Low-Emissions Generation
Low-Emissions Generation
Electricity Generation: Powering the World Without Warming It
Electricity is the heartbeat of the modern world — the current that lights our homes, charges our devices, and powers global industry. The problem: more than 60% of it still comes from fossil fuels, making power generation a global-warming juggernaut. In fact, it's currently the largest single source of global CO₂ emissions. To decarbonize our world, we need to electrify everything possible — from cars to buildings to industry — and power it all with clean energy. This dual challenge is a particularly daunting one: meeting the demands of a growing, electrified world could require us to triple total electricity generation by 2050. That’s enough new generation to power New York City 100 times over — every single year. At present, deployment of large-scale solar and wind is already making strong headway on this challenge. The opportunity is equally massive: to pioneer and scale technologies that deliver the abundant, affordable, zero-carbon power the world urgently needs.
Emissions at stake in 2050: 13.3 Gigatons
Innovation Imperatives
Innovation Imperatives
Critical needs that can help accelerate the path to net zero
24/7 Clean Power Generation
Develop and deploy always-on clean power production
As power sources, solar and wind, with storage, are cheap and powerful drivers of decarbonization. Other clean power sources, such as next-generation geothermal and advanced nuclear, can also play a part. They can complement renewables–and drive down the cost of grid decarbonization–by generating power around the clock. High upfront costs and perceived technology risks must be addressed before clean alternatives can fully displace coal and natural gas.
Clean Peakers
Develop and deploy sources of low-emissions power generation capable of being ramped up and ramped down at short notice
Even with abundant renewables, grids will need flexible “peaker” plants that provide dispatchable power — resources that can be quickly turned on and off to meet demand spikes or fill gaps in intermittent supply. Traditionally powered by fossil fuels, these plants are now mostly natural gas–based. Clean alternatives, such as hydrogen turbines or carbon capture–equipped peakers, are urgently needed. While they may run only intermittently, clean peakers are critical for grid stability and reliability during extreme events or periods of high demand.
Easier-to-Deploy Renewables
Drive down cost, reduce required land use, and ease deployment for mature intermittent renewable technologies
Solar and wind are already well-developed, but sustained innovation can accelerate adoption by improving economics and helping overcome non-monetary barriers to deployment. Solar efficiency improvements, for example, could reduce required material and land use while maintaining comparable power output. Other examples include innovation in materials, modular design, robotic deployment, and grid integration. By boosting efficiency and capacity factors, we can generate more clean electricity using less land and fewer resources.
Moonshots
Moonshots
High-risk, high-reward innovations that could radically reshape our path to net zero
Carbon Fuel Cells
Implement low-temperature, impurity-resilient carbon fuel cells
What if we could transform solid carbon — from agricultural waste or forest clutter — into a clean, powerful fuel source? Today’s fuel cells typically run on hydrogen, but direct carbon fuel cells could generate electricity more efficiently by using solid carbon instead. These systems could use widely available clean carbon feedstocks to deliver clean, dispatchable power.
Commercial Fusion
Achieve scalable, cost-effective nuclear fusion for power generation
What if we could build a star here on Earth — harnessing the same process that powers the sun to deliver limitless clean energy? Fusion has long been considered the holy grail of clean power: nearly boundless, safe, and carbon-free. By fusing light atoms into heavier ones, it releases extraordinary amounts of energy. Scientists have already demonstrated fusion on Earth, but harnessing it for power generation will require major advances — sustaining the reaction at high power densities, controlling it precisely, and converting its energy into electricity with systems that can endure the extreme environment of a fusion reactor. Achieving commercial fusion would be more than an energy breakthrough; it could be a turning point for humanity, providing a permanent solution to our global power needs.
Deep Geothermal
Achieve high-temperature (>300°C) baseload geothermal at >5 kilometer depth
Beneath our feet lies an enormous ocean of clean heat — a geothermal resource so vast it could power our world for millennia. This moonshot captures the quest to drill deeper than ever before, tapping into superhot rock more than five kilometers below Earth’s surface to unlock this energy almost anywhere on Earth. This will require a new generation of low-cost drilling and heat extraction technologies capable of withstanding the immense pressures and temperatures of Earth's deep crust. This breakthrough could provide a source of firm, carbon-free baseload power that’s always on, independent of the weather, and available to every nation, turning the ground under us into the ultimate clean power plant.
Direct Nuclear Conversion
Convert kinetic energy of fission and fusion products directly into electrical energy
For over half a century, nuclear power has been trapped in a steam-age paradigm, using the immense power of the atom for the simple task of boiling water to turn a turbine. This moonshot aims to break that cycle by capturing the raw kinetic energy of nuclear reactions and converting it directly into electricity. This would require a leap in physics and materials science — but could ultimately unlock a future of hyper-efficient reactors.
Mobile Clean Power
Create movable baseload clean power sources that can be seasonally anchored where electricity is needed
Imagine if clean, reliable power plants weren’t fixed in place, but could be deployed wherever demand is greatest. This moonshot envisions mobile baseload generators — such as floating nuclear, offshore renewables, or other advanced systems — that can be anchored to coastal grids during peak summer heat or winter cold, then redeployed for disaster recovery or remote industrial needs. By bypassing the decades-long buildout of permanent infrastructure, mobile clean power could deliver flexible, carbon-free electricity and transform global energy resilience.
Novel Generation Sources
Discover new clean electricity generation methods such as hydrological and chemical systems
The history of energy is a story of radical breakthroughs, from fire to steam to the atom. This moonshot asks: are there attractive power sources that we have not yet considered? This is a quest to discover entirely new ways to generate clean electricity by looking beyond today's technologies to the fundamental forces of nature. From exotic systems that harness the hydrologic cycle to unlocking novel stores of chemical energy (without the carbon) on the planet, innovators are exploring frontiers beyond the established categories. These “wild card” technologies may seem speculative, but they represent the long tail of innovation, where small bets made today could yield transformational breakthroughs in clean power tomorrow.
Space-Based Solar
Deploy space-based photovoltaics with microwave or laser transmission to Earth
This moonshot envisions building power plants in space, capturing the raw, unfiltered power of the sun before it’s weakened by the atmosphere. The goal is to construct vast solar arrays in orbit and transmit clean energy to Earth 24/7. This would require radically reducing the cost to either launch these arrays or build them in space while simultaneously mastering the technology to beam that power back to earth safely and efficiently. This breakthrough could unlock a fantastic source of clean, baseload power: the ability to deliver energy to any point on the planet, day or night, untethered from the constraints of land or weather.
Ultra-High-Efficiency Solar Cells
Dramatically improve solar cell efficiency to increase power output per area
While the sun provides more energy in an hour than humanity uses in a year, today’s solar cells capture only a small fraction of it. This moonshot seeks to break through the efficiency limits of conventional silicon by advancing integrated tandem perovskite cells and other next-generation architectures that convert far more sunlight into electricity. Success would enable cities to be powered from smaller land footprints, embed high-output generation directly into vehicles and buildings, and unlock clean energy in even the most space-constrained environments.
Tech Categories
Tech Categories
Groupings of climate technologies
| Cluster Name | Readiness | |
|---|---|---|
| Alternative Fuels | Commercial | |
Alternative fuels can create clean electricity in a multitude of ways. For instance, waste materials such as biomass or biogas can be burned in power plants, where they produce fewer or net-zero emissions. Other examples include naturally occurring hydrogen or other forms of chemical potential energy stored in the Earth’s crust. | ||
| Fission | Commercial | |
Fission is the process of splitting atomic nuclei — typically uranium-235 or plutonium-239 — into two smaller atoms, releasing a large amount of energy in the form of heat, which is used to generate electricity. | ||
| Fossil Fuels with CCUS | Pilot | |
Fossil fuels with CCUS burn coal, oil, or natural gas for electricity with the aim of capturing and storing emissions or repurposing them for industrial uses. | ||
| Fusion | Lab | |
Fusion energy, which powers stars like our sun, fuses light atomic nuclei to create heavier ones and releases immense amounts of energy. By aiming to replicate this reaction on Earth, nuclear fusion power plants promise potentially limitless, carbon-free energy. | ||
| Geothermal | Commercial | |
Geothermal energy taps the Earth’s internal heat and converts it into consistent, renewable electricity regardless of weather conditions. | ||
| Hydro | Commercial | |
Hydro energy relies on the gravitational potential of flowing water. | ||
| Marine | Pilot | |
Marine energy, also called ocean energy, refers to renewable power generated by tides, waves, currents, and thermal or salinity concentration gradients. | ||
| Solar | Commercial | |
Solar energy harnesses the sun's radiation and turns it into clean, renewable electricity. | ||
| Wind | Commercial | |
Wind energy captures the kinetic energy of moving air and converts it into electricity. |
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References
