NJ climate change: Renewable energy benefits - NorthJersey.com
NJ climate change: Renewable energy benefits
Climate change must speed our use of renewable energy sources. This is why
1-minute read
Regarding "Wind, solar power do work in extreme weather," Opinion, Feb. 18:
I think your guest columnist, John Hensley, did a great job exposing the real story behind what happened with wind and solar power systems during recent extreme weather events. In his column, he pointed to the resiliency of wind and solar systems as equal to or greater than carbon-based sources as they became stressed.
But I think we should consider the even larger picture in justifying renewables in extreme weather, namely the lower carbon emissions that help reduce the risk of climate disasters. According to NOAA Chief Scientist Sarah Kapnick’s recent report, “U.S. hit with historic number of billion-dollar disasters in 2023,” via noaa.gov, we have reached a new high. We increased from 22 storms in 2020 to 28 billion-dollar-plus weather disasters in 2023, costing nearly $100 billion.
If we stay with fossil fuels and only slowly creep toward renewable energy systems, climate change will become more costly to all of us in insurance prices, lost homes and increased taxes.
Mark Thompson
Bernardsville
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.