What Energy Policy do we need?
NOT “all of the above”!
- Politicians often say we should have an “all of the above” energy policy.
- But “all of the above” means continued large-scale use of fossil fuels.
- And burning more and more fossil fuels means a world of trouble for our kids.
Instead, we need “All Renewable, ASAP”!
- A rapid transition to an all renewable energy economy is possible, with current technology!
- A team of engineers at Stanford has published “100% clean and renewable energy roadmaps for the 50 United States”, giving detailed plans for how the entire economy in each state can be 80% free of fossil fuels by 2030, and 100% by 2050.
- The report shows that the conversion away from fossil fuels will have these positive impacts (apart from reducing greenhouse gas emissions)…
- Over all 50 states, converting would provide about 3.9 million 40-year construction jobs and about 2.0 million 40-year operation jobs for the energy facilities alone, the sum of which would outweigh the roughly 3.9 million jobs lost in the conventional energy sector.
- Converting would also eliminate approximately 62,000 U.S. air pollution premature mortalities per year today and approximately 46,000 in 2050, avoiding approximately $600 billion per year (2013 dollars) in 2050, equivalent to 3.6 percent of the 2014 U.S. gross domestic product.
- These plans will result in each person in the U.S. in 2050 saving approximately $260 per year in energy costs (2013 dollars) and U.S. health and global climate costs per person decreasing by an estimated $1500 per year and $8300 per year, respectively.
Please tell your elected officials and candidates the energy policy we need is “All renewables, ASAP”, and NOT “all of the above”!
Here are good sources of information about the “50 State Roadmaps” project for powering our economy entirely by clean renewable energy by 2050…IF we move firmly ahead on this NOW.
* A 10 minute video of Mark Jacobson talking with David Letterman in 2013
* Website of the Solutions Project, the public face of the project on the internet.
* a 1 hour video presentation about the 50 state roadmaps
* a quick 15 slide overview of the 50 state roadmap transition
* the August 2015 technical paper published in the journal Energy and Environmental Science, giving the current status of the 50 state roadmaps project. (NOTE: This is a large PDF file.)
* a light-hearted look from The Climate Reality Project at the “good news” about today’s solutions to the climate crisis.