Costs of transitioning to zero-carbon power are falling rapidly

The cost of switching to clean energy is falling rapidly for three reasons:

1. Cost of renewable energy sources are declining rapidly and, especially for utility-scale solar and onshore wind, are now lower than traditional power sources, as documented by Lazard's levelized cost of energy study.

2. Cost of storage, especially in form of lithion-ion battery technology, also plummeting, as documented by Lazard's levelized cost of storage study.

3. Many traditional power plants are nearing the ends of their useful lives and need to be replaced anyway, so those replacements aren't really a cost to switching to clean energy.

4. Geoff Heal of Columbia University suggests these forces have reduced cost of transitioning to zero-carbon electricity generation by 2050 to only $6 billion a year between now and then (see here). That's $20 per person per year.

Heal's estimates are stunning -- and may well be too optimistic -- but he's undoubtedly right that the costs are declining rapidly. (As an aside, and unlike most economists, he's also skeptical that a carbon price by itself and in the range being discussed would do much.)

For more, here's my Bloomberg Opinion piece.