The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released an alarming report this October about what it would take to cap rising global temperatures at 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Hitting this target has motivated countries to start developing and executing plans for decarbonization of their power generation and energy matrix, as well as other options, such as removing CO2 out of the atmosphere itself.
The consequences of society’s response to this threat, needless to say, are dire.
“There’s no question that the current proposition of fossil fuels as the world’s primary energy sources needs to be transformed,” says Dr. Carlos Romero of Lehigh University’s Energy Research Center (ERC), “but doing so is a massive global undertaking that will not happen overnight. As an example, currently, the US gets about 70 percent of its total energy from coal, oil, and natural gas. How we go about making the transition, and understanding the ramifications of decisions made along the way, is crucial.”