WORLDFIRE - Chapter 5, Part II

Shooting for the Moon

photo credit: NASA

In 2018, California–the world’s fifth largest economy–followed Hawaii’s lead by passing a law requiring 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045. In my home state of Colorado, Jared Polis got elected governor in 2018 calling for 100% renewable energy by 2040. Even Xcel Energy, one of the nation’s largest polluting utilities, announced its commitment that year to providing 100% carbon-free electricity by 2050. Driving the announcement was the reality of just how inexpensive renewables have become. This was a game-changer in the utility world. Again, the timelines are too long and carbon-free electricity is not the same as renewable electricity–it leaves the door open to radioactive nuclear power and fossil fuel plants using prohibitively expensive and unproven-at-scale carbon capture schemes–but they all got the hundred-percent part right.

In late 2018, climate blogger David Roberts reported on a public opinion survey conducted for the Edison Electric Institute, a utility trade group, that found 70 percent of national respondents agreeing with the following statement: “In the near future, we should produce 100% of our electricity from renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.” Roberts then shared that “a majority of those surveyed (51 percent) believe that 100 percent renewables is a good idea even if it raises their energy bills by 30 percent. That is wild. As anyone who’s been in politics a while knows, Americans don’t generally like people raising their bills, much less by a third. A majority that still favors it? That is political dynamite.”

Right about this same time, young climate activists were rallying around the concept of a “Green New Deal” proposed by the youngest member of Congress, U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), which also embraces 100% renewables. What set Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s draft plan apart from others was its ten-year “goal of meeting 100% of national power demand through renewable sources,” a plan that, not surprisingly, Al Gore readily endorsed.

In January of 2019, more than 600 green groups signed a letter to Congress calling for, among other things, 100 percent renewable electricity for the U.S. by 2035 “or earlier,” echoing the Sierra Club’s aforementioned 16-year timeline. In the spring of 2019, New Mexico’s Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed into law a bill mandating 100 percent carbon-free electricity be produced by the state’s utilities and rural electric cooperatives by 2045 and 2050, respectively. This was soon followed by Nevada’s Democratic Governor Steve Sisolak signing into law a bill mandating 100 percent carbon-free energy by 2050. Shortly after that, Washington’s Democratic Governor Jay Inslee signed into law a bill mandating 100% carbon-free electricity statewide by 2045. That same spring, Inslee as a presidential candidate unveiled his plan for 100% clean energy for the U.S. by 2035, making his plan the closest any presidential candidate had come to calling for a green energy moon shot goal.

In January of 2021, President Joe Biden followed Inslee’s lead by committing the U.S. to the goal of a 100 percent carbon-pollution-free electric sector by 2035 as part of the White House’s Climate Day; not a moon shot, but also not a cloud shot. This was followed by nearly 700 green groups releasing a letter to congressional leaders calling for a national renewable electricity standard to achieve a 100% renewable electricity grid by 2030. A 2021 report by the group Carbon Tracker further found that solar and wind energy can meet 100 times the world’s energy demands using existing technologies. It also found that meeting 100 percent of global demand with just solar energy would use less land than the current fossil fuel infrastructure footprint. Whoever can’t see where all of this is headed is Rip Van Winkling their way through the 21^st Century.

It is safe to say the 100% goal is here to stay. In the same way that Neil Armstrong’s “one small step” onto the surface of the Moon represented a “giant leap for mankind,” so do the small steps of cities, states, and the U.S. committing to 100% goals portend a giant leap for humanity. But it is agonizing to see something that so clearly needs doing take so many years to catch on. Since Gore issued his public challenge in 2008 and I launched my Ride for Renewables in 2010, we have lost more than a decade to act, while climate chaos has only intensified. We have squandered too much time putting off what the science is screaming we must do. We don’t have another decade to waste. The hour is too late for continued gradualism and baby steps.

So how far has America come with the deployment of renewables? Not very far. In 2022, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that renewables provided roughly 20 percent of domestic electricity generated: wind (10.3%) hydropower (6.0%), solar (3.4%), biomass (1.2%), and geothermal (0.4%). Even if biomass and all that hydropower was renewable (it’s not), we’re still left with an 80 percent gap. Once we commit to a moon shot mission, however, that gap will close quickly. America is blessed with an abundance of solar and wind resources that don’t require massive amounts of water in an increasingly arid world. And the work of producing and installing all those solar panels and wind turbines means a revival of America’s hollowed out manufacturing base and lots of lucrative careers. The solar and wind industries are already creating jobs 12 times faster than the rest of the U.S. economy. Then there is geothermal energy, which the U.S. Department of Energy reports can provide more than 16% of U.S. electricity generation (and 100 percent of the electricity needs of 39 countries). And tidal power, including tidal lagoons. And equally reliable wave power, which we have only just begun to harness despite wave power having an estimated resource potential of one-half to five times the world’s entire electricity consumption. The planet’s oceans have enough theoretical energy potential to exceed all of humanity’s energy needs.

How close is the world to making the energy transition we need to avert climate calamity? Again, not close at all. Tim Radford, founding editor of Climate News Network, reported that despite record 2015 global investments in solar, wind, and other renewables of $266 billion (more than double the $130 billion invested in coal and gas), renewables delivered “just 10.3% of global electrical power,” hardly enough to make a dent in global climate pollution. This is a nearly 90% global gap, and this is just for the electricity sector. In 2017, MIT Technology Review senior editor James Temple surveyed the larger energy system and concluded that at the rate the world is currently adding carbon free energy, “substantially transforming the energy system would take, not the next three decades, but nearly the next four centuries.” We obviously don’t have centuries, let alone decades, to make the leap to renewables.

Absent inspired political leadership to bring about this green industrial revolution, America has relinquished its role of global leader. We have been following while others race to the future. The island nation of Tokelau has already achieved its 100% renewable electricity goal. Spain recently met 100% of its electricity needs from renewables during a 9-hour span on a weekday, showing it could be done in a major economy. Scotland is also blazing a trail to 100% renewable electricity. As reported by the Scottish government: “Renewable technologies generated the equivalent of 113% of Scotland’s overall electricity consumption in 2022.” While not the same as 100% renewables, after decades of dithering, the U.S. has a goal of 100% carbon-free electricity by 2035. At least we’re finally in the game.

The big question is who is going to lead the biggest economic opportunity in the history of humanity? Someone has to produce all those solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, and electric cars. Right now, the answer is China. I want the answer to be us. Why would any politician in their right mind willingly cede the world’s biggest business opportunity to China? Yet that is exactly what Congress and the White House have been doing. In early 2017, The New York Times reported on China’s plans to invest more than $360 billion on renewable energy by 2020, creating 13 million jobs in the process. The article called the announcement by China’s National Energy Administration “a bold claim on leadership in the renewable energy industry.” And so it is. As reported by the International Renewable Energy Agency, China employed 2,200,000 people in solar photovoltaics in 2017, with U.S. solar jobs roughly one-tenth of that: 233,000 jobs. This despite solar technology having been invented in the U.S. in 1954.

While we are lagging behind in the green technology race, we have not lost it yet. As with the space race in the 1960s when Russia took an early lead by launching the world’s first satellite, Sputnik, into orbit, we can still win the green energy race with China, but only if we make winning a priority. This means throwing the full weight of government, business and civil society behind a green energy moon shot mission. This means unleashing the creative genius of America’s entrepreneurs to achieve this urgent national goal, backed by federal, state, county, and municipal tax credits, tax deductions, grants, low-interest loans, and other incentives. Recent initiatives passed by the Biden administration are helpful to this end, but they are nowhere near enough to position us to win this race. Today, we are not chasing another nation to reach the Moon. We are sprinting to see who can get to the 100% renewables finish line first. And just as with the space race, this race must have a timeline attached to it. As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman reminds us in his book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, it took the U.S. 22 years to eliminate lead from gasoline. It took China two years. This race, however, is different in that the closer every nation is at the finish line, the greater the odds that civilization will survive. Just as important as America ramping up renewables is China kicking its coal habit. We need everyone to perform well, for in the end, we sink or we swim together. Saving the human race requires that every human race to the finish line.

As I was researching this chapter in early 2015, a Bloomberg headline blared: “Fossil Fuels Just Lost the Race Against Renewables.” Trumpeting the “beginning of the end” of the fossil fuel era, the article announced that “the race for renewable energy has passed a turning point. The world is now adding more capacity for renewable power each year than coal, natural gas, and oil combined. And there's no going back.” That was huge news. The following year, Bloomberg announced renewable energy was undercutting fossil fuel prices globally, with solar and wind competing as the cheapest forms of new electricity. Renewables also provided the majority of new U.S. electrical generating capacity in 2015 and 2016.

Even the International Energy Agency, which like its U.S. counterpart, the Energy Information Administration (EIA)–which has for too long been foolishly bullish on fossil fuels–acknowledged that renewables accounted for two-thirds of all new power added to the world’s energy grids in 2016. As reported by The Guardian: “The authority, which is funded by 28 member governments, admitted it had previously underestimated the speed at which green energy was growing.” In a further acknowledgement that the renewable revolution is here to stay, the EIA’s 2018 projections showed cheap solar and wind energy leading electricity generation growth through the year 2050.

In 2019, groundbreaking research conducted by the policy shop, Energy Innovation, found that the U.S. had formally entered the “coal cost crossover,” where it costs more to keep most existing coal plants open than to replace them with cheap renewables. The fossil fuel industry’s costs for exploration and production of extreme fuels (think mountaintop removal mining, tar sands, methane fracking, and Arctic and deepwater oil drilling) keep going up, while the costs of renewables keep going down. When even the Kentucky Coal Museum installs solar panels on its rooftop to save money on its electric bills, you know renewables have come out on top. But winning the race against fossil fuels will matter little if we also keep burning them to power society. The future belongs to renewables, but we are not ramping cheap renewables up (or expensive fossil fuels down) anywhere near fast enough to ensure that humanity even has a future. America is crawling towards 100% renewables when we need to be sprinting.

As the renewable revolution revs up, so, too, have the attacks on renewable technologies. Not all of the critiques are without merit, as we will explore in future chapters, but too many are being disingenuously leveled by architects of the suicidal status quo without acknowledging the destructive impacts of maintaining polluting business as usual. When you see such attacks on renewable technologies for their impacts, ask yourself as compared to what? Compared to the far greater impacts of the mining and burning of fossil fuels? The lifecycle emissions of wind and solar are small relative to fossil fuel plant emissions. Others are more thoughtfully critiquing the impacts of renewable technologies without offering viable alternatives other than degrowth, when the truth is we need both.

I say again: infinite growth is not possible on a finite planet. It’s not as simple as trading out fossil fuels with renewables and everything will be just fine. We are already in ecological overshoot. The survival of civilization hinges on developed nations, in particular, not only maximizing efficiency, but using less energy and consuming less stuff. The less we use and consume, the less that needs to be produced in the first place. This is a difficult discussion to have in a convenience-based society like ours, but wants are not the same as needs. We in the West have to learn how to do more with less. Because the U.S. economy is almost entirely fossil-fuel based, there is no getting around the fact that ramping up to 100% renewables at the speed and scale needed will require the use of fossil fuels during the transition. Again, we can mitigate much of the resulting carbon pollution by curtailing our energy use and material consumption, just as we did during World War II. We need an all-hands-on-deck commitment to conservation. As hard as this adult conversation is for industrialized nations to have, it is a conversation that simply must be had. Like generations did before us, we must learn how to conserve. Protecting posterity will require sacrifice from everyone, but what loving parent would not sacrifice some conveniences to protect the lives of their kids?

There will always be doubters who see no future in the green industrial revolution, but time does not stand still for those stuck in the past. Speaking to these holdouts, author Juan Cole writes: “The people who can’t imagine this transformation are kind of like the 1899 newspaper editor who doubted there was a future for the noisy, smelly automobile because it would scare the horses.” We all know how that one turned out. In the fast-paced, ever-evolving world of the 21^st Century, those industries unwilling to reinvent themselves in a carbon-constrained economy are destined for the dustbin of history.

As described by futurist and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Tony Seba: “The era of centralized, command-and-control, extraction-resource-based energy sources (oil, gas, coal and nuclear) will not end because we run out of petroleum, natural gas, coal, or uranium. It will end because these energy sources, the business models they employ, and the products that sustain them will be disrupted by superior technologies, new product architectures, and business models. This is a technology-based disruption reminiscent of how the cell phone, Internet, and personal computer swept away industries such as landline telephony, publishing, and film photography... Just like those previous technology disruptions, the clean disruption is inevitable and it will be swift. It will be over by 2030. Maybe before.” In Seba’s book, Clean Disruption, he shares the following advice with the oil industry: “In an industry that is about to be disrupted, a company has three choices: 1. Get out. That is, sell at high prices while you can. 2. Invest in the disrupting industry. 3. Die.”

The shift to a more efficient, regenerative economy is inevitable. The only question is will it happen in time to help save civilization or will it come too late to matter? The fossil fuel barons and their political enablers want to block the transition, or stretch it out for decades, despite knowing that delay spells disaster for the human species. Do not let the mouthpieces of the suicidal status quo distract you from the fact that deep down, most Americans still believe in U.S. competence. I believe most Americans, if asked, would willingly roll up their sleeves and patriotically do their part to realize a green industrial revolution. In Hot, Flat, and Crowded, Thomas Friedman articulates why a green industrial revolution is patriotic: “That’s why I say green is the new red, white, and blue: because it is a strategy that can help to ease global warming, biodiversity loss, energy poverty, petrodictatorship, and energy supply shortages–and make America stronger at the same time.” Green is the new red, white and blue. A green industrial revolution is deeply patriotic. By becoming the Next Greatest Generation, ours can not only protect America today, but serve as a beacon of hope and inspiration for generations to come. Once the United States makes the leap from dirty energy to clean energy, we can challenge the rest of the world to do the same, but we cannot ask of others what we are unwilling to do ourselves. We must lead by example.

Of course, the industry trade associations with the most to gain from a green energy moon shot–those representing the wind, solar, and geothermal industries–must also dedicate themselves to the success of this national mission. The 100% renewables rocket will never escape Earth’s gravity without the fuel they provide. But it is not enough for these industries to simply commit to the 100% renewables goal. They must also stand up and fight for government support to achieve this goal, just as the fossil fuel industry fights for itself. There is nothing “free” about a market that guarantees billions in federal subsidies to fossil fuels and nukes, while providing crumbs to renewables. It is time for renewable industry leaders to play hardball.

The International Monetary Fund found that the fossil fuel industry received $5.9 trillion in direct and indirect subsidies globally in 2020 ($11 million per minute) and that eliminating these subsidies would slash global carbon dioxide emissions by more than one-third and prevent almost 1 million deaths a year. I was stunned by the $5.9 trillion figure until I saw the industry received $7 trillion in subsidies in 2022 ($13 million per minute). We are literally subsidizing our own demise. In the U.S., direct subsidies to the fossil fuel industry exceed an estimated $20 billion annually. An analysis by the American Wind Energy Association showed that from 1947 to 2015 less than 3% of federal energy incentives went to wind energy. 65% went to fossil fuels, 21% to nuclear, and 12% to other renewables. What if instead of lining the pockets of fossil fuel fat cats, these subsidies were used to lower the energy bills of America’s families by investing in a rapid ramp-up of energy efficiency and renewables? It is irrational for governments to be favoring destructive technologies of the past over beneficial technologies of the present.

Thomas Friedman speaks to this point in Hot, Flat, and Crowded: “GE’s [CEO] Jeffrey Immelt put it best: The big energy players are not going to make ‘a multibillion-dollar, forty-year bet on a fifteen-minute market signal. That just doesn’t work.’ Big industrial players like GE need some price certainty if they are going to make big long-term bets on clean power, and to those market dogmatists who say that the government should not be in the business of fixing floor prices or other incentives to stimulate clean power, Immelt says: Get real... ‘The government has its hand in every industry.’” A goal like 100% renewables provides certainty for energy players, while a partial goal like 80% gives businesses an incentive to stay in the polluting 20%. 80% also gives policymakers a reason to support the remaining 20% when we need to be transcending the fossil fuel paradigm altogether. 100% gets policymakers on the same fossil fuel-free page.

Others smarter than me have written entire books detailing the fine points of a green industrial revolution. Engineers can describe with exacting detail how all of the various pieces fit together. But that is not my intention here. My aim is simply to show you that transitioning to 100% renewable electricity for the U.S. in less than a decade is achievable if we will but make it a national priority. My goal is to show you we have enough market-ready solutions on hand to create a regenerative economy in years, not in decades, and that the opportunities presented by a green energy moon shot far outweigh any challenges such a transition will entail. But it requires a president brave enough to declare such a national mission possible and a Congress wise enough to commit the resources needed for the mission to succeed.

Despite the late hour and our lethargic response to date, I believe America can still rise to this challenge. I believe this because I have seen what the American people are capable of when we set our minds to accomplishing great feats. I believe this because I saw, with my own eyes, the enthusiasm for a green energy moon shot on America’s Main Streets. When it comes to protecting our homes and our families, there is not one iota of difference between us, whether you identify as a Republican, Democrat, Independent, Libertarian or Green. Personally, I’m an Independent. I left the Democratic Party long ago after watching party fealty override principle too many times. Many Republicans have fled the party of Lincoln for similar reasons. When I launched my ride in 2010, a Gallup poll found that far more Americans self-identified as Independents (38%) than as Democrats (31%) or Republicans (29%). By 2022, even more Americans identified as Independents (41%), with fewer still identifying as Democrats (28%) or Republicans (28%). My point is the desire to renew America with renewable energy transcends political party label.

In his book, Rebuild the Dream, green energy pioneer Van Jones writes: “In politics, the side with the best stories almost always wins… effective political stories have four fundamental elements: a villain, a threat, a hero, and a vision. When these four parts are clear and compelling, a story has the power to move people to take action.” As it turns out, we have all four elements here: fossil fuel barons are the villain, climate chaos is the threat, the irrepressible spirit of America is the hero, and a green energy moon shot is the vision. Anyone who doubts that we can achieve this mission underestimates the creative genius and drive of the American people. To cry, when we haven’t even tried, that we can’t transition to 100% renewables in less than a decade is a slap in the face to American ingenuity. Think about how many Silicon Valley start-ups began in the garages of entrepreneurs. We are the nation of innovation. We have the technology. The technology is even affordable. What’s missing is the right national mindset and the political commitment needed to succeed. America has already reinvented herself more than once. It is time for us to do so again.

It all starts with imagining things differently. Do not underestimate the power of imagination. Every aspect of today’s society began as a thought in somebody’s mind until that imagined idea caught fire and was embraced by others as a better way of doing things. Social science shows that the tipping point at which societal norms shift is when 25% of a population embraces an idea. We’ve clearly exceeded that threshold with regards to a green energy moon shot, yet we are allowing a stale old story to confine us in a polluting prison of our own making. We are not hapless victims without power. We are co-creators of our future. We actually hold the key. We can walk right out of that prison with a fresh new story, one that frees us from fossil fuels. We do not need to chain ourselves to dying dinosaur technologies that destroy our air, water, soil, and atmosphere and you should question the motives of those who say that we do. We can choose instead to put America back to work building vibrant, healthy communities powered by cheap, clean, safe, widely distributed, and inexhaustible renewable energy. We do this by tapping into that treasure trove of creativity we are so abundantly blessed with in this country. We do it by displaying the teamwork that has marked America’s most ambitious achievements. If we were tough and smart enough to fly to the Moon and back, we have the strength and savvy to achieve a green energy moon shot here on Earth.

In the documentary In the Shadow of the Moon, astronaut Michael Collins recounted: “After the flight of Apollo 11, the three of us went on an around the world trip. Wherever we went, people, instead of saying, ‘Wow, you Americans did it,’ everywhere they said, ‘We did it.’ We, humankind. We, the human race. We people did it and I had never heard of people in different countries use this word ‘We, we, we’ as emphatically as we were hearing from Europeans, Asians, Africans. Wherever we went it was ‘We finally did it,’ and I thought that was a wonderful thing. Ephemeral, but wonderful.” Project Apollo brought the world together in profound and unexpected ways. Think about how much pride the human race will feel about a successful American-led green energy moon shot.

We have a way to dig ourselves out of the deep climate hole in which we now find ourselves. It all begins with harkening back to one of America’s proudest moments: our visit to another world. A similar heroic journey awaits us now, one that will decide the fate of the human race. By harvesting the free and unlimited energy of Mother Nature, we can power the United States, and indeed the world, on 100% renewable energy. This is the next great adventure that awaits us.

It all begins with saying we’re going to do it. Then, this being America, we do it.

NOTE: The written form of WORLDFIRE is the authoritative version. Any inadvertent errors in transcribing the recordings are mine and mine alone.