Extra-Solar Activity

The Biden Administration wants to set a major new solar power plan for the US, increasing the amount of power the country gets from the sun from 5% to a whopping 45% by 2050.

The Biden administration on Wednesday released a plan to produce almost half of the nation’s electricity from the sun by 2050 as part of its effort to combat climate change.

Solar energy provided less than 4 percent of the country’s electricity last year, and the administration’s target of 45 percent would represent a huge leap and will most likely take a fundamental reshaping of the energy industry. In a new report, the Energy Department said the country needed to double the amount of solar energy installed every year over the next four years compared with last year. And then it will need to double annual installations again by 2030.

Adding that many solar panels, on rooftops and on open ground, will not be easy. In February, a division of the Energy Department projected that the share of electricity produced by all renewable sources, including solar, wind and hydroelectric dams, would reach 42 percent by 2050 based on current trends and policies.

The new department blueprint is in line with what most climate scientists say is needed. Those experts say that reducing net emissions of greenhouse gases to zero by 2050 is essential to limiting the worst effects of global warming — and much greater use of renewable energy sources like solar panels and wind turbines will be needed to achieve that goal.

But administration officials have provided only a broad outline for how they hope to get there. Many of the details will ultimately be decided by lawmakers in Congress, which is working on a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a much larger Democratic measure that could authorize $3.5 trillion in federal spending.

One thing going for the administration is that the cost of solar panels has fallen substantially over the last decade, making them the cheapest source of energy in many parts of the country. The use of solar and wind energy has also grown much faster in recent years than most government and independent analysts had predicted.

“One of the things we’re hoping that people see and take from this report is that it is affordable to decarbonize the grid,” said Becca Jones-Albertus, director of the Solar Energy Technology Office in the Energy Department. “The grid will remain reliable. We just need to build.”

The administration is making the case that the United States needs to act quickly because not doing anything to reduce the country’s reliance on fossil fuels also has significant costs, particularly from extreme weather linked to climate change. In a Tuesday visit to inspect damage from the intense rainfall caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ida in New Jersey and New York, President Biden said, “The nation and the world are in peril.”

Some recent natural disasters have been compounded by weaknesses in the energy system. Ida, for example, dealt a huge blow to the electric grid in Louisiana, where hundreds of thousands of people have been without power for days. Last winter, a storm left much of Texas without electricity for days, too. And in California, utility equipment has ignited several large wildfires, killing scores and destroying thousands of homes and businesses.

Even so, many analysts and even some in the solar industry are skeptical that the administration can achieve its green targets. In addition to the 45 percent solar target, Mr. Biden has said he wants to bring net planet-warming emissions from the power sector to zero by 2035. He also wants to add hundreds of offshore wind turbines to the seven currently in the waters off the nation’s coasts and have as many as half of all new cars sold be electric by 2030.

While renewable energy has grown fast, it contributes about 20 percent of the country’s electricity. Natural gas and coal contribute about 60 percent.

“That kind of quick acceleration of deployment is only going to happen through smart policy decisions,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, the president of the Solar Energy Industries Association. “That’s the part where having a goal is important, but having clear steps on how to get there is the issue.”

 

What I don't see mentioned in the article is the largest single blockade to any green energy plan right now: West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who is working to kill all climate measures in the Good Package bill because of his state's coal and gas interests. Manchin failing to stop a green bill would mean the end of his career overnight, as he's going to be replaced by Republican Gov. Jim Justice at some point.

Of course, Republicans will just eliminate funding for any of this when they get Congress and the White House back later this decade, so it's all 100% meaningless anyway.

Right?