Ed Ballard and Amrith Ramkumar of The Wall Street Journal report that renewal energy is growing fast, but surging demand for power is sucking up much of that additional capacity and forcing utilities to burn fossil fuels. They write:
Climate optimism is fading. Higher costs, pushback from businesses and consumers, and the slow rollout of technology are delaying the transition from fossil fuels.
Renewable energy is growing faster than expected. But surging demand for power is sucking up much of that additional capacity and forcing utilities to burn fossil fuels, including coal, for longer than expected.
With greenhouse-gas emissions continuing at record levels, scientists expect floods and heat waves to get worse. This year is on track to be the hottest on record. […]
This week, businesses, climate activists and government officials are converging on New York for the United Nations General Assembly and related climate events dubbed “Climate Week NYC.”
Overshadowing the gathering is a surge in electricity demand. The U.S. power sector had been a bright spot. Emissions have declined as natural gas and renewables supplanted coal. But new data centers and factories are halting progress. A shift to electric vehicles and appliances could lead to a bigger crunch.
“We really are going to need just about every resource that’s available if demand growth continues at a rapid pace,” said Paul Segal, chief executive of LS Power, which operates natural-gas and renewable projects across the country. Research firm Rhodium Group expects U.S. electricity demand to rise 24% to 29% by 2035, nearly twice the rate it projected a year ago. […]
Form Energy, a maker of iron-based batteries that can discharge electricity for days—a boon for intermittent renewables—recently opened a factory in a former steel mill in West Virginia. It has orders from utilities and plans to expand its manufacturing capacity in the next few years.
“Even that—which is a massively successful business, assuming we get there—is a tiny drop in the bucket,” Form CEO Mateo Jaramillo said.
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