Shifting the world to 100% clean, renewable energy by 2030 – here are the numbers

[kristopher]

Shifting the world to 100% clean, renewable energy by 2030 – here are the numbers

Study: Shifting the world to 100% clean, renewable energy by 2030 – here are the numbers
BY LOUIS BERGERON

Wind, water and solar energy resources are sufficiently available to provide all the world's energy. Converting to electricity and hydrogen powered by these sources would reduce world power demand by 30 percent, thereby avoiding 13,000 coal power plants. Materials and costs are not limitations to these conversions, but politics may be, say Stanford and UC researchers who have mapped out a blueprint for powering the world.

Most of the technology needed to shift the world from fossil fuel to clean, renewable energy already exists. Implementing that technology requires overcoming obstacles in planning and politics, but doing so could result in a 30 percent decrease in global power demand, say Stanford civil and environmental engineering Professor Mark Z. Jacobson and University of California-Davis researcher Mark Delucchi.
...

In order to convert to wind, water and solar, the world would have to build wind turbines; solar photovoltaic and concentrated solar arrays; and geothermal, tidal, wave and hydroelectric power sources to generate the electricity, as well as transmission lines to carry it to the users, but the long-run net savings would more than equal the costs, according to Jacobson and Delucchi's analysis.

"If you make this transition to renewables and electricity, then you eliminate the need for 13,000 new or existing coal plants," Jacobson said. "Just by changing our infrastructure we have less power demand."

Jacobson and Delucchi chose to use wind, water and solar energy options based on a quantitative evaluation Jacobson did last year of about a dozen of the different alternative energy options that were getting the most attention in public and political discussions and in the media. He compared their potential for producing energy, how secure an energy source each was, and their impacts on human health and the environment.

...Finally, they conclude that perhaps the most significant barrier to the implementation of their plan is the competing energy industries that currently dominate political lobbying for available financial resources. But the technologies being promoted by the dominant energy industries are not renewable and even the cleanest of them emit significantly more carbon and air pollution than wind, water and sun resources, say Jacobson and Delucchi...

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/october19/jacobson-energy-study-102009.html

[madokie]

1. I'll happily give this a rec and a kick

[NNadir]

2. Wow, more soothsaying....

After 50 years of soothsaying, the song has not changed one pathetic bit.

If so called "renewable energy" was so great, it wouldn't require soothsaying at all.

The little pathetic BP publicist Amory Lovins predicted in 1976 that we would have 18 exajoules of solar energy by 2000.

Like every other anti-science type, he was full of shit, and just waiting to get paid by gas companies.

[madokie]

3. And your gawddamn ronnie the raygun and his goons is why we don't have

As soon as the reagan administration hit the door they started the dismantling of all that was accomplished up to that date. It has nothing to do with Amory Lovins or me or most anyone here on this board, it all has to do with the likes of you big guy and the way you go about your daily bullshit. Now go beat off to your photoshoped picture of Lovins and leave the rest of us alone.
No one pays you for your bullshit and thats the rub you have with Lovins and if you can't see that its because you're blind as a bat. Now take your fucking toy and go home, we don't want to play with you anymore. DH

[kristopher]

6. Watch how quickly he changes his definition of "soothsaying"...

...when you point out that the global historic capacity factor of nuclear power is only 71% (and that ignores plants taken offline early or that are down for years at a time), not the 95% he likes to use.

[madokie]

7. Yep

[Dead_Parrot]

17. Out of interest, where'd you get that figure from? nt

[glitch]

20. It's like a creepy kind of crush. Also,

:applause:

[joshcryer]

9. The OP is a practice in physics.

Reality requires social and political policies to actually make those physics work.

The physics can work, though.

[Nihil]

4. "What's in a name? A Jacobson quote by any other name ..."

"... would smell just as bad as the previous paste buffer."

BTW, your link is broken. :hi:

[kristopher]

5. Works for me

But here is is again:

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/october19/jacobson-energy-study-102009.html


Note the links to the right that take you to these original studies and papers by Jacobson:
* Scientific American
* Supplemental information for Scientific American article
* Stanford press release about Jacobson's 2009 paper in Energy and Environmental Science
* Jacobson's March 2009 paper in Energy and Environmental Science
* Supplemental data for March 2009 EES paper
* Jacobson's 2008 congressional testimony and news articles and interviews

[joshcryer]

10. What's interesting is that the article doesn't give the only number that counts: cost.

It will cost $100 trillion to implement this plan, over 20 years that's $5 trillion a year. Or almost 10% global GDP. Every year. For 20 years.

[kristopher]

11. Remember that econ course you didn't take...

It's showing.

How much money do we currently spend on energy?

How much of that funding is provided by diversion of monies we are currently spending on energy?

As an example, if structured properly that might mean a person would go from paying $100/month for energy from current sources to paying $110 per month for energy from renewable sources.

The public would continue to pay about the same or a little more for power over the short term, but would start to see a decline in their power bill as the system filled out and economies of scale drove down the price of the commodities used to produce and manage distributed power.

Stable energy costs that result from renewables would also have huge positive benefits for economic stability around the world.

The losers in this scenario would be the entrenched energy interests (coal, nuclear, petroleum, and utilities) as they see their funding stream evaporate.

[joshcryer]

14. Did I say *anything* about "raised costs"? No, you're projecting.

"The losers in this scenario would be the entrenched energy interests," which is why we won't spend $100 trillion.

That's the difference between you and me. I believe we should. You have never come out in support of 10% of world GDP set aside toward renewables. Why? Because you don't actually want clean energy.

[glitch]

19. The War Industry would also lose, bigtime. nt

[joshcryer]

8. $100 trillon.

[Terry in Austin]

13. Relax -- it's just an Apollo Project or two

Or seven hundred, more like. No sweat -- it'll sail right through Congress, probably just a rider on the transportation bill.

:evilgrin:

[joshcryer]

16. Almost 600 Apollos in 2005 dollars. And with much bigger results.

Yes Apollo helped lead to great things, but averting catastrophic climate change saves us as a species and allows us to progress rather than fester. It's well worth it, but we don't have the political or social will to do it.

[One_Life_To_Give]

18. 5% of all jobs for 20yrs

In round numbers the alternative power industry would hire half of the population currently unemployed in the US. Just to build the US share. There are alot of worse places to create 5,000,000 US Jobs.

[Terry in Austin]

12. 100% is not exactly an amount of energy

450 exajoules, for example, is an amount of energy. It's the amount we currently use worldwide -- or in more popular terms, the amount we "need."

So the implication in stories like this is that renewables will be delivering at least 450 exajoules by 2030. Much cause for skepticism there. At least this one makes some mention of demand reduction.

Don't get me wrong -- we need to do renewables, and we don't need to do nuclear. It's just that we'll also need to be realistic about how much we'll have to scale back our "needs" in order to run the place 100% on renewables.

[joshcryer]

15. The original article says nothing about "will" but a lot about "can."

We can, but we most certainly will not. But I do think that stories like this make people think the picture isn't as dire as it really is, because they misinterpret them as you did here as if this is actually what we're doing.

Renewables are a niche and will remain that way until the magic tech comes along and hopefully by then it's not too late.

[Terry in Austin]

21. Definitely about "can"

Or maybe "could, possibly, theoretically." Always ivory-tower stuff.

Waitin' on the magic...

:shrug: