A twenty-year veteran of clean tech now says we need to use more, not less, energy, especially natural gas and nuclear
Mar 24, 2024
Renewables will make electricity so cheap that they’ll pay for themselves, explained the news media to the public over the last decade. Electric cars will replace internal combustion vehicles and drive down oil use. And poor nations will “leapfrog” into being rich with solar panels and batteries.
However, a different picture has emerged over the last three years. Rather than renewables paying for themselves, President Joe Biden and Congress passed legislation in 2022 that could result in an astonishing $1 trillion of taxpayer money for renewables, efficiency, and electric cars.
Despite that investment, the US generated less electricity from renewables in 2023 than it did the year before. Meanwhile, oil consumption continues to rise, the market for electric cars is oversupplied, and automakers have slowed electric vehicle spending as demand has slowed.
It’s true that the overall decline in electricity generated from renewables is relatively small at 0.8%, and most of the reduction is due to a decline in power from hydroelectric dams. Electricity from utility-scale solar farms rose 14%. And the US still reduced carbon emissions in 2023.
However, hydroelectricity wasn’t the only renewable energy source that declined. Wind did as well, by 2%, despite an increase in the number of turbines.
