We Have the Renewable Energy We Need to Power the World—So What's Stopping Us?

By Tara Lohan
The environment is one bad news story after another.
The Pacific Ocean is warming at a rate faster than anything seen in the last 10,000 years and we may have the warmest Arctic in the last 120,000 years. We’re told to brace for more and worse droughts, floods, heat waves, and storms. Coastal communities may disappear from rising seas, entire island nations are going under.
If that all weren’t bad enough, there is a global wine shortage.
The bright side is that we aren’t being blindsided by an unknown enemy: Our relentless burning of fossil fuels is the big thing pushing us toward the brink. So it would figure that a solution to get us out of this mess would be pretty obvious.
That’s why it’s great that there are people like Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. While it is one thing to say we want to stop burning fossil fuels, Jacobson (and a team of researchers) are telling us how to do it.
Jacobson was recently on the “David Letterman Show,” where he proclaimed that we have enough wind and solar to power the world.
Is he right? Can renewables really replace fossil fuels? If so, are we willing to do what’s necessary to get there? Let’s take a look at his work and some other new developments.
A Renewable World
In 2009 Jacobson and Mark A. Delucchi, a research scientist at the University of California, Davis Institute of Transportation Studies, published a cover story in Scientific American outlining a plan to power 100 percent of the world’s energy (for all purposes) using wind, water and solar technologies (WWS for shorthand). Their list of acceptable technologies includes several different kinds of solar power, on- and offshore wind turbines, geothermal, tidal, and hydropower. No nukes, no natural gas, no ethanol—only the real deal renewables.
“Our plan calls for millions of wind turbines, water machines and solar installations,” they wrote. “The numbers are large, but the scale is not an insurmountable hurdle; society has achieved massive transformations before,” including our massive highway system and our industrial rampup during World War II.
Their plan, which would provide energy for everything—transportation, heating/cooling, electricity, and industry—would have 51 percent of the energy coming from wind, specifically 3.8 million 5-megawatt (MW) wind turbines. Sound like a lot? “It is interesting to note that the world manufactures 73 million cars and light trucks every year,” they write. Also, the footprint of these would be smaller than the size of Manhattan, and of course they wouldn’t all be clustered in the same area either.
The next big power source is solar—40 percent coming from a combination of 89,000 photovoltaics (PV)—like the kind you mount on the roof of a home or business—and concentrated solar plants, which usually use mirrors to concentrate light, turning it into heat, and creating electricity with steam turbines. Add in 900 hydroelectric facilities, 70 percent of which we already have, and around 4 percent from geothermal and tidal energy, and the globe is powered by renewable energy!
That’s the plan, anyway. If this seems too big to comprehend, let’s look at the state level. Jacobson has worked with research teams to develop plans for New York and California, and he hopes to do one for each state in the country.
The California plan aims for “all new energy powered with WWS by 2020, 80-85 percent of existing energy replaced by 2030, and 100 percent replaced by 2050.”
They found that, “electrification plus modest efficiency measures would reduce California’s end-use power demand 44 percent and stabilize energy prices since WWS fuel costs are zero.” This is a common finding with researchers delving into electrifying energy systems with renewables—we end up with far more efficient systems, so we need even less energy.
One possible scenario they lay out for California looks like this:
- 25 percent from onshore wind (22,900 5-MW turbines)
- 10 percent from offshore wind (7,233 5-MW wind turbines)
- 15 percent from concentrated solar plants (1,080 100-MW plants)
- 15 percent from solar-PV power plants (1,820 50-MW plants)
- 10 percent from residential rooftop solar PV (16.2 million 5 kW systems)
- 15 percent from commercial/government rooftop PV (1.15 million 100-kW systems)
- 5 percent from geothermal plants (81 100-MW plants)
- 4 percent from hydroelectric power plants (11 1,300-MW plants, 90 percent of which we already have)
- 0.5 percent from wave (4,360 0.75-MW devices)
- .5 percent from tidal (2,960 1-MW turbines)
Their research found this will create 856,000 20-year construction jobs and net 137,000 permanent jobs. Other benefits include protecting the water supply from hazardous spills, cleaning up air pollution (including preventing thousands of premature annual deaths), and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
When it comes to New York, the biggest difference from California is a little less concentrated solar and much more offshore wind. This is their New York plan:
- 10 percent onshore wind (4020 5-MW turbines)
- 40 percent offshore wind (12,700 5-MW turbines)
- 10 percent concentrated solar (387 100-MW plants)
- 10 percent solar-PV plants (828 50-MW plants)
- 6 percent residential rooftop PV (5 million 5-kW systems)
- 12 percent commercial/ government rooftop PV (500,000 100-kW systems)
- 5 percent geothermal (36 100-MW plants)
- 0.5 percent wave (1910 0.75-MW devices)
- 1 percent tidal (2600 1-MW turbines)
- 5.5 percent hydroelectric (6.6 1300-MW plants, of which 89 percent exist)
Now that we have the numbers, we have to ask: is this really feasible?
Surmountable Obstacles?
Jacobson and company think their work is technically feasible, although not without significant challenges (more on that below). That doesn’t include the social and political hurdles that are set pretty high. Right now, it looks like an impossible leap. But that doesn’t dismiss the importance of Jacobson's vision. We may not reach his goal, but he’s pointed us in the right direction.
So has Vasilis Fthenakis, senior research scientist and adjunct professor at Columbia University, who developed a plan that employs solar to power 69 percent of the country’s electricity and 35 percent of all our energy needs by 2050, with 90 percent of all energy in the U.S. coming from solar by the end of the century.
“In contrast to the Jacobson plan, Fthenakis and his fellow researchers concentrate on building a large number of photovoltaic and thermoelectric solar power plants in the sunniest parts of the United States—chiefly the Southwest—and using high voltage direct current transmission to connect these power sources with the rest of the country,” explains Lakis Polycarpou for Columbia University’s Earth Institute.
Jacobson leans more on wind, while Fthenakis puts more stock in solar. But both will take raw materials to build, and that could be problematic. All those wind turbines and solar panels start from materials that will need to be dug out of the ground in someone’s backyard. We could be trading our dependence on Middle East oil for raw earth metals from China, lithium from Bolivia, or copper from the Congo.
“Humankind faces a vicious circle: a shift to renewable energy will replace one non-renewable resource (fossil fuel) with another (metals and minerals),” wrote researchers Olivier Vida, Bruno Goffe, and Nicholas Arndt in Nature GeoScience. “Potential future scarcity is not limited to the scarce high-tech metals that have received much attention. The demand for base metals such as iron, copper and aluminum, as well as industrial minerals, is also set to soar.”
This doesn’t mean, they write, that pursuing renewables should be abandoned; simply that we need a comprehensive strategy in our path forward.
One good thing about an investment in renewable infrastructure is that while it may take many years to build (and much materials), it will also last for decades. We do not need to keep feeding steel into a wind turbine that’s already up and running, unlike the hungry beasts of fossil fuels, which endlessly devour coal, oil and gas.
Supposing we get past the first hurdle of materials, what about some of renewables’ other challenges? The one most levied is intermittency—the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing when you need the energy most. Then what?
“By combining wind and solar and using hydroelectric to fill in the gaps” it can be done, Jacobson told AlterNet. “We found for California that you can do this pretty straightforwardly, wind and solar are very complementary: if the wind is not blowing during the day, the sun is often shining, and vice versa. If you have enough hydro on the grid, which you do on the West Coast, then you can fill in the gaps. You can also use concentrated solar power.”
And then there’s location; what if the wind blows or the sun shines the most in places where you have the least need for the energy. "Transmission is technically not a barrier at all,” said Jacobson. “Maybe you need to do some rezoning, people don't generally like to add transmission lines. But you can take advantage of a lot of existing lines, increase the capacity on them, that would reduce the issue of having to put in new lines.”
Some of this is already underway. A project installing 3,600 miles of new transmission lines is nearing completion in Texas that would hook up the state’s windy western region with high population centers in the rest of the state. Sustainable Business reported that it would increase the state’s capacity for wind energy by 50 percent.
Another project that’s proposed to begin construction next year would be able to send energy from windy Wyoming, 725 miles to Las Vegas, Nevada.
To get the most efficiency out of the transmission process, you can use high-voltage direct current (HDVC), a big part of Fthenakis’ solar plans. Unlike the AC power we currently use, HDVC transmits electricity with less loss over long distances.
The other massive issue is cost. “If you look historically of all the fossil fuels, they just keep rising and rising,” said Jacobson. “Whereas the wind and solar costs are going down, for the most part. For example, in the last four years costs of installing wind have gone down 50 percent. Solar prices in the last year just went down another 6 to 14 percent, they've been gradually declining.”
Fossil fuels, however, may continue to get more expensive. We’re drilling tens of thousands of feet deep. We’re going miles vertically and then horizontally for gas and oil. If you could look at the technology that’s used today to do high-volume horizontal fracturing for shale gas and tight oil, it’s quite complicated stuff. We’re not just putting a straw in the ground anymore. The harder this stuff is to get, the more energy we’re using to do it. It’s not just more expensive; we’re also consuming more energy for extraction than in decades past.
Then there is the obvious point that we don’t seem willing to address. Burning fossil fuels is what’s driving climate change—yet we give the industry a free pass on the externalities. A story in Nature set the price of just the impacts of the release of methane from a melting Arctic at $60 trillion. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Natural disasters in the U.S. alone last year totaled $110 billion. If the frequency and severity of extreme weather continues to rise as predicted, that number may get a whole lot bigger.
Good News for Renewables
Regardless of specific plans outlined by researchers, there is reason to be optimistic about the future of renewables
In August the Department of Energy announced that in 2012, wind was the top source of new electricity in the country and it was double the amount of wind power the previous year. “The country’s cumulative installed wind energy capacity has increased more than 22-fold since 2000,” the department stated. And it’s not just power, it’s also jobs—nearly three-quarters of all turbine equipment in the country is made at home.
That’s not all. “The price of wind under long-term power purchase contracts signed in 2011 and 2012 averaged 4 cents per kilowatt (kW( hour—making wind competitive with a range of wholesale electricity prices seen in 2012,” the Energy Department reports.
The potential for offshore wind in the U.S. is huge, but it’s yet to become a reality. That may soon change as there are now 11 projects in advanced stages—one in the Great Lakes, two off Texas’ Gulf coast, and the rest in the Atlantic from Virginia north to Massachusetts.
Unfortunately, wind’s huge gains could be dampened next year if the production tax credit that aids wind energy development is allowed to expire at the end of December. Likewise, the solar industry faces a federal tax credit expiring at the end of 2016, which could curb huge growth in that area. Right now, solar is hot. The Solar Energies Industry Association reports that a new solar system is installed in the U.S. every four minutes and the price of a PV system has dropped 50 percent since 2010. Although the amount of energy coming from solar that is used by power plants is only 1 percent, that’s likely to change with larger plants coming on line in the next few years.
Most people in the renewables industry see these tax credits as helping to level the playing field with fossil fuels, which despite being one of the most profitable industries in the world, still sees enormous subsidies. A report released this year by the International Monetary Fund found that global pre-tax subsidies for the fossil fuel industry hit $480 billion in 2011 (post-tax subsidies are nearly $2 trillion).
An optimistic assessment of solar’s future by Deutsche Bank predicts that globally the solar market will be totally sustainable, and not in need of subsidies, in only two years. Country-by-country, things will obviously differ.
The Biggest Hurdle
Jacobson recently said on the “David Letterman Show,” “There is no technological or economic limitation to solving these problems; it’s a social and political issue, primarily.”
These are no small problems. We have a Congress that can’t even agree how to tie its own shoelaces, let alone how to solve the biggest threat facing humanity. Conservatives have waged a war on renewables, seeking to roll back state requirements for renewable energy, but they haven’t always been successful. As more red states like Texas benefit from wind energy, it may well be a losing strategy for them (as it was for arch climate denier Ken Cuccinelli who just lost the race to be Virginia’s next governor).
The Washington Post published the results of a new Pew poll that found only Tea Partiers still cling to anti-science views about climate change; 25 percent of Tea Party Republicans believe in climate change, compared to 61 percent of non-Tea Party Republicans and 84 percent of Democrats.
Despite an outlier (yet vocal) conservative fringe, we’re slowly headed in the right direction. Time is of the essence. Can the change happen quickly enough?
“I think in some sectors it will naturally evolve very quickly like electric cars because they're so efficient,” said Jacobson. “In other sectors, if we don't push faster, then they're just going to change really modestly or not fast enough. I'm pretty optimistic that once people understand what's going on with the problems, in terms of climate, pollution, energy security, and once they understand there are technical solutions available and the economic solution is available, they will galvanize around those solutions.”
All the finger pointing can’t just be aimed at our elected officials—there has to be broad public support. Renewable projects should still be subject to environmental review, but barring that, it’s no longer acceptable to say that wind turbines or solar panels are too ugly to look at, especially by people who get electricity from coal, oil and gas yet share none of the burden of its extraction or burning.
When we talk about powering our future with renewable energy we have to understand that we’re still talking about impacts—but we have to weigh those against the impacts of continuing to power our world with ever more extreme methods of fossil fuel extraction.
This isn’t simply a matter of changing how we get energy. It means shifting the power dynamic in this country (and across the world), and literally putting power back in the hands of individual people and communities.
At this point, Jacobson’s optimistic goal of 100 percent renewables by 2030 or even 2050 looks out of reach. But what if we aimed for 50 percent for starters, and focused our economy on resilience instead of endless growth? The right wing might kick and scream, but I doubt the world would come to an end. If we keep burning fossil fuels, however, our fate isn’t likely to be very pleasant.
Visit EcoWatch’s RENEWABLES page for more related news on this topic.
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By Daisy Simmons
In a wildfire, hurricane, or other disaster, people with pets should heed the Humane Society's advice: If it isn't safe for you, it isn't safe for your animals either.
1. Stay Informed
<p>A first order of business in pet evacuation planning is to understand and be ready for the possible threats in your area. Visit <a href="https://www.ready.gov/be-informed" target="_blank">Ready.gov</a> to learn more about preparing for potential disasters such as floods, hurricanes, and wildfires. Then pay attention to related updates by tuning <a href="http://www.weather.gov/nwr/" target="_blank">NOAA Weather Radio</a> to your local emergency station or using the <a href="https://www.fema.gov/mobile-app" target="_blank">FEMA app</a> to get National Weather Service alerts.</p>2. Ensure Your Pet is Easily Identifiable
<p><span>Household pets, including indoor cats, should wear collars with ID tags that have your mobile phone number. </span><a href="https://www.avma.org/microchipping-animals-faq" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Microchipping</a><span> your pets will also improve your chances of reunion should you become separated. Be sure to add an emergency contact for friends or relatives outside your immediate area.</span></p><p>Additionally, use <a href="https://secure.aspca.org/take-action/order-your-pet-safety-pack" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">'animals inside' door/window stickers</a> to show rescue workers how many pets live there. (If you evacuate with your pets, quickly write "Evacuated" on the sticker so first responders don't waste time searching for them.)</p>3. Make a Pet Evacuation Plan
<p> "No family disaster plan is complete without including your pets and all of your animals," says veterinarian Heather Case in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9NRJkFKAm4" target="_blank">a video</a> produced by the American Veterinary Medical Association.</p><p>It's important to determine where to take your pet in the event of an emergency.</p><p>Red Cross shelters and many other emergency shelters allow only service animals. Ask your vet, local animal shelters, and emergency management officials for information on local and regional animal sheltering options.</p><p>For those with access to the rare shelter that allows pets, CDC offers <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/healthypets/emergencies/pets-in-evacuation-centers.html" target="_blank">tips on what to expect</a> there, including potential health risks and hygiene best practices.</p><p>Beyond that, talk with family or friends outside the evacuation area about potentially hosting you and/or your pet if you're comfortable doing so. Search for pet-friendly hotel or boarding options along key evacuation routes.</p><p>If you have exotic pets or a mix of large and small animals, you may need to identify multiple locations to shelter them.</p><p>For other household pets like hamsters, snakes, and fish, the SPCA recommends that if they normally live in a cage, they should be transported in that cage. If the enclosure is too big to transport, however, transfer them to a smaller container temporarily. (More on that <a href="https://www.spcai.org/take-action/emergency-preparedness/evacuation-how-to-be-pet-prepared" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>.)</p><p>For any pet, a key step is to establish who in your household will be the point person for gathering up pets and bringing their supplies. Keep in mind that you may not be home when disaster strikes, so come up with a Plan B. For example, you might form a buddy system with neighbors with pets, or coordinate with a trusted pet sitter.</p>4. Prepare a Pet Evacuation Kit
<p>Like the emergency preparedness kit you'd prepare for humans, assemble basic survival items for your pets in a sturdy, easy-to-grab container. Items should include:</p><ul><li>Water, food, and medicine to last a week or two;</li><li>Water, food bowls, and a can opener if packing wet food;</li><li>Litter supplies for cats (a shoebox lined with a plastic bag and litter may work);</li><li>Leashes, harnesses, or vehicle restraints if applicable;</li><li>A <a href="https://www.avma.org/resources/pet-owners/emergencycare/pet-first-aid-supplies-checklist" target="_blank">pet first aid kit</a>;</li><li>A sturdy carrier or crate for each cat or dog. In addition to easing transport, these may serve as your pet's most familiar or safe space in an unfamiliar environment;</li><li>A favorite toy and/or blanket;</li><li>If your pet is prone to anxiety or stress, the American Kennel Club suggests adding <a href="https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/home-living/create-emergency-evacuation-plan-dog/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">stress-relieving items</a> like an anxiety vest or calming sprays.</li></ul><p>In the not-unlikely event that you and your pet have to shelter in different places, your kit should also include:</p><ul><li>Detailed information including contact information for you, your vet, and other emergency contacts;</li><li>A list with phone numbers and addresses of potential destinations, including pet-friendly hotels and emergency boarding facilities near your planned evacuation routes, plus friends or relatives in other areas who might be willing to host you or your pet;</li><li>Medical information including vaccine records and a current rabies vaccination tag;</li><li>Feeding notes including portions and sizes in case you need to leave your pet in someone else's care;</li><li>A photo of you and your pet for identification purposes.</li></ul>5. Be Ready to Evacuate at Any Time
<p>It's always wise to be prepared, but stay especially vigilant in high-risk periods during fire or hurricane season. Practice evacuating at different times of day. Make sure your grab-and-go kit is up to date and in a convenient location, and keep leashes and carriers by the exit door. You might even stow a thick pillowcase under your bed for middle-of-the-night, dash-out emergencies when you don't have time to coax an anxious pet into a carrier. If forecasters warn of potential wildfire, a hurricane, or other dangerous conditions, bring outdoor pets inside so you can keep a close eye on them.</p><p>As with any emergency, the key is to be prepared. As the American Kennel Club points out, "If you panic, it will agitate your dog. Therefore, <a href="https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/home-living/create-emergency-evacuation-plan-dog/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">pet disaster preparedness</a> will not only reduce your anxiety but will help reduce your pet's anxiety too."</p>Evacuating Horses and Other Farm Animals
<p>The same basic principles apply for evacuating horses and most other livestock. Provide each with some form of identification. Ensure that adequate food, water, and medicine are available. And develop a clear plan on where to go and how to get there.</p><p>Sheltering and transporting farm animals requires careful coordination, from identifying potential shelter space at fairgrounds, racetracks, or pastures, to ensuring enough space is available in vehicles and trailers – not to mention handlers and drivers on hand to support the effort.</p><p>For most farm animals, the Red Cross advises that you consider precautionary evacuation when a threat seems imminent but evacuation orders haven't yet been announced. The American Veterinary Medical Association has <a href="https://www.avma.org/resources/pet-owners/emergencycare/large-animals-and-livestock-disasters" target="_blank">more information</a>.</p>Bottom Line: If You Need to Evacuate, So Do Your Pets
<p>As the Humane Society warns, pets left behind in a disaster can easily be injured, lost, or killed. Plan ahead to make sure you can safely evacuate your entire household – furry members included.</p>- 5 Ways to Be an Eco-Friendly Pet Owner - EcoWatch ›
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