SANTA CRUZ >> Our planet’s nearly 7.5 billion people use a lot of energy, and some of us use a lot more than others. Whether we measure it in barrels of oil or terawatt hours of electricity, the amount continues to increase.
Of the highest per capita users of energy, the oil-rich nations of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Brunei and Bahrain are at or near the top of the list. Then there are the cold countries — Iceland, Finland, Norway and Canada — which are also big users of energy, presumably much of it used to keep warm. The U.S. is up there at number ten for other reasons, a very high standard of living.
Global energy use increased 350 percent between 1965 and 2014. Until very recently, most of the increase was in fossil fuels — coal, oil and natural gas — that still provide about 85 percent of our global energy. In the U.S., we are about 81 percent dependent on fossil fuels, with oil providing 35 percent, natural gas 28 percent and coal, which is declining, at 18 percent.
Renewables make up an increasing percentage; about 9.4 percent of total global energy use, plus they generate 18.3 percent of the electricity. Here in the U.S., renewable sources provided 9.8 percent of total energy in 2016, and 13.5 percent of our electricity.
Two years ago, Governor Brown signed legislation requiring California to generate 50 percent of our electricity from renewable energy sources by 2030. This builds on the state’s existing standard that requires 33 percent of our power to be produced from renewables by 2020, just three years from now.
Are we even close? We’re well on our way, but there are challenges ahead. We are at 28.4 percent renewable now with hydroelectric making up 14.1 percent, solar 13.4 percent, wind 6.7 percent, geothermal 6.1 percent, and biomass 2.9 percent. Although hydropower is completely renewable every time it rains, it isn’t counted in reaching our target goals.
California leads the nation in most things that matter, and ranks first in the nation in our installed solar capacity. In 2013, we more than doubled our solar energy from the previous year; and in 2014, it doubled again. This is important progress.
Electrical power generation from the wind increased by 400 percent between 2001 and 2014, although we are still second in the U.S. behind Texas. Nearly 90 percent of that came from four windy mountain passes: Altamont Pass in Alameda County, San Gorgonio Pass in Riverside County, and Kern County’s Tehachapi Pass and the Alta Wind Center.
Texas also leads the nation in a less desirable measure — carbon dioxide emissions from energy production, with 11.8 percent of the national total. California is actually number two with 6.6 percent of the total. In the last 25 years, however, despite our population growth and expanding economy, California leveled off and actually reduced our carbon dioxide emissions by 1.6 percent. Texas, on the other hand, increased their emissions by over 14 percent.
Fossil fuels took millions of years to form; they are finite resources with historically volatile prices; and they produce greenhouse gases with well-understood impacts on global climate. Renewables, on the other hand, can provide a fixed price and inexhaustible and sustainable sources of clean electricity.
We are not yet running completely out of fossil fuels, but we running out of atmosphere, where nearly half of all of that carbon dioxide ends up. The nearly two million tons ewe put into the atmosphere each hour is warming the planet, changing the climate and leading to a global rise in sea level as more ice melts.
The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones, but because humans discovered better and more efficient ways of doing things. The same can be said for fossil fuels. There are limits to what is still in the ground, although there is not complete agreement on just how much is still buried in the Earth or under the seafloor.
Sooner or later, we are going to have to rely on renewable or sustainable sources of energy, because the oil, gas and coal are going to be exhausted. Not today, not next year, but its going to happen, and the sooner we make a major shift to renewables, the more of the planet and its atmosphere, ocean, climate and civilization we can stabilize and preserve. Right now we are running a giant experiment, without a gear to reverse what we are doing.
