Concern over climate change driving transition to clean energy

October 8, 2014

Concern over climate change is on the rise. Over 60 percent of Americans believe that evidence pointing toward the gradual heating of the Earth is valid, and nearly half of Americans believe that climate change is a direct threat to the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. These concerns garnered national attention during Climate Week 2014 when New Yorkers took the streets of the Big Apple in a massive demonstration that urged the government to take climate change more seriously. Carnegie Mellon University mathematicians estimated that the crowd included over 300,000 people, says The New York Times. Thankfully, progress to cleaner energy solutions is underway.

Transition to clean energy
Almost 50% of the new utility-scale power generation capacity added during the first half of 2014 in the United States uses renewable energy sources. President Obama ordered the Federal government to triple its use of renewable energy and ensured that 25% of the nation's electricity will come from renewable resources by 2050. Still, more needs to be done.

Concern over climate change
According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the world needs to more than double its annual investment in renewable energy by 2030 in order to achieve the target to restrict global rise in temperature of 2ºC by the end of the century. The United States and governments worldwide are turning to clean energy solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To match this growth of intermittent renewable energy resources, Renewable Energy World reports that several states and energy organizations are making investments in energy storage solutions which can minimize the intermittency characteristics of some renewable energy technologies to aid grid reliability. As a result, the energy storage industry enjoyed $107 million of investments during the first quarter of 2014.