President Joe Biden has called for major clean energy investments as a way to curb climate change and generate jobs. On Sept. 8, the White House released a report produced by the U.S. Department of Energy that found that solar power could generate up to 45 percent of the U.S. electricity supply by 2050, compared to less than 4 percent today. We asked Joshua D. Rhodes, an energy technology and policy researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, what it would take to meet this target.Why such a heavy focus on solar power?
The Energy Department’s Solar Futures Study lays out three future pathways for the U.S. grid: business as usual; decarbonization, meaning a massive shift to low-carbon and carbon-free energy sources; and decarbonization with economy-wide electrification of activities that are powered now by fossil fuels.
It concludes that the latter two scenarios would require about 1,050-1,570 gigawatts of solar power, which would meet about 44 percent-45 percent of expecte …
