http://www.ecowatch.com/power-world-renewable-energy-2176885700.html
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Here's How We Can Power 100% of the World With Renewable Energy
By Jeff Masters
Here's a 2017 New Year's resolution I'd like to see the nations of the
world adopt: an immediate international effort to invest in a world
where 100 percent of our electricity will be generated by wind, water
and solar power by 2050.
Such an effort is technically and economically feasible and has been
championed by Stanford professor Mark Jacobson since 2009. His latest
research on the subject was laid out in a series of talks last month in
San Francisco at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical
Union—the world's largest conference on climate change.
During his talks, Jacobson outlined a plan to power 139 nations of the
world for all purposes—including electricity, transportation,
heating/cooling, industry and agriculture/forestry/fishing—using a mix
of approximately 37 percent wind, 58 percent solar, 4 percent
hydropower, and 1 percent geothermal, wave and tidal power. He argued
that his plan would:
1. Replace 80 percent of business-as-usual power by 2030, and 100
percent by 2050.
2. Reduce power consumption by 42.5 percent because of electricity's
better work:energy ratio, efficiency and lack of mining needed.
3. Create 24.3 million more jobs than lost.
4. Eliminate 3.5 million premature air pollution deaths per year and
save $23 trillion (7.6 percent of GDP) in air pollution health costs per
year by 2050 (for comparison: the World Bank estimated in 2016 that air
pollution in 2013 killed 5.5 million people, with non-health care costs
of more than $5 trillion).
5. Save $28.5 trillion per year in avoided climate change costs by
potentially keeping global warming 1.5 C below pre-industrial levels.
6. Reduce war by creating energy-independent countries.
7. Decentralize energy production, thereby reducing power outages,
terrorism threats to energy installations and energy poverty.
Ok, this New Year's resolution does not come cheap. The up-front cost of
such an energy system is $124.7 trillion for converting the 139 nations
of the world Dr. Jacobson studied. However, it's critical to consider
the savings, not just the costs. He estimates that by 2050, a $85 per
person per year savings in electricity costs will be realized using a
100 percent wind, water and solar powered world compared to the current
business-as-usual system. This does not include the savings due to
reduced air pollution and reduced climate change costs, which would be
an additional $5,800 per person per year.
His road map to a 100 percent renewable energy future uses existing
generator technologies, along with existing electrical transportation,
heating/cooling and industrial devices and appliances. Electricity
storage is done using existing storage technologies—concentrated solar
power with storage, pumped hydroelectric storage and existing heat/cold
storage technologies (water, ice and rocks). No stationary storage
batteries, biomass, nuclear power, carbon capture or natural gas are
required. No new dams would be needed, but existing dams would by made
more efficient. Aircraft flying less than 600 km would be electric and
those flying longer distances would be powered by hydrogen fuel cells.
He modeled the seasonal and daily variation in solar energy and wind
power in the 139 countries, with storage and was able to show that the
power grid was stable—the load on the grid matched the electricity
supply. The 2.5 million wind turbines required would cause approximately
a 0.6 percent reduction in world's average wind speed, which he argued
should not cause major disturbances to the weather. Dr. Jacobson
acknowledged that political obstacles would make his plan difficult to
implement, but stressed that a solution to global warming is technically
and economically feasible.
