Coming soon: 100% renewable power

[MindMover]

One day in the not-too-distant future — probably sooner than many expect — some parts of the world will have power grids that are completely powered by renewables. Eventually, the entire world could be powered by renewables.

These are not green pie-in-the-sky fantasies, but the conclusions of recent research.

There is no doubt that renewable resources are positively vast. Solar alone could power the world: The solar energy that falls on the Earth every minute is more than the amount of fossil fuel the world uses every year. Wind alone could provide about 15 times the world’s energy demand. The recoverable geothermal heat under the U.S. is about 140,000 times its annual energy consumption. Wave power alone could supply twice as much electricity as the world consumes.

Capturing that energy, and being able to use it to power everything, is the hard part.

Probably the most ambitious attempt to quantify that challenge to date has been done by Mark Jacobson and Mark Delucchi of Stanford University, who have published a series of papers over the past several years outlining how it could be done. In 2010, they published two papers (Part I and Part II) estimating how the world’s energy demand for all purposes — including electric power, transportation, heating and cooling — could be met with renewables by 2030, and replace the existing energy generation mix by 2050:

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/take/coming-soon-100-renewable-power/296

[DCKit]

1. You'll be sorry when the tides fail, the sun dims and the earth cools.

Until then (a couple billion years), it might work, but why invest all that money when it won't work (forever)?

[NoOneMan]

2. I don't think its incredibly unreasonable to see a massive shift to solar in the future

But more importantly, what will be our current global temperatures, the atmospheric carbon levels and the state of agriculture at that time (2030 to 2050)?

Solar infrastructure production will not actually equate to an immediate drop in atmospheric carbon (quite the opposite); it may have no impact if dirty fuels aren't phased out worldwide. So, I think its important to recognize what the "state of things" might be when we do finally turn that corner. Any ideas?

[Scootaloo]

4. The problem is, there's only a small window of opportunity.

Solar technology, like other alternative energy sources, is currently reliant on products created through use of petrofuels. if we wait until those sources start to die out before we start really looking at solar, it'll be way too late, and we're going back to burning cow turds.

As for atmospheric carbon... we're fucked. Unless someone devises an awesome way to bind up all that carbon, we're fucked and there's no un-fucking. Halt the burning right this minute, or fifty years from now really makes no practical difference at this point, we're already Beyond Thunderdome, so to speak.

[MindMover]

5. We can do anything we want and we will conquer this carbon polluting issue ...

thru new and ingenuous methods ... It not only is going to happen, IT IS HAPPENING ....

http://www.globalccsinstitute.com/publications/accelerating-uptake-ccs-industrial-use-captured-carbon-dioxide

[drm604]

8. Really?

The fundamental purpose of this report is to investigate existing and emerging uses of CO2 and to review the potential to capture and reuse CO2 for industrial applications in order to accelerate the development and commercial deployment of CCS. It considers both the near-term application of mature technologies such as enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and the longer term application of a number of promising new technologies that are still in the initial stages of their technical develop

Capturing CO2 in order to use it for enhanced oil recovery doesn't sound very green to me.

[Scootaloo]

10. I remember reading stuff when I was a kid... All this shit was supposed to be settled by the 90's

And now it's all going to be settled by the 20's. And then it'll all be settled by 2100. And so on. "Any day now!" is said, every day, for as long as I can remember.

It's bullshit. "Just wait. Keep waiting. Wait some more! Any day now!"

Why do I say it's bullshit? Look where we stand in 2012. The science is unanimous. We're fucked, well and truly fucked. We've set the Earth on a fast track to the Eocene's climate levels again, just with what we've already done. We could stop it. We could hit the brakes on the train, maybe even very slowly start backing it up some day in the future. it would require lots of wealth invested, though. Lots of wealth, lots of time.

Instead, we spend what is it now, seven hundred billion dollars on our military? Buying new toys to kill people with. Sustaining troops and bases in nations primarily to say we have troops and bases in those nations, with a handful of others to protect our oil interests. Not just that we invest money in the militaries of other nations - Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Japan, Australia, India, Pakistan... All that welath going into making disposable "things" to kill people with. Not because we need them, but just to keep the production running, to keep consumption up, to keep production from tapering off.

But just wait! Any day now!

Don't give me this starry-eyed bullshit about "we can accomplish anything!" - Yeah, we can... but we won't. Ability is not ambition. All these nice little technologies? They're Roman Locomotives. Toys and curios that have potential but will never see accomplishment.

Unless there's some magical fucking shift in the way humans think, it just won't happen. Nations oppose non-pollution treaties because Bangladesh might get to emit a little more smoke than China or the US, or because it might not get to emit as much. Wrap your head around it, please. Look at Copenhagen and the results there. Look at Kyoto. On down the list. We're talking about trying ot fix a radical reconstruction of the global environment that we know sustains us into one there your guess is as good as mine, and our "leaders," the peopel in charge, are acting like kids fighting over who gets a bigger scoop of fucking ICE CREAM

We're fucked. We've passed the limits, and I see no signs of this changing. I'm confident that the species will persist - an ice age couldn't take us out, no reason a heat age would - but that's long-term. Short term? Things are going to go to hell within my lifetime.

Inherit the wasteland.

[CRH]

13. >. >n/t

[Champion Jack]

15. ++++

[GliderGuider]

21. +391.8

[pscot]

26. +800

[wtmusic]

29. I haven't done everything I possibly could to prevent it getting to this point

but apparently you have. It's everyone else's fault.

You rock, Jesus.

[Scootaloo]

32. I'm glad you took time out of your day for this

We're all enriched.

[Kennah]

3. Can we do it? Yes. Will we do it? I am inclined to say not yet.

It's not just the RW loons who live in Glenbeckistan. There are plenty of Soccer Mom Moderates and Land Rover Liberals who don't want to be inconvenienced.

[adieu]

6. Actually, none of what you mentioned are renewable

You can't renew solar power. Wind power is really just solar power brought to the atmosphere. Tidal power is really just solar (and lunar) power. None of these are renewable, unless you can claim renewing the sun.

They are, as far as we're concerned, an infinite source of energy for the long-foreseeable future. They're also free, minus the capital cost of building the mechanism to capturing the energy.

But renewable? Not a chance. Gasoline and such, ironically, are renewable. Gasoline is a hydrocarbon made up of a bunch of C's, O's, H's, N's and whatever else (S's?). When burned, the carbons are still carbon, the oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen are still those things. It's possible to take carbon (from carbon mono|di-oxide), combine it with something else, insert some energy (from the sun, perhaps) and recreate gasoline. So gasoline -- which is not a source of energy, but an instance of solar energy captured in chemical form -- can be renewed.

Energy itself can never be renewed. The second law of thermodynamics forces energy to dissipate over time.

[drm604]

9. I suppose if you want to be overly literal then you're right,

but surely you realize that that's not what people mean when they use the term "renewable" in this context. In any case, even if you object to that term, enough energy for the foreseeable future is good enough. When the sun dims we'll have a lot more to worry about than powering our cars or heating our homes.

And I can't understand why you say that gasoline is renewable. You say it get's it's energy from the sun, and you say that the sun is not renewable. How can something that depends on a non-renewable sun be considered to be renewable?

[ErikJ]

7. If we mobilized the whole nation like we did in WW2 we could do it in 5 years.

and our economy would greatly improve with full employment.

[GliderGuider]

11. To do that would require an enemy we can see

Going to war against an invisible gas is proving top be a difficult-to-impossible idea to sell to your average voter. Not to mention your average politician.

Ain't
Going
To
Happen

[dreamnightwind]

12. Oh man, that's debilitating

Why put that message out? You may be wrong, humans are indeed capable of amazing things. The trick, using the terms you're working with, is to show people that climate change is truly a formidable enemy, to help them see the peril of not heading it off. I say it can be done. Will it be done? Dunno, but it's the whole ballgame, we need to mobilize a massive effort to head it off.

[GliderGuider]

16. You realize we need to take over 100 ppm of CO2 back out of the air to stop global warming?

That's 25% of the CO2 that;s in there now. It takes Mother Nature 100,000 years to do that. Windmills won't do it.

Sure it's a debilitating message. So is a diagnosis of terminal cancer. They're both real.
Why put this message out? Because truth trumps bullshit. Every time.

Let's not waste our time on fake treatments, and start putting our affairs in order. Miracles have been known to happen, but it's generally unwise to count on them.

[wtmusic]

30. Even better when you can make yourself believe bullshit is truth.

"It's not me, it's society" is always a winner.

"It's hopeless" is a close second.

"If we can't completely stop it, why bother" is up there, too.

They allow me to keep using carbon guilt-free.

[oldhippie]

31. "I say it can be done."

I say you haven't done the math.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

14. Their studies ignored the true cost of infrastructure cutover and the time required particularly

in developed nations. It will be easier in places that never had any infrastructure to start with.


Its clearly coming, but not with the pie in the sky timelines that some are claiming

[wtmusic]

17. Coming never...an end to people recycling Marc Jacobsen's nutcase scenario

http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/11/03/wws-2030-critique/

[MindMover]

18. Learn to think beyond negative thought traps that engender fear ...

you and your thinking focuses on separateness and fear, which is exactly what got us into the state we are in ...

There are many individuals and communities that are changing their view of the world away from looming negatives to focus on creating positive connections that recognize interdependence which is creating constructive change ...

http://convenientresilience.com/in-the-media/

[GliderGuider]

19. Learn to think beyond positive thinking traps that engender blind, mindless optimism.

The idea that the future was going to be an inevitable infinite ascension through good and better all the way to best, driven by the bottomless well of human ingenuity, ignoring all physical realities and bending nature to the will of man are what got us to the state we're in.

Mother Nature is knocking on the door. She apparently wants her planet back. It's time to grow up and face a bit of reality - we're about to be evicted, and the bailiff is carbon dioxide. All the positive thinking in the world won't change the radiative forcing.

[MindMover]

23. So mindless negativism is better .... bullhockey ...

Mother Nature is much more flexible than you even can think possible ...

[NickB79]

24. Sadly, it's pretty clear it's the opposite

Mother Nature is far LESS flexible than we thought.

We used to think that we'd have a few more decades before we'd see the kind of climate effects we're seeing now. We used to think that the effects we're seeing now, with 0.8C warming, wouldn't happen until we hit 2C of warming.

Turns out, we gave Mother Nature too much credit for her ability to swallow our garbage and keep chugging along.

[GliderGuider]

25. No, realism is better than mindless anything.

We have already put an extra 110 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere. It's already killing American, British, Russian, Chinese and Australian crops. The oceans are turning into carbonic acid that's dissolving the corals. There is no way to reverse it. We have screwed the soils, destroyed the forests, and there are at least four times too many of us on the planet. Air, earth and water are three of the ancient elements, and we have damaged them all with the fourth element, fire.

Start from that point, acknowledge it, take responsibility for it. Figure out for yourself how it happened and WHY we did it. Once you have done that, you will know enough about the problem to decide if your proposed solutions will make things better or worse, or just kick the can down the road a bit.

We are in a planet-sized world of hurt, and we're running out of both resources and time. It would be a very bad idea to waste our remaining time and resources on things that won't help - no matter how noble your intentions might be.

You might well ask what I propose instead of joining with Mark Z. Jacobsen in clapping for Tinkerbell. Well, as unpalatable as it will seem to you, my proposal is that we work together to collapse the global economy. That is the only thing that will stop the carbon-fueled juggernaut in its tracks.

The Only Thing That Will Stop Global Warming Is A Massive Economic Downturn

If you're interested in joining a movement for truly positive change for the planet and future generations of humanity, you might start here: Underminers - A Practical Guide for Radical Change.

[wtmusic]

20. OK. I'm thinking beyond them now, and Marc Jacobsen is still full of shit.

[MindMover]

22. In your current paradigm of thinking, anyone thinking or saying anything other than ....

"the world is going to hell in a handbasket" is full of shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

[pscot]

27. Learn to think

[GliderGuider]

28. The Positive Power Of Crisis

The Positive Power Of Crisis

If there is any demarcation with profound implications going forward, it isn’t the line between the 1% and the 99% or the line dividing the Status Quo into two safely complicit ideological camps: it is the divide between those who squarely face the burden of knowing the present is unsustainable and those who flee into the comforts of denial. Those who accept the burden of knowing are part of the solution, those who cling to denial are part of the problem.

Those who accept the burden of knowing do not necessarily have answers, but they are alert to alternatives and potential solutions. Those in denial can only hope that reality can be buried for a while longer.



Pushing problems under the rug doesn’t solve them; they only get worse. This is the positive power of crisis: only in crisis do human beings actually change.