Will Renewable Energy Ever Meet All Our Energy Needs?

Lasrick writes "Dawn Stover has another great piece detailing why renewable energy will never provide us with all our energy needs. She deconstructs the unrealistic World Wildlife Fund report (co-written by several solar companies) that claims renewables will be able to provide 100% of the energy needs of several countries by 2050. From the article: 'When renewable energy experts get together, they tend to rhapsodize about the possibilities, believing that this will somehow inspire others to make their visions come true. But ambitious plans to power entire countries on solar energy (or wind or nuclear power, for that matter) don't have a snowball's chance in Australia. Such schemes are doomed to fail, and not because of the economic "reality" or the political "reality" -- however daunting those may be. They are doomed because of the physical reality: It's simply not physically possible for the world's human population to continue growing in numbers, affluence, and energy consumption without trashing the planet.'"

Comments

"Baseload" Power versus the rest

[peon_a-z,A-Z,0-9$_ !]

The summary cites solar, wind, and nuclear as not being able to power cities. This is due to the fact that cities need power when they need it, and can't wait for the power to be there intermittandly. Therefore, viable options fall under the designation "baseload" power (power that you can have whenever - and in most cases wherever), and the summary's mention of solar and wind are rightly not grouped in this category.

Incorrectly, however, the summary mentions nuclear, which is in fact a primary form of baseload power along with coal, gas, or hydro. Nuclear could, can, will, and does power entire cities, in fact, Chicago is roughly over 90% powered by Nuclear energy (rough statistic - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Illinois).

Re:"Baseload" Power versus the rest

[Anonymous Coward]

I lived off grid for 2 years, then had to move back into the city... It's pretty easy, you use batteries for things like lights, and you use high-draw devices when the sun is out and giving you power. No sun, no washing machine. If you change your routine a little, you can fit into renewable energy just fine.

Renewable Energy vs Waste of Energy

[Taco Cowboy]

Renewable Energy can NEVER satisfy 100% of the total energy requirement to run the current human civilization.

However, if we deconstruct the way we use energy we would find that up to 80% of the energy we are using ended up in waste heat.

No matter it's in the industrial setting or electricity generation or even the fluorescent light bulbs that we are using right now, waste heat is generated.

If, and only if, we can get our technology to improve to the level that waste heat is minimized to, let's say 10% or less, then, we will see that we do not need that much energy input anymore.

This has a ripple effect ... The less energy we need, the less load on the electricity grid and the less need to construct power plant ... and so on ...