Key Technology Areas for RDD&D

This chapter discusses some of the key technological challenges that must be met to achieve deep decarbonization of the energy system. Many of these technologies already exist, for example those to improve the energy efficiency of heating and cooling in our homes and industries by buying Energy Star labeled products for energy efficient equipment or triple glazed windows to improve insulation. In terms of low carbon electricity, hydropower has long been in effect and is one of the cheapest ways to generate electricity, and solar electricity has often reached grid parity, which is the cost at which the low carbon technologies become competitive with the other alternative forms of energy. In the transport sector there are already a lot of electric cars and biomass derived gas cars available. These technologies may bot be deployed at a sufficient scale to meet the challenge, but they are poised to achieve higher penetration rates in the future if we implement the right policies to incentivize further deployment and pricing of carbon to increase the price of their high carbon alternatives. We can implement a carbon tax or an emissions trading system, or even the implicit pricing of carbon through different types of regulations. This video is part of the module The Key Technological Challenges of Deep Decarbonization.

This video is licensed under the CC BY-NC-SA license.