Richard Heinberg

Richard Heinberg is Senior Fellow-in-Residence of Post Carbon Institute and is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost educators on the need to transition away from fossil fuels. He is the author of thirteen books, including seminal works on society’s sustainability crisis, The Party’s Over: Oil, War & the Fate of Industrial Societies and The End of Growth: Adapting the Our New Economic Reality. He has authored scores of essays and articles that have appeared in Nature, Christian Science Monitor, the Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere; has been quoted and interviewed countless times for print, television, and radio; and has spoken to hundreds of audiences in fourteen countries.

Trump’s Coal Delusions

By Richard Heinberg / On December 8th, 2016

During the second presidential debate on October 9, Republican presidential nominee (now President-Elect) Donald Trump claimed that “clean coal” could meet the energy needs of the United States for the next 1,000 years. Now that Mr. Trump will be in the position of making national energy policy, it’s worth examining that assertion.

Renewable Energy Around the World and At Home

By Yoram Bauman, Peter Fox-Penner, Richard Heinberg / On July 26th, 2016

Around the world, renewable energy is making headlines: last May, clean energy supplied almost all of Germany’s power demand for one day, while Portugal ran entirely on renewable energy for 107 hours straight. We asked some of our authors how these accomplishments will affect the way other countries think about renewable energy, and what this means for the US. Check out what they had to say below.

Lessons Along the Path to 100 Percent Clean Energy

By Richard Heinberg / On July 6th, 2016

In early May of this year, Portugal ran on renewable electricity alone for four consecutive days. And later that same month, on May 15, Germany filled almost all its electricity needs with solar, wind, and hydro power. This is good news: it tells us we’re making progress toward a zero-carbon energy system. But it also helps us see the challenges to a full renewable energy transition.

Watch This: Our Renewable Future Discussion

By Richard Heinberg, David Fridley / On June 29th, 2016

Two of the country’s leading energy experts spoke at the SPUR Urban Center in San Francisco, California on June 2, 2016 to discuss renewable energy.

Tiptoeing Through the Renewable Energy Minefield

By Richard Heinberg / On June 21st, 2016

As just about everyone knows, there are gaping chasms separating the worldviews of fossil fuel promoters, nuclear power advocates, and renewable energy supporters. But crucially, even among those who disdain fossils and nukes, there is a seemingly unbridgeable gulf between those who say that solar and wind power have unstoppable momentum and will eventually bring with them lower energy prices and millions of jobs, and those who say these intermittent energy sources are inherently incapable of sustaining modern industrial societies and can make headway only with massive government subsidies.

#ForewordFriday: Our Renewable Future Edition

By Katharine Sucher / On June 17th, 2016

Around the world, renewable energy is making headlines: last month, clean energy supplied almost all of Germany’s power demand for one day, while Portugal ran entirely on renewable energy for 107 hours straight. Countries agree that we need to transition to a renewable world.