Chaos is raining down in Washington as the House struggles to elect a speaker. But off the Hill, another big transition is taking place. The U.S. economy is in the early stages of what could be a major technological transformation. Driven in part by the billions of dollars in the Inflation Reduction Act, huge sums of money are flowing into developing clean energy to transition the nation away from burning fossil fuels, the primary driver of the climate crisis. And companies across multiple industries are angling for their piece of the pie. Wind and solar developers continue to proliferate, companies new and old are pouring billions into making and charging electric vehicles, efforts to capture carbon pollution from power plants and the atmosphere are attracting renewed interest, and even oil and gas companies are exploring offshore wind investments and geothermal energy. And while the viability of nuclear fusion energy is decades away at best, a recent scientific breakthrough has brought the world a tiny step closer to potentially cheap, carbon-free electricity. The energy and tech sectors are becoming so entwined that Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, who presided over last month’s fusion announcement, will speak Friday at the the Consumer Technology Association’s CES conference in Las Vegas. But the cornucopia of clean energy technology is not without challenges and risks. This year’s CES summit will also focus on cybersecurity threats, as one example. The discussion is timely given the alarming uptick in physical and cyber attacks on the power grid. Zooming out, there is also a line of critique that economic growth fueled by the development of new technology might serve as a mere Band-Aid for planetary degradation. Carbon-free power may obviate the need for burning fossil fuels, but it doesn’t do a thing to steer major economies away from consuming more and more of everything. For example, public transportation advocates were frustrated that the Inflation Reduction Act and 2021’s bipartisan infrastructure law directed so much more money toward electric vehicles. For one, EVs require a huge amount of critical minerals mining. But it also means ignoring the downside: Maintaining U.S. car culture is a resource-intensive vision of the future. Regardless of your take, money is flowing into these technologies. The fight over what kind of carbon-free energy drives major sectors of the economy is here, and it’s just getting started.
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