ry, has committed to 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2045, including options like natural gas with carbon capture and storage. A diverse array of other US states, including New York, Washington, Hawaii, and New Mexico have each adopted similar goals.
Widening the Track
These ambitious goals will not be easy to meet, and there has been much discussion about what range of options should be on the table. Should the strategy focus solely on energy efficiency, renewables, and electrification? Or should we pursue a “technology-inclusive” approach, where other technologies are welcome to play a role, whether that’s nuclear energy; fossil fuels with carbon capture, utilization, and storage; or so-called “negative emissions” technologies such as direct air capture or biomass energy with carbon capture and storage?
A technology-inclusive strategy has a number of advantages.
Expanding our solution set makes more ambitious and comprehensive strategies more feasible and cost effective. In addition to renewable power and solutions for long-duration energy storage, moving the global power system to net-zero emissions is also likely to require firm, dispatchable power sources, such as nuclear, and natural gas with carbon capture. Certain transportation emission sources, such as aviation, shipping, and long-haul trucking are hard to electrify, opening an opportunity for net-zero liquid fuels, hydrogen, or other options.
Industrial processes that require very high temperatures or come with process-related emissions require yet another set of solutions—possibly carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, certain advanced nuclear technologies, or other as-yet-undiscovered alternatives. Agriculture, forestry, and other land-use emission sources present a distinct group of challenges; they also present an array of opportunities for emissions offsets through biomass carbon sequestration.
Widening our aperture will allow any effective and safe technology to compete, increase the feasibility of deep reductions, and lower the cost of meeting climate goals, since the best options can be applied to each individual circumstance.
By broadening the set of stakeholders, interest groups, companies, constituencies, and even countries that see themselves as capable of contributing, we also expand the reach and accessibility of climate action. Recall that 85 percent of the global energy system is currently based on fossil fuels and nuclear power, or 95 percent if you include hydrocarbons in the form of combustible biomass energy. Enabling the vast majority of the current system to see an opportunity in climate action—rather than just a threat—could leverage massive capabilities and help turn the tide in a positive direction.
A technology-inclusive approach also expands the possibilities for emerging technologies to play a role and for entirely new innovations to be created. In simple terms, we don’t know how technologies will develop over time. For example, no one outside of a small group of industry insiders anticipated the shale revolution in the United States.
A wide array of technologies are already available and developing to help us with this approach to climate action. Wind, solar, and other renewable energy technologies are the fastest-growing energy sources and are being supported by improvements in our ability to store power in batteries and other systems. Who’s to say that a major breakthrough in carbon capture, utilization, and storage; new nuclear; or other technologies isn’t coming in the 2020s or 2030s?
For example, carbon-capture-utilization-and-storage mechanisms allow us to sequester emissions and can be jump-started through coupling with existing activities like “enhanced oil recovery.” In Norway and Iceland, carbon is being stored in underground saline aquifers and in basalt-type rocks.
In the United States, oil and gas companies are investing in direct air capture technology with the goal of producing net-zero or even “negative-emissions” oil. Entrepreneurs in the United States, Canada, and Europe are also experimenting with direct ai