Sun -oiled 2024, but emissions are increasing as the industry uses more natural gas

The United States invested a record $ 338 billion in the energy transition last year, according to a new report, but that was not enough to reduce the country’s total carbon emissions.

Solar took the lead, adding the 49 gigant new electrically generating capacity in 2024, much more than any other technology. Sun and wind together represent almost a quarter of the demand for electricity and nearly 10% of all energy consumption in the United States, said reportissued on Thursday by Bloombergnef and Business Council for Sustainable Energy.

At the same time, the demand for natural gas has increased by 1.3%, enough to push the US carbon emissions by higher by half percent. UPTICK is mainly guided by industrial consumers and power plants that burn natural gas, mainly for energy or heat generation.

The new report lands at a time when the United States is at a crossroads. Carbon emissions in the country have declined by nearly 16% since 2005, with power -related emissions declining over 40% over the same period. The United States also became more productive with the energy it used, generating 2.3% more economic production last year for a given amount of energy consumed.

At the same time, The demand for electricity is planned to increase sharply in the coming years. According to a report From the network strategies, the US could use 15.8% more electricity by 2029, which technology supplies that electricity can determine the country’s impact on climate change for decades.

The outbreak of demand from data centers is the largest engine of new demand for electricity. Technical companies are investing in massive new data centers to power cloud operations and nourish their AI ambitions. Appendix pace has accelerated to the extent that half of all new AI servers can be underestimated By 2027

Such forecasts have encouraged technology companies to provide energy sources in the coming years. Microsoft, Google and Amazon have announced significant investments in nuclear energy, supporting the startups like Cairos and X-ENERGY At the same time, the revival of old nuclear reactors, given that they do not directly release carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions.

They also continue to add renewable energy to their portfolios. Only this year to meet the growing requirements of its energy hungry data centers, Amazon has concluded agreements with energy manufacturers to add 476 megawattsWhile Meta bought 200 megawatts in a deal and 595 megawatts in another. The deals are dominated by solar energy, reflecting the trend throughout the country. This is partly because the technology is cheap, and the new solar farms will quickly offer online. For technology companies, destroyed with power, cost and speed.

Consumption of efficiency can further help technology giants by extracting more power from the network without the need for drastically greater capacity. A study published last week suggests that Fine spins – Like the planning of computing tasks at times of less power search or transfer of regions with more capacity – it can unlock 76 gigantic premises in the United States, which is up to 10% of peak energy demand throughout the country.

Smart adaptations such as these can be required if the US is to keep up with global competitors. Despite the record cost of the energy transition, the United States still lags behind China in the deployment of capital. When the United States spent 1.3% of GDP for the transition last year, China spent 4.4%.