2017: Number of US Nuclear Plants that Produced More Energy than All the Wind Turbines In Denmark.

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19. Good point

In New York, power generation is only responsible for 17% of total emissions. 34% comes from transportation and 32% from heating/cooling buildings and water heating.

The concept of "beneficial electrification" has been used to describe the need to electrify all transportation and all building-related energy use, through EVs and ground-source and air-source heat pumps.

As New York's greenhouse gas inventory noted, it will not be possible to meet our 80 x 50 climate goals without this.

That is obviously a huge challenge, and one that will not be cheap. IMO, our side shoots itself in the foot when we pretend otherwise. People are not stupid, despite what some in this forum seem to think. What we have to show them is that these technologies and services will work, even if they are more expensive (at first).

We also have to change the way we organize our transportation and other systems (i.e., food). For example, there are companies developing battery or hybrid electric small planes that can serve regional routes, use underutilized smaller airports, and deliver passenger miles for less than trains or driving (i.e., San Francisco to San Diego).

I do not see how we do this without a carbon tax, or carbon fee-and-dividend that is appropriately high enough (i.e., $100 per ton) to level the playing field with fossil fuels and spur behavioral and technological change.

The point has been made by pro-nuclear advocates that we cannot power civilization as we currently know it (by which they seem to mean American-style sprawl) withough the baseload power that nuclear facilities provide. They may be right, but I would argue that American-style "civilization" is not the appropriate model. Not by a long shot. And for more reasons than just power supply and consumption.

Yes, poor Africans and Asians need to have access to resources that will improve - and save - their lives. But rich Americans, Europeans and Asians need to ramp down their consumption. Which will happen. It's just a question of whether this ramp down is controlled and deliberate or as the result of chaos and conflict.