We’re back with the first installment of Clean Energy Dictionary, a new bi-monthly series.
The goal? To break down overused, unthought, and downright confusing words floating around the clean energy space and help you make more sense of it all. Is it really a keyword if it locks you out of the conversation?
If you’re on the clean energy interwebs these days, it’s likely that you’ve come across these three keywords: electrification, decarbonization, and resilience. And to help you engage with gusto in the conversation about the clean energy transition, I’m going to share how these terms can be misunderstood and briefly unpack the meaning of each, from etymology to impact and all the unknowns.
Electrification
The term electrification was coined in the late 19th century from "electric" (Latin "electricus," meaning "amber-like") and the suffix "-fication," and it’s historically referred to the widespread adoption of electricity and electrical devices. Today, in the context of the clean energy transition in the US, when we’re talking about electrification we’re talking about replacing fossil fuel-powered technologies like combustion engines, building heating systems, and industrial processes with alternatives that run on electricity. The costs of renewables and electric vehicles are making electrification increasingly accessible and economical for more and more Americans’ everyday lives, but going electric isn’t an intuitive decision just yet, often for good reason. Electrification is sometimes misunderstood as a panacea, but implicit in the word are three more interconnected goals: generating more electricity from low-carbon sources like wind, solar, and hydrogen, preparing our electrical grids for widespread electrification, and keeping the cost of electricity down.
While electric vehicles reduce tailpipe emissions, they are only as clean over their lifespan as the electricity that charges them. This means that in regions with coal-heavy power grids, EVs can have a substantial carbon footprint (though still likely lower than a fossil-fuel engine). Moreover, the electrification of heat and industry faces technical and economic hurdles.
The verdict? Electrification: six syllables of essential, systems-changing work to get fossil fuels out and create a sustainable energy future.
Decarbonization
Decarbonization is a term popularized in recent decades as awareness of the impact of greenhouse gasses on climate change has slowly grown among the general public. Decarbonization refers to the reduction or elimination of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from energy and industrial systems and includes lots of different strategies beyond electrification. These include technologies that remove atmospheric carbon (and other greenhouse gasses that in turn, help remove carbon from the atmosphere), carbon capture, utilization and storage, creating sustainable fuels for vehicles and aviation, and more.
Decarbonization requires systemic changes across electricity, transportation, buildings, industry, and land use systems, and if you ever hear the phrase “deep decarbonization,” someone is probably referring to how deeply embedded fuels that produce carbon emissions are to these global systems, and how proactive and unprecedented our decarbonization strategies must be to wean off these fuels at scale. And since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that global CO2 emissions must reach net-zero by 2050 to keep warming below 1.5°C, making this deep decarbonization (some might argue) the global political imperative of this early century.
Decarbonization is still often oversimplified as a magic bullet, i.e. removal technologies may be seen by some as giving carte blanche to massive polluters to continue their behavior and avoid deep decarbonization, keeping fossil fuels in the mix indefinitely. But in reality, carbon removal and storage tech is still very expensive at scale, energy-intensive as hell, and will likely be limited to hard-to-abate sectors like cement and steel for the foreseeable future. Many will argue that we need all options on the table to reduce emissions over the next two decades. It’s true that betting on future removal technologies to compensate for inadequate mitigation today is a nasty and familiar gamble. And, we’re also running out of time.
The verdict? Decarbonization is deep, fam. Real deep!
Resilience
Small rant: I hate the word resilience. It’s often used to applaud a human being’s ability to withstand unjust and insufferable conditions and return to some natural state of content, like a fucked up rubber band. I don’t fuck with that. In the clean energy space, it can wind up meaning the same thing, too.
Resilience is adapted from the Latin verb "resilire" meaning to rebound. It describes the capacity of something to withstand and recover from shocks without irreparable damage or kinks. If your shoes are resilient, they won’t just not fall apart during a hike: they’ll retain their shape and be ready for the next hike in no time.
In clean energy transition speak, resilience generally refers to the ability of energy systems to deliver reliable, affordable energy in the face of stressors like extreme weather, cyberattacks, and geopolitical disruptions — and the ability of households, businesses, municipalities and more to also weather the uncertain reliability of the grid in transition.
Climate Resilience™ is increasingly rolling off more tongues as global warming amplifies disasters like wildfires, hurricanes, and floods that can overwhelm the grid. During the Texas freeze of 2021, the fragile, fossil-dominated grid there collapsed, killing hundreds and leaving millions without power. This unprecedented event won’t be the last this decade by far, and without building climate resilience into the communities most at risk of having to weather the grid in transition, more people will die.
So, what does it look like in practice? Renewables and home storage, virtual power plants, and grid hardening will all play a part in boosting resilience and cutting emissions, but time will tell how equitable this resilience will be. Which brings us to my earlier peeve: resilience is sometimes conflated with self-sufficiency or energy independence when no such thing can realistically exist. No US state can completely isolate itself from global energy markets and supply chains, and no low-income household in the US can “get off the grid” in a way that affordably immunizes them from deadly energy disruption.
I don’t want clean energy resilience to mean, as the word resilience often does for the most impacted by oppression and violence, “independence because you have no other choice.” I’d like clean energy resilience to be one way that differently resourced individuals invest and participate in a collective energy future marked by grid flexibility, community-led decision making, and a refusal to continue harnessing fossil fuels.
The verdict? Resilience may be whatever we pursue in tandem with it.
Stay tuned next week for Anna Oakes’ guest piece on the one skill that every clean energy leader needs.