He says that it isn't a permanent solution. Operators won't be able to burn fossil fuels to fill temporary gaps between energy demand and generation so a future grid needs to be more flexible. There is no sun to power air conditioners at night during a heat wave. It's necessary to rebuild the infrastructure to make it capable of transporting renewable power. He says there is no alternative to upgrade the transmission.
A distributed network of car batteries, along with home solar panels, could be used to smooth out power supply and demand. If we could leverage the batteries from electrical vehicles or batteries in homes, for instance, or if we could operate the rooftopvoltaics of a set of customers and have them coordinate to provide a certain service to support our transmission network, that would absolutely help in trying to cope with As we have more and more renewable energy, the stress in the grid could be alleviated dramatically.
The studies agree on the benefits of decarbonization. The fossil fuel lifecycle is bad for the body. The benefits of clean energy are huge. Over 200,000 premature deaths and over $800 billion to a trillion dollars of other health costs could be avoided by this transition. The number of people affected by respiratory diseases will be reduced as the number of cars goes electric.
It is not the expense that will hold back the deployment of renewable energy, according to the final point of agreement among the studies reviewed. The key point is that cost won't be very high. Some studies found that it could result in savings for consumers. Putting solar panels on a home can be expensive but in the long run it will save the homeowner money.
The policies are needed to deploy them at a larger scale. Despite control of Congress and the White House, Democrats have been unable to pass significant climate legislation. The build back better program would have juiced the manufacturing of renewable tech in the US, but West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin torpedoed it. Mark Paul of the New College of Florida says that it comes as no surprise that we are not on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by half. Everyone in the climate and policy community knows that we are going to blow past those targets if we don't have a lot of action in Washington.
It's everywhere for that. States could mandate that more of their energy generation come from renewable sources, while the feds could give bigger tax refunds for people to buy electric vehicles, especially in lower-income neighborhoods.
There is a lack of skilled labor to deploy and maintain solar and wind systems. This workforce could be boosted by public investments. Paul says that the American working class has been struggling. Policy is needed to steer the ship in the right direction and ensure a smooth transition.
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