How To Get To Zero Carbon Emissions By 2050
Regardless of the pathway we take to become carbon neutral by 2050, the actions needed in the next 10 years are the same. (Credit: Jenny Nuss/Berkeley Lab)
Researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of San Francisco (USF), and Evolved Energy Research have developed a blueprint to reduce US CO2 emissions to zero by 2050.
“By methodically increasing energy efficiency, switching to electric technologies, utilising clean electricity (especially wind and solar power), and deploying a small amount of carbon capture technology, the United States can reach zero emissions,” claim the researchers.
“The decarbonization of the U.S. energy system is fundamentally an infrastructure transformation,” says researcher Margaret Torn, “it means that by 2050 we need to build many gigawatts of wind and solar power plants, new transmission lines, a fleet of electric cars and light trucks, millions of heat pumps to rep