Steps to a Zero Carbon US

Wrote a piece addressing the long-term needs of a Zero-Carbon transition in the United States. Primarily focuses on what infrastructure challenges need to be met for a successful transition to renewable energy. Further reading and articles at the bottom. Thanks for reading!

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Transition to Zero Carbon: Investment & Key Needs

Overview: The biggest hurdles (by %) for an effective transition to renewables in the United States seem to cover investment in the following categories:

1. Electrifying transport (26% of US energy consumption comes from petroleum used for transport)
2. Transitioning away from natural gas infrastructure in the industrial and residential sectors and using electricity instead (this covers 17.6% of US energy consumption) — heating, cooling, drying, lights.
3. Investment in renewables/nuclear generation needs to primarily displace coal (91% of which is used for electrical power generation in the United States).
4. *Utility level expansion of storage, capacity and distribution systems of electric power. There is a poor profit-function in terms of current technology but business models with intelligent cost-synergies may still work (see Page 8).

To transition to zero-carbon, ~79.4% of total US energy consumption of non-renewables (petroleum, natural gas and coal) must be displaced. The first three points cover ~78.4% of total US energy consumption. This hopefully frames a good way to think about investment towards a clean transition. Investment in electricity infrastructure (storage, capacity) thus seems to be the most important cost-function challenge if renewables are to be more widely adopted.

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Important Advancements (Improving cost-function for electricity storage, capacity, distribution):

1. 20–30% yearly cost reduction is likely for lithium-ion batteries, which could bring them to commercial/utility scale to the point of mass adoption potential before 2020. Cost of energy storage may likely go from ~14c/kWh today (2015) to ~2c/kWh (2020) (Duetsche Report)
2. Pumped-hydro technology supplies the vast majority of grid-connected energy storage (97.5%). Therefore, battery technology (chiefly lithium-ion) must prove more cost-effective given industry excitement over these past few years.
3. Hydrogen storage systems, NaS and Redox Flow Batteries likely to experience rapid cost reductions of all the comparable technologies considered but still not as effective cost-function as others that are commercial ready like lithium-ion (Deloitte Energy Storage Report)
4. Complementary energy storage services (Page 8) have cost-synergies that can be leveraged in effective scalable business models
5. Flywheels and CAES are the two most common technologies used for bulk-energy storage (utility-scale), but they are also examples in which the cost of energy and power are negatively correlated (Deloitte Energy Storage Report). This poses a challenge.

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Interesting Sources & Articles:

Book: Winning the Oil Endgame (Written by Amory Lovins)

EIA Graph: US Energy Consumption by Source & Sector (2015)

Article: Bulk Energy Storage (Scientific American)

Research Paper: US Energy Employment Report (interesting pages 15–16, 29–30, 40–42, 51–52)

Report: Energy Storage Report (Deloitte 2017)