Over the past four years, America’s clean energy future has come into sharper focus. Yesterday’s visionary goals are now hard data — tangible evidence that our energy system is undergoing a transformation.
The Energy Department’s new report “Revolution Now: The Future Arrives for Four Clean Energy Technologies” highlights these changes, and shows how cost reductions and product improvements have sparked a surge in consumer demand for wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars and super efficient lighting.
Over the course of decades, the Energy Department has advanced each of these technologies through investments in research, development, demonstration and deployment. Today, all four have successfully crossed “the valley of death” — what entrepreneurs commonly call the gap between research and wide-scale deployment — and joined a burgeoning consumer market for clean technology. These successes show that America is up to the challenge of delivering cost-competitive, real-world solutions to problems like carbon pollution and climate change.