Solar energy could power 40% of the U.S. by 2035, a recent report says
released Wednesday—a goal that would require the U.S. to add unprecedented capacity to the power grid each year but one that would cost far less than doing nothing as the catastrophic effects of climate change become more apparent amid a summer of record heat waves, wildfires and storms.... [+]Solar power generates just 3% of U.S. electricity today, according to the Solar Futures Study. By 2050, solar and wind energy could satisfy 90% of U.S. needs.
For solar to provide 40% of power, the U.S. would need to add twice as much solar capacity as last year—which was a record—until 2025, and then four times as much between 2025 and 2030. Switching to solar power will not raise electric bills before 2035, the report contends, because the costs of switching could be offset by savings resulting from new technologies that make it cheaper to produce and store energy—but those technologies have not been realized. Increasing solar power would increase long-term power generation costs by about 25%, or an additional $562 billion through 2050, according to the study.
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