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A groundbreaking report released by the Department of Energy yesterday found that the U.S. could get 40% of its energy from solar by 2035.
That's great news for the climate and for the Biden administration, which has set a goal of achieving net zero emissions in the electricity sector by 2035.
But it will require a 10-fold increase over current solar production, and that will require land—lots of land. Research firm Rystad Energy found the U.S. will need to dedicate 13,412 square miles of land—or around 8.6 million acres—to solar development, in order to decarbonize its power sector.
That land may not be available if oil and gas companies snatch it up first. The fossil fuel industry is already sitting on over 20 million acres of public land in the West, and the Biden administration is currently planning to lease thousands of acres in the Western U.S. for drilling early next year.
If the Biden administration is serious about decarbonization, it should stop leasing public lands to fossil fuel companies, or at the very least, give solar and wind companies the right to lease public lands first. The Biden administration could also focus on building solar on out-of-service oil and gas sites, in order to avoid further impacts to public lands.
New report finds majority of fossil fuels must stay in the ground
A new report in the journal Nature finds that 60% of the world's oil and gas reserves and 90% of the world's coal must stay in the ground if we want to have even a 50% shot at keeping global warming to 1.5° C. That is equal to a 3% annual reduction in fossil fuel use for the next 30 years—starting now.
Global temperatures have already increased by over 1° C since the 1800s, largely due to the burning of fossil fuels. And, right now, countries around the world are on track to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels by 2030 than would be consistent with a 1.5° C temperature increase.
The 1.5° C limit is important because the effects of warming are exponential. Considering we're already seeing those devastating effects, from flooding to wildfire to drought, we need to do everything possible to keep warming within 1.5° C.
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Things have changed too much and too rapidly... We are in the midst of figuring out how this climate is going to impact our snow, our runoff and temperatures. I don’t think we can really answer those questions yet.”
