The US may not achieve its goals of becoming net-zero by 2050 should its development of renewables continue at its current rate, according to a study released by Worley, who argue current application rates are so low the nation may not even "reach halfway".
Renewable energy. Credit: hrui / Shutterstock
The US may not even achieve half of its net-zero goals by the mid-century. Credit: hrui / Shutterstock
The study was released in collaboration with Princeton University’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment and squares up the US's renewables drive, suggesting a "reinvention" of the nation's energy system will be needed to aid in decarbonisation.
While US President Joe Biden has agreed to a greater push towards renewable development, progress remains slow.
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Under former President Trump, fossil fuels thrived. A vehement climate change denier, he refused to sign off on infrastructure to aid in the energy transition.
Worley's conservative estimates suggest the country would have to build two 400 MW solar PV stations every week for the next 30 years in order to produce enough energy to completely decarbonise the US. The company claims there is currently one such project in development in the entire country - clocking in at roughly half the size needed and took three years to build.
The report states the US will have to work to build infrastructure at a far faster rate than it has before.
It also states that project build timeframes will have to be realistically planned in order to allow for a more representative timeline for the adoption of net-zero.
It lists five key shifts needed to help deliver a net-zero future, including technological development, replication of projects, and collaboration between energy companies and governments.
"Even under the constrained renewables pathway, we'd need to install 20,000 MW of solar power each year," the report's authors said. "The biggest solar PV project in the US is 580 MW, so 35 of these would need to be built every year."
The authors added the adoption of nuclear energy and carbon capture technology will be essential in aiding the energy transition, both to help keep emissions down for high-risk sectors such as construction or steel, but also to allow for more concentrated forms of energy generation.
It also suggests building large-scale energy generation facilities in parallel.
Embracing digitalisation and information sharing may also play a role in allowing for the collaboration between businesses, government and communities while helping to optimise the building and performance of each plant.
Worley's CEO Chris Ashton said: "We believe the global climate response demand imagination. We must imagine a transformed way of living that sustains the environment and human lifestyles. We must imagine the many technologies, techniques and resources we can bring to bear. We must imagine the ways all this can be done within our social expectations.
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"A complex interplay of factors will be required to achieve net-zero. Ambition, targets, agreements and technology development are all necessary, but alone they are not enough to achieve our mid-century targets.
"The imperative is for government and industry to shift focus to the practical challenge of delivering a previously unimagined pace and scale of infrastructure development and engineered solutions."
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