Win 3: For Our Planet
Our work supports industry growth and promotes the adoption of solar power generation by home and business owners. This in turn will reduce our fossil fuel dependence and, therefore, our greenhouse gas emissions. It’s simple: the more energy we capture from the sun, the less fuel we need to burn.
Together, we can make a difference.
In the United States’ recent Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emissions report, which was developed by the EPA and submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2014, tells us that average land temperatures, ocean temperatures, rainfall amounts, and ice melt are all increasing. Each of these is an indicator of global climate change, and by analyzing ice core samples in Antartica, we know that greenhouse gas concentrations in our atmosphere are at an unprecedented level. It is hard to argue that humans are not causing this climate change, largely through the burning of fossil fuels for electricity generation.
Source: Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990 – 2014
If we distribute the emissions from electricity generation among the various sectors which use that electricity, we would see that 41% of all U.S. emissions from burning of fossil fuels are attributable to residential and commercial electricity use. This means that powering our homes and businesses accounts for almost one quarter of the United States’ emissions from all sources, or about 1.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gases in 2014 alone.
Obviously transportation is another big source of emissions, but it would take 10 million cars traveling across the Unites States over 140 times each to generate as much greenhouse gas emissions as is created by electricity generation each year (which, by the way, would take just over 200 days assuming none of the drivers slept and they maintained a constant speed of 75 mph). Then of course, if we all drive electric vehicles, that will only further increase our electricity needs. All that electric power needs to come from somewhere!
It is becoming increasingly clear that in order to combat the climate change that we are witnessing, and that we are causing, we must turn to renewable energy sources for our electricity needs. For many homeowners, especially in Florida, a PV solar installation can generate as much electricity as they will use over the year, saving about 7.7 metric tons of CO2 emissions each year!