To replace fossil fuels, it’s got to be all of the above

If we want to save the Earth, we have to do the math. The good news: it’s now cheaper to make electricity from solar and wind than from coal or natural gas. But to create a green economy, generating green electricity is just the beginning. We need to deliver it when and where it’s needed, and use it to replace fossil fuels wherever we can. This requires us to build at every scale, all the way from rooftops and neighborhoods to a regional and national grid.

This will take innovation and experimentation, and we need to try everything. Large solar and wind farms can take advantage of economies of scale, and community solar can foster local ownership. Microgrids can tune demand to supply, drawing power when solar and wind are plentiful and making the grid more resilient to blackouts. We can capture methane from wells instead of letting it leak into the atmosphere. We can use excess solar and wind to make hydrogen and use it as a carbon-free fuel. And all these things create jobs.

But replacing our current power plants with green energy isn’t enough. The power grid is only responsible for about a third of our carbon emissions. Today, most of us use gasoline to power our cars and natural gas to heat our homes. By using electricity instead, with electric vehicles and heat pumps, we can make a huge dent in greenhouse gases. Converting existing homes to electric heat will create jobs in the building trades and save low-income homeowners money.

If we want to use electricity for heating and transportation, the arithmetic is clear: We need to at least double the amount of electricity that we produce and transmit. To some this might sound alarming. Aren’t we supposed to use less energy, not more? Efficiency is always good, but so is using green power instead of fossil fuels. Even if our homes get more efficient and we all drive less, we still need a bigger grid than we have today.

And if you care about the planet, thinking locally isn’t enough. New Mexico can help solve the climate crisis

across the Southwest. We have the cheapest and most reliable mix of solar and wind in the country. We need to build a regional grid so we can export clean power to other states, bringing in jobs and potential revenue. In turn, we can draw power from other states when we need it, making our own grid more reliable and resilient to extreme weather. And we will need some new transmission lines.

Closer to home, we need to look at our own town through the climate lens. We need building codes that require electric heating in new construction. We need walkable, bikeable neighborhoods near jobs and services, so people can get out of their cars — and we need to get rid of zoning rules that make these neighborhoods impossible to build. If the teachers, nurses, firefighters, police, musicians and waiters that keep Santa Fe going could afford to live here, instead of having to drive their cars from Albuquerque or Rio Rancho, that would do both our town and the climate a world of good.

If we’re serious about climate change, we’ll treat it as the crisis, and the opportunity, it really is. Every passing year makes the problem harder, and no one strategy or technology will be enough. But if we create systems for clean energy at every scale, from local to regional to global, then both humanity and the rest of the planet can thrive.