The electric system of 2050 will be around 2.5 times the size of the electric system today due to electrification. But electricity is so much more efficient at producing the final “energy services” (heat, motive power, light, etc.) that total energy use will be far lower than it is today.
The energy system by 2050 can be completely transformed from where it is today, but we will need to really pick up the pace. We need to go from adding 20 or so gigawatts (GW) of wind and solar a year to around 130 GW a year for the next 30 years. This article goes through the numbers.
Young Republicans at universities across America are backing a carbon fee plan proposed by James Baker and George Schultz. Is this an idea whose time has come or one that is dead on arrival?
