Is a Zero Carbon Economy Possible?

President Biden’s promise to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 sounds like a wonderful goal, but is it really feasible? In his Bloomberg article, Dave Merrill makes the point that renewable energy sources take up much more space than the fossil-fuel-burning kind. The most intensive plan to graduate to a completely carbon free nation by 2050 requires 250 million acres of new wind farms. According to the Department of Agriculture, the U.S. actually has enough open land to build on and potentially make this dream a reality. Wind turbines could be successfully incorporated into pasture and farmland with limited impact. That being said, Merrill emphasizes in his article that in order to use the least amount of land, it is imperative that we rely more on nuclear plants and natural gas plants than we do wind and solar.