Renewable Energy World
Ever since the oil shocks of the 1970s, there has been speculation about what it would take to completely wean ourselves from fossil fuels.
Not even the most enthusiastic advocates of renewables back then (and I’m one of them) could have imagined the spectacular growth of wind and solar we see today. The opposition is getting shriller and weaker with each passing encounter, as the future for both nuclear and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) gets bleaker by the day.
100 percent renewable energy (RE) is inevitable, simply because everything else is not (renewable). The relevant question is whether we can do it quickly enough to save the climate, and whether we meet our climate goals with 100 percent RE or with a combination of RE and other ‘zero-emitting’ technologies, should they emerge.
A large portion of the energy establishment believes it is ‘not possible’ to go to 100 percent RE, and continue to argue for nuclear, CCS and/or gas. While gas needs to play a role in the transition in the next few decades, gas is fundamentally incompatible with a 2 degrees Celsius world. Nuclear and CCS are dying in the marketplace.
