Energy and Climate Change

Getting to 100% Clean Electricity with an optional deep dive: Energy Basics 101.

For those looking to get a more technical grounding in clean energy. We’ll dig into; Energy and power, Energy content of fuels, carbon intensity of fuels, and basic energy analysis. Efficiency and capacity factor, The electric grid 101. Basics of power systems planning: load curve and load duration curve, Basic quantitative analysis for solar and wind energy. Energy economics 101. Hawaii and India case studies.

We will emphasize this again: Energy really matters for climate change. There is no way to deal with climate change without tackling our energy use. A total of 73% of total greenhouse gas emissions are associated with global energy use…

Electricity is helpfully described as “the flow of electric power or charge.” (Yeah.) Perhaps an easier way to think of electricity is in contrast to other ways in which we use energy: through the combustion of liquid fuel (e.g. gasoline or diesel) to move your car or truck, or by burning gas, say, to generate heat for household or industrial heating needs. 

You’ve probably heard about 100 percent clean electricity systems. Perhaps you have doubts as to whether this is feasible. You may have heard about “intermittency,” for instance—or wonder about costs.

In California, a battle over rooftop solar subsidies recently threatened to derail that market. The fight was entirely about issues of justice: Poorer Californians, namely renters and low-income homeowners, are effectively subsidizing richer homeowners to buy solar energy and benefit from a generous net-metering program.