The U.S. is still reliant on fossil fuels for energy despite its commitment to net zero emissions by 2050 and to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by 2035. Jonathan Phillips, director of the “Energy Access Project” at Duke University joined Cheddar News to discuss.

How to Transition to a Clean Energy Future

this segment is brought to you by Con Edison committed to powering new york with 100% clean energy by 2040. Well, as part of our continuing Climate week coverage today we're looking at an important topic and that's energy. The U. S. Is committed to net zero emissions by 2050 and to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from the energy industry by 2035. It's an ambitious goal can considering at the moment 61% of our nation's energy does come from fossil fuels. And while renewables are the fastest growing energy source in the U. S. They're not being deployed quickly enough, bringing a renewed push for controversial nuclear power even from former skeptics. Well, joining me now is Jonathan phillips, director of the energy access project at Duke University, Jonathan thanks so much for coming on. Talk to me more about the state of our energy industry as it stands now. And some of the factors that are delaying this transition to clean energy. Well, the energy sector is always a kind of a slow sector to change. I'd say three big ones are politics. Um climate change has become a bit of a dirty topic if you haven't noticed the last 10 years. Um So accelerating transitions from things like coal to things like wind and solar have not been a universally agreed um set of actions. I think President biden's leadership and in Congress finally passing legislation really for the first time um that goes after the energy sector in a pretty fundamental way Is a strong policy signal that'll that'll get us through some of that. But the other things, our infrastructure takes time. Power plants are built to last for 30 to 40 years. And and turning that over takes time, even turning over the transportation fleet, you know, car usually stays on the road for 13 years, so we can't just go all electric tomorrow. And then the other aspect is cost um in as much as I'd say that wind and solar and other cleaner technologies are really cost competitive. Um it's about building new infrastructure and paying for those things now versus our legacy systems, which maybe are already built and we're just sort of paying off the mortgage on. So the transition takes a big upfront investment. So there's a cost to it. So, let me talk to you about nuclear power, right, Because that is a bit of a controversial topic within a cleaner cleaner climate strategy, what's your take on potentially turning to nuclear power to fight the climate crisis? Yeah, well, as you know, um nuclear power is a carbon free energy source um in a significant one in the United States. About 20% of our power comes from nuclear. Um but we haven't been building nuclear power plants for 2030 years in this country. And there hasn't been a lot of building around the world, it's not a capacity that we can easily ramp up. So the two biggest things nuclear power have going against it is, it's the most expensive way to boil water number one. Um, it's very expensive. The places that we are seeing new nuclear plants being built are really financing them through their governments or at least guaranteeing the financing through governments. And I think if we're, if we do ramp up nuclear, it's going to have to be through government support, at least initially. Um, and then the other thing nuclear power has going against it is, you know, after 70 years of using it, we still don't have a long term solution for the waste, um, all nuclear power plants, um, store waste on site as opposed to moving it to some secure location off site. So it's a, it's a, it's a management issue and it'd be great to have that question answered before we go into the next building phase. What's exciting about nuclear is where we have new technology coming called small modular reactors and other types of designs that can be rolled out more quickly, hopefully safer. Um, and you know, if we can do them in these modular ways, I think we can finance more of them, at least. That's the hope. Let's talk about hydropower and the opportunities that exist with that hydro electricity as it means to combat the climate crisis. Yeah, so another really big source of carbon free power in this country is hydro and um, you know, most of our dams were built a long time ago and we, we could do a lot in terms of upgrading these facilities. Um, I think they're going to take some investment just to keep them running it, you know, 100 gigawatts or so of our, of our power system. But if these existing facilities, we can get more production out of them. Um the other thing that's really exciting about hydro is their potential to do what's called pump storage and that's basically, you know, when you have surplus power on the grid, you can use it to pump water into a reservoir, basically up a hill and then when you need that power, you run it back down the hill and it spins a turbine. So it's almost like a battery. And that capability is really important as we move to a future where wind and solar might be more of our source, which sometimes the wind is not blowing and the sun is not out. So you've got a good complementary set of resources, Jonathan, phillips, director of the Energy access project at Duke University, Jonathan thanks so much. This segment was brought to you by Con Ed, learned more about new york's clean energy future by visiting Con Ed dot com slash clean energy