The US could shift to 90-percent renewable energy by 2035 at no extra cost
Prices for solar panels and installations have plummeted in recent years. (Pexels/)Jeremy Deaton writes for Nexus Media. You can follow him @deaton_jeremy. This story was published in partnership with Nexus Media, a syndicated newswire covering climate, energy, policy, art, and culture.Experts disagree about how fast the US can replace coal and gas-fired power plants with zero-carbon electricity. Some say we can shift to 100 percent clean power by 2050 with little friction and minimal cost. Others say that’s unrealistically optimistic. Scientists on both sides of the argument agree that it’s possible to get to 80 or 90 percent clean power. The debate centers on that last 10 or 20 percent.Researchers tried to get around this sticking point in a new analysis from UC Berkeley. Instead of asking, “how much?” they asked “how fast?”—specifically, how fast we could get to 90-percent zero-carbon power with wind, solar, hydropower and nuclear power—at no...