What should power the grid, and who bears the cost of changing it?
Electricity is made by burning coal and gas, by splitting atoms, and by water, wind and sun. Which sources a country leans on shapes its air, its bills and its jobs, and what it leaves to those who come after.
The picture
What the numbers show, read from the Data library each time the page opens.
How to read the chart above, and the words it uses (for renewables).
How to read the data
The figure is the share of all electricity made in a year that comes from sources that renew themselves, such as water, wind, sun and plant matter. A share is not a quantity: it can rise while the total grows or falls, and it says nothing of the price or the reliability of supply.
Key terms
Renewable source
A source of energy that nature replaces on a human timescale, such as flowing water, wind, sunlight and growing plants.
Electricity mix
The shares of coal, gas, oil, nuclear, water and other sources that together make a country's electricity.
Share of electricity
One source's output divided by all the electricity made in the year, so the shares of the sources add up to the whole.
Who has a stake
Each interest, then readings from the Catholic library and the Classics library that bear on it, oldest first. Choose a group to read.
Electricity that is dependable and affordable, kept on in the cold and the dark, and within reach of those who now have none.
Clear rules, capital that can be recovered over the long life of a plant, and room to devise better ways of making power.
A livelihood that does not disappear overnight, time and training to move, and care for places built around a mine or a plant.
Air and climate that are not damaged, a fair share of the earth's resources, and a world handed on in good order.
For discussion
The sage counts fire among the necessities of life. What do those who already have power owe to those who have none, as the sources change?
Francis says the cost of the transition has not been agreed. How might the interests of coal workers and of those who will live with the climate both be weighed?
Mill hopes posterity will not be made to pay for a larger but not a better world. Who is posterity here, and who speaks for it today?
