Renewable energy

As societies look for ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions and slow climate change, large-scale solar power is playing a central role. Climate scientists view it as the tool with the greatest potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 2030. In the U.S., the Department of Energy predicts that solar will account for nearly 60% of all new utility-scale electricity-generating capacity installed in 2024. But ideal locations for solar development often overlap with croplands or grasslands used for livestock grazing. Typically, large-scale solar arrays are designed to maximize energy generation, without much consideration for the ecosystems in which they are placed. For example, grading land and removing vegetation can cause erosion and send runoff into waterways. Solar developers have been fined for such environmental violations in Georgia, Massachusetts, Alabama, Idaho and Illinois. There also are concerns about how large solar installations affect animal movement patterns...

Reading down the lengthy final agreement of the COP28 United Nations climate conference held in December 2023, you’ll go a long way before finding a strong, active verb. The lengthy recitation of climate impacts “notes with concern” and occasionally with “significant concern” glaring gaps in countries’ current policies. But while countries volunteered pledges to act, they were less keen to have those pledges framed as binding agreements in the final text. Reactions to COP28’s conclusion have been understandably mixed. Going into the talks, the world was more on track to avert catastrophic warming than it would have been without the 2015 Paris Agreement, but a long way from where it needs to be. Even if all the pledges made at COP28 are implemented, the world will still exceed the Paris goal of keeping global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) compared to preindustrial temperatures....

Climate disasters are now costing the United States US$150 billion per year, and the economic harm is rising. The real estate market has been disrupted as home insurance rates skyrocket along with rising wildfire and flood risks in the warming climate. Food prices have gone up with disruptions in agriculture. Health care costs have increased as heat takes a toll. Marginalized and already vulnerable communities that are least financially equipped to recover are being hit the hardest. Despite this growing source of economic volatility, the Federal Reserve – the U.S. central bank that is charged with maintaining economic stability – is not considering the instability of climate change in its monetary policy. Earlier this year, Fed Chair Jerome Powell declared unequivocally: “We are not, and we will not become, a climate policymaker.” Powell’s rationale is that to maintain the Fed’s independence from politics and political cycles, it should use...

As renewable energy production expands across the U.S., the environmental impacts of these new sources are receiving increased attention. In a recent report, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine examined whether and how constructing offshore wind farms in the Nantucket Shoals region, southeast of Massachusetts, could affect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales. The Conversation asked marine scientists Erin L. Meyer-Gutbrod, Douglas Nowacek, Eileen E. Hofmann and Josh Kohut, all of whom served on the study committee, to explain the report’s key findings. Why did this study focus on such a specific site? The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which is part of the U.S. Department of the Interior and regulates offshore energy production, asked the National Academies to conduct this study. Regulators wanted to better understand how installing and operating offshore, fixed-bottom wind turbine generators would affect physical oceanographic pr...

Recent courtroom wins for advocates of a more competitive process for approving interstate electric transmission lines could help clear the way for greater access to clean energy for Americans in the long run. On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear Texas’ defense of its “right of first refusal,” or ROFR, law that gave preference for certain utilities to build new power lines across state borders. The law was struck down by a lower bench last year. The justices’ order, which keeps Texas’ law off the books, could serve as a check against adoption of similarly restrictive laws in other states, said Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School. “If utilities had pushed that model across the country, that really would have solidified utility dominance over our transmission systems,” Peskoe said. “The Supreme Court’s decision … should at least prevent tha...