Renewables

An industry advocate touts the recent rise of projects in the pipeline and forsees remarkable growth in wind farms over the next twenty years — more, perhaps, than others would concede.

In addition to increasing total U.S. gas consumption to 34.7 Tcf in 2020, it would take another 11.3 Tcf/year to convert existing coal-fired U.S. steam-electric capacity to gas-fired combined-cycle units operating at the same load factor. Clearly, that is a tall order. Nevertheless, we must face the fact that there are few alternatives other than backing out coal-fired generation that would reduce global carbon emissions to a total of less than 870-990 million metric tons between 1991 and 2100. The logical endpoint will be electrification of most stationary energy uses with high-tech renewable or essentially inexhaustible energy sources, and the use of hydrogen from non-fossil-fuel sources as the dominant transportation fuel.