No single solution can meet our society's future energy needs. Renewable energy technologies tap into natural cycles and systems, turning the ever-present energy around us into usable forms. Because they are home-grown, renewables can also increase energy security and create local jobs. Our current energy system relies primarily on fossil and nuclear fuels. Nuclear energy creates enormous risks.
Electricity generators are the single largest class of industrial polluters.
We can increase our reliance on renewable energy by enacting supportive federal and state policies, reducing barriers to the adoption of renewable technologies and by encouraging individual, business, and government purchasers of energy to use renewables. And by ensuring that we use energy more efficiently. UCS is working for sustainable energy policies at the federal and state level. Much of our current work in this area has focused on electric industry restructuring, a movement to introduce competition in electricity generation. Restructuring the largest polluting industry creates great risks and great opportunities.