Taking a Stand on Climate – pv magazine International

In April 2024, the nonprofit Climate Central released a report on renewable energy potential in the United States, based on 10 years of solar and wind data.

In 2023, 238,181 GWh of solar energy was expected to be generated in the United States, more than eight times the volume produced in 2014. Wind energy more than doubled to 425,325 GWh.

Solar and wind energy could power more than 61 million average U.S. homes in 2023. California led the way with 68,816 GWh of solar. Texas led in wind energy with 119,836 GWh and also generated 31,739 GWh of solar in 2023.

But energy production needs to be spread more evenly across the country, which is why young activist groups have turned to the courts to speed up the U.S. energy transition.

In 2022, plaintiff Navahine F., whose name has not been released, and 12 other young Hawaiians filed a lawsuit challenging the Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT) to take responsibility for providing a life-sustaining climate. Navahine v. HDOT was decided in favor of the plaintiffs on June 20, 2024, in what is believed to be the world’s first youth-led constitutional climate case focused on transportation.

“This agreement provides a comprehensive roadmap for states and countries around the world to follow,” said Andrea Rodgers, co-counsel for the plaintiffs.

HDOT is now required to transform its transportation system to achieve net negative emissions by 2045, as activists have called.

Renewable energy scientist and Stanford University professor Mark Z. Jacobson, who models air pollution and transitions to 100 percent renewable energy, was an expert witness for the plaintiffs. The Navahine case was his first legal victory.

“The Hawaii case was the third one I was involved in,” Jacobson said. pv magazine“I also testified in a previous case in Oregon where this group sued the federal government on climate grounds, but the case was delayed or dismissed. We developed plans to transition every U.S. state to 100% renewable energy, and I was called to testify on how they could do that.”

The Oregon case is Juliana v. United States. The plaintiffs argued that the state violated their constitutional rights by causing unsafe levels of carbon dioxide.

In Montana, Jacobson was involved in a case that settled in June 2023. Held vs. Montana was successful in lower courts and returned to the Supreme Court on appeal by the state. “I think it will hold up,” said Jacobson, who was set to release a paper in early August 2024 analyzing California’s path to the 100-day milestone.

Uneven generation

Clean energy production is uneven across the United States, with some states using solar, wind, and other renewable energy sources more efficiently than others.

“What we need now is deployment, deployment of renewables and other technologies; clean, renewable energy and electrification at scale,” Jacobson said, outlining the actions needed to close the gap.

Jacobson said he wants to “put more policies in place to move to 100% renewable energy” — a requirement he will stick to regardless of the outcome of the upcoming U.S. election. Jacobson has been heavily involved in the Democratic Party in the past, but said efforts to achieve 100% renewable energy “are not a partisan issue.”

“I’ve always been open to working with either party,” he said. “It just so happens that the states that are more interested in 100 percent renewable energy have had more Democratic governors. But in fact, the states with the most wind, for example, nine of the 10 states with the largest fraction of electricity from wind, are all Republican states.

“My goal is to solve problems. The solution is 100 percent clean, renewable energy for 100 percent of the people. We need everyone to get involved, regardless of party affiliation, and internationally. I’m not talking specifically to Democrats; like I said, that’s where most people are interested and open to getting involved. But the reality is that Republicans are interested too… they just don’t want to admit it.”

Like many of the activists he testified to, Jacobson blames Big Oil donors for the iron grip on fossil fuels in some states. But what about Big Tech’s impact on the climate? From data centers to greenwashing, there are plenty of criminals to choose from.

Jacobson said technological advances can of course bring benefits to the energy transition as well.

“We need technology to solve problems – through electrification, solar, wind, heat pumps, battery electric vehicles, battery storage, electric induction cookers and industrial technologies based on firebricks.”

According to Jacobson, technology can be a double-edged sword. “There are some technologies that are not useful, like nuclear, carbon capture, direct air capture, blue hydrogen, electric fuels, bioenergy. Those technologies are not useful,” he said. “On the other hand, there are technologies that are more energy efficient and use less energy, I mean LEDs instead of incandescent bulbs. And compared to gas or combustion, heat pumps use a quarter of the energy to heat air and water.

“The sensible use of technology and the reduction of energy consumption are important for energy efficiency. But we should not be afraid of technology, we should be careful about which technologies we use.”

Jacobson’s goal for the future of the 100% renewables movement is to maintain that same trajectory. “In terms of our own research, we want to do a lot of policy-relevant research that looks at the ability to transition to clean renewable energy, and (we want to) try to focus on what really works, not what doesn’t work.”

Earlier in 2024, Jacobson’s team published plans for 149 countries to transition to renewable energy using firebricks—bricks that can store large amounts of heat. “In this study, we started with International Energy Agency (IEA) energy data for 149 countries and projected it out to 2050. … We found that in 149 countries, we could easily transition to 100 percent clean, renewable energy.”

The study examined several factors. It considered electricity demand and the electrification of energy sources, including the transition from gas vehicles to electric vehicles; the number of wind turbines and solar panels required for the transition; and the costs of the transition; land use; job creation and losses; and air pollution.

“The costs are much better than fossil fuel systems,” Jacobson said. “The ranges don’t even matter as much because they’re all so much lower. Even the high range is much lower than the low range of fossil fuel costs.”

The right technology

At the top of his list of solutions he strongly opposes is carbon capture and storage (CCS). A 2023 paper by Jacobson, published in Environmental Science and Technology, examined a case study of a proposal to capture and store carbon dioxide from 34 ethanol refineries in five U.S. states and build a pipeline to transport CO₂ to the underground storage facility.

“Adding carbon capture always requires energy and equipment,” Jacobson said. “You can get a bigger reduction in carbon dioxide by using it (energy and equipment) just to replace the fossil source, instead of using it to power the carbon capture equipment. You always increase carbon dioxide by using carbon capture. You’re misusing the energy that it takes to do that, when you could actually use it to replace the fossil fuel source. You’re also increasing air pollution and fossil fuel extraction because you can’t reduce the fossil source or get rid of the air pollution that it creates,” Jacobson added.

His views are not unique. Oxford University researchers published a study in December 2023 arguing that a heavy reliance on CCS may be economically uneconomic. Others, however, have taken a less radical approach, fearing a reversal of hard-won progress.

In 2020, the IEA described CCS as “one of the key technology areas” for moving the world’s energy systems onto a more sustainable path. However, the organization also acknowledged that the need for CCS was driven by the lack of a better alternative.