CLIMATE MATTERS: Problems that need solving before we fully switch to renewable energies - KVOA Tucson News
CLIMATE MATTERS: Problems that need solving before we fully switch to renewable energies | Climate Matters | kvoa.com
TUCSON, Ariz. (KVOA) — Renewable energies and getting away from fossil fuels has been complicated for many different reasons over the past few decades.
Solar power on a small scale like just for your home works well.
It's when it needs to be transmitted across large areas is when we have a problem.
Garrett Weaver is an engineer and is curious about switching to renewable energies on a large scale and he noticed the issue right away. "Transmission lines are a big challenge. We have a need to transmit power between different regions of the United States."
According to the US department of energy, renewables generate about 20% of electricity in the United States. If that number can grow over the next few decades it will go a long way to helping the air quality in cities which typically are much more hazardous than rural areas.
"There is a lot of growth in renewables occurring right now. The US is going through an energy transition. Some of the challenges are getting the energy from where it is produced to where it's consumed such as cities. The technology is there, the key is getting the infrastructure built so we can move energy to where it's needed."
In order to move the energy from where it's produced there needs to be an efficient way to store it and our current batteries just aren't working.
"There's already grid scale storage with lithium ion batteries. Those have limitations as far as long-term storage. That void will be filled in the future by technologies such as vanadium flow batteries that can provide power for much longer periods of time."
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.