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You may have noticed the US President is looking less orange these days.\u00a0 Now that “sleepy” Joe Biden is in the White House’s egg-shaped office, American climate change policy is moving in the right direction. <\/p>\r\n
The good news is — compared to Australian policy — the US isn’t just taking steps in the right direction, it’s breaking into a lumbering gallop.\u00a0 A week and a half ago, the US Department of Energy released the Solar Futures Study that outlines how the US will cut grid emissions 95% by 2035.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
Solar power will do the heavy lifting. Biden wants to increase solar energy generation from today’s 3% to an impressive 40%.<\/p>\r\n
This isn’t political hot air.\u00a0 Unlike Australia, where our Prime Minister claims to want zero emissions by 2050<\/a> but actively works against<\/a> it, the Biden administration intends to go the distance.\u00a0 It’s a huge job to get done in little more than 13 years, but the United States is more than up to the task.\u00a0 When they put their mind to it, the world’s largest economy1<\/a><\/sup> can achieve astounding things.\u00a0 This is a nation that was producing nearly one aircraft carrier a week by the end of World War 2.2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\r\n It’s a big plan and so comes with a big report.\u00a0 There’s a summary here<\/a> or you can download the whole 279 page schmear here<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n The massive report looks at two different scenarios beyond “business as usual”:<\/p>\r\n I’m going to focus mainly on the grid and the decarb<\/strong> scenario because the report is so long I can’t cover everything.\u00a0 But I do expect emissions outside of the electricity sector will also rapidly decrease.\u00a0 After all, electric cars in the US aren’t a passing fad like they were in 1903<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n The United States has the second-highest greenhouse gas emissions.\u00a0 Coming second is nothing to be proud of given that the winner — China — has over four times the population.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Per capita, the US is double the emissions of China.\u00a0 The only nation with higher per capita emissions than the US that isn’t a net oil exporter is the country of Let’s Change the Subject3<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\r\n Currently, 25% of US net greenhouse gas emissions are from its grid.\u00a0 In coal-heavy Australia, it’s over 30%.<\/p>\r\n The graph below shows grid generation by source for Australia and the US:<\/p>\r\n Australia’s coal generation stands out, as our portion is over three times higher.\u00a0 In the US, instead of burning coal like it’s going out of fashion — which it is — they use a lot of natural gas.\u00a0 As a percentage, gas generation is around six times higher than it is here and they get infinity times as much from nuclear.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n US wind power is the cheapest in the developed world, but they’re still behind us.\u00a0 We’re also well ahead on solar power, with more on rooftops.\u00a0 The percentage of solar generation that is distributed and mostly installed on rooftops is…<\/p>\r\n The two countries appear neck and neck on hydro, but 7% is higher than figures I’ve seen for US hydro in the past, so take it with a grain of salt4<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\r\n The plan is for the US to eliminate most coal and gas electricity generation by 2035 through increasing…<\/p>\r\n No significant increase is expected in any other form of electricity generation.\u00a0 This will result in around 76% of US electricity coming from wind and solar power.\u00a0 This appears more than enough to eliminate fossil fuels from the grid that currently generate 59% of US electricity, but around 5% of generation is expected to still be generated from fossil fuels — almost entirely natural gas — in 2035.\u00a0 One reason why the massive growth in renewables won’t wipe out fossil fuels is that nuclear generation will decline.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Nuclear, a low emission source of energy, will shrink from 20% of US generation today to around 12% in 2035.\u00a0 A small portion of the decline will be from increased electricity consumption, but it is mostly due to old reactors being shut down and not replaced.\u00a0 There are only two new reactors<\/a> under construction in the United States and both are at a single nuclear power station<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Nuclear power is going to decline because it’s expensive and, unlike gas generation, saves very little in fuel and operation costs by shutting down during periods of high solar and wind energy output.\u00a0 I put the chances of nuclear reversing its decline in US — with very little rounding — at 0%.<\/p>\r\n In Australia, to shut a coal power station, two things are necessary:<\/p>\r\n At the moment, the second part is easier in the US than here because they have extensive gas generation, which is far easier to ramp up and down than coal<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\r\n While gas generation will ease the transition to renewables, energy storage will also rapidly expand, and may be able to provide 350 gigawatts of power by 2035.\u00a0 That’s around one kilowatt for every person in the United States.\u00a0 There will only be enough energy stored to supply that much power for a few hours, but this will still be enough to mostly decarbonize the US grid.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n You’d think with 13 times Australia’s population density, the main blob of the United States would already be well integrated with lots of long-distance transmission, but that’s not the case.\u00a0 The US is divided into a number of large grids<\/a> with limited or no electricity transmission between them.\u00a0 To get power where it’s needed and to geographically disperse renewable energy generation across an area the size of Australia, the study says inter-regional transmission will increase 60% by 2050.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Most people think Australia is a much better location for solar power than the US.\u00a0 This is because they look at solar insolation maps and see Australia is almost all and red while the US has a lot more yellow and some green.<\/p>\r\n Image: Global Solar Map. (Note image taken that week Australia and Hawaii swapped places.)<\/p><\/div>\r\n In practice, it’s often not the case.\u00a0 Perhaps 100 million Americans have better access to solar resources than Australians.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n This is because when the British first rocked up to Australia, they were very pasty and — even though they didn’t have a good understanding of skin cancer back then — they instinctively knew the big burny thing in the sky wanted to kill them.\u00a0 Because of this, they quite intentionally built colonies in the cloudiest places they could find.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n In the US, people in cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix, Albuquerque (yes, there really is a place called Albuquerque<\/a>) and many others all have more solar insolation falling on their rooftops than in any Australian capital5<\/a><\/sup>.\u00a0 As roofs are often the best place to put solar panels, this is very useful.\u00a0 There’s also a lot more existing transmission capacity in the sunnier parts of the country than here, which is handy for solar farms.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n There are parts of the United States with low solar output such as Seattle.\u00a0 But even there isn’t nearly as bad as Edinburgh, where the natives throw slices of deep-fried pizza at the sun in superstitious fear during the 15 minutes a year it’s visible.\u00a0 Fortunately, low insolation in some parts of the US is not a problem for solar deployment.\u00a0 They can make use of rooftop solar panels even with relatively low insolation, and they can make use of long-distance transmission to get power from places like Albuquerque.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n The plan involves a massive increase in solar capacity:<\/p>\r\n The main focus of the study is solar, as it will be around two-thirds of the new generating capacity.\u00a0 Many hectares of paragraphs are devoted to pointing out potential obstacles such as…<\/p>\r\n …are not show stoppers.<\/p>\r\n The study says the amount of land solar requires will cover 0.5% or less of the contiguous United States between Canada and Mexico.\u00a0 That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a massive amount — 40,000 square kilometres.\u00a0 That’s the size of Denmark and four and a half times Yellowstone National Park where Yogi Bear lives.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Meanwhile, Smokey Bear has something to say to you coal-burning hairless apes.<\/p><\/div>\r\n But, as I’ve pointed out before<\/a>, coal also takes up a massive amount of land and natural gas extraction takes up a considerable amount in the US.\u00a0 Also, they’ll lose a lot more than 0.5% of their land if we don’t stop the ice caps melting.\u00a0 The report says there is more than enough land available for solar that’s either contaminated or unsuitable for most other purposes.<\/p>\r\n My guess is 40,000 square kilometres is way more than they’ll actually need.\u00a0 In Australia just under three-quarters of our solar energy generation comes from rooftops and there’s no reason the US can’t do much the same.\u00a0 Technically, all the new solar generation could go on rooftops, but that’s not likely to happen.\u00a0 If half of it ends up there they’ll only need 20,000 or so square km for solar farms, which is little more than two Yellowstone Parks — or in practice, a lot of contaminated wasteland.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n The report does not distinguish between utility-scale solar farms and distributed solar.\u00a0 It’s completely panel location agnostic.\u00a0 It just says a lot of solar capacity will be installed and says there’s enough wasteland if it goes in solar farms, but doesn’t attempt to specify where it will end up.<\/p>\r\n The report says there are enough raw materials to build the solar capacity.\u00a0 You only have to look at all the material goods Americans go through in a year to see that’s true.\u00a0 The quintessential American is someone who drives a Hummer and asks if there are enough resources for America to go renewable.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n The main components of solar panels are glass, silicon, and aluminium.\u00a0 We’re not about to run out of them.\u00a0 Even, if we were, recycling is an option.<\/p>\r\n The study says waste material from solar power will not be a problem.\u00a0 One reason given is because it can be recycled.\u00a0 Reuse is also mentioned.\u00a0 I presume this means sending used panels to poor countries: something that already happens.\u00a0 If they’re talking about turning them into coffee tables, I’m not sure the market for them will be high enough.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n The report also mentions repair.\u00a0 That’s generally not something that happens with solar panels.\u00a0 It’s normally a case of remove and replace.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n There is no reason why we can’t recycle solar waste.\u00a0 It is a good idea to clean up after ourselves.\u00a0 But if we didn’t, I don’t think future generations would give much of a shit.\u00a0 We could throw every solar panel ever made<\/a> into the hole left by a single coal mine and have room left to spare.\u00a0 I think the people of the future would be more pissed off if we left them with sea-level rise and killer heatwaves than a giant pit full of broken panels. \u00a0<\/p>\r\n The problem of solar waste isn’t something that should be ignored but is trivial compared to the problem it solves.<\/p>\r\n The report says:<\/p>\r\n “Continued technological progress is critical to achieving the Solar Futures<\/em> vision.”<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n I was going to say that’s bullshit.\u00a0 After all, South Australia electricity generation is 62% renewable as a percentage of state consumption and there is nothing stopping it from getting to 95% with current technology.\u00a0 But after thinking about it, I’ve decided it’s more of an exaggeration.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n It would be more correct to say that to achieve their vision at the cost they want, then renewable generation and energy storage will need to continue to fall in cost.\u00a0 But even if costs never fell by another cent from what they are today, the vision can still be achieved.\u00a0 They’d just have to throw a little money into the pot.\u00a0 When your goal is to stabilize the earth’s climate for the sake of future generations, you don’t give up just because it may mean you have to wait a year before buying a new car.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n But even if — for some strange reason — there were no new technological advances, just applying ones that have already been made and economies of scale from increased production will be enough to considerably lower costs.\u00a0 While I expect it will get harder to squeeze cost reductions out of conventional silicon solar in the future, there’s no reason to think we won’t have any more bright ideas.<\/p>\r\n Back in 2000, if you’d told me the US was going to cut its grid emissions 95% by 2035 I would have automatically assumed this was being done with a sensibly implemented carbon price.\u00a0 But this is not part of the plan.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n Thanks to the hard work of millions of people around the world — including the Australian solar power industry — renewable generation and energy storage have fallen so far in cost, cuts in emissions will be achieved without a carbon price and no increase in electricity costs through to 2035.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n A carbon price is still a good idea – just not necessary. \u00a0If required, the US can regulate the greenhouse gas emissions of generators under their Environmental Protection Act6<\/a><\/sup>.\u00a0 The rest of the work will be done by renewables and storage smashing fossil fuels on price.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n The study estimates $1.5 trillion Australian dollars will be saved by 2050 from reduced costs from pollution and climate change.\u00a0 If they go the whole hog and pursue the ‘Decarbonization with Electrification’ scenario, this increases this to $2.3 trillion Australian.<\/p>\r\n The study gets all the basics right:<\/p>\r\n But the study also goes into some things that are unlikely to pan out such as some speculative forms of energy storage.\u00a0 I don’t think it was necessary to include this stuff.\u00a0 It’s not as if the study was in danger of being too thin without it. \u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n
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<\/p>\r\nUS Emissions<\/h2>\r\n
A Tale Of Two Countries<\/h2>\r\n
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The Plan: More Wind & Solar Power<\/h2>\r\n
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Nuclear Power In Decline<\/h2>\r\n
Massive Gas Capacity Eases Renewable Integration<\/h2>\r\n
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Energy Storage<\/h2>\r\n
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<\/p>\r\nLong Distance Transmission<\/h2>\r\n
Solar Energy Resources Often Better Than Australia<\/h2>\r\n
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More Solar Panels No Problem<\/h2>\r\n
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Land For Solar Power<\/h2>\r\n
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Raw Materials<\/h2>\r\n
Solar Waste<\/h2>\r\n
Technological Development<\/h2>\r\n
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No Increased Cost<\/h2>\r\n
Some Weird Stuff<\/h2>\r\n
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