By Steven Cohen, Ph.D., Director of the M.S. in Sustainability Management program, School of Professional Studies
We are seeing progress here in New York City and all over the world in decarbonizing our energy system. The progress is slower than some would like, but remains undeniable. Governmental efforts to accelerate the use of renewable energy have had some positive impacts, but in the long run, the price, convenience, and reliability of renewable energy technology will determine the pace of change. The government’s main contribution should be in funding scientific research, an area that the United States used to dominate, but is now lagging. Fortunately, the creativity and innovative character of America’s scientific community do not depend on the federal government. In any case, the market is where the pace of decarbonization will be decided, and the main influence on the energy market will be the development of new and innovative technologies for capturing and storing renewable energy.
We are seeing breakthroughs in solar cell technology. The use of nanotechnology and a great many creative advances in the efficiency of solar cells should be expected over the next decade. When combined with advances in battery, geothermal energy, and heat pump technologies, it is quite possible that these technologies will gradually reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.
However, much of our near-term progress will come from modernizing the energy grid and making it more efficient. Over the next ten years, much of our progress will come from technologies that make renewable electricity easier to store, move, balance, and use, not just from new ways to generate it. In 2024, the International Energy Agency reported that:
“The global market value for the key six mass-manufactured clean energy technologies – solar PV, wind, electric vehicles (EVs), batteries, electrolysers and heat pumps – grew nearly fourfold between 2015 and 2023, when it surpassed USD 700 billion, or around half the value of all the natural gas produced globally that year. Growth has been driven by surging clean technology deployment, particularly for EVs, solar PV and wind. Under today’s policy settings, the market for these clean technologies is set to nearly triple by 2035 to more than USD 2 trillion. This is close to the average value of the global crude oil market in recent years.”
Energy storage and enhanced management of the electric grid are also key elements of decarbonization. Utilities are already using price incentives to drive electricity utilization for some functions (such as washing clothes and dishes) to off-peak periods when the grid has more energy than it needs. These are sometimes termed “demand response” programs, which enable users to utilize or store energy when it is plentiful and avoid use when it is scarce. Artificial intelligence will improve the analytic methods and projection models that these techniques utilize. The use of electric vehicle (EV) batteries as distributed sources of energy storage and supply will grow as EV use increases. The key to combating the issue of renewable energy intermittency is improved energy storage. Battery technology continues to improve, and battery prices continue to come down. According to the International Energy Agency:
“Battery storage has become one of the most versatile tools for providing short-term power system flexibility. They can support the integration of wind and solar power by responding quickly to provide system balancing and grid support services, contribute to security of supply through capacity provision, and shift renewable generation to periods of high demand… Costs have declined significantly in recent years, with battery storage project costs falling by about 40% in 2024 to around USD 150/kWh, underpinning a strong increase in deployment. In 2024, utility-scale battery storage additions reached 63 GW, marking another record year and bringing total installed capacity to 124 GW. The contribution of utility-scale batteries in meeting peak demand is increasing in many power systems. In California, the ratio of installed utility-scale battery storage to peak load stood at almost 25% in 2024, and around 15% in South Australia and the United Kingdom, which were all less than 5% in 2019.”
A 2023 Department of Energy report discussed the technology and financial feasibility of Long Duration Energy Storage. According to the DOE, since:
“…Renewables cannot be turned on and off to meet peak demand in the same manner as fossil-fuels-based generation assets, the grid will need a new way of providing flexibility and reliability. New options, like Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES), will be key to provide this flexibility and reliability in a future decarbonized power system. LDES includes a set of diverse technologies that share the goal of storing energy for long periods of time for future dispatch.”
Of course, in the United States, federal support for decarbonization has been replaced by federal support for re-carbonization. The Trump Administration is even considering spending a billion dollars to get wind farm developers to abandon efforts to build offshore wind farms. The sheer lunacy of this anti-wind policy is difficult to explain. Dishonest and deceptive national security objections are among the latest excuses being used by the federal government to kill offshore wind. Sadly, the war in Iran is reinforcing the volatility of fossil fuel markets as American consumers learn that the policy of “energy dominance” only helps America’s oil companies, not the average consumer. America may produce more fossil fuels than it needs, but those fuels enter a global marketplace where political instability has reduced fossil fuel supplies while increasing prices. Americans are not immune from those price hikes. The sudden energy crisis now underway is reinforcing the need for multiple sources of energy and may reinvigorate the market for electric vehicles and renewable energy. Even if this energy crisis doesn’t last very long, it may well convince some consumers that fossil fuel supplies carry risks they hadn’t considered.
Technological innovation is rarely linear and is never predictable. What we know is that energy is at the center of the global economy. It is as critical to the economic system as our circulatory system is to human health. Cut off the supply of energy, and the global economy has a seizure and a stroke. We know that a great deal of scientific research is being devoted to renewable energy. We can measure that by examining the growing number of patent applications for renewable energy technology filed worldwide. According to the U.N.’s World Intellectual Property Indicator Report of 2024:
“The number of published patent applications related to energy technologies – solar, fuel cell, wind, geothermal and hydro energy – increased from around 29,400 in 2007 to around 44,700 in 2022, with double-digit year-on-year growth in 2009 (+17.7%), 2010 (+12.6%) and 2021 (+15.1%). Solar energy constituted more than half (54.4%) of all energy-related applications during the 2020–2022 period, followed by wind energy (19.4%), fuel cell technology (13.2%), hydro energy (11.4%) and geothermal energy (1.5%). Patent applications related to solar and wind energy exhibited an upward trend between 2007 and 2022. For example, compared to 2007, filings for solar and wind energy in 2022 were 2.1 times and 3.2 times higher, respectively.”
We do not know the cumulative results of this research, but there is little question that it is underway. While the United States under the Trump Administration is starving its support for renewable energy research, China is increasing its support, as evidenced by the growing number of renewable energy patents filed in China. Still, all patents are not created equal, and the freedom of inquiry afforded to American scientists continues to facilitate technological creativity and innovation.
Although the specifics of technological innovation are not known, we do know that linear trend lines should never be assumed when discussing the development or diffusion of new technologies. In 1976, when I first used a computer the size of my office and requiring punch cards, I had no idea that half a century later I would carry a far more powerful computer in my pocket. Nor would I have predicted my sheer helplessness if I were separated from that computer. We can’t predict the technologies of our energy future, but it is certain that they are being invented today, and we will be using them sooner than we can imagine. Fossil fuels pollute, are finite, and as we are once again learning, are subject to geopolitical threats. They are a dying industry, and as technology continues to develop, our remaining oil will be used to manufacture chemicals, not to generate energy.
Views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Columbia School of Professional Studies or Columbia University.
About the Program
The Columbia University M.S. in Sustainability Management program offered by the School of Professional Studies in partnership with the Climate School provides students cutting-edge policy and management tools they can use to help public and private organizations and governments address environmental impacts and risks, pollution control, and remediation to achieve sustainability. The program is customized for working professionals and is offered as both a full- and part-time course of study.
