Another Earth Day, with another set of uneven indicators of
progress. But let’s leave aside
the glum indicators from the political sector (in the US) and smile at the
technological progress in renewables.
You may seen reports on the new UN study (available here) which shows
real advances on that front. My
favorite sentence: “Sharply falling prices for solar panels and wind turbines
meant renewable energies in 2013 accounted for over 43% of new generating
capacity globally while raising the share of renewables to 8.5% of the global
electricity supply.”
One supposes that it’s this news that has various fossil
fuel corporations and Flat Earth politicians looking for ways to penalize users
of renewable energy.
Although the UN report mentions the transportation sector
only tangentially, there is an important connection. Electrifying transportation makes sense for a lot of
reasons. But to get the maximum
impact on greenhouse gas emissions, that electrification needs to be based
increasingly on no-carbon/low-carbon energy generation.
Let’s look forward to an even better Earth Day in 2015!
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