PALO ALTO, Ca. – Mark Jacobson and his colleagues at Stanford University have published a new study in the journal Energy & Environmental Science that claims 145 of the world’s nations could switch to 100% renewable energy in a few years using renewable energy technologies available today. They recommend the world make the switchover by 2035, but in no event later than 2050. Their goal is to have 80 percent operating on renewable energy by 2030.
The researchers looked at onshore and offshore wind energy, solar power, solar heat, geothermal electricity and heat, hydroelectricity, and small amounts of tidal and wave electricity. Batteries were the most common electricity storage solution, with the team finding that no batteries with more than four hours of storage were necessary.
We do not need miracle technologies to solve these problems. By electrifying all energy sectors; producing electricity from clean, renewable sources; creating heat, cold, and hydrogen from such electricity; storing electricity, heat, cold and the hydrogen; expanding transmission; and shifting the time of some electricity use, we can create safe, cheap, and reliable energy everywhere,” Jacobson says. He is a staunch supporter of the Green New Deal.
The researchers say switching to renewable energy would avoid utility grid blackouts and save consumers trillions of dollars. One of the main reasons for that finding is that the combustion-based energy systems most countries rely require a lot of energy just to function. In switching to a clean, renewable energy system, Jacobson states that worldwide energy usage would go down by 56% immediately.
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