4 February 2011 | Luca Del Buono
Carbon, Climate Change, Energy, Finance/insurance, Forestry and wood products, Europe, North America

 

Wind, water and solar (WWS) power could meet all new global energy demands by 2030 and could replace pre-existing energy sources by 2050 at a similar cost to current carbon-based fuels, suggests a two-part study.

The researchers investigated the material, technical and economic feasibility of satisfying the world's energy needs using 100% WWS. Based on a projected global need of 11.5 trillion watts of end use WWS power in 2030, supply from WWS could exceed demand by more than an order of magnitude, the study suggests. The authors estimate roughly 84% of energy needs in 2030 could be supplied from around 4 million 5-MW wind turbines and 90,000 300-MW solar power plants, with the remaining 16% coming from solar photovoltaic rooftop systems, geothermal, tidal, wave and hydroelectric sources.

Affordable, rapid transition to large-scale, perpetual and reliable energy requires significant expansion of transmission infrastructure, targeted economic policies, including a shift in subsidies from fossil fuels to WWS systems to encourage adoption, combined with significant social and political effort, say the authors.