Climate Change and the World's Future Fuel Choice

Reader Contribution by Richard Hilderman and Ph.D.
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Electrical consumption in both the United States and the world has doubled since 1980 and it is also expected to double again by 2030. Needless to say, to meet this demand we will need to create new electrical generating power plants. The cost to build these new plants is estimated at 14 trillion dollars (Daniel Yergin, The Quest, p. 396). 

Before we start creating these new power plants we must decide what will be the fuel of choice for these new plants. The fuel choice boils down to continue using fossil fuel and nuclear power or converting to non-carbon base renewable sources such as wind, solar, hydroelectric or geothermal. This is a critical issue because these new plants can operate for 60 to 70 years. Thus, once they are built we will be stuck using that fuel for a long time! 

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