Words by Tess Becker
People are working to find cleaner energy sources around the world and move away from non-renewable sources like gas and coal. And, with that in mind, we just hit a milestone in the United States.
The US broke a record where 40% of its energy and electricity comes from carbon-free sources. The US has increased its carbon-free power usage nearly every year since 1990.
The energy sources are vast but mostly renewable, ranging from nuclear plants, hydroelectric dams, solar, and wind. Most of the growth has come from the rapid expansion of solar and wind energy while nuclear and hydroelectric power has remained relatively stagnant.
2022 also saw a massive increase in the number of electric vehicles Americans purchased, making up 7.1% of all new cars sold in the United States. The total number of electric vehicles in the country is just shy of 1 million now.
“Despite high inflation and supply chain issues and interconnection backlogs, we still saw pretty amazing growth in the capacity of wind and especially solar, despite a challenging business environment,” said Harrison Fell, a professor of resource and energy economics at North Carolina State University.
In coming years we should see even more rapid clean energy growth thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act which provided billions to help the US switch to clean energy.
This article aligns with the UN SDG Affordable and Clean Energy
