Climate change isn't just a political issue. Its impacts are increasingly touching many parts of our lives. According to the Pew Research Center, a growing number of Americans see global climate change as a major threat. In 2009, just 44% of Americans thought climate change was an issue. Today, that number has risen to 60%. We must all work together to slow it down. And eventually, we might stop climate change's advance altogether. This issue is on President-elect Joe Biden's front burner. And as an astute investor, you should have it on yours too. Our New PrioritiesLast week, I wrote about green hydrogen as a way to store excess renewable energy produced during the day. Plenty of energy storage is being rolled out by utilities. They are using today's lithium-ion-based storage systems. We will need lots of these systems to store all of the excess energy. We'll need at least 100 gigawatts of extra storage over the next 10 years, according to the U.S. Energy Storage Association (ESA). The bulk of the new storage will support solar and wind power. Electric vehicles and distributed energy networks will benefit too. Supporting wind and solar is a must-do when it comes to fighting climate change. So is decarbonizing our electric grid. Grid-based energy storage is a critical piece of the puzzle because it can help with many energy issues. We all want electric service that's reliable and resilient. Extreme climate events like storms, hurricanes, wildfires and heat waves are becoming more frequent. Many of those events regularly disrupt the power grid. And energy storage is the missing link that makes the grid more reliable. So in order to increase the number of energy storage systems in the U.S., the federal government has to get involved. |
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