Mid-Atlantic States now have enough Solar Capacity to Power 1 Million Homes

NEW YORK – The surest bet on the future of energy is the need for low-carbon energy supplies. Around 80% of the world’s primary energy today is carbon based: coal, oil, and gas. We will need to shift to no- or low-carbon energy by mid-century. The big questions are how and when.

While the solar industry is going through something of a rough patch in the United States, the sun still shines in other parts of the world – a strong indication that better days are ahead for this vital source of clean power.   Germany’s Solar Boom  

Coal will nearly overtake oil as the dominant energy source by 2017, and only a drop in world gas prices could curb the use of the dirtier fossil fuel in the absence of high carbon prices, the International Energy Agency said. The IEA, the energy agency for developed countries, said earlier this year that without a major shift away from coal, average global temperatures could rise by 6 degrees Celsius by 2050, leading to devastating climate change.

2011 saw huge advances in solar, wind and other renewable energy sources, and these advancements will continue into 2012. In fact 2012 could be the year that renewable energy sources start to seriously compete with traditional fossil fuels, at least that is the hope in the battle to reduce carbon emissions and our dependence on dwindling oil stocks. However a major problem with renewable energy sources is that they can rarely provide consistent power levels, due to a myriad of factors outside of human control.

Last year saw a shift from a reliance on oil and coal to an exploration of untapped natural gas resources and renewable energy. Few will bet against this topsy-turvy, transitional energy state persisting through 2013 and beyond. For the coming year, fossil fuels will continue to dominate the energy market, but renewables will continue their slow and steady gains, experts say

Natural gas figures prominently in President Obama's second-term energy blueprint, released this morning. He hopes to convert more commercial trucks to the fuel and support "research into the safe and responsible use of natural gas," to the tune of $40 million.

The amount of energy available in the Earth system to be extracted by wind-turbines is limited, and if sufficient energy is removed the world climate will be affected. These striking conclusions follow from a recent analysis (http://www.earth-syst-dynam.net/2/1/2011/esd-2-1-2011.html) reported from the University of Jena in Germany. Humans use energy in total at a rate of 17 TW (terawatts), 87% of which is provided by fossil fuels.

Climate change is generally attributed to carbon emissions, and efforts to reduce carbon emissions tend to focus on clean energy sources such as wind or solar power. However despite the advances in clean energy sources many believe that humanities greenhouse gas emissions are so vast that these technologies can no longer help solve the problem on their own.