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Study claims 100 percent renewable energy possible by 2030

Jan 19, 2011 by Lin Edwards 

(PhysOrg.com) -- New research has shown that it is possible and affordable for the world to achieve 100 percent renewable energy by 2030, if there is the political will to strive for this goal.

Achieving 100 percent renewable energy would mean the building of about four million 5 MW wind turbines, 1.7 billion 3 kW roof-mounted solar photovoltaic systems, and around 90,000 300 MW solar power plants.

Mark Delucchi, one of the authors of the report, which was published in the journal Energy Policy, said the researchers had aimed to show enough renewable energy is available and could be harnessed to meet demand indefinitely by 2030.

Delucchi and colleague Mark Jacobson left all fossil fuel sources of energy out of their calculations and concentrated only on wind, solar, waves and geothermal sources. Fossil fuels currently provide over 80 percent of the world’s energy supply. They also left out biomass, currently the most widely used renewable energy source, because of concerns about pollution and land-use issues. Their calculations also left out nuclear power generation, which currently supplies around six percent of the world’s electricity.

To make their vision possible, a great deal of building would need to occur. The wind turbines needed, for example, are two to three times the capacity of most of today’s wind turbines, but 5 MW offshore turbines were built in Germany in 2006, and China built its first in 2010. The solar power plants needed would be a mix of photovoltaic panel plants and concentrated solar plants that concentrate solar energy to boil water to drive generators. At present only a few dozen such utility-scale solar plants exist. Energy would also be obtained from photovoltaic panels mounted on most homes and buildings.

Jacobson said the major challenge would be in the interconnection of variable supplies such as wind and solar to enable the different renewable sources to work together to match supply with demands. The more consistent renewable sources of wave and tidal power and geothermal systems would supply less of the energy but their consistency would make the whole system more reliable.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2011-01-percent-renewable-energy.html#jCp

A Plan to Power 100 Percent of the Planet with Renewables

Wind, water and solar technologies can provide 100 percent of the world's energy, eliminating all fossil fuels. Here's how

By Mark Z. Jacobson and Mark A. Delucchi

Urban Visions: The Future of CitiesWhat will population centers look like in 20 years' time? Innovations in transportation, energy production and technology will have to keep pace with a host of challenges  »June 15, 2010

Image: John Lee Aurora Photos

In Brief

• Supplies of wind and solar energy on accessible land dwarf the energy consumed by people around the globe.
• The authors’ plan calls for 3.8 million large wind turbines, 90,000 solar plants, and numerous geothermal, tidal and rooftop photovoltaic installations worldwide.
• The cost of generating and transmitting power would be less than the projected cost per kilowatt-hour for fossil-fuel and nuclear power.
• Shortages of a few specialty materials, along with lack of political will, loom as the greatest obstacles.

More In This Article

• Infographic

  Powering a Green Planet: Sustainable Energy, Made Interactive

• PDF

  Download the Full Paper from paper by Jacobson and Delucchi

In December leaders from around the world will meet in Copenhagen to try to agree on cutting back greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come. The most effective step to implement that goal would be a massive shift away from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy sources. If leaders can have confidence that such a transformation is possible, they might commit to an historic agreement. We think they can.Julian W. - Gwangju 2 months ago

It's great to finally hear in a North American accent someone saying what the late great Hermann Scheer was saying all his good short life: the solar and other renewable energy revolution is entirely possible in an extremely short time - as in a couple of years, and using EXISTING technology - and all it takes is political will.

Given the ignorance of the average English-only speaking, media illiterate western consumer/ voter, it's obviously taking a little longer outside Europe. It'll happen.

A year ago former vice president Al Gore threw down a gauntlet: to repower America with 100 percent carbon-free electricity within 10 years. As the two of us started to evaluate the feasibility of such a change, we took on an even larger challenge: to determine how 100 percent of the world’s energy, for all purposes, could be supplied by wind, water and solar resources, by as early as 2030. Our plan is presented here.

Scientists have been building to this moment for at least a decade, analyzing various pieces of the challenge. Most recently, a 2009 Stanford University study ranked energy systems according to their impacts on global warming, pollution, water supply, land use, wildlife and other concerns. The very best options were wind, solar, geothermal, tidal and hydroelectric power—all of which are driven by wind, water or sunlight (referred to as WWS). Nuclear power, coal with carbon capture, and ethanol were all poorer options, as were oil and natural gas. The study also found that battery-electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles recharged by WWS options would largely eliminate pollution from the transportation sector.

How to create a net-zero energy home: new report by CleanTechnica

CleanTechnica via National Institute of Standards and Technology

Net zero energy = awesome. And homes or buildings that use no energy from other locations (net, not gross) are certainly a growing trend. Check out this post below from the National Institute of Standards and Technology regarding a new report on this subject.

The Net-Zero Energy Residential Test Facility sits on the campus of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md. The facility allows researchers to test various high-efficiency and alternative energy systems, materials, and designs.
Image Credit: Young/NIST

Chances are you know how many miles your car logs for each gallon or tankful of gas, but you probably have only a foggy idea of how much energy your house consumes, even though home energy expenditures often account for a larger share of the household budget.

This disparity in useful energy data is just one of several information gaps that must be bridged as the United States transitions towards residences that generate as much energy as they use over the course of a year—so-called net-zero houses.

Gaps—and strategies to overcome them—are summarized in Strategies to Achieve Net-Zero Energy Homes: A Framework for Future Guidelines, a new publication* from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) based on the discussions at a 2011 workshop convened by the agency.

One such strategy, proffered by experts who attended the workshop, is to require that energy costs be listed in all real-estate transactions.

“This means incorporating energy in the appraisal process, and the valuation of principal, interest, taxes, and insurance (PITI), so that it incorporates energy cost considerations to become the valuation of principal, interest, taxes, insurance, and energy cost considerations (PITIE),” the report says.

The report breaks out three categories of challenges: design, technology and equipment, and the needs and behaviors of homeowners and the building industry.

With regard to design, one workshop recommendation is to establish a scoring system for new and used homes so that prospective buyers can “compare energy, durability, indoor air quality, accessibility, and other factors relative to their needs.”

In net-zero energy homes, energy loads will be substantially lower than current heating and cooling equipment is built to deliver and existing product performance standards are designed to test. According to the report, manufacturers will need new guidelines and underlying data that will help them size their equipment offerings appropriately and align performance with the conditions and requirements of net-zero energy homes.

The behaviors and requirements of homeowners and builders may provide the most complex set of challenges. One clear need, the report says, is to help designers, builders and occupants understand how best to collect and analyze home energy data.

“Consumers require information that is useful, timely and understandable to be able to make the energy purchase and consumption decisions necessary to achieve net-zero energy for new and existing homes,” the report says.

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Solar could replace nuclear power in Japan

Solar power is not usually considered a viable source of base-load electricity, but according to a study published inEnvironmental Research Letters (ERL), Japan could use solar power for base load because of the country's large-scale pumped hydroelectric storage systems.

Researchers from the University of Texas in the US have calculated that if solar panels were installed on available roof space in the greater Tokyo area, the region could generate up to 26.5% of the electricity it received from nuclear power before the Fukushima disaster.

"That's a sizable fraction of the base load that used to be generated by nuclear power," said lead author Brady Stoll. "The reason this is possible is because Japan is in the unique position of already possessing the largest capacity of pumped hydroelectric storage in the world."

Stoll and her colleagues estimated the suitable rooftop area in the greater Tokyo region to be around 300 km². Such an array would have an installed capacity of 43.1 GWp. The researchers used this information, together with the reported availability of pumped hydroelectric storage for the region – 7.28 GW – and daily average surface solar irradiances from a 34 year database, to determine the level of base-load power that could be provided by the distributed photovoltaic system, as well as the overall amount of energy that could be expected per year.

The combined system was found capable of providing 4.8 GWe for 91% of the time. The team also estimated that a photovoltaic array of 1700 km², coupled to 18.1 GW of storage capacity would be sufficient to replace the 2010 nuclear capacity of the Tokyo Electric Power Company.