The year 2022 will be the most consequential for addressing climate change since the 2015 Paris agreement. Biden administration initiatives, the new 2021-22 assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change updating the 2014 reports, and the November 2021 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow portend unprecedented focus on eliminating carbon-based fuels. The US answer seems to be electrification of everything, supplied by renewables and the remaining nuclear plants, perhaps supplemented new modular nuclear and green hydrogen. Is this viable? Can we do all that is proposed by 2030, or 2035, or even by 2050? This course will address policy initiatives in the US and globally aimed at decarbonization. Is there a role for natural gas backup with carbon capture supporting renewable generation? What does it take to run an electrical grid with huge amounts of intermittent supplies? What balance will be achieved between national policy and state and local control of infrastructure siting? Where will we get the minerals to meet never-before-seen demand for magnets (rare earths), batteries (lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite), and solar panels by the millions? Can we safely store carbon dioxide underground? Participants will receive an intensive background on these and related crosscutting issues that are too often dealt with individually in policy isolation.
