Electric Power and Mega Iceberg
As recent as 2015, coal was still reigning as the most commonly used source of energy for electric power generation in America. This shouldn’t be a complete surprise for anyone since coal has a long history of utilization in America, and it’s what America is built upon. The first ever commercial central power plant in the world was built in Manhattan, New York City. Pearl Street Station started generating electric power on September 4th, 1882, and it was burning coal.
Under combustion, coal, along with other types of fossil fuel emits greenhouse gas(CO2) — the cause of climate change.
Efforts to reduce the overall consumption of fossil fuel had been carried out by the private sector and the government. The Obama Administration had created many policies that saw the blossom of the clean energy sector and reduction of consumption of fossil fuel. In President Obama’s 2011 State of the Union Address, he set a goal: By 2035, 80 percent of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources.
The EIA data shows, between 2008 and 2015, fossil fuel generators had produced at least 85% of all electric power annually.
The absolute amount of electric power generated is still dominated by fossil fuel generators. But we can see that the gap is shrinking. How fast are renewable sources catching up in total electric power generation? Are we on target to reach the goal that President Obama set for 2035?
The growth in total electric power generation of renewable sources and the decline of that share by fossil fuel are encouraging. We are moving in the right direction. If we assume that the total power generation stays at 4.1G Megawatt-hour in the year 2035, fossil fuel declines at a rate of 7.08% YoY and renewable sources grow at a rate of 9.84% YoY, we will reach the goal. Some time in the middle of 2022, renewables would have an equal foothold as fossil fuel!
This projected rate of change is indeed very ambitious and I certainly don’t expect big oils and big coals to just accept the progress at the expense of their(dirty) profits. The progress suffered setbacks from the rollback of 23 environmental rules by the current Trump Administration in its first 100 days. Some earlier arguments from the fossil fuel industry against clean energy had been centered around costs. Indeed, it was more costly to develop clean and renewable energy in its early days. But as of now, fossil fuels are the more expensive ones, even one of Trump’s top advisor said “Coal doesn’t even make that much sense anymore”.
“There is enough ice in Antarctica that if it all melted, or even just flowed into the ocean, sea levels [would] rise by 60 meters.” said Martin Siegert, professor of geosciences at Imperial College London and co-director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change & Environment.
Transitioning away from fossil fuels is crucial to mankind as inaction poses existential threats. The trillion-ton iceberg that just broke off from Antarctica earlier this month is the latest yet evidence of climate change. Corporate profits won’t save us from climate change. The only path forward is adopting sustainable, environmentally responsible ways of living.
