Why Renewable Energy Cannot Replace Fossil Fuels by 2050
Summary of Study
Bottom Line: Numerous environmental groups and countries have recently adopted a vision for 100% renewable energy by 2050. Activists purport to show that 139 countries could achieve this goal. But this renewable vision is based on an unrealistic assessment of the market readiness of a wide range of key technologies. Attaining the vision is not feasible today in technological, economic, or political terms.
Since hydrocarbons are energy-dense, portable, and storable, and they have many useful byproducts that create thousands of spin-off industries, there is no simple way to move from oil, coal and natural gas to renewables. The manufacturing of all renewables also requires massive amounts of fossil fuels and natural resources with proportionately little energy return.
The current energy system in the United States, Canada and globally is heavily dependent on fossil fuels – they generally supply over 80% of existing energy needs in developed countries and over 87% in the world as a whole. Currently, wind and solar energy sources constitute only one-third of 1% of global energy supply.
The financial costs of building the 100% renewable energy world are enormous, but the land area needed to accommodate such diffuse sources of energy supply is just as daunting. Accommodating the 46,480 solar PV plants envisioned for the U.S. in the renewable vision would take up 650,720 square miles, almost 20% of the lower 48 states. This is close in size to the combined areas of Texas, California, Arizona, and Nevada.
A central component of the renewable vision is the electrification of all transportation uses. This is technically impossible right now, as the technologies have not yet been developed that would allow battery storage applicable to heavy-duty trucks, marine vessels, aircraft, and trains. Even in the case of automobiles, despite taxpayer subsidies of $7,500 per vehicle and up, the number of all-electric vehicles sold has consistently fallen far short of governments’ goals.
The proponents of the all-renewable vision grossly under-estimate the costs of integrating renewable energy sources into the electricity system. The additional costs of backup generation, storage, load balancing and transmission would be enormous.
The complete transformation of the world’s energy economies, at the extraordinarily high costs indicated in this note, would not be possible politically without the general consent of the people affected.
The only purpose of the all-renewable future is to offer the pretense that a credible path to a non-carbon world exists in the period to 2050. The sooner this reality is exposed and confronted, the better.
The current energy system in the United States, Canada and globally is heavily dependent on fossil fuels – they generally supply over 80% of existing energy needs in developed countries and over 87% in the world as a whole. Currently, wind and solar energy sources constitute only one-third of 1% of global energy supply.
The financial costs of building the 100% renewable energy world are enormous, but the land area needed to accommodate such diffuse sources of energy supply is just as daunting. Accommodating the 46,480 solar PV plants envisioned for the U.S. in the renewable vision would take up 650,720 square miles, almost 20% of the lower 48 states. This is close in size to the combined areas of Texas, California, Arizona, and Nevada.
A central component of the renewable vision is the electrification of all transportation uses. This is technically impossible right now, as the technologies have not yet been developed that would allow battery storage applicable to heavy-duty trucks, marine vessels, aircraft, and trains. Even in the case of automobiles, despite taxpayer subsidies of $7,500 per vehicle and up, the number of all-electric vehicles sold has consistently fallen far short of governments’ goals.
The proponents of the all-renewable vision grossly under-estimate the costs of integrating renewable energy sources into the electricity system. The additional costs of backup generation, storage, load balancing and transmission would be enormous.
The complete transformation of the world’s energy economies, at the extraordinarily high costs indicated in this note, would not be possible politically without the general consent of the people affected.
The only purpose of the all-renewable future is to offer the pretense that a credible path to a non-carbon world exists in the period to 2050. The sooner this reality is exposed and confronted, the better.
Read the full study here.
Feature Charticle
World Energy Sources by %, 2011
Findings:
- The current energy system is heavily dependent on fossil fuels – they generally supply over 80% of existing energy needs in developed countries, whereas, wind and solar energy sources constitute only one-third of 1% of global energy supply.
- Numerous environmental groups and countries have recently adopted a vision for 100% renewable energy by 2050.
- Attaining the vision is not feasible today in technological, economic, or political terms.
Read the full study here.
