Energy transition

The Dual Challenge: Energy and Environment

In a new TEDx Talk, Scott Tinker, director of the Bureau of Economic Geology, explains the energy-environment challenge facing a world in transition.

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Source: Getty Images.

The world faces two important and interrelated challenges. Affordable and reliable energy for all and protecting the environment.

The energy-environment challenge is not simple, but it is solvable if we understand and address the complex fabric of energy security, scale of energy demand, physics of energy density, distribution of energy resources, interconnectedness of the land, air, water and atmosphere, and the extreme disparity in global wealth and economic health.

The truth is that there are no good and bad, clean and dirty, renewable and nonrenewable energy sources.

They all have benefits, and they all have challenges. Climate change is an important issue, but it is not the only environmental issue.

Solar and wind are important low-carbon solutions, but they are only part of the solution. We must put our best minds to the task of addressing the dual challenge, working together to better the world.

To learn more, watch my recent TEDx Talk here:

For further resources, please visit the Switch Energy Allianceand Bureau of Economic Geology websites.