A Boom in Renewable Energy Has Blunted the Global Rise in Emissions
For months, there was a fear among energy observers that 2022 would turn into a carbon bomb for the planet. Then, renewables galloped to the rescue.
Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: renewables
Renewable energy sources — once the fuel of the future, then practical in specific, narrow applications — are increasingly economic mainstream sources of power generation. Hydropower was long the mainstay of U.S. renewable electricity generation, although wind power surpassed hydro for the first time in 2019, and solar continues its rapid growth. The continued growth of wind and solar, with their fluctuations, is tied in part to improvements in storage technology: batteries.