Over the past several years, the mantra of energy experts has been that we need to electrify everything — and then switch electrical power generation over to clean sources of power like wind, solar, geothermal and nuclear. Doing so will rapidly decrease carbon emissions and help to stave off dangerous levels of warming.
But installing all of that electrical stuff — the solar panels, the heat pumps, the transmission lines — will require something that the United States doesn’t have: lots and lots of electricians.
According to the nonprofit group Rewiring America, which focuses on electrification, shifting the economy away from fossil fuels will require no fewer than 1 billion new electrical appliances, cars and other items in American households alone.
“It’s a billion machines that need to be installed or replaced over the next 25 years across 121 million homes,” said Ari Matusiak, the CEO of Rewiring America. “There need to be significantly more individuals who are trained to install these machines — and one subset of that is electricians who are trained to put in breaker boxes, wire our homes, and connect devices to our electric sources.”
The problem is that many in the industry say the country is already in a state of electrician shortage — one that could get worse as clean energy ramps up. “We’re in an electrician shortage now,” said Sam Steyer, the president and CEO of Greenwork, a start-up that tries to connect clean energy workers with companies. Steyer says that homeowners attempting to install heat pumps or electric car chargers have already reported problems finding certified tradespeople to do the work that they need: Waiting lists sometimes stretch on for months.
Month: November 2022
GM CEO: A Million EVs in 2025
“We are in execution and acceleration mode right now.” – Mary Barra, General Motors
New Video: Extreme Jet Stream Now Linked to Climate
This fall, and in fact the last year and a half, has been an extreme jet stream shit show.
Better learn to enjoy it.
White Out: Update on This Year’s Snowmageddon
UPDATE:
Friday morning updates on Buffalo’s paralyzing storm.
Below, current jet stream shows big swing bringing Arctic air over still-warm Great Lakes.
Look for more on jet stream weirdness in coming Yale Climate Connections video.
In Dry California: Recharging Parched Aquifers
Scott Galloway: Musk Unraveling Before Our Eyes
You hate to see it, but jeez.
My take – Elon Musk was in a sweet spot for a while in which his job perfectly matched the strengths of his on-the-spectrum behaviors and skills. Then he stepped out of that zone.
Not sure he can reel it back in.
Will We Run Out of Critical Minerals for the Energy Transition?
He makes a good comparison to the “End of Oil” memes of the mid-2000s, as well as pointing to the wager between Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich, in which Ehrlich, author of the “Population Bomb”, bet that the world would run out of critical resources sometime well before the year 2000. (this was back in the oil-shortage 70s, I think)
Moral: prices rose and markets dealt with supplies.
I would also point to Amory Lovin’s spectacularly prescient 1976 observation that demand for energy was far more elastic to price than most anybody at the time could imagine, allowing him to make energy demand forecasts 50 years ahead that are pretty close to reality, although he was a bit too optimistic on renewable uptake. (but not by much)
My recent Yale Climate Connections vid examined the problem of mining for critical minerals, Lithium in particular.
Clean Energy is “Money in the Bank” for Rural Communities
I shared a platform with Connie Neininger in August, on a swing thru rural Indiana. I warned her then that I was going to track her down for an interview, and finally caught up a few weeks ago.
Connie works with the Center for Infrastructure and Economic Development.
Jason Box on Zombie Ice – New Interview
This Fall, Nonstop Extreme Jet Stream Weirdness
My soon-to-drop @
I just learned a new acronym – “EPO”.
There are a number of atmospheric oscillations that are important drivers of week-to-week weather patterns across North America. The Arctic Oscillation (AO) and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) often get the most attention, but one of the most important pattern oscillations for North America is the Eastern Pacific Oscillation or EPO.
As the name implies, the EPO is a variation in the atmospheric flow pattern across the eastern Pacific, as well as Alaska. When the EPO is in a positive phase, mild Pacific air flows straight into the West Coast of North America. While such a pattern can bring significant rain and snow to the western portions of the country, the air flow warms and dries as it descends down the eastern slope of the Rockies. This results in a warmer than normal pattern across most of the central and eastern portions of the U.S. and southern Canada, particularly during the winter season. The upper level flow pattern and the distribution of warm and cold air during a positive EPO pattern is shown in the image below.
