and energy insecurity, creating Green New Deal roadmaps for 143 countries to overcome these problems.

The roadmaps call for these countries, which are collectively responsible for 99.7% of global CO2 emissions, to switch to 100% clean, renewable wind, water and solar power no later than 2050, with at least 80% renewables by 2030. The study divides all the planet’s countries into 24 regions which can work together on grid stability and energy storage solutions, so energy demand matches supply between 2050 to 2052. After that, it’s possible to power the planet entirely by sustainable energy. Switching to wind, water and solar worldwide could eliminate 4 to 7 million deaths from air pollution annually, while first slowing and then reversing the effects of global warming and, in doing so, stabilizing the global energy sector.

Moving to clean energy is key to combating climate change, yet in the past five years, the energy transition has stagnated.

Energy consumption and production contribute to two-thirds of global emissions, and 81% of the global energy system is still based on fossil fuels, the same percentage as 30 years ago. Plus, improvements in the energy intensity of the global economy (the amount of energy used per unit of economic activity) are slowing. In 2018 energy intensity improved by 1.2%, the slowest rate since 2010.

Effective policies, private-sector action and public-private cooperation are needed to create a more inclusive, sustainable, affordable and secure global energy system.

Benchmarking progress is essential to a successful transition. The World Economic Forum’s Energy Transition Index , which ranks 115 economies on how well they balance energy security and access with environmental sustainability and affordability, shows that the biggest challenge facing energy transition is the lack of readiness among the world’s largest emitters, including US, China, India and Russia. The 10 countries that score the highest in terms of readiness account for only 2.6% of global annual emissions.

To future-proof the global energy system, the Forum’s Centre for Energy & Materials is working on initiatives including Clean Power and Electrification , Energy and Industry Transition Intelligence, Industrial Ecosystems Transformation , and Transition Enablers to encourage and enable innovative energy investments, technologies and solutions.

Additionally, the Mission Possible Partnership (MPP) is working to assemble public and private partners to further the industry transition to set heavy industry and mobility sectors on the pathway towards net-zero emissions. MPP is an initiative created by the World Economic Forum and the Energy Transitions Commission.

Is your organisation interested in working with the World Economic Forum? Find out more here .

Building a North American super grid A study by researchers in Finland looked at the feasibility of building a renewables super grid connecting the regions of North America, including the US, Canada and Mexico. Dividing the regions into 20 interconnected sub-regions, based on population, energy demand, area and electricity grid structure, could significantly reduce storage requirements and overall cost of the energy system, they found. While replacing fossil fuels with mainly wind and solar power is entirely possible by 2030, such a dramatic transformation couldn’t be achieved in the short-term without the full support of policymakers, investors and many other relevant organizations.

Moving away from oil

Saudi Arabia can transition to a 100% renewable energy system by 2040, according to another Finnish study. While the country is known for its oil deposits, it is also rich in another energy source: sunshine to power solar energy. By 2050, solar power could account for 79% of the country's energy demand, supported by enhanced battery and water storage solutions to lower energy system costs. This study emphasizes the central role that energy storage will play in the transition to a sustainable energy landscape, to overcome the intermittent nature of solar and wind resources and provide power when there is no wind or sunshine.

Projected electricity generation worldwide to 2050

A greener future?

To be sure, challenges exist and the targets are ambitious. Still, the reports all conclude that the technology exists for the world to transition to a fully sustainable energy system by 2050, which should keep the planet below the 1.5° Paris global warming target. Mitigating the impact of climate change means fewer floods, storms, droughts and other extremes caused by warming temperatures. It could also mean less pollution. Nine out of every 10 people on the planet breathe polluted air, according to the World Health Organization , which can lead to respiratory diseases, heart conditions, strokes and other life-threatening diseases. Pollution, largely from burning fossil fuels, kills up to seven million people annually, with low and middle-income countries carrying the highest burden. This includes exposure to toxic fumes from using wood, coal or dung as the primary cooking fuel.

A future powered by wind, solar and other sustainable energy sources, could also reduce energy bills. The costs of producing wind and solar have plummeted in recent years and renewables remain on course to outprice fossil fuels in future.

This future could be attainable, the researchers stress, provide urgent action is taken by a range of stakeholders, including policymakers, business leaders and other stakeholders. Through collaboration, the world can speed its transition to sustainable energy and a sustainable future.

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License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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What does the future of energy look like? Stanford scientists weigh in

Stanford experts agree that the world needs to be less reliant on fossil fuels for energy. Getting there will remake the world’s largest economic sector – energy – into one that is more sustainable, secure and affordable for everyone.

Fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas supply 80 percent of the world’s energy to warm homes, charge devices and power transportation. They are also the primary human source of greenhouse gas emissions. Stanford scientists broadly agree that curtailing our use of fossil fuels would have significant benefits – like improving health and reducing the number and severity of natural disasters – but it’s not yet clear what can replace them.

Wind and solar are increasingly popular sources of energy, but the sun does not always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow. Batteries to store their intermittent energy are not yet cheap and powerful enough to fill the gaps. Nuclear energy produces no greenhouse gases directly, but the current generation of reactors has other problems. Solutions like storing carbon dioxide underground or turning it into clean fuel are promising, but they also need much development. None of the possible solutions is without challenges.

Eight Stanford researchers describe how, among these many developing options, they envision the world becoming less reliant on fossil fuels. Nobel physicist and former U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu,  a professor of physics and of cellular and molecular biology at Stanford, outlines the broad challenge, “which cannot be overestimated,” he says. Other professors describe pathways to better technologies, as well as the public policies and financial mechanisms necessary for the best applications to flourish. All agree that the goal is less reliance on carbon-based fuel sources, and that a combination of solutions – rather than a silver bullet – likely will create that greener energy future.

Produced in association with Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy

How do we get there? Steven Chu

Steven Chu , a Stanford professor of physics and of molecular & cellular physiology, discusses the enormous challenge of eliminating global greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the century.

Go to the web site to view the video.

Capturing carbon: Sally Benson

Sally Benson , a Stanford professor of energy resources engineering, explains the essential role of capturing carbon and storing it underground in curbing climate change.

Clean alternatives to gasoline: Thomas Jaramillo

Thomas Jaramillo , a Stanford associate professor of chemical engineering, explains how researchers are developing clean alternatives to gasoline and other fossil fuels.

Innovations in electricity: Arun Majumdar

Arun Majumdar , a Stanford professor of mechanical engineering, explains how advances in big data and technology will lead to a modern, low-carbon electric grid.

Natural gas as a transition: Mark Zoback

Mark Zoback , a Stanford professor of geophysics, discusses the impact of the natural gas revolution as electricity providers transition from coal to a renewable-energy future.

Improved batteries and solar cells: Yi Cui

Yi Cui , a Stanford professor of materials science and engineering, discusses the big technical challenges in battery and solar research, and some possible solutions from his research.

Financing the transition: Dan Reicher

Dan Reicher , a Stanford professor of the practice of law, discusses the role of policy and finance in spurring development of clean-energy technologies.

Controlling chemistry to make new fuels: Stacey Bent

Stacey Bent , a Stanford professor of chemical engineering, explains strategies underway in her lab for making ethanol from molecules in the air.

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Renewable energy – powering a safer future

Energy is at the heart of the climate challenge – and key to the solution.

A large chunk of the greenhouse gases that blanket the Earth and trap the sun’s heat are generated through energy production, by burning fossil fuels to generate electricity and heat.

Fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas, are by far the largest contributor to global climate change , accounting for over 75 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions.

The science is clear: to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, emissions need to be reduced by almost half by 2030 and reach net-zero by 2050.

To achieve this, we need to end our reliance on fossil fuels and invest in alternative sources of energy that are clean, accessible, affordable, sustainable, and reliable.

Renewable energy sources – which are available in abundance all around us, provided by the sun, wind, water, waste, and heat from the Earth – are replenished by nature and emit little to no greenhouse gases or pollutants into the air.

Fossil fuels still account for more than 80 percent of global energy production , but cleaner sources of energy are gaining ground. About 29 percent of electricity currently comes from renewable sources.

Here are five reasons why accelerating the transition to clean energy is the pathway to a healthy, livable planet today and for generations to come.

1. Renewable energy sources are all around us

About 80 percent of the global population lives in countries that are net-importers of fossil fuels -- that’s about 6 billion people who are dependent on fossil fuels from other countries, which makes them vulnerable to geopolitical shocks and crises.

In contrast, renewable energy sources are available in all countries, and their potential is yet to be fully harnessed. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) estimates that 90 percent of the world’s electricity can and should come from renewable energy by 2050.

Renewables offer a way out of import dependency, allowing countries to diversify their economies and protect them from the unpredictable price swings of fossil fuels, while driving inclusive economic growth, new jobs, and poverty alleviation.

2. Renewable energy is cheaper

Renewable energy actually is the cheapest power option in most parts of the world today. Prices for renewable energy technologies are dropping rapidly. The cost of electricity from solar power fell by 85 percent between 2010 and 2020. Costs of onshore and offshore wind energy fell by 56 percent and 48 percent respectively.

Falling prices make renewable energy more attractive all around – including to low- and middle-income countries, where most of the additional demand for new electricity will come from. With falling costs, there is a real opportunity for much of the new power supply over the coming years to be provided by low-carbon sources.

Cheap electricity from renewable sources could provide 65 percent of the world’s total electricity supply by 2030. It could decarbonize 90 percent of the power sector by 2050, massively cutting carbon emissions and helping to mitigate climate change.

Although solar and wind power costs are expected to remain higher in 2022 and 2023 then pre-pandemic levels due to general elevated commodity and freight prices, their competitiveness actually improves due to much sharper increases in gas and coal prices, says the International Energy Agency (IEA).

3. Renewable energy is healthier

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 99 percent of people in the world breathe air that exceeds air quality limits and threatens their health, and more than 13 million deaths around the world each year are due to avoidable environmental causes, including air pollution.

The unhealthy levels of fine particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide originate mainly from the burning of fossil fuels. In 2018, air pollution from fossil fuels caused $2.9 trillion in health and economic costs , about $8 billion a day.

Switching to clean sources of energy, such as wind and solar, thus helps address not only climate change but also air pollution and health.

4. Renewable energy creates jobs

Every dollar of investment in renewables creates three times more jobs than in the fossil fuel industry. The IEA estimates that the transition towards net-zero emissions will lead to an overall increase in energy sector jobs : while about 5 million jobs in fossil fuel production could be lost by 2030, an estimated 14 million new jobs would be created in clean energy, resulting in a net gain of 9 million jobs.

In addition, energy-related industries would require a further 16 million workers, for instance to take on new roles in manufacturing of electric vehicles and hyper-efficient appliances or in innovative technologies such as hydrogen. This means that a total of more than 30 million jobs could be created in clean energy, efficiency, and low-emissions technologies by 2030.

Ensuring a just transition , placing the needs and rights of people at the heart of the energy transition, will be paramount to make sure no one is left behind.

5. Renewable energy makes economic sense

About $7 trillion was spent on subsidizing the fossil fuel industry in 2022, including through explicit subsidies, tax breaks, and health and environmental damages that were not priced into the cost of fossil fuels.

In comparison, about $4 trillion a year needs to be invested in renewable energy until 2030 – including investments in technology and infrastructure – to allow us to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

The upfront cost can be daunting for many countries with limited resources, and many will need financial and technical support to make the transition. But investments in renewable energy will pay off. The reduction of pollution and climate impacts alone could save the world up to $4.2 trillion per year by 2030.

Moreover, efficient, reliable renewable technologies can create a system less prone to market shocks and improve resilience and energy security by diversifying power supply options.

Learn more about how many communities and countries are realizing the economic, societal, and environmental benefits of renewable energy.

Will developing countries benefit from the renewables boom? Learn more here .

What is renewable energy?

Derived from natural resources that are abundant and continuously replenished, renewable energy is key to a safer, cleaner, and sustainable world. Explore common sources of renewable energy here.

Why invest in renewable energy?

Learn more about the differences between fossil fuels and renewables, the benefits of renewable energy, and how we can act now.

Five ways to jump-start the renewable energy transition now

UN Secretary-General outlines five critical actions the world needs to prioritize now to speed up the global shift to renewable energy.

What is net zero? Why is it important? Our net-zero page explains why we need steep emissions cuts now and what efforts are underway.

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Our climate 101 offers a quick take on the how and why of climate change. Read more.

How will the world foot the bill? We explain the issues and the value of financing climate action.

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It’s time to stop burning our planet, and start investing in the abundant renewable energy all around us." ANTÓNIO GUTERRES , United Nations Secretary-General

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The Future of Solar Energy

Read the report.

Executive summary (PDF) Full report (PDF)

The Future of Solar Energy considers only the two widely recognized classes of technologies for converting solar energy into electricity — photovoltaics (PV) and concentrated solar power (CSP), sometimes called solar thermal) — in their current and plausible future forms. Because energy supply facilities typically last several decades, technologies in these classes will dominate solar-powered generation between now and 2050, and we do not attempt to look beyond that date. In contrast to some earlier Future of studies, we also present no forecasts — for two reasons. First, expanding the solar industry dramatically from its relatively tiny current scale may produce changes we do not pretend to be able to foresee today. Second, we recognize that future solar deployment will depend heavily on uncertain future market conditions and public policies — including but not limited to policies aimed at mitigating global climate change.

As in other studies in this series, our primary aim is to inform decision-makers in the developed world, particularly the United States. We concentrate on the use of grid-connected solar-powered generators to replace conventional sources of electricity. For the more than one billion people in the developing world who lack access to a reliable electric grid, the cost of small-scale PV generation is often outweighed by the very high value of access to electricity for lighting and charging mobile telephone and radio batteries. In addition, in some developing nations it may be economic to use solar generation to reduce reliance on imported oil, particularly if that oil must be moved by truck to remote generator sites. A companion working paper discusses both these valuable roles for solar energy in the developing world.

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The Clean Energy Future Is Arriving Faster Than You Think

The United States is pivoting away from fossil fuels and toward wind, solar and other renewable energy, even in areas dominated by the oil and gas industries.

This is the first article in a three-part series examining the speed , challenges and politics of the American economy moving toward clean energy.

Delivery vans in Pittsburgh. Buses in Milwaukee. Cranes loading freight at the Port of Los Angeles. Every municipal building in Houston. All are powered by electricity derived from the sun, wind or other sources of clean energy.

Across the country, a profound shift is taking place that is nearly invisible to most Americans. The nation that burned coal, oil and gas for more than a century to become the richest economy on the planet, as well as historically the most polluting, is rapidly shifting away from fossil fuels.

A similar energy transition is already well underway in Europe and elsewhere. But the United States is catching up, and globally, change is happening at a pace that is surprising even the experts who track it closely.

Wind and solar power are breaking records, and renewables are now expected to overtake coal by 2025 as the world’s largest source of electricity. Automakers have made electric vehicles central to their business strategies and are openly talking about an expiration date on the internal combustion engine. Heating, cooling, cooking and some manufacturing are going electric.

As the planet registers the highest temperatures on record, rising in some places to levels incompatible with human life, governments around the world are pouring trillions of dollars into clean energy to cut the carbon pollution that is broiling the planet.

The cost of generating electricity from the sun and wind is falling fast and in many areas is now cheaper than gas, oil or coal. Private investment is flooding into companies that are jockeying for advantage in emerging green industries.

“We look at energy data on a daily basis, and it’s astonishing what’s happening,” said Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency. “Clean energy is moving faster than many people think, and it’s become turbocharged lately.”

More than $1.7 trillion worldwide is expected to be invested in technologies such as wind, solar power, electric vehicles and batteries globally this year, according to the I.E.A., compared with just over $1 trillion in fossil fuels. That is by far the most ever spent on clean energy in a year.

Those investments are driving explosive growth. China, which already leads the world in the sheer amount of electricity produced by wind and solar power, is expected to double its capacity by 2025, five years ahead of schedule . In Britain, roughly one-third of electricity is generated by wind, solar and hydropower. And in the United States, 23 percent of electricity is expected to come from renewable sources this year, up 10 percentage points from a decade ago.

Solar and Wind Power Have Taken Off

Electricity generation per year, in terawatt hours

Source: The Energy Institute’s 2023 Statistical Review of World Energy

Note: Data reflects generation within country borders.

By The New York Times

“The nature of these exponential curves sometimes causes us to underestimate how quickly changes occur once they reach these inflection points and begin accelerating,” said former Vice President Al Gore, who called attention to what he termed a “planetary crisis” 17 years ago in his film “An Inconvenient Truth.” “The trend is definitely in favor of more and more renewable energy and less fossil energy.”

Even as the pace of change in the United States is surprising everyone from energy experts to automobile executives, fossil fuels still dominate energy production at home and abroad.

Corporations are building new coal mines, oil rigs and gas pipelines. The government continues to award leases for drilling projects on public lands and in federal waters and still subsidizes the industries. After posting record profits last year, leading oil companies are backing away from recent promises to invest more heavily in renewable energy.

The scale of change required to remake the systems that power the United States — all the infrastructure that needs to be removed, re-engineered and replaced — is mind-boggling. There are major challenges involved in adding large amounts of renewable energy to antiquated electric grids and mining enough minerals for clean technologies. Some politicians, including most Republicans, want the country to continue burning fossil fuels, even in the face of overwhelming scientific consensus that their use is endangering life on the planet. Dozens of conservative groups organized by the Heritage Foundation have created a policy playbook , should a Republican win the 2024 presidential election, that would reverse course on lowering emissions. It would shred regulations designed to curb greenhouse gases, dismantle nearly every federal clean energy program and boost the production of fossil fuels.

And while energy systems are changing fast, so is the climate. It is far from certain whether the United States and other polluting countries will do what scientists say is required to avert catastrophe: stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere by 2050. All of the investment so far has slowed the pace at which emissions are growing worldwide, but the amount of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere is at record levels.

And yet, from Beijing to London, Tokyo to Washington, Oslo to Dubai, the energy transition is undeniably racing ahead. Change is here, even in oil country.

‘Energy Is Energy’

As the workday begins in Tulsa, Okla., the assembly line at the electric school bus factory rattles to life. Crews fan out across the city to install solar panels on century-old Tudor homes. Teslas and Ford F-150 Lightnings pull up to charging stations powered in part by the country’s second-largest wind farm. And at the University of Tulsa’s School of Petroleum Engineering, faculty are working on ways to use hydrogen as a clean energy source.

Tulsa, a former boomtown once known as the “Oil Capital of the World” where the minor league baseball team is the Drillers, is immersed in a new energy revolution.

At the port, an Italian company, Enel, is building a $1 billion solar panel factory. The bus factory is operated by Navistar, one of the biggest commercial vehicle makers in the world. And the city’s main electric utility, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, now harvests more than 28 percent of its power from wind.

Clean energy entrepreneurs are flocking to Oklahoma, too. Francis Energy, a fast-growing maker of electric vehicle charging stations, is based in Tulsa. Canoo, an electric vehicle start-up, is building a 100,000-square-foot battery factory at a nearby industrial park and a manufacturing plant for its trucks in Oklahoma City, though there are questions about whether the company will have enough funding to realize its plans. And teams from Solar Power of Oklahoma are busy fastening photovoltaic panels to the roofs of homes and businesses around Tulsa.

The city is embracing its shifting identity.

“We have a tremendous sense of pride in our history,” said Dewey F. Bartlett Jr., the Republican former mayor of Tulsa who was an oil and gas executive but now helps recruit clean energy companies to the region. “But we also understand that energy is energy, whether it is generated by wind, steam or whatever it might be.”

Around the country, clean energy is taking root in unlikely locales.

Houston, home to more than 500 oil and gas companies, also has more than 130 solar- and wind-related companies . Some of the country’s largest wind and solar farms are in the Texas flatlands outside the city, and a huge wind farm has been proposed off the coast of Galveston .

In Arkansas, a planned solar farm — the state’s biggest — is expected to help power a nearby U.S. Steel factory that is undergoing a $3 billion upgrade. When complete, the plant will use electric furnaces to mold scrap steel into new products. That will result in about 80 percent less greenhouse gases, the company says, and set the pace for an industry that has been a major polluter.

About two-thirds of the new investment in clean energy is in Republican-controlled states, where policymakers have historically resisted renewables. But with each passing month, the politics seem to matter less than the economics.

“We’re the reddest state in the country, and we’re an oil and gas state,” said J.W. Peters, president of Solar Power of Oklahoma. “So it took a lot of time to convince people that this wasn’t snake oil.”

Mr. Peters was broke six years ago, with less than $400 in his checking account after his contracting business slowed down. Then he responded to a help-wanted ad looking for workers to install solar panels, which were becoming more popular in Tulsa. He now employs 61 workers and has $18 million in annual sales. “The environmental benefits are nice,” he said, “but most people are doing this for the financial opportunity.”

‘Something Very Dramatic’

Fifteen years ago, solar panels, wind turbines and battery-powered vehicles were widely viewed as niche technologies, too expensive and unreliable for mainstream use.

But clean energy became cheap far faster than anyone expected. Since 2009, the cost of solar power has plunged by 83 percent, while the cost of producing wind power has fallen by more than half. The price of lithium-ion battery cells fell 97 percent over the past three decades.

Today, solar and wind power are the least expensive new sources of electricity in many markets, generating 12 percent of global electricity and rising. This year, for the first time, global investors are expected to pour more money into solar power — some $380 billion — than into drilling for oil.

The Cost of Renewable Energy Has Plummeted

Cost of building and running new power plants, in dollars per megawatt hour

Utility-scale

Source: Lazard

Notes: Charts reflect the mean levelized cost of energy, which captures the price of building and running new power plants but excludes other electrical system costs. Lazard did not release data for 2022. In 2023, costs rose because of supply-chain problems, inflation and other issues.

The rapid drop in costs for solar energy, wind power and batteries can be traced to early government investment and steady improvements over time by hundreds of researchers, engineers and entrepreneurs around the world.

“The world has produced nearly three billion solar panels at this point, and every one of those has been an opportunity for people to try to improve the process,” said Gregory Nemet, a solar power expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “And all of those incremental improvements add up to something very dramatic.”

An equally potent force, along with the technological advances, has been an influx of money — in particular, a gusher since 2020 of government subsidies.

In the United States, President Biden signed a trio of laws during his first two years in office that allocated unprecedented funds for clean energy: A $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law provided money to enhance the power grid, buy electric buses for schools and build a national network of electric vehicle chargers. The bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act set aside billions of dollars for semiconductors vital to car manufacturing. And the Inflation Reduction Act, which marks its first anniversary on Aug. 16, is by far the most ambitious attempt to fight climate change in American history.

That landmark law provided tax breaks related to electric vehicles, heat pumps and energy efficiency upgrades , solar panel and wind turbine manufacturing and clean hydrogen production. The government is also investing in efforts to capture carbon emissions and store them before they can reach the atmosphere, as well as technology that can remove them directly from the air.

Originally estimated to cost roughly $391 billion between 2022 and 2031 , the tax breaks are proving so popular with manufacturers and consumers that estimates now put the cost as high as $1.2 trillion over the next decade.

Combined, the three laws have prompted companies to announce at least $230 billion in manufacturing investments so far. In Georgia, a Korean solar manufacturer, Qcells, is building a $2.5 billion plant. In Nevada, Tesla is building a new $3.6 billion electric truck factory. And in Oklahoma, the Enel and Canoo facilities are primed to benefit from the Inflation Reduction Act, as is a new $4.4 billion battery factory being considered by Panasonic, the Japanese conglomerate.

“There’s a lot of appetite to invest in the United States thanks to that law,” said Giovanni Bertolino, an executive at Enel, adding that the plant his company is building in Tulsa would not exist without the Inflation Reduction Act.

Regulations are also hastening the energy transition. Mr. Biden has proposed tough new federal pollution limits on tailpipes and smokestacks, but several states are acting on their own. California, with market muscle that influences the entire auto industry, plans to halt sales of new gas-powered cars by 2035 and new diesel-powered trucks by 2036 — and a handful of states are following suit. In May, New York became the first state to ban gas hookups in most new buildings, requiring all-electric heating and cooking starting in 2026. Several cities, including New York and San Francisco, have similar prohibitions, although some Republican-controlled states have blocked their municipalities from banning gas.

Heavy investment by the United States has spurred a spirited reaction from other wealthy nations. Countries that initially complained that the United States was unfairly subsidizing clean energy manufacturers have since engaged in a sort of friendly subsidy race.

Canada, South Korea and others have pushed for their companies to have better access to the American incentives, while offering similar subsidies to their domestic manufacturers. After Russia invaded Ukraine last year, the European Union moved to lessen its dependence on Russian oil and gas. In May, for the first time ever, wind and solar power in the E.U. generated more electricity than fossil fuels.

And in China, which is currently both the world’s top polluter and the global leader for renewable power, the government continues to invest in every stage of clean energy production, from solar cells to batteries, wind turbines and more. Like the United States, China provides subsidies to buyers of electric vehicles. Last year it spent $546 billion on clean energy , far more than any other country in the world.

With costs falling fast, manufacturing has picked up and installations of solar and wind projects have increased. The U.S. solar industry installed a record 6.1 gigawatts of capacity in the first quarter of 2023, a 47 percent increase over the same period last year.

And those low costs have led many of the United States’ biggest corporations, such as Alphabet, Amazon and General Motors, to purchase large amounts of wind and solar power, because it burnishes their reputations and because it makes good economic sense.

“ We’re seeing the nonlinear change happen before us,” said Jon Creyts, chief executive of RMI, a nonprofit organization that promotes the energy transition. “And that’s important, because we’re facing a climate crisis right now.”

‘A National Phenomenon’

Steve Uerling’s Tulsa home is a model of energy efficiency. He replaced all his incandescent light bulbs with LEDs. He installed a heat pump and rooftop solar panels this year. And he drives a plug-in hybrid Ford Fusion and a Tesla Model 3.

Mr. Uerling, a mechanical engineer, said he wanted to see renewable power take off in Oklahoma and was trying to do his part. But he was also driven by his wallet.

“My fuel cost is equivalent to getting 200 miles a gallon on gasoline,” he said. “We charge at night, when we get a much cheaper rate on our electricity.”

Electric Cars Are Gaining Momentum

Electric models as percentage of total passenger vehicle sales

Source: International Energy Agency

Note: Sales share of battery electric vehicles excludes plug-in hybrids.

Millions of people around the country are making similar calculations. Electric vehicles are by far the fastest-growing segment of the auto industry, with record sales of 300,000 in the second quarter of 2023, a 48 percent increase from a year earlier. Teslas are now among the best-selling cars in the country, and Ford has expanded its production of the F-150 Lightning, the electric version of its popular pickup truck, after a surge of initial demand created a waiting list.

Concerns among consumers about the availability of charging stations as well as the cost of some models have helped to cool sales somewhat, leading some automakers to slash prices. Still, federal tax credits of up to $7,500 have made the least expensive electric vehicles competitive with gas-powered cars. And about two dozen states offer additional tax credits, rebates or reduced fees, further pushing down their cost.

Government action is also helping heavier vehicles go electric. Sales of electric school buses are soaring, largely because of $5 billion in federal grants that can cover 100 percent of the cost for low-income communities. The Postal Service plans to spend n early $10 billion to purchase 66,000 electric mail trucks — roughly 30 percent of its fleet — over the next five years.

In the private sector, Amazon has ordered 100,000 electric delivery trucks from Rivian. Tesla has an electric semitruck, as do several other manufacturers, including Peterbilt.

Companies that provide charging stations are springing up to meet the demand. Francis Energy has more than 400 chargers across Oklahoma and is expanding nationwide. EVgo, which has one of the largest fast-charging networks in the United States, plans to more than double the 3,000 charging stalls it operates.

“It is not a red-state, blue-state thing,” said Cathy Zoi, EVgo’s chief executive. “It is a national phenomenon.”

In an unusual move, seven carmakers — BMW Group, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz Group and Stellantis — are spending $1 billion in a joint venture to build 30,000 charging ports on major highways and other locations in the United States and Canada.

The shift is happening so quickly that some of America’s most iconic automakers are preparing for a world beyond gasoline-powered cars and trucks.

General Motors, which has the largest market share of any carmaker in the United States, has committed to selling only zero-emissions vehicles by 2035. It’s a “once-in-a-generation inflection point” for the 114-year-old automaker, according to Mary Barra, G.M.’s chief executive.

In an interview, Ms. Barra said her company began to consider an all-electric future in 2020. “We started to see this happening with the consumer research we did,” said Ms. Barra, who has subsequently bet billions on G.M.’s efforts to reorient its engineering, overhaul its manufacturing facilities and processes and build new battery plants.

As the cost of batteries comes down, and the number of charging stations nationwide goes up, Ms. Barra expects exponential growth. “I think it’s going to be definitely an upward trajectory,” she said. “It’ll be a little bumpy, but bumpy growing.”

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on the future of global energy

Daniel G. Nocera, a Fellow of the American Academy since 2005, is W. M. Keck Professor of Energy and Professor of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His current research focuses on basic mechanisms of energy conversion in biology and chemistry.

Energy is the greatest concern of our future. The rising living standards of a growing world population will increase global energy consumption dramatically over the next half century. The challenge for science, and particularly for the discipline of chemistry, is to meet this energy need in a secure, sustainable, and environmentally responsible way. This essay will frame the magnitude of the problem, show the insufficiency of conventional energy sources to meet these needs, and pose an alternative solution.

By 2002, the global population burned energy at a rate of 13.5 TW. (One TW equals 10 12 watts, or 10 12 joules per second. This unit is convenient because it normalizes energy use per unit of time.) In the next forty-five years, this burn rate will rise with alarming alacrity. To gain a sense of the scope of the problem, we can perform a simple but powerful analysis: we can multiply a country’s TW consumption per person by the projected global population of 9 billion people for the year 2050 (see table 1). For example, if 9 billion people adopt the current standard of living for a U.S. resident (which takes 1.1361 × 10 -8  TW of energy to sustain), the world will need an astronomical 102 TW of energy in 2050.

The next three entries–China, India, and Africa–are cause for concern. These countries–and, in one case, an entire continent–have very low per-capita energy use but possess the largest populations on our planet. Since energy consumption scales directly with a country’s GDP, global energy use will increase drastically as China, India, and Africa modernize. So how much energy will the world need in 2050? It depends. If everyone adopts Equatorial Guinea’s current living standards, we will need 30.4 TW by 2050. Or in the case of Samoa’s, we will need 35.7 TW. Both are well below what we will use if everyone in the world consumes energy at North America’s (84.1 TW) or Western Europe’s (45.4 TW) current rates. Conservative estimates of energy use place our global energy need at 28–35 TW in 2050.

Even with extreme conservation measures (maintaining a 102 TW standard of living with only 28–35 TW of energy available will require conservation measures that are far beyond the human experience), we will still need an additional 15–22 TW of energy over our current global base of 13.5 TW. If this sounds simple to achieve, then consider the total amounts of possible energy from the following sources (all figures come from the World Energy Assessment, http://www.undp.org/seed/eap/activities/wea/; a more comprehensive presentation of these numbers can be found on http://nsl.caltech.edu/energy.html):

• From biomass , 7–10 TW: This is the maximum amount of biomass energy available from the agricultural landmass of the planet, which excludes the area needed to house a population of 9 billion. Obtaining this quantity would require harvesting all crops exclusively for energy.
• From nuclear , 8 TW: Delivering this TW-value with nuclear energy would take the construction of eight thousand new nuclear-power plants. In other words, over the next forty-five years, we would have to construct one new nuclear-power plant every two days.
• From wind , 2.1 TW: We could only gather this amount of energy from wind by saturating all global landmass in class 3 and greater with windmills. (‘Class’ refers to an area’s wind-energy potential: a class-3 area has winds of 5.1 meters per second at 10 meters above the ground, the minimum necessary for sustainable energy generation.)
• From hydroelectric , 0.7–2.0 TW: We could achieve this supply of hydroelectric energy by placing dams in all remaining rivers on the earth.

These scenarios are meant to illustrate the scale of the energy problem that confronts our global community. They assume no new advances in science and technology, e.g., the design of new reactor cores or genetically engineered biomass. And in some cases, they are restrictive, e.g., most potential wind energy is over the ocean surface and not land. The point is that, even under the untenable circumstances outlined above, we can barely attain the necessary energy supply for 2050.

The message is clear. The additional energy we need by 2050, over the current 13.5 TW base, is simply not attainable from long-discussed sources–the global appetite for energy is simply too great. We could use more coal, oil, and gas. However, rising energy costs, energy security, and, perhaps most urgently, concerns for the environment, provide the drivers to take energy exploration from the oil fields to the laboratory bench. There, a carbon-neutral, renewable energy source must be discovered.

The principal environmental problem with the continued use of fossil fuels to supply the growing energy demand is the release of CO 2 into the atmosphere. Atmospheric CO 2 concentration during the last century has risen monotonically. Moreover, detailed analysis of the relative abundance of carbon isotopes confirms that this observed CO 2 increase is the result of burning fossil fuels. The current CO 2 concentration of 370 parts per million (ppm) is unparalleled in the last six hundred fifty thousand years, with CO 2 levels ranging from 210–300 ppm until now. Unfortunately, atmospheric CO 2 concentration will likely double, even triple, within the twenty-first century. While we cannot predict the consequences of this increase precisely, there is no question that we are perturbing the planet on an unprecedented scale. The effects of our actions on the earth are unarguably serious, but hopefully not catastrophic. It is thus imperative that the global community moves as quickly as possible to carbon-neutral energy sources.

Of the possible sustainable carbon-neutral energy sources, sunlight is preeminent. More solar energy strikes the Earth’s surface in one hour of each day than the energy used by all human activities in one year. If we could only mimic photosynthesis outside of the leaf–i.e., an artificial photosynthesis–then we could harness the sun’s energy as a fuel. Such a process would combine water and sunlight to produce hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen would then be combined with the oxygen in a fuel cell to give back water and energy. In the overall cycle, sunlight and water are converted to useful energy in the form of the fuels hydrogen and oxygen.

But there’s a catch. Using water and sunlight to make a clean, sustainable fuel to power the planet is a daunting endeavor, as we must uncover large expanses of fundamental molecular science in order to enable light-based energy-conversion schemes.

To emulate photosynthesis, we must be able to capture sunlight and relay it to catalysts that then act on water to rearrange its bonds and make the chemical fuel, hydrogen, and its by-product, oxygen. In designing these hydrogen- and oxygen-producing catalysts, we must take the following into consideration: The overall water-splitting reaction is a multielectron process, involving a total of four electrons. The development of a quantitative, predictive model describing single-electron reactions was a milestone achievement in chemistry in the last half-century. A similar understanding of multielectron reactions, however, has yet to be realized. Moreover, the transfer of four protons must accompany electron transfer–so we need to learn how to manage both electrons and protons. Finally, whereas chemists know how to catalytically rearrange energy-rich (i.e., reactive) bonds, we have yet to develop efficient bond-making/breaking reactions on energy-poor (i.e., stable) substrates such as water.

Scientists are currently working in each of those areas to advance the science of renewable energy at the molecular level. Some of the latest advances include discovering guidelines for the rational design of multielectron reactions and uncovering proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) as a field of study at a mechanistic level. With the frameworks of multielectron chemistry and PCET in place, catalysts that can produce hydrogen and oxygen have been created. Though these are not yet ready for practical use, this will come in time with molecular reengineering. In any case, the development of these catalysts and the studies of their reactivity are revealing the principles needed to simulate photosynthesis. The creation of solar-produced fuels is only part, albeit a significant one, of developing a reliable solar-based technology. A U.S. Department of Energy report on a Solar Energy Utilization workshop (http://www.sc.doe.gov/bes/reports/files/seu_rpt.pdf) identifies a number of other basic-science needs: new photovoltaics to capture solar energy efficiently and relay it to the catalysts; new materials for safe storage of hydrogen and other fuels; the activation of other small molecules of energy consequence such as CO 2 ; and an understanding of reactions of energy consequence at interfaces and at surfaces. Ultimately, the advancement of solar-energy technology depends on the implementation of basic-science discoveries, which require effective, responsible public-management and economic/social-science policies throughout the entire innovation cycle.

Clearly, the greatest crisis confronting us in the twenty-first century is the rapidly growing demand for energy. Because the chemical bond, and the manipulation of the energy within, lies at the heart of this endeavor, chemistry will likely play the most central role of all the sciences. What chemists do in the coming decades will determine whether or not we will bequeath to our planet the gift of the sun as its source of energy.

Back to the Future Josh Freed

Leslie and mark's old/new idea.

The Nuclear Science and Engineering Library at MIT is not a place where most people would go to unwind. It’s filled with journals that have articles with titles like “Longitudinal double-spin asymmetry of electrons from heavy flavor decays in polarized p + p collisions at √s = 200 GeV.” But nuclear engineering Ph.D. candidates relax in ways all their own. In the winter of 2009, two of those candidates, Leslie Dewan and Mark Massie, were studying for their qualifying exams—a brutal rite of passage—and had a serious need to decompress.

To clear their heads after long days and nights of reviewing neutron transport, the mathematics behind thermohydraulics, and other such subjects, they browsed through the crinkled pages of journals from the first days of their industry—the glory days. Reading articles by scientists working in the 1950s and ‘60s, they found themselves marveling at the sense of infinite possibility those pioneers had brought to their work, in awe of the huge outpouring of creative energy. They were also curious about the dozens of different reactor technologies that had once been explored, only to be abandoned when the funding dried up.

The early nuclear researchers were all housed in government laboratories—at Oak Ridge in Tennessee, at the Idaho National Lab in the high desert of eastern Idaho, at Argonne in Chicago, and Los Alamos in New Mexico. Across the country, the nation’s top physicists, metallurgists, mathematicians, and engineers worked together in an atmosphere of feverish excitement, as government support gave them the freedom to explore the furthest boundaries of their burgeoning new field. Locked in what they thought of as a life-or-death race with the Soviet Union, they aimed to be first in every aspect of scientific inquiry, especially those that involved atom splitting.

1955: Argonne's BORAX III reactor provided all the electricity for Arco, Idaho, the first time any community's electricity was provided entirely by nuclear energy. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Though nuclear engineers were mostly men in those days, Leslie imagined herself working alongside them, wearing a white lab coat, thinking big thoughts. “It was all so fresh, so exciting, so limitless back then,” she told me. “They were designing all sorts of things: nuclear-powered cars and airplanes, reactors cooled by lead. Today, it’s much less interesting. Most of us are just working on ways to tweak basically the same light water reactor we’ve been building for 50 years.”

1958: The Ford Nucleon scale-model concept car developed by Ford Motor Company as a design of how a nuclear-powered car might look. Source: Wikimedia Commons

But because of something that she and Mark stumbled across in the library during one of their forays into the old journals, Leslie herself is not doing that kind of tweaking—she’s trying to do something much more radical. One night, Mark showed Leslie a 50-year-old paper from Oak Ridge about a reactor powered not by rods of metal-clad uranium pellets in water, like the light water reactors of today, but by a liquid fuel of uranium mixed into molten salt to keep it at a constant temperature. The two were intrigued, because it was clear from the paper that the molten salt design could potentially be constructed at a lower cost and shut down more easily in an emergency than today’s light water reactors. And the molten salt design wasn’t just theoretical—Oak Ridge had built a real reactor, which ran from 1965-1969, racking up 20,000 operating hours.

The 1960s-era salt reactor was interesting, but at first blush it didn’t seem practical enough to revive. It was bulky, expensive, and not very efficient. Worse, it ran on uranium enriched to levels far above the modern legal limit for commercial nuclear power. Most modern light water reactors run on 5 percent enriched uranium, and it is illegal under international and domestic law for commercial power generators to use anything above 20 percent, because at levels that high uranium can be used for making weapons. The Oak Ridge molten salt reactor needed uranium enriched to at least 33 percent, possibly even higher.

Aircraft Reactor Experiment building at ORNL (Extensive research into molten salt reactors started with the U.S. aircraft reactor experiment (ARE) in support of the U.S. Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion program.) Wikimedia Commons

1964: Molten salt reactor at Oak Ridge. Source: Wikimedia Commons

But they were aware that smart young engineers were considering applying modern technology to several other decades-old reactor designs from the dawn of the nuclear age, and this one seemed to Leslie and Mark to warrant a second look. After finishing their exams, they started searching for new materials that could be used in a molten salt reactor to make it both legal and more efficient. If they could show that a modified version of the old design could compete with—or exceed—the performance of today’s light water reactors, they knew they might have a very interesting project on their hands.

First, they took a look at the fuel. By using different, more modern materials, they had a theory that they could get the reactor to work at very low enrichment levels. Maybe, they hoped, even significantly below 5 percent.

There was a good reason to hope. Today’s reactors produce a significant amount of nuclear “waste,” many tons of which are currently sitting in cooling pools and storage canisters at plant sites all over the country. The reason that the waste has to be managed so carefully is that when they are discarded, the uranium fuel rods contain about 95 percent of the original amount of energy and remain both highly radioactive and hot enough to boil water. It dawned on Leslie and Mark that if they could chop up the rods and remove their metal cladding, they might have a “killer app”—a sector-redefining technology like Uber or Airbnb—for their molten salt reactor design, enabling it to run on the waste itself.

By late 2010, the computer modeling they were doing suggested this might indeed work. When Leslie left for a trip to Egypt with her family in January 2011, Mark kept running simulations back at MIT. On January 11, he sent his partner an email that she read as she toured the sites of Alexandria. The note was highly technical, but said in essence that Mark’s latest work confirmed their hunch—they could indeed make their reactor run on nuclear waste. Leslie looked up from her phone and said to her brother: “I need to go back to Boston.”

Watch Leslie Dewan and Mark Massie on the future of nuclear energy

Climate Change Spurs New Call for Nuclear Energy

In the days when Leslie and Mark were studying for their exams, it may have seemed that the Golden Age of nuclear energy in the United States had long since passed. Not a single new commercial reactor project had been built here in over 30 years. Not only were there no new reactors, but with the fracking boom having produced abundant supplies of cheap natural gas, some electric utilities were shutting down their aging reactors rather than doing the costly upgrades needed to keep them online.

As the domestic reactor market went into decline, the American supply chain for nuclear reactor parts withered. Although almost all commercial nuclear technology had been discovered in the United States, our competitors eventually purchased much of our nuclear industrial base, with Toshiba buying Westinghouse, for example.* Not surprisingly, as the nuclear pioneers aged and young scientists stayed away from what seemed to be a dying industry, the number of nuclear engineers also dwindled over the decades. In addition, the American regulatory system, long considered the gold standard for western nuclear systems, began to lose influence as other countries pressed ahead with new reactor construction while the U.S. market remained dormant.

Yet something has changed in recent years. Leslie and Mark are not really outliers. All of a sudden, a flood of young engineers has entered the field. More than 1,164 nuclear engineering degrees were awarded in 2013—a 160 percent increase over the number granted a decade ago.

So what, after a 30-year drought, is drawing smart young people back to the nuclear industry? The answer is climate change. Nuclear energy currently provides about 20 percent of the electric power in the United States, and it does so without emitting any greenhouse gases. Compare that to the amount of electricity produced by the other main non-emitting sources of power, the so-called “renewables”—hydroelectric (6.8 percent), wind (4.2 percent) and solar (about one quarter of a percent). Not only are nuclear plants the most important of the non-emitting sources, but they provide baseload—“always there”—power, while most renewables can produce electricity only intermittently, when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining.

In 2014, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations-based organization that is the leading international body for the assessment of climate risk, issued a desperate call for more non-emitting power sources. According to the IPCC, in order to mitigate climate change and meet growing energy demands, the world must aggressively expand its sources of renewable energy, and it must also build more than 400 new nuclear reactors in the next 20 years—a near-doubling of today’s global fleet of 435 reactors. However, in the wake of the tsunami that struck Japan’s Fukushima Daichi plant in 2011, some countries are newly fearful about the safety of light water reactors. Germany, for example, vowed to shutter its entire nuclear fleet.

November 6, 2013: The spent fuel pool inside the No.4 reactor building at the tsunami-crippled Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Source: REUTERS/Kyodo (Japan)

The young scientists entering the nuclear energy field know all of this. They understand that a major build-out of nuclear reactors could play a vital role in saving the world from climate disaster. But they also recognize that for that to happen, there must be significant changes in the technology of the reactors, because fear of light water reactors means that the world is not going to be willing to fund and build enough of them to supply the necessary energy. That’s what had sent Leslie and Mark into the library stacks at MIT—a search for new ideas that might be buried in the old designs.

They have now launched a company, Transatomic, to build the molten salt reactor they see as a viable answer to the problem. And they’re not alone—at least eight other startups have emerged in recent years, each with its own advanced reactor design. This new generation of pioneers is working with the same sense of mission and urgency that animated the discipline’s founders. The existential threat that drove the men of Oak Ridge and Argonne was posed by the Soviets; the threat of today is from climate change.

Heeding that sense of urgency, investors from Silicon Valley and elsewhere are stepping up to provide funding. One startup, TerraPower, has the backing of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and former Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold. Another, General Fusion, has raised $32 million from investors, including nearly $20 million from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. And LPP Fusion has even benefited, to the tune of $180,000, from an Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign.

All of the new blood, new ideas, and new money are having a real effect. In the last several years, a field that had been moribund has become dynamic again, once more charged with a feeling of boundless possibility and optimism.

But one huge source of funding and support enjoyed by those first pioneers has all but disappeared: The U.S. government.

The "Atoms for Peace" program supplied equipment and information to schools, hospitals, and research institutions within the U.S. and throughout the world. Source: Wikipedia

From Atoms for Peace to Chernobyl

December 8, 1953: U.S. President Eisenhower delivers his "Atoms for Peace" speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Source: IAEA

In the early days of nuclear energy development, the government led the charge, funding the research, development, and design of 52 different reactors at the Idaho laboratory’s National Reactor Testing Station alone, not to mention those that were being developed at other labs, like the one that was the subject of the paper Leslie and Mark read. With the help of the government, engineers were able to branch out in many different directions.

Soon enough, the designs were moving from paper to test reactors to deployment at breathtaking speed. The tiny Experimental Breeder Reactor 1, which went online in December 1951 at the Idaho National Lab, ushered in the age of nuclear energy.

Just two years later, President Dwight D. Eisenhower made his Atoms for Peace speech to the U.N., in which he declared that “The United States knows that peaceful power from atomic energy is no dream of the future. The capability, already proved, is here today.” Less than a year after that, Eisenhower waved a ceremonial "neutron wand" to signal a bulldozer in Shippingport, Pennsylvania to begin construction of the nation’s first commercial nuclear power plant.

1956: Reactor pressure vessel during construction at the Shippingport Atomic Power Station. Source: Wikipedia

By 1957 the Atoms for Peace program had borne fruit, and Shippingport was open for business. During the years that followed, the government, fulfilling Eisenhower’s dream, not only funded the research, it ran the labs, chose the technologies, and, eventually, regulated the reactors.

The U.S. would soon rapidly surpass not only its Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union, which had brought the first significant electricity-producing reactor online in 1954, but every other country seeking to deploy nuclear energy, including France and Canada. Much of the extraordinary progress in America’s development of nuclear energy technology can be credited to one specific government institution—the U.S. Navy.

Rickover’s choice has had enormous implications. To this day, the light water reactor remains the standard—the only type of reactor built or used for energy production in the United States and in most other countries as well. Research on other reactor types (like molten salt and lead) essentially ended for almost six decades, not to be revived until very recently.

Once light water reactors got the nod, the Atomic Energy Commission endorsed a cookie-cutter-like approach to building additional reactors that was very enticing to energy companies seeking to enter the atomic arena. Having a standardized light water reactor design meant quicker regulatory approval, economies of scale, and operating uniformity, which helped control costs and minimize uncertainty. And there was another upside to the light water reactors, at least back then: they produced a byproduct—plutonium. These days, we call that a problem: the remaining fissile material that must be protected from accidental discharge or proliferation and stored indefinitely. In the Cold War 1960s, however, that was seen as a benefit, because the leftover plutonium could be used to make nuclear weapons.

2005: An ICBM loaded into a silo of the former ICBM missile site, now the Titan Missile Museum. Source: Wikipedia

With the triumph of the light water reactor came a massive expansion of the domestic and global nuclear energy industries. In the 1960s and ‘70s, America’s technology, design, supply chain, and regulatory system dominated the production of all civilian nuclear energy on this side of the Iron Curtain. U.S. engineers drew the plans, U.S. companies like Westinghouse and GE built the plants, U.S. factories and mills made the parts, and the U.S. government’s Atomic Energy Commission set the global safety standards.

In this country, we built more than 100 light water reactors for commercial power production. Though no two American plants were identical, all of the plants constructed in that era were essentially the same—light water reactors running on uranium enriched to about 4 percent. By the end of the 1970s, in addition to the 100-odd reactors that had been built, 100 more were in the planning or early construction stage.

And then everything came to a screeching halt, thanks to a bizarre confluence of Hollywood and real life.

On March 16, 1979, The China Syndrome —starring Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, and Michael Douglas—hit theaters, frightening moviegoers with an implausible but well-told tale of a reactor meltdown and catastrophe, which had the potential, according to a character in the film, to render an area “the size of Pennsylvania permanently uninhabitable.” Twelve days later, the Number 2 reactor at the Three Mile Island plant in central Pennsylvania suffered an accident that caused the release of some nuclear coolant and a partial meltdown of the reactor core. After the governor ordered the evacuation of “pregnant women and preschool age children,” widespread panic followed, and tens of thousands of people fled in terror.

1979: Three Mile Island power station. Source: Wikipedia

But both the evacuation order and the fear were unwarranted. A massive investigation revealed that the release of radioactive materials was minimal and had posed no risk to human health. No one was injured or killed at Three Mile Island. What did die that day was America’s nuclear energy leadership. After Three Mile Island, plans for new plants then on the drawing board were scrapped or went under in a blizzard of public recrimination, legal action, and regulatory overreach by federal, state, and local officials. For example, the Shoreham plant on Long Island, which took nearly a decade to build and was completed in 1984, never opened, becoming one of the biggest and most expensive white elephants in human history.

The concrete "sarcophagus" built over the Chernobyl nuclear power plant's fourth reactor that exploded on April 26, 1986. Source: REUTERS

Chernobyl sarcophogi Magnum

The final, definitive blow to American nuclear energy was delivered in 1986, when the Soviets bungled their way into a genuine nuclear energy catastrophe: the disaster at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine. It was man-made in its origin (risky decisions made at the plant led to the meltdown, and the plant itself was badly designed); widespread in its scope (Soviet reactors had no containment vessel, so the roof was literally blown off, the core was exposed, and a radioactive cloud covered almost the whole of Europe); and lethal in its impact (rescuers and area residents were lied to by the Soviet government, which denied the risk posed by the disaster, causing many needless deaths and illnesses and the hospitalization of thousands).

After Chernobyl, it didn’t matter that American plants were infinitely safer and better run. This country, which was awash in cheap and plentiful coal, simply wasn’t going to build more nuclear plants if it didn’t have to.

But now we have to.

The terrible consequences of climate change mean that we must find low- and zero-emitting ways of producing electricity.

November 2014: Leslie Dewan and Mark Massie at MIT. Source: Sareen Hairabedian, Brookings Institution

The Return of Nuclear Pioneers

Five new light water reactors are currently under construction in the U.S., but the safety concerns about them (largely unwarranted as they are) as well as their massive size, cost, complexity, and production of used fuel (“waste”) mean that there will probably be no large-scale return to the old style of reactor. What we need now is to go back to the future and build some of those plants that they dreamed up in the labs of yesterday.

Which is what Leslie and Mark are trying to do with Transatomic. Once they had their breakthrough moment and realized that they could fuel their reactor on nuclear waste material, they began to think seriously about founding a company. So they started doing what all entrepreneurial MIT grads do—they talked to venture capitalists. Once they got their initial funding, the two engineers knew that they needed someone with business experience, so they hired a CEO, Russ Wilcox, who had built and sold a very successful e-publishing company. At the time they approached him, Wilcox was in high demand, but after hearing Leslie and Mark give a TEDx talk about the environmental promise of advanced nuclear technology, he opted to go with Transatomic— because he thought it could help save the world.

November 1, 2014: Mark Massie and Leslie Dewan giving a TEDx talk . Source: Transatomic

In their talk, the two founders had explained that in today’s light water reactors, metal-clad uranium fuel rods are lowered into water in order to heat it and create steam to run the electric turbines. But the water eventually breaks down the metal cladding and then the rods must be replaced. The old rods become nuclear waste, which will remain radioactive for up to 100,000 years, and, under the current American system, must remain in storage for that period.

The genius of the Transatomic design is that, according to Mark’s simulations, their reactor could make use of almost all of the energy remaining in the rods that have been removed from the old light water reactors, while producing almost no waste of their own—just 2.5 percent as much as produced by a typical light water reactor. If they built enough molten salt reactors, Transatomic could theoretically consume not just the roughly 70,000 metric tons of nuclear waste currently stored at U.S. nuclear plants, but also the additional 2,000 metric tons that are produced each year.

Like all molten salt reactors, the Transatomic design is extraordinarily safe as well. That is more important than ever after the terror inspired by the disaster that occurred at the Fukushima light water reactor plant in 2011.When the tsunami knocked out the power for the pumps that provided the water required for coolant, the Fukushima plant suffered a partial core meltdown. In a molten salt reactor, by contrast, no externally supplied coolant would be needed, making it what Transatomic calls “walk away safe.” That means that, in the event of a power failure, no human intervention would be required; the reactor would essentially cool itself without water or pumps. With a loss of external electricity, the artificially chilled plug at the base of the reactor would melt, and the material in the core (salt and uranium fuel) would drain to a containment tank and cool within hours.

Leslie and Mark have also found materials that would boost the power output of a molten salt reactor by 30 times over the 1960s model. Their redesign means the reactor might be small and efficient enough to be built in a factory and moved by rail. (Current reactors are so large that they must be assembled on site.)

Click image to play or stop animation

Transatomic, as well as General Fusion and LPP Fusion, represent one branch of the new breed of nuclear pioneers—call them “the young guns.” Also included in this group are companies like Terrestrial Energy in Canada, which is developing an alternative version of the molten salt reactor; Flibe Energy, which is preparing for experiments on a liquid-thorium fluoride reactor; UPower, at work on a nuclear battery; and engineers who are incubating projects not just at MIT but at a number of other universities and labs. Thanks to their work, the next generator of reactors might just be developed by small teams of brilliant entrepreneurs.

Then there are the more established companies and individuals—call them the “old pros”—who have become players in the advanced nuclear game. These include the engineering giant Fluor, which recently bought a startup out of Oregon called NuScale Power. They are designing a new type of light water “Small Modular Reactor” that is integral (the steam generator is built in), small (it generates about 4 percent of the output of a large reactor and fits on the back of a truck), and sectional (it can be strung together with others to generate more power). In part because of its relatively familiar light water design, Fluor and a small modular reactor competitor, Babcock & Wilcox, are the only pioneers of the new generation of technology to have received government grants—for $226 million each—to fund their research.

Another of the “old pros,” the well-established General Atomics, in business since 1955, is combining the benefits of small modular reactors with a design that can convert nuclear waste into electricity and also produce large amounts of heat and energy for industrial applications. The reactor uses helium rather than water or molten salt as its coolant. Its advanced design, which they call the Energy Multiplier Module reactor, has the potential to revolutionize the industry.

Somewhere in between is TerraPower. While it’s run by young guns, it’s backed by the world’s second richest man (among others). But even Bill Gates’s money won’t be enough. Nuclear technology is too big, too expensive, and too complex to explore in a garage, real or metaphorical. TerraPower has said that a prototype reactor could cost up to $5 billion, and they are going to need some big machines to develop and test it.

So while Leslie, Mark, and others in their cohort may seem like the latest iteration of Silicon Valley hipster entrepreneurs, the work they’re trying to do cannot be accomplished by Silicon Valley VC-scale funding. There has to be substantial government involvement.

Unfortunately, the relatively puny grants to Fluor and Babcock & Wilcox are the federal government’s largest contribution to advanced nuclear development to date. At the moment, the rest are on their own.

The result is that some of the fledgling enterprises, like General Atomic and Gates’s TerraPower, have decamped for China. Others, like Leslie and Mark’s, are staying put in the United States (for now) and hoping for federal support.

UBritish Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne (2nd R) chats with workers beside Taishan Nuclear Power Joint Venture Co Ltd General Manager Guo Liming (3rd R) and EDF Energy CEO Vincent de Rivaz (R), in front of a nuclear reactor under construction at a nuclear power plant in Taishan, Guangdong province, October 17, 2013. Chinese companies will be allowed to take stakes in British nuclear projects, Osborne said on Thursday, as Britain pushes ahead with an ambitious target to expand nuclear energy. REUTERS/Bobby Yip (CHINA - Tags: POLITICS BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY ENERGY) Source: REUTERS

June 2008: A nearly 200 ton nuclear reactor safety vessel is erected at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research at Kalpakkam, near the southern Indian city of Chennai. Source: REUTERS/Babu (INDIA)

Missing in Action: The United States Government

There are American political leaders in both parties who talk about having an “all of the above” energy policy, implying that they want to build everything, all at once. But they don’t mean it, at least not really. In this country, we don’t need all of the above—virtually every American has access to electric power. We don’t want it—we have largely stopped building coal as well as nuclear plants, even though we could. And we don’t underwrite it—the public is generally opposed to the government being in the business of energy research, development, and demonstration (aka, RD&D).

In China, when they talk of “all of the above,” they do mean it. With hundreds of millions of Chinese living without electricity and a billion more demanding ever-increasing amounts of power, China is funding, building, and running every power project that they possibly can. This includes the nuclear sector, where they have about 29 big new light water reactors under construction. China is particularly keen on finding non-emitting forms of electricity, both to address climate change and, more urgently for them, to help slow the emissions of the conventional pollutants that are choking their cities in smog and literally killing their citizens.

Since (for better or for worse) China isn’t hung up on safety regulation, and there is zero threat of legal challenge to nuclear projects, plans can be realized much more quickly than in the West. That means that there are not only dozens of light water reactor plants going up in China, but also a lot of work on experimental reactors with advanced nuclear designs—like those being developed by General Atomic and TerraPower.

Given both the competitive threat from China and the potentially disastrous global effects of emissions-induced climate change, the U.S. government should be leaping back into the nuclear race with the kind of integrated response that it brought to the Soviet threat during the Cold War.

But it isn’t, at least not yet. Through years of stagnation, America lost—or perhaps misplaced—its ability to do big, bold things in nuclear science. Our national labs, which once led the world to this technology, are underfunded, and our regulatory system, which once set the standard of global excellence, has become overly burdensome, slow, and sclerotic.

The villains in this story are familiar in Washington: ideology, ignorance, and bureaucracy. Let’s start with Congress, currently sporting a well-earned 14 percent approval rating. On Capitol Hill, an unholy and unwitting alliance of right-wing climate deniers, small-government radicals, and liberal anti-nuclear advocates have joined together to keep nuclear lab budgets small. And since even naming a post office constitutes a huge challenge for this broken Congress, moving forward with the funding and regulation of a complex new technology seems well beyond its capabilities at the moment.

Then there is the federal bureaucracy, which has failed even to acknowledge that a new generation of reactors is on the horizon. It took the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the successor to the Atomic Energy Commission) years to approve a design for the new light water reactor now being built in Georgia, despite the fact that it’s nearly identical to the 100 or so that preceded it. The NRC makes no pretense of being prepared to evaluate reactors cooled by molten salt or run on depleted uranium. And it insists on pounding these new round pegs into its old square holes, demanding that the new reactors meet the same requirements as the old ones, even when that makes no sense.

At the Department of Energy, their heart is in the right place. DOE Secretary Ernest Moniz is a seasoned political hand as well as an MIT nuclear physicist, and he absolutely sees the potential in advanced reactor designs. But, constrained by a limited budget, the department is not currently in a position to drive the kind of changes needed to bring advanced nuclear designs to market.

President Obama clearly believes in nuclear energy. In an early State of the Union address he said, “We need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country." But the White House has been largely absent from the nuclear energy discussion in recent years. It is time for it to reengage.

May 22, 1957: A GE supervisor inspects the instrument panel for the company’s boiling water power reactor in Pleasanton, CA. Source: Bettmann/Corbis/AP Images

Getting the U.S. Back in the Race

So what, exactly, do the people running the advanced nuclear companies need from the U.S. government? What can government do to help move the technology off of their computers and into the electricity production marketplace?

First, they need a practical development path. Where is Bill Gates going to test TerraPower’s brilliant new reactor designs? Because there are no appropriate government-run facilities in the United States, he is forced to make do in China. He can’t find this ideal. Since more than two-thirds of Microsoft Windows operating systems used in China are pirated, he is surely aware that testing in China greatly increases the risk of intellectual property theft.

Thus, at the center of a development path would be an advanced reactor test bed facility, run by the government, and similar to what we had at the Idaho National Lab in 1960s. Such a facility, which would be open to all of the U.S. companies with reactors in development, would allow any of them to simply plug in their fuel and materials and run their tests

But advanced test reactors of the type we need are expensive and complex. The old one at the Idaho lab can’t accommodate the radiation and heat levels required by the new technologies. Japan has a newer one, but it shut down after Fukushima. China and Russia each have them, and France is building one that should be completed in 2016. But no one has the cutting-edge, truly advanced incubator space that the new firms need to move toward development.

Second is funding. Mark and Leslie have secured some venture capital, but Transatomic will need much more money in order to perform the basic engineering on an advanced test reactor and, eventually, to construct demonstration reactors. Like all startups, Transatomic faces a “Valley of Death” between concept and deployment; with nuclear technology’s enormous costs and financial risk, it’s more like a “Grand Canyon of Death.” Government must play a big role in bridging that canyon, as it did in the early days of commercial nuclear energy development, beginning with the first light water reactor at Shippingport.

For Further Reading

President Obama, It's Time to Act on Energy Policy November 2014, Charles Ebinger

Transforming the Electricity Portfolio: Lessons from Germany and Japan in Deploying Renewable Energy September 2014, John Banks, Charles Ebinger, and Alisa Schackmann

The Road Ahead for Japanese Energy June 2014

Planet Policy A blog about the intersection of energy and climate policy

Third, they need a complete rethinking of the NRC approach to regulating advanced nuclear technology. How can the brand new Flibe Energy liquid-thorium fluoride reactor technology be forced to meet the same criteria as the typical light water reactor? The NRC must be flexible enough to accommodate technology that works differently from the light water reactors it is familiar with. For example, since Transatomic’s reactor would run at normal atmospheric pressure, unlike a light water reactor, which operates under vastly greater pressure, Mark and Leslie shouldn’t be required to build a huge and massively expensive containment structure around their reactors. Yet the NRC has no provision allowing them to bypass that requirement. If that doesn’t change, there is no way that Transatomic will be able to bring its small, modular, innovative reactors to market.

In addition, the NRC must let these technologies develop organically. They should permit Transatomic and the others to build and operate prototype reactors before they are fully licensed, allowing them to demonstrate their safety and reliability with real-world stress tests, as opposed to putting them through never-ending rounds of theoretical discussion and negotiation with NRC testers.

None of this is easy. The seriousness of the climate change threat is not universally acknowledged in Washington. Federal budgets are now based in the pinched, deficit-constrained present, not the full employment, high-growth economy of the 1950s. And the NRC, in part because of its mission to protect public safety, is among the most change-averse of any federal agency.

But all of this is vital. Advanced nuclear technology could hold a key to fighting climate change. It could also result in an enormous boon to the American economy. But only if we get there first.

Who Will Own the Nuclear Power Future?

Josh Freed, Third Way's clean energy vice president, works on developing ways the federal government can help accelerate the private sector's adoption of clean energy and address climate change. He has served as a senior staffer on Capitol Hill and worked in various public advocacy and political campaigns, including advising the senior leadership of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Nuclear energy is at a crossroads. One path sends brilliant engineers like Leslie and Mark forward, applying their boundless skills and infectious optimism to world-changing technologies that have the potential to solve our energy problems while also fueling economic development and creating new jobs. The other path keeps the nuclear industry locked in unadaptable technologies that will lead, inevitably, to a decline in our major source of carbon-free energy.

The chance to regain our leadership in nuclear energy, to walk on the path once trod by the engineers and scientists of the 1950s and ‘60s, will not last forever. It is up to those who make decisions on matters concerning funding and regulation to strike while the iron is hot.

This is not pie-in-the-sky thinking—we have done this before. At the dawn of the nuclear age, we designed and built reactors that tested the range of possibility. The blueprints then languished on the shelves of places like the MIT library for more than fifty years until Leslie Dewan, Mark Massie, and other brilliant engineers and scientists thought to revive them. With sufficient funding and the appropriate technical and political leadership, we can offer the innovators and entrepreneurs of today the chance to use those designs to power the future.

Join the conversation on Twitter using #BrookingsEssay or share this on Facebook .

This Essay is also available as an eBook from these online retailers: Amazon Kindle , Barnes & Noble , Apple iTunes , Google Play , Ebooks.com , and on Kobo .

This article was written by Josh Freed, vice president of the Clean Energy Program at Third Way. The author has not personally received any compensation from the nuclear energy industry. In the spirit of maximum transparency, however, the author has disclosed that several entities mentioned in this article are associated in varying degrees with Third Way. The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) and Babcock & Wilcox have financially supported Third Way. NEI includes TerraPower, Babcock & Wilcox, and Idaho National Lab among its members, as well as Fluor on its Board of Directors. Transatomic is not a member of NEI, but Dr. Leslie Dewan has appeared in several of its advertisements. Third Way is also working with and has received funding from Ray Rothrock, although he was not consulted on the contents of this essay. Third Way previously held a joint event with the Idaho National Lab that was unrelated to the subject of this essay.

* The essay originally also referred to Hitachi buying GE's nuclear arm. GE owns 60 percent of Hitachi.

Like other products of the Institution, The Brookings Essay is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are solely those of the author.

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113 Renewable Energy Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

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• Electrical Engineering Building Uses Wind Energy The purpose of this fact-finding mission was to determine an appropriate type and rating of the wind turbine based on three factors: the average wind data at UNSW; the peak power demand for the EE […]
• Government Subsidies for Solar Energy This approach has enabled solar companies and developers to penetrate the energy market despite the high costs involved in developing solar power.
• Using Solar (PV) Energy to Generate Hydrogen Gas for Fuel Cells With the current technologies, an electrolyzer working at 100% efficiency needs 39 kWh of electricity to liberate 1 kg of hydrogen.
• Making Solar Energy Affordable Solar energy is a type of energy that is obtained through tapping the sun’s rays radiant and converting it into other energy forms such as heat and electricity.
• Renewable Energy: Comparison Between Biogas and Solar Energies Again, the research finds that the cost of installation is higher compared to solar energy sources. However, the paper is going to compare solar and biogas energy sources.
• Non-Renewable Energy and Gross Domestic Product of China The use of non-renewable energy in China has the negative impact on the GDP, as indicated by the negative values of DOLS and CCR coefficients. The generation of renewable energy has a negligible negative impact […]
• Efficient Solar Refrigeration: A Technology Platform for Clean Energy and Water Refrigeration cycle capable to be driven by low grade energy, substituting gas-phase ejector used in conventional mechanical compressor.
• Technology and Wind Energy Efforts by the elite members of the society enlightened the global countries about the benefits of renewable energy sources in conserving the environment prompting the need to consider wind energy.
• “The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act”: Developing Renewable Energy The focus of this bill on the technological aspect of environmental protection is seen in the allocation of funds on loan guarantees, grants for researchers, and the manufacturing of advanced systems.
• Renewable Energy: An International Profile To illustrate the severity of some of the outlined consequences and challenges presented to the national environment, the following graph is presented, illustrating the growth rate of the US fracking industry.
• Barriers to Deploying Renewable Energy in Hotels The main benefit of renewable energy is environmental protection, improving the environmental and social performance of the industry, and reducing utility costs.
• The Role of Renewable Energy in Addressing Electricity Demand in Zambia In this regard, ZESCO Limited, the Zambian power utility company, has an obligation to generate and supply the electricity in the country.
• Climate Change: Renewable Energy Sources Climate change is the biggest threat to humanity, and deforestation and “oil dependency” only exacerbate the situation and rapidly kill people. Therefore it is important to invest in the development of renewable energy sources.
• What Energy Is Renewable?
• What Is the Cleanest Renewable Energy Source?
• How Does Renewable Energy Work?
• What Are the Types of Renewable Resources?
• Is Renewable Energy Healthy?
• What Are the Benefits of Renewable Energy?
• What Are the Cons of Renewable Energy?
• What Is the Most Powerful Renewable Energy?
• What Affects the Development of Renewable Energy Power Generation Projects in China?
• Can the World Be Powered Fully by Renewable Energy?
• How Safe Is Renewable Energy?
• Why Is Renewable Energy Not Popular?
• What Are the Most Renewable Energy Sources?
• How Renewable Energy Can Change the World?
• What Drives Renewable Energy Development?
• What Role Can Renewable Energy Play for North Africa and the Middle East?
• How Does Renewable Energy Impact Carbon Emissions?
• What Will the Situation for Renewable Energy in Europe Be in 2030?
• What Is the Main Problem With Renewable Energy?
• How Efficient Is Renewable Energy?
• Can Renewable Energy Be Overused?
• Why 100% Renewable Is Not Possible?
• Which Country Has Highest Renewable Energy?
• What Are the Effects of Renewable Energy?
• What Is the Safest Energy Source?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Home — Essay Samples — Environment — Renewable Energy — The Renaissance of Renewable Energy: A Sustainable Future

The Renaissance of Renewable Energy: a Sustainable Future

• Categories: Renewable Energy

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Published: Mar 6, 2024

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What Is the Future of Wind Energy?

This article was reviewed by a member of Caltech's Faculty .

Humans have used windmills to capture the force of the wind as mechanical energy for more than 1,300 years . Unlike early windmills, however, modern wind turbines use generators and other components to convert energy from the spinning blades into a smooth flow of AC electricity.

In the video below, Resnick Sustainability Institute researcher John Dabiri discusses the future of wind energy technology.

How much of global electricity demand is met by wind energy?

Wind energy is a small but fast-growing fraction of electricity production. It accounts for 5 percent of global electricity production and 8 percent of the U.S. electricity supply.

Globally, wind energy capacity surpasses 743 gigawatts , which is more than is available from grid-connected solar energy and about half as much as hydropower can provide. Nearly three-quarters of that 651 gigawatts comes from wind farms in five countries: China, the U.S., Germany, India, and Spain. Wind energy capacity in the Americas has tripled over the past decade.

In the U.S., wind is now a dominant renewable energy source , with enough wind turbines to generate more than 100 million watts, or megawatts, of electricity, equivalent to the consumption of about 29 million average homes.

The cost of wind energy has plummeted over the past decade. In the U.S., it is cost-competitive with natural gas and solar power.

Wind energy and solar energy complement each other, because wind is often strongest after the sun has heated the ground for a time. Warm air rises from the most heated areas, leaving a void where other air can rush in, which produces horizontal wind currents . We can draw on solar energy during the earlier parts of the day and turn to wind energy in the evening and night. Wind energy has added value in areas that are too cloudy or dark for strong solar energy production, especially at higher latitudes.

How big are wind turbines and how much electricity can they generate?

Typical utility-scale land-based wind turbines are about 250 feet tall and have an average capacity of 2.55 megawatts, each producing enough electricity for hundreds of homes. While land-based wind farms may be remote, most are easy to access and connect to existing power grids.

Smaller turbines, often used in distributed systems that generate power for local use rather than for sale, average about 100 feet tall and produce between 5 and 100 kilowatts.

One type of offshore wind turbine currently in development stands 853 feet tall, four-fifths the height of the Eiffel Tower, and can produce 13 megawatts of power. Adjusted for variations in wind, that is enough to consistently power thousands of homes. While tall offshore turbines lack some of the advantages of land-based wind farms, use of them is burgeoning because they can capture the energy of powerful, reliable winds high in the air near coastlines, where most of the largest cities in the world are located.

What are some potential future wind technologies other than turbines?

Engineers are in the early stages of creating airborne wind turbines , in which the components are either floated by a gas like helium or use their own aerodynamics to stay high in the air, where wind is stronger. These systems are being considered for offshore use, where it is expensive and difficult to install conventional wind turbines on tall towers.

Trees, which can withstand gale forces and yet move in response to breezes from any direction, also are inspiring new ideas for wind energy technology. Engineers speculate about making artificial wind-harvesting trees . That would require new materials and devices that could convert energy from a tree's complex movements into the steady rotation that traditional generators need. The prize is wind energy harvested closer to the ground with smaller, less obtrusive technologies and in places with complex airflows, such as cities.

What are the challenges of using wind energy?

Extreme winds challenge turbine designers. Engineers have to create systems that will start generating energy at relatively low wind speeds and also can survive extremely strong winds. A strong gale contains 1,000 times more power than a light breeze, and engineers don't yet know how to design electrical generators or turbine blades that can efficiently capture such a broad range of input wind power. To be safe, turbines may be overbuilt to withstand winds they will not experience at many sites, driving up costs and material use. One potential solution is the use of long-term weather forecasting and AI to better predict the wind resources at individual locations and inform designs for turbines that suit those sites.

Climate change will bring more incidents of unusual weather, including potential changes in wind patterns . Wind farms may help mitigate some of the harmful effects of climate change. For example, turbines in cold regions are routinely winterized to keep working in icy weather when other systems may fail, and studies have demonstrated that offshore wind farms may reduce the damage caused by hurricanes . A more challenging situation will arise if wind patterns shift significantly. The financing for wind energy projects depends critically on the ability to predict wind resources at specific sites decades into the future. One potential way to mitigate unexpected, climate-change-related losses or gains of wind is to flexibly add and remove groups of smaller turbines, such as vertical-axis wind turbines , within existing large-scale wind farms.

Wind farms do have environmental impacts . The most well-known is harm to wildlife, including birds and bats . Studies are informing wind farm siting and management practices that minimize harm to wildlife , and Audubon, a bird conservation group, now supports well-planned wind farms. The construction and maintenance of wind farms involves energy-intensive activities such as trucking, road-building, concrete production, and steel construction. Also, while towers can be recycled, turbine blades are not easily recyclable. In hopes of developing low-to-zero-waste wind farms, scientists aim to design new reuse and disposal strategies , and recyclable plastic turbine blades. Studies show that wind energy's carbon footprint is quickly offset by the electricity it generates and is among the lowest of any energy source .

Dive Deeper

Wind Vision: A New Era for Wind Power in the United States

Caltech Energy 10 to Develop the Roadmap for 50% Reduction in Emissions by 2030

Tweaking Turbine Angles Squeezes More Power Out of Wind Farms

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Future Energy Essay Example

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Atomic Bomb , Technology , Disaster , Space , Solar Energy , Wind , Energy , Influence

Words: 1250

Published: 12/04/2019

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Future Energy

Introduction The increasing quest for renewable sources of energy has greatly influence perception and appreciation of the benefits that could be derived from solar energy. Although the use of solar power as a form of energy to generate electrical energy is not a new technology, majority are yet to be aware of the benefits of using such forms of energy to both health and environment. It uses date back to ancient times where people make use of the energy to achieve their daily task i.e. drying purposes. The issue with the energy from sun could be associated with the challenges of effectively harnessing the energy being produced by the sun. The importance of sun's energy could be appreciated in all forms of life. It can be seen in view of the way the energy helps living things to grow. Human technology has achieved some level of development with the use of photovoltaic cell and photoelectric cells, which are electrical appliances that help, collect the energy from sunlight and then transform it to electrical energy. This is what has been used for several years to make use of the solar energy. Several researches are being conducted by various organizations to develop different tools or electrical devices that will help harness the great potentials within the energy from sunlight. Wind and solar energy are the two major energy sources that could be linked to the sun fusion energy. These two sources of energy from the sun have a great potential to meet our need for clean energy. Those sources of energy can actually provide the needed renewable energy in the nearest future if properly harnessed.

How solar energy is being generated

Understanding the complexity of the solar and wind energy depends on the knowledge of the generation of the energy from the sun, and how the energy generated is being transferred to the space. This will also influence the understanding of the influence of the energy on the air, which results in the wind energy. Windmills depend on the energy derived from wind and this help in mechanized farming. The whole idea of solar energy from sunlight is deeply rooted in the mode of generation of such form of energy. The energy from the sun is a form of fusion power, which is generated because of a nuclear process known as nuclear fusion. The nuclear fusion describes the sets of reactions that occur between two atomic nuclei whereby the two nuclei fused together to form a larger size nucleus. This process of coming together of the two nuclei results in the emission of energy, which is because of the nuclear force existing between the reacting nuclei. The released energy is then converted to a rise in temperature. Fusion power is the basics for solar energy unlike nuclear reactors, which produce energy from fission processes. The nuclear fusion occurring in the sun involves the reaction of hydrogen atoms to form helium in the core of the sun (Coffey, 2010). The nuclear reaction to generate helium is also termed proton-proton chain. The nuclear reactions producing the energy only occur within the core of the sun while the energy generated are transferred out heating the remaining part of the sun before getting to the outer space. The energy from the core of the sun is transferred through three main layers of the sun to the space. Those layers from inside to outside are tagged; radiative zone, convective zone and photosphere (Coffey, 2010).

Wind energy

It is when the energy gets into the space that it acts on the air in the space. These cause an increase in the temperature of the air and heat other regions of the planet. The heating of the air and other regions are not even hence resulting in the movement of the heated air in different directions. This explains why some air rises while some falls (Infinitepower.org). The energy from the sun is collected by some earth components while some are reflected back. Both the wind energy that is harnessed with appliances such as windmills and the solar energy collected by solar panels are great renewable source of energy. The amount of energy generated within the core of the sun has been estimated to be about 4 x 10 ^27 watts which equals about 600 million of tons of hydrogen needed to fuse together (NASA, 2011). This shows the enormous amount of energy that is being generated by the star. Harnessing this potential of solar and wind energy is what our future energy sources depend on. This is because of the nature of the non-renewable costs of energy that dominate energy production worldwide and the environmental hazards being caused by the radioactive materials used for nuclear energy. Modernized ways of using the solar energy include; roof solar panels, solar thermal systems, solar furnaces, solar cells, and various other collector designs (IEA, 2011).

Mode of capturing

The solar energy technology is usually classified as either passive or active depending on the mode capture of the energy from the sun. The active technologies involve the use of photovoltaic panels or fans. This method is used to convert the captured energy to other useful outputs. The passive mode of capturing includes the use of other materials that possess favorable thermal features. Those features are able to allow the free flowing of air, which is then used to produce the required outputs.

Applications

The solar energy has several forms of applications. Those areas of applications include; architecture and urban planning, agriculture, Solar lightning, Water treatment, heating and cooling systems, solar power, and cooking. Most of the highlighted areas are yet to take the full potential of the solar energy. There was a previous attempt of building a space farm, which will be made to contain solar panels that can help collect the solar energy. However, the cost implication has been a major hindrance towards achieving the goal (O'Neill, 2008). The old idea is now being considered by different developed countries to meet their demand for renewable source of energy (O'Neill, 2008).

There is an increase in interest towards solar energy. Its benefits outweigh those, which involves the use of fossil fuels. There are new areas, which are making use of the solar power in powering of the machines. Such areas include the powering of cars, houses, computers e.t.c. tapping the enormous potentials of solar and wind energy depends on the full financial commitment of the various government. This will help create an enabling environment for researchers and developers to create mechanisms in which those goals of creating renewable forms of energy are achieved.

Bibliography

Coffey, 2010. How does the sun produce energy. [Online]. Available at ; IEA, 2011. Renewable for heating and cooling. [Online]. Available at; Infinitepower.org. 2010. Electricity from the sun. Fact Sheet. [Online]. Available at: NASA, 2011. Only during the last 70 years has the secret to solar power been uncovered. Solar energy. Available at: O'neill, IAN. 2008. Harvesting solar power from space. [Online]. Available at; SPI, 2011.HOW MUCH ENERGY DO SOLAR PANELS PRODUCE?. [Online]. Available at;

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This Is the Future: Essay on Renewable Energy

Today the world population depends on nonrenewable energy resources. With the constantly growing demand for energy, natural gas, coal, and oil get used up and cannot replenish themselves. 

Aside from limited supply, heavy reliance on fossil fuels causes planetary-scale damage. Sea levels are rising. Heat-trapping carbon dioxide increased the warming effect by 45% from 1990 to 2019. The only way to tackle the crisis is to start the transition to renewable energy now. 

What is renewable energy? It is energy that comes from replenishable natural resources like sunlight, wind, thermal energy, moving water, and organic materials. Renewable resources do not run out. They are cost-efficient and renew faster than they are consumed. How does renewable energy save money? It creates new jobs, supports economic growth, and decreases inequitable fossil fuel subsidies. 

At the current rates of production, some fossil fuels will not even last another century. This is why the future depends on reliable and eco-friendly resources. This renewable energy essay examines the types and benefits of renewable energy and its role in creating a sustainable future.

Top 5 Types of Renewable Energy: The Apollo Alliance Rankings

There are many natural resources that can provide people with clean energy. To make a list of the five most booming types of renewable energy on the market today, this energy essay uses data gathered by the Apollo Alliance. It is a project that aims to revolutionize the energy sector of the US with a focus on clean energy. 

The Apollo Alliance unites businesses, community leaders, and environmental experts to support the transition to more sustainable and efficient living. Their expert opinion helped to compile information about the most common and cost-competitive sources of renewable energy. However, if you want to get some more in-depth research, you can entrust it to an essay writer . Here’s a quick overview of renewable energy resources that have a huge potential to substitute fossil fuels. 

Solar Renewable Energy

The most abundant and practically endless resource is solar energy. It can be turned into electricity by photovoltaic systems that convert radiant energy captured from sunlight. Solar farms could generate enough energy for thousands of homes.

An endless supply is the main benefit of solar energy. The rate at which the Earth receives it is 10,000 times greater than people can consume it, as a paper writer points out based on their analysis of research findings. It can substitute fossil fuels and deliver people electricity, hot water, cooling, heat, etc. 

The upfront investment in solar systems is rather expensive. This is one of the primary limitations that prevent businesses and households from switching to this energy source at once. However, the conclusion of solar energy is still favorable. In the long run, it can significantly decrease energy costs. Besides, solar panels are gradually becoming more affordable to manufacture and adopt, even at an individual level. 

Wind Renewable Energy

Another clean energy source is wind. Wind farms use the kinetic energy of wind flow to convert it into electricity. The Appolo Alliance notes that, unlike solar farms, they can’t be placed in any location. To stay cost-competitive, wind farms should operate in windy areas. Although not all countries have the right conditions to use them on a large scale, wind farms might be introduced for some energy diversity. The technical potential for it is still tremendous. 

Wind energy is clean and safe for the environment. It does not pollute the atmosphere with any harmful products compared to nonrenewable energy resources. 

The investment in wind energy is also economically wise. If you examine the cost of this energy resource in an essay on renewable resources, you’ll see that wind farms can deliver electricity at a price lower than nonrenewable resources. Besides, since wind isn’t limited, its cost won’t be influenced by the imbalance of supply and demand.

Geothermal Renewable Energy

Natural renewable resources are all around us, even beneath the ground. Geothermal energy can be produced from the thermal energy from the Earth’s interior. Sometimes heat reaches the surface naturally, for example, in the form of geysers. But it can also be used by geothermal power plants. The Earth’s heat gets captured and converted to steam that turns a turbine. As a result, we get geothermal energy.

This source provides a significant energy supply while having low emissions and no significant footprint on land. A factsheet and essay on renewable resources state that geothermal plants will increase electricity production from 17 billion kWh in 2020 to 49.8 billion kWh in 2050.

However, this method is not without limitations. While writing a renewable resources essay, consider that geothermal energy can be accessed only in certain regions. Geological hotspots are off-limits as they are vulnerable to earthquakes. Yet, the quantity of geothermal resources is likely to grow as technology advances. 

Ocean Renewable Energy

The kinetic and thermal energy of the ocean is a robust resource. Ocean power systems rely on:

• Changes in sea level;
• Wave energy;
• Water surface temperatures;
• The energy released from seawater and freshwater mixing.

Ocean energy is more predictable compared to other resources. As estimated by EPRI, it has the potential to produce 2640 TWh/yr. However, an important point to consider in a renewable energy essay is that the kinetic energy of the ocean varies. Yet, since it is ruled by the moon’s gravity, the resource is plentiful and continues to be attractive for the energy industry. 

Wave energy systems are still developing. The Apollo energy corporation explores many prototypes. It is looking for the most reliable and robust solution that can function in the harsh ocean environment. 

Another limitation of ocean renewable energy is that it may cause disruptions to marine life. Although its emissions are minimal, the system requires large equipment to be installed in the ocean. 

Biomass Renewable Energy

Organic materials like wood and charcoal have been used for heating and lighting for centuries. There are a lot more types of biomass: from trees, cereal straws, and grass to processed waste. All of them can produce bioenergy. 

Biomass can be converted into energy through burning or using methane produced during the natural process of decomposition. In an essay on renewable sources of energy, the opponents of the method point out that biomass energy is associated with carbon dioxide emissions. Yet, the amount of released greenhouse gases is much lower compared to nonrenewable energy use. 

While biomass is a reliable source of energy, it is only suitable for limited applications. If used too extensively, it might lead to disruptions in biodiversity, a negative impact on land use, and deforestation. Still, Apollo energy includes biomass resources that become waste and decompose quickly anyway. These are organic materials like sawdust, chips from sawmills, stems, nut shells, etc. 

What Is the Apollo Alliance?

The Apollo Alliance is a coalition of business leaders, environmental organizations, labor unions, and foundations. They all unite their efforts in a single project to harness clean energy in new, innovative ways. 

Why Apollo? Similarly to President John F. Kennedy’s Apollo Project, Apollo energy is a strong visionary initiative. It is a dare, a challenge. The alliance calls for the integrity of science, research, technology, and the public to revolutionize the energy industry.

The project has a profound message. Apollo energy solutions are not only about the environment or energy. They are about building a new economy. The alliance gives hope to building a secure future for Americans. 

What is the mission of the Apollo Alliance? 

• Achieve energy independence with efficient and limitless resources of renewable energy.
• Pioneer innovation in the energy sector.
• Build education campaigns and communication to inspire new perceptions of energy. 
• Create new jobs.
• Reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels. 
• Build healthier and happier communities. 

The transformation of the industry will lead to planet-scale changes. The Apollo energy corporation can respond to the global environmental crisis and prevent climate change. 

Apollo renewable energy also has the potential to become a catalyst for social change. With more affordable energy and new jobs in the industry, people can bridge the inequality divide and build stronger communities. 

Why Renewable Energy Is Important for the Future

Renewable energy resources have an enormous potential to cover people’s energy needs on a global scale. Unlike fossil fuels, they are available in abundance and generate minimal to no emissions. 

The burning of fossil fuels caused a lot of environmental problems—from carbon dioxide emissions to ocean acidification. Research this issue in more detail with academic assistance from essay writer online . You can use it to write an essay on renewable sources of energy to explain the importance of change and its global impact. 

Despite all the damage people caused to the planet, there’s still hope to mitigate further repercussions. Every renewable energy essay adds to the existing body of knowledge we have today and advances research in the field. Here are the key advantages and disadvantages of alternative energy resources people should keep in mind. 

Advantage of Green Energy

The use of renewable energy resources has a number of benefits for the climate, human well-being, and economy:

• Renewable energy resources have little to no greenhouse gas emissions. Even if we take into account the manufacturing and recycling of the technologies involved, their impact on the environment is significantly lower compared to fossil fuels. 
• Renewable energy promotes self-sufficiency and reduces a country’s dependence on foreign fuel. According to a study, a 1% increase in the use of renewable energy increases economic growth by 0.21%. This gives socio-economic stability.
• Due to a lack of supply of fossil fuels and quick depletion of natural resources, prices for nonrenewable energy keep increasing. In contrast, green energy is limitless and can be produced locally. In the long run, this allows decreasing the cost of energy. 
• Unlike fossil fuels, renewable energy doesn’t emit air pollutants. This positively influences health and quality of life. 
• The emergence of green energy plants creates new jobs. Thus, Apollo energy solutions support the growth of local communities. By 2030, the transition to renewable energy is expected to generate 10.3 million new jobs. 
• Renewable energy allows decentralization of the industry. Communities get their independent sources of energy that are more flexible in terms of distribution. 
• Renewable energy supports equality. It has the potential to make energy more affordable to low-income countries and expand access to energy even in remote and less fortunate neighborhoods. 

Disadvantages of Non-Conventional Energy Sources

No technology is perfect. Renewable energy resources have certain drawbacks too: 

• The production of renewable energy depends on weather conditions. For example, wind farms could be effective only in certain locations where the weather conditions allow it. The weather also makes it so that renewable energy cannot be generated around the clock. 
• The initial cost of renewable energy technology is expensive. Both manufacturing and installation require significant investment. This is another disadvantage of renewable resources. It makes them unaffordable to a lot of businesses and unavailable for widespread individual use. In addition, the return on investment might not be immediate.
• Renewable energy technology takes up a lot of space. It may affect life in the communities where these clean energy farms are installed. They may also cause disruptions to wildlife in the areas. 
• One more limitation a renewable resources essay should consider is the current state of technology. While the potential of renewable energy resources is tremendous, the technology is still in its development phase. Therefore, renewable energy might not substitute fossil fuels overnight. There’s a need for more research, investment, and time to transition to renewable energy completely. Yet, some diversity of energy resources should be introduced as soon as possible. 
• Renewable energy resources have limited emissions, but they are not entirely pollution-free. The manufacturing process of equipment is associated with greenhouse gas emissions while, for example, the lifespan of a wind turbine is only 20 years. 

For high school seniors eyeing a future rich with innovative endeavors in renewable energy or other fields, it's crucial to seek financial support early on. Explore the top 10 scholarships for high school seniors to find the right fit that can propel you into a future where you can contribute to the renewable energy movement and beyond. Through such financial support, the road to making meaningful contributions to a sustainable future becomes a tangible reality.

Renewable energy unlocks the potential for humanity to have clean energy that is available in abundance. It leads us to economic growth, independence, and stability. With green energy, we can also reduce the impact of human activity on the environment and stop climate change before it’s too late. 

So what’s the conclusion of renewable energy? Transitioning to renewable energy resources might be challenging and expensive. However, most experts agree that the advantages of green energy outweigh any drawbacks. Besides, since technology is continuously evolving, we’ll be able to overcome most limitations in no time.

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Solar Energy Essay

500 words essay on solar energy.

Solar energy is the energy which the earth receives from the sun which converts into thermal or electrical energy. Moreover, solar energy influences the climate of the earth and weather to sustain life. It has great potential which we must use to our advantage fully. Through the solar energy essay, we will look at this in detail and know more about it carefully.

Importance of Solar Energy

Solar energy is very important as it is a clean and renewable source of energy. Thus, this means it will not damage the earth in any way. In addition, it is available on a daily basis. Similarly, it does not cause any kind of pollution.

As it is environment-friendly, it is very important in today’s world. It is so much better than other pollution sources of energies like fossil fuels and more. Further, it has low maintenance costs.

Solar panel systems do not require a lot of solar power energy. Moreover, they come with 5-10 years of warranty which is very beneficial. Most importantly, it reduces the cost of electricity bills.

In other words, we use it mostly for cooking and heating up our homes. Thus, it drops the utility bills cost and helps us save some extra money. Further, solar energy also has many possible applications.

A lot of communities and villages make use of solar energy to power their homes, offices and more. Further, we can use it in areas where there is no access to a power grid. For instance, distilling the water is Africa and powering the satellites in space.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Uses of Solar Energy

In today’s world, we use solar energy for a lot of things. Firstly, we use solar power for many things as small as calculators to as big as power plants which power the entire city. We use the most common solar power for small things.

For instance, many calculators use solar cells to operate, thus they never run out of batteries. Moreover, we also have some watches which run on solar cells. Similarly, there are also radios which run on solar cells.

Thus, you see so many things run on solar power. All satellites run on solar power otherwise they won’t be able to function. Moreover, large desalinization plants make use of solar power if there is little or no freshwater.

In addition, many countries have solar furnaces. We also use solar power commercially and residentially. You will find its uses in transportation service too. In fact, soon, solar powers will also be out on the streets.

Conclusion of Solar Energy Essay

To sum it up, solar energy is a cost-effective means of energy which is quite useful for people that have huge families. When we install solar panels, we can get solar energy which will reduce electricity costs and allow us to lead a sustainable lifestyle. Thus, we must all try to use it well to our advantage.

FAQ of Solar Energy Essay

Question 1: What is solar energy in simple words?

Answer 1: Solar energy is basically the transformation of heat, the energy which is derived from the sun. We have been using it for thousands of years in numerous different ways all over the world. The oldest uses of solar energy are for heating, cooking, and drying.

Question 2: What are the advantages of solar energy?

Answer 2: There are many advantages of solar energy. Firstly, it is a renewable source of energy which makes it healthy. Moreover, it also reduces the electricity bills of ours. After that, we can also use it for diverse applications. Further, it also has low maintenance costs.

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Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States

The world confronts an existential challenge in responding to climate change, resulting in an urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors of the economy. What will it take for new and advanced nuclear reactors to play a role in decarbonization? Nuclear power provides a significant portion of the worlds low-carbon electricity, and advanced nuclear technologies have the potential to be smaller, safer, less expensive to build, and better integrated with the modern grid. However, if the United States wants advanced nuclear reactors to play a role in its plans for decarbonization, there are many key challenges that must be overcome at the technical, economic, and regulatory levels.

Laying the Foundation for New and Advanced Nuclear Reactors in the United States discusses how the United States could support the successful commercialization of advanced nuclear reactors with a set of near-term policies and practices. The recommendations of this report address the need to close technology research gaps, explore new business use cases, improve project management and construction, update regulations and security requirements, prioritize community engagement, strengthen the skilled workforce, and develop competitive financing options.

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Fact Sheet | Climate Jobs (2024)

By nicole pouy.

February 26, 2024

U.S. efforts to confront the climate crisis have propelled a demand for jobs that will help the country mitigate and adapt to climate change. These climate jobs have been steadily on the rise in the United States. The energy sector as a whole has regained 71% of the jobs lost due to the pandemic in 2020. With a 3.9% growth rate, clean energy job creation outpaced overall job growth in 2022. In total, there were more than 4.2 million climate jobs in 2022 .

Energy Efficiency Jobs

Energy efficiency supported 2.2 million jobs in 2022. This includes the work of designing, manufacturing, distributing, and installing energy-efficient products and services. Though remaining below pre-pandemic levels, every job category within this sector has experienced growth since 2021. The states with the most energy efficiency jobs in 2022 were California (294,396 jobs), Texas (164,470), New York (126,008), and Florida (118,904).

Energy Transmission, Distribution, and Storage Jobs

In 2022, employment in clean energy storage and grid technology and modernization supported 146,811 jobs , while electricity transmission and distribution supported more than 703,000 jobs . Texas had the highest storage and grid-related employment (57,030), followed by California (50,787) and Illinois (20,662). The sector grew by 2.2% in 2022, with the highest growth rate (11.6%) occurring in electricity transmission and distribution system modernization (indicated by the label, “other grid modernization”).

Renewable Energy Jobs

Renewable energy supported 546,630 jobs in 2022 . Employment has increased across the sector since 2021, with wind energy experiencing the most growth ( 5,416 additional jobs ). California had the highest number of solar, wind, and traditional hydropower jobs (133,173), followed by Texas (43,063) and New York (23,915). Solar and wind power continue to be the largest employers in renewable energy generation, and solar photovoltaic installers and wind turbine service technicians are among the 15 fastest-growing occupations in the United States.

Clean Transportation Jobs

Clean vehicles supported 373,605 jobs in 2022 . This includes 152,846 jobs in hybrid electric vehicles, 134,060 jobs in battery electric vehicles, 68,925 jobs in plug-in hybrid vehicles, and 17,774 jobs in hydrogen/fuel cell vehicles. Overall, employment in the clean vehicle sector increased by 14.7% in 2022. Within this sector, battery electric vehicle employment saw the greatest increase, growing by almost 27% .

Renewable fuels supported 109,464 jobs in 2022 . This includes about 35,152 jobs in corn ethanol, 20,939 jobs in other ethanol fuels, 34,164 jobs in woody biomass, and 19,209 jobs in other biofuels. Job growth for these fuels occurred across the board between 2021 and 2022, and was expected to continue into 2023.

Public transportation supported 821,220 jobs in 2022 . Every $1 billion invested in public transportation can yield 50,000 jobs .

Adaptation and Resilience Jobs

As climate change impacts grow more frequent and severe, employment related to adaptation and resilience is rapidly emerging across many sectors, including natural resource management, transportation, infrastructure, public health, tourism, and disaster risk management. The American Society of Adaptation Professionals (ASAP) represents about 1,400 individuals and over 40 organizational members that employ more than 180,000 people. ASAP reports that at least 1,500 professional-level adaptation jobs were hired for in 2022. Though the total number of adaptation and resilience jobs is far greater, exact figures are unavailable. Adaptation jobs exist in all 50 states, with the most hiring opportunities in California; Washington, D.C.; Massachusetts; Texas; and New York. While new jobs are being created in this sector, existing jobs not traditionally considered to be climate jobs have begun to incorporate adaptation and resilience components as climate change intensifies. Job creation in this sector is expected to accelerate, especially with additional federal investment in adaptation and resilience—such as through the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act ( P.L. 117-58 ).

Further developments in adaptation and resilience workforce tracking, such as revisions to the Standard Occupational Classification system , would aid analysis of employment in this sector. To learn more about adaptation jobs, check out EESI’s explainer .

The Future of Climate Jobs

Since 2021, the passage and implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act ( P.L. 117-58 ), the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) ( P.L. 117-169 ) , and the CHIPS and Science Act ( P.L. 117-167 ) have cemented long-term certainty for investment and work in the fields of energy efficiency, renewable energy, and climate resilience. Investments from the IRA alone are expected to create more than 303,500 jobs each year for new energy project construction, and about 100,000 permanent jobs every year. Within the law’s first six months, companies had already announced more than 100,000 new clean energy jobs. Climate and energy jobs will also continue to diversify, with new jobs addressing emerging issues such as abandoned oil and gas wells and decarbonization of the construction industry .

Author: Nicole Pouy

Editors: Daniel Bresette, Amaury Laporte

For the endnotes, please download the PDF version of this fact sheet .