Since the beginning of my Tomorrow is Greener blog I wondered why no government or country, private firm or person had announced to completely power an entire country with renewable energy sources (minor exceptions overlooked). Since it is possible to turn the tide on fossil fuels, you would imagine that a lot of nations would have shifted by now. Unfortunately the opposite is true.

However, in a recent study, scientists have proven that it is possible to power the entire world by renewable energy sources. A professor of civil and environmental engineering, Mark Jacobson, and a research scientist, Mark Delucchi, claim that the world could get all its energy from renewables by 2030.

In the paper it states that over 3.8 million wind turbines have to be built, which will account for just over half of electricity demand in 2030, and around 90,000 solar plants and other renewable technologies like tidal and geothermal power to meet the needs of 2030s electricity demand.

Total costs, not including transmission, could be as high as 100 trillion dollars worldwide. If you spread that over the next 20 years it would mean that we have to invest 5 trillion dollars a year on renewable energy sources. Total investment in renewables in 2008 was around 155 billion dollars, meaning that we have to increase investments by 3226% to reach our goal.

The main problem here is an economic one. Why would you invest in for example wind turbines when you can purchase these turbines for half the price within 10 years? Because these renewable energy technologies are so new, prices are still high. So clean energy sources are available at the moment, but will we turn to them in time?

Sources:

Global trends in sustainable energy investment 2009
New York Times, 11th feb 2010
TreeHugger

Share this!