Op-Ed: Hurricane Ian and the coming climate crash
The U.S. is the world’s second largest greenhouse gas emitter after China, so one might think that the U.S. government would have learned from its mistakes of the last century and not again build the world’s largest coal plants. In addition to building coal plants, the U.S. is spending hundreds of billions each year on wind and solar projects when the evidence shows that wind and solar are just one-quarter the cost of coal. According to the federal government, that’s another $100 billion each year.
All these activities add up to a huge waste of taxpayer resources since they are not reducing carbon dioxide emissions. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, U.S. energy consumption increased by more than 100 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2014, a rate that means that we are going to need twice that amount of electricity in 2017 and 2018.
According to the Center for American Progress, renewables accounted for 18% of U.S. electricity generation for the first half of 2015, but they accounted for only one-sixth of generation in the second half of 2015. That’s a big problem and it shows that we are seriously missing out on the benefits solar and wind energy can bring to our economy.
The U.S. produces about 25% of the world’s coal and it accounts for about 42% of global warming pollution. According to the World Bank, coal is now the single cheapest, fastest, and highest-performing fossil fuel on the planet.
“Coal is an inefficient and dirtiest way to power our electric grids and the world that we live in. Coal is the single most polluting source of greenhouse gases, and its production will keep increasing for decades to come.” – U.S. Energy Information Administration
“The current situation is clearly unsustainable. We need to address climate change through
