Stanford, UCD Researchers Say 100% Renewable Energy Possible By 2050

thecarchik writes with news of an analysis published in Energy Policy by researchers from Stanford University and the University of California-Davis. "There are no technological or economic barriers to converting the entire world to clean, renewable energy sources, said author Mark Jacobson, a Stanford professor, saying it is only a question of 'whether we have the societal and political will.' During this decade, the two 'fuels of the future' will be electricity and gasoline. Beyond that, we can't project."

Comments

2050 probably won't be good enough..

[intellitech]

Hopefully before crude oil hits $250 a barrel (which will happen sometime around 2035 or later) and the world spins out of control. What's especially interesting is looking at the rising food costs and population growth side-by-side with peak oil graphs.

Re:2050 probably won't be good enough..

[ray-auch]

Renewable != Free

Wind power is renewable, the "fuel" is completely free, but collecting the wind and turning it into usable power is not free. Turbines have to be built, maintained, replaced at end of lfe, land to site them needs to be bought or rented etc. Overall, wind is often more expensive (and has to be subsidised as a result), at least per unit of electricity generated, than oil/gas at current prices.

Re:2050 probably won't be good enough..

[spydum]

Gasoline is not the only thing derived from petroleum resources.. You will still depend heavily on OPEC for all of your plastics, fertilizers, pesticides, and thousands of other uses. So OPEC will still continue to be pretty difficult to ignore.

Re:2050 probably won't be good enough..

[ShakaUVM]

Most of the war and the fights in the world that has lead to people suffering, also by hunger. Has been communism against democracy. And I don't know who to blame the most. To me it seems that the "Democratic" countries has done more damage than good. Look at vietnam, somalia etc etc.

You don't know who to blame the most?

Here's a clue: the Khmer Rouge murdered a million or two of their own people. And their numbers were vastly exceeded by the Soviets and the Red Chinese.

Nothing the US or other democracies did can ever compare with the scope of genocides, atrocities, and mass starvations caused by communism in the 20th century.

Re:2050 probably won't be good enough..

[mog007]

The Sahara is not a desert because of humans. It's a desert because of the motion of the Earth. The Earth wobbles like a top, it's why your astrological sign doesn't correspond to where the sun rises on the day you were born anymore. They were accurate about 2000 years ago, Leos being born with the sun in the constallation of Leo, and so on, but the precession of the Earth screwed that up. Similarly, the Sahara goes through forest->desert->forest every few thousand years. It's how Neanderthals were able to leave Africa and settle in Europe, but no members of our species were found in Europe until relatively recently. The Sahara dried up after some Neanderthals went through, and after it became a desert, our species was unable to traverse it. Until we got more advanced technology.

Re:Perpetual energy is against the laws of physics

[FauxPasIII]

Right. If only we had some sort of giant fusion reactor constantly sending us more energy... but what would we CALL it ?

Re:40 years? I'll be dead by then ...

[SeaFox]

Isn't thinking like this exactly what got us into the environmental and energy problems we have now?

PR Puff Piece

[jamesl]

This Stanford PR piece has received a lot of "coverage" -- mostly cut and paste.

Here are links to the original papers.
http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/JDEnPolicyPt1.pdf
http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/DJEnPolicyPt2.pdf

We estimate that 3,800,000 5 MW wind turbines, 49,000 300 MW concentrated solar plants, 40,000 300 MW solar
PV power plants, 1.7 billion 3 kWrooftop PV systems, 5350 100 MWgeothermal power plants, 270
new 1300 MWhydroelectric power plants, 720,000 0.75 MWwave devices, and 490,000 1 MWtidal
turbines can power a 2030 WWS world that uses electricity and electrolytic hydrogen for all purposes. ...
Barriers to the plan are primarily social and political, not technological or economic.

I'm sure everybody will want to study the papers in detail. And hold on to your checkbooks.

Re:PR Puff Piece

[locofungus]

Niiiiiiice. $19 trillions just for the wind turbines (around 5M each), $100 trillions for the rooftop PV systems (around 60K each), but there is no economic issue. Right.

85 million bbl/day oil consumption (2007)

At $100 per bbl that's $8.5 billion per day or, by 2050 $120 trillion, almost exactly the same cost as you've given above.

Oil is less than $100/bbl now but is almost certainly going to be a lot more than $100/bbl by 2050 (unless, of course, we've switched most of our power generation to alternatives so that there's no longer the same demand)

Right now, migrating off oil is looking approximately economically neutral. There's a cashflow issue - if we do it over the next 40 years we're going to need about $3 trillion tied up in building new infrastructure (assuming it takes about 1 year from starting building to bringing something on line - dams are obviously slower, wind farms seem to be quicker). But the longer we leave it the more urgent it's going to become (eventually there will be a time when we have to be off oil) and the more cash we'll have to tie up in order to build the infrastructure more quickly.

Tim.

Thorium

[JoeThoughtful]

Or we could start building Thorium reactors next year and move past all talk about a looming energy crisis.

Re:Hydro?

[intellitech]

Reservoir sites usually contain lots of vegetation, and once underwater, the plants naturally decompose and release methane (a greenhouse gas). That's why it's considered "dirty." It's considered destructive because of the effect on migratory patterns, currents, and the overall eco-system surrounding the dam. There have also been reports of increased temperature levels around hydroelectric dams which can have a very harmful effect on surrounding wildlife.

Thermal effects of hydroelectric power stations on the environment

The Environmental Literacy Council - Hydroelectric Power