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Page added on April 23, 2013
100 Percent Renewable Energy is 100 Percent Possible
The future is here — it’s just unevenly distributed. This old quote found a new application at the Pathways to 100% Renewable Energy conference in San Francisco last week. An international crowd of energy experts, financiers, clean energy advocates, elected officials, government employees, academics, and more gathered there to discuss how to bring the renewable energy future to all.
Even those in favor of renewable energy have been known to debate how much of our power it can provide. But at the conference, the question was not whether we can get to 100%. Instead, speakers asked, How do we get there? And how soon?
Answers vary, and multiple approaches are needed — many of which were shared at this event. Out of all the details and perspectives, a few themes came to the fore.
Our thinking is out of date
What’s the biggest barrier to 100% renewables? According to keynote speaker Frances Moore Lappé, it’s all in our heads. That’s because it’s hard for us to see beyond our mental map and cultural filters. Instead of talking about scarcity and limits to growth, which are part of this mental map, she believes that to find solutions we need to reframe the issue.
Other speakers echoed this sentiment and urged us not to let what we see today cloud our vision of tomorrow. After all, the one given in the world of renewables is that a lot will change. We too need to change when it comes to how we approach the problems.
We need to look at things differently. For example, why not switch to driving electric vehicles? Is it just because we’ve internalized and accepted the reality of gas-powered cars?
The same principle can be applied to the power industry itself; the industry’s current reality isn’t the only one possible. It’s bound to change as renewables make more sense economically, climate change becomes harder to deny, and consumers gain more control of power generation. Some say the industry won’t be recognizable by 2050.
In moving beyond our set views, we may realize that more is possible than we think. People said it wasn’t technically possible to integrate as much renewable power into the grid as Germany has done — and yet it was done, with no adverse effects.
Predictions underestimate the growth of renewables
That’s just one of many predictions gone awry when it comes to renewables. Keynote speaker Eric Martinot, after providing many examples of fast growth in renewables, noted that we’re already exceeding conservative scenarios. Projections from the World Bank and others have generally been a decade off or a factor of 10 lower than actual outcomes. That’s right: we’re heading down the path to 100% renewables more quickly than predicted.
Examples are plentiful of regions on this path. In Freiburg, Germany, the average household energy consumption has been reduced by about 80%. For 2050, Germany as a whole is aiming for 80% renewable electricity, Denmark for 100% renewables. San Francisco has an earlier target of 100% renewable electricity by 2020; Lancaster, California, has set a goal of 100% renewable energy for the same year.
Some areas have already reached 100%. Case in point: Rhein-Hunsrueck, Germany. Starting with energy efficiency and moving on to generating its own power, the region of 101,000 inhabitants now produces not 100% but 104% of its energy from renewable sources. The future is here.
Technology is not a barrier
So what’s holding us back? Speaker after speaker emphasized that despite many misconceptions, it’s not technology.
The many roadmaps we already have — such as IEA’s World Energy Outlook, recent NREL studies, the IIASA Global Energy Assessment, and the REN 21 Renewables Global Future Report — all show that the barriers to 100% renewables are not technological.
That’s not to say that technology isn’t important. Solar and wind forecasting will play a role in moving us to 100% renewables, as will demand-response technologies, storage, and microgrids.
We already have viable means of storing energy, and they’re only getting better. But most storage is not yet on the grid, because the grid was built when it was thought energy couldn’t be stored — another example of how we need to change our thinking.
And our thinking needs to include transportation and buildings. Going all electric would reduce global energy demand by 32%, and EVs can help support the grid by storing power and sending it back to the grid when it’s needed there. Buildings, representing 25% of global energy use, can be made more energy-efficient.
A study of conditions in 2005 and 2006 showed that in that period, California could have met its electricity needs for 99.8% of all hours from solar and wind — without using demand-response, much storage, or oversizing. In Mexico, a combination of wind and solar can greatly reduce intermittency problems, with hydro or geothermal easily making up the remainder of electricity needs. Those who doubt these assessments need look no farther than the increasing number of areas that have already reached 100% or are close to doing so.
As more regions move to renewables, more people will see the value of making the switch. That increased public awareness and acceptance will help overcome the real challenges, which are social and political.
Renewables make financial sense
Costs can also be a challenge, but that too is changing quickly as renewables become more competitive.
The biggest cost of renewables is in the up-front investment; once they’re in place, they don’t need to be supported by infrastructure like pipelines. Many can be sited locally, reducing the need for costly transmission lines.
Nuclear power is not a good option when it comes to costs. Nuclear requires large subsidies and plants need upgrades and repairs, which always seem to cost much more than projected.
Meanwhile, fossil fuel costs are rising, even if you don’t count the many externalities like health care costs. We’re all paying for fossil fuels, in the form of $600 billion in subsidies in the last 60 years. What did we get for that? Increased power costs. When we subsidize renewables, on the other hand, our costs decline. So what’s the better investment?
Investors are catching on. For example, they’re beginning to understand solar as an asset class and are realizing it’s a great bet: It’s a proven technology, it harnesses an unlimited source of power, and the default rate on solar projects hovers around zero. Solar provides a hedge against volatile future power costs.
Investments in renewables are expected to double by 2020 or 2030. Given the way renewables tend to outperform predictions, perhaps we’ll see that even sooner.
And new business models are emerging to finance renewables as well as to lower their costs. That includes programs supported by the SunShot Initiative that help lower the soft costs of solar, which now account for about half the cost of solar systems in the US.
Local action is key
Given that we have the technology and the favorable economics, how do we get to 100% renewables?
We need strong, stable policies like Germany’s feed-in tariff, which has led to 40% of renewables there being owned by individuals. And that brings us to an important point. Power needs to be decentralized and controlled more by individuals and communities.
Hundreds of communities are getting into the action with policies and targets to support renewables. Some are taking up community choice energy, which allows local governments to pool residential, business, and municipal electricity loads and to purchase or generate on their behalf. It provides rate stability and savings and allows more consumer choice and local control.
Other communities are taking their own paths to renewables. Lancaster, California, for example, decided to become the solar capital of the world and is making progress toward that goal. This didn’t happen from the top down — it happened because the community decided it was important. With the will to make the change in place, it wasn’t hard or costly to implement policies to support the community’s goal, such as streamlining the permitting process.
Greensburg, Kansas provides another great example of a community-driven move to renewables. In 2007, 95% of the town was destroyed by a tornado. The community decided to rebuild in a more sustainable way, and now Greensburg is living up to its name as a showcase for how a community can go green.
Renewables are for everyone
As you can imagine, Greensburg is not a hotbed of radical environmentalism. But it’s a fine example that when it comes to renewables, there’s something in it for everyone. We need to remember this as we tackle the many misconceptions we face.
The people of Greensburg built on their farming ancestors’ heritage of conserving resources, reframed to fit their modern situation. Indeed, conservatism at its heart is compatible with protecting our planet. If that’s not compelling enough, most conservatives care about public safety and national security. And for most people, conservative or liberal, the strongest argument for moving to renewables is the economics.
Whatever the angle, it’s crucial to get the message out that renewables make sense. According to Kirsten Hasberg, that will be facilitated by the democratizer of communication, the digital revolution. She’s founded a new media outlet where she invites us all to participate in harnessing the power of that revolution, Energy Democracy TV. Another way to get involved and learn more is to join Go 100% Renewable Energy, a campaign just launched by a coalition of leading NGOs — including the Renewables 100 Policy Institute, which organized the conference.
As Stefan Schurig of the World Future Council reminded conference-goers, the path to 100% won’t be easy. Resistance tends to get stronger the more successful our efforts. But he left us with a well-known quote that’s worth repeating here:
First they ignore you,
then they laugh at you,
then they fight you,
then you win.
17 Comments on "100 Percent Renewable Energy is 100 Percent Possible"
Beery on Tue, 23rd Apr 2013 10:43 pm
This is ludicrous! If their idea of green renewable energy is electric vehicles, wind power and rooftop solar, I think they have a lot to learn about what ‘renewable’ actually means.
How do they expect to build ‘renewable’ wind generators, cars and solar panels? Last I checked, these are made out of metals and plastics. I hate to burst their bubble, but metals and plastics are neither green nor renewable.
AWB on Tue, 23rd Apr 2013 11:17 pm
I’m not so sure that the Big Fossil industries or Big Utility will sit around and watch their multi-trillion dollar investments wither away. How do you spell Exxon Mobil or Koch Industries?
When I read an article like the above, and it does not address this very, very onerous problem, it’s impossible to give any credence to the 100% renewal proposal.
Arthur on Tue, 23rd Apr 2013 11:27 pm
“100 Percent Renewable Energy is 100 Percent Possible”
If some day non-renewable energy will run out, then yes, we will have 100 renewable energy for sure. More interesting question though is how much kwh/capita/day are we going to enjoy in the renewable-only future?
Plastic created from biofuels IS renewable.
We have yet to find a method of how to destroy metals for all eternity, apart from shooting it into the sun.
From a purely energetic point of view, economic growth would be possible again, maybe after a century, after the energy transition has been completed. But we are too late for a smooth transition. We are heading for an energy crunch and chaos.
Beery on Wed, 24th Apr 2013 12:59 am
Plastic from biofuels may be able to be produced indefinitely and the metal used to build all the stuff may stick around forever, but that’s not the same as being renewable. The question is, are wind turbines, electric cars and solar panels 100% recyclable? If not (and currently they are nowhere near), then these things are not truly renewable.
BillT on Wed, 24th Apr 2013 2:10 am
These people are reading out of the techie bible. Nothing more than hope and dreams. Their very narrow view of things is, as Beery said, ludicrous. This era is a ‘Once and done’ thing, never to happen again. Survival is the name of the game now, not ‘growth’.
How much growth happened prior to the hydrocarbon age? Very little. Ditto after it ends. Most of the knowledge we gained will be lost. It will be locked on plastic disks or other ‘storage’ methods lost to the post-tech world. Not even in books, that can be passed down for generations, will we record even a small percentage of it. No, we have been to the party and it is over. The guests are stumbling out the door. It was fun while it lasted but we foolishly ate and drank all of the future in our binge of cheap technology.
GregT on Wed, 24th Apr 2013 4:10 am
The only things that were ever truly “renewable”, were the complex biological systems of the Planet Earth herself. Unfortunately, many of them are not renewable anymore, thanks to human being’s insatiable greed.
Much of the damage that we have already done is unrepairable. What remains to be seen, is whether or not our species will still be “renewable”.
It doesn’t look very promising anymore.
Arthur on Wed, 24th Apr 2013 9:04 am
“How much growth happened prior to the hydrocarbon age? Very little. Ditto after it ends. Most of the knowledge we gained will be lost.”
The difference is an enormous pile of methods that was not around before. If ‘storage’ of these methods would be erased, than yes, we would have to start all over again, this time without carbon capital. I am not yet convinced of the inevitability that all knowledge of man, that can be stored on a few m3 of hard drives (pdf’s, videos) is in fact going to be erased. Although we can expect the implosion of ‘happy motoring’ on a global scale to happen soon, we are never going to run out of fossil fuel to keep at least a nucleus of society going somewhere. Like the European monastaries kept the heritage of the classical world alive for centuries. China? Russia? Europe?, North-America?
Kenz300 on Wed, 24th Apr 2013 12:32 pm
The transition to safe, clean alternative energy sources has begun.
Solar power produced 100% of new energy on U.S. grid in March | SmartPlanet
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/solar-power-produced-100-of-new-energy-on-us-grid-in-march/18083?tag=nl.e660
Saudi Arabia is jumping headlong into renewable energy, with plans to install more solar and wind power in the next 20 years than the rest of the world has installed to date.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/04/saudi-arabia-looks-to-nrel-for-solar-monitoring-expertise
baptised on Wed, 24th Apr 2013 4:12 pm
I think this is doable, but only in hypothesis. Small thoriam plants could keep the processing energy going to make solar,etc. BUT the USA military complex will have no part of it. A peaceful agrueian society noway. Landmines must be made for the world.Hawks will demand the lifestyle we have now with a boot on your neck, UNTIL it collapses.
GregT on Wed, 24th Apr 2013 4:45 pm
Arthur,
I think that you might be missing the big picture here. The greatest issue facing mankind is not our maintenance of knowledge, it is the issue of maintaining a planet capable of supporting life.
Ocean acidification in of itself has the potential to remove half of all oxygen generated on earth. The oceans are already in very dire straits, and could easily reach tipping points, well within 2 decades.
Arctic methane clathrates are another potential source of a rapid mass extinction event. Scientists originally thought that we would not see an ice free Arctic summer until the end of this century. It is now widely accepted that it could very well happen this summer, or at least before 2015. When methane clathrates are released into the earths atmosphere, we could easily see a global mean temperature increase of 6 degrees C within a few years. Not decades. A 6 degree C temperature increase equates to a global mass extinction event. IE: No more human beings.
If conservative estimates are to be considered, Europe could be plunged into a mini ice age easily within two decades. Weather patterns are expected to become extremely volatile, especially in the Northern Hemisphere, and the effects on our agricultural production and all of the Earth’s biological systems will be devastating.
The agreed upon acceptable upper limit of atmospheric CO2 concentrations is 350 ppm. Even at this level we were to expect severe climatic disruptions, although survivable, enough to dramatically change the earths carrying capacity. We are currently at 397 ppm and rising.
I think that it is pretty safe to say, that we are not going to stop adding more green house gases into the atmosphere. We have already passed ‘acceptable limits’, and we are on a full speed ahead course into ‘uncharted territory’.
If we are extremely fortunate, and modern industrial society crashes soon, and we stop focussing on how to create even more excess energy, we might have a chance at survival. It will also take an unprecedented global initiative to find a way to reverse Arctic warming, and to sequester global atmospheric CO2.
Is this possible? Perhaps. But not until we stop thinking about human society, and start thinking about saving the only planet that we have to create societies on.
Arthur on Wed, 24th Apr 2013 10:07 pm
Greg says:
“Not decades. A 6 degree C temperature increase equates to a global mass extinction event. ”
“Europe could be plunged into a mini ice age easily within two decades”
That’s quite a broad range. It is true that the weather is volatile… today warm with 21C, on friday it will be 10C again.
Will climate catastrophe happen? I do not know. Could the arctic melt? Yes. Is that worrying? I do not know.
Remember the Ozon layer fuzz? The story is forgotten now. In the eighties there was the acid rain and ‘Waldsterben’… dying of forrests. They are fine now because of the much cleaner cars we have now. One can swim again in the river, canals and lakes in Holland, unlike in 70s-90s. Governments acted and had results.
GregT on Thu, 25th Apr 2013 8:46 pm
Arthur,
If you can find the time, I would highly recommend researching “climate change”. There are over 6000 peer reviewed articles from within the scientific community that point to a very dire outlook for our future. It is the largest international collaboration of scientific research ever conducted in the history of mankind. There are even some very highly esteemed scientists that say that we are already too late to stop the 6th global mass extinction event that is now well underway.
I do not pretend to ‘know’ what will happen, but our scientists have been warning us for a very long time, and what they have warned us would happen, is now coming true, at a much faster rate than what was anticipated.
The hole in the Ozone has not gone away, and many believe that it is the cause for the huge increase in skin cancer. I have never been one to get a sunburn in my entire life, I now burn in minutes in direct sun, and I am not alone. And no, the Ozone story has not been forgotten, only the media has stopped reporting it.
Sorry, the forests are not fine, they are dying at the most rapid rate in all of recorded history. I can’t comment on where you live, but the world’s waterways are the most polluted that they have ever been.
Just because the media is not reporting the truth does not mean that the truth does not exist.
GregT on Thu, 25th Apr 2013 8:59 pm
Oh, and speaking of the weather, 3 weeks ago in Vancouver we had 4 days in a row of between 25 and 27 degrees C. Those are high temperatures for us here in July. Last week we had temperatures of 2 degrees C on 3 out of five mornings. I was scraping ice off of my truck windows. This is not even close to ‘normal’.
Arthur on Fri, 26th Apr 2013 1:33 pm
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldsterben
“2003 erklärte die damalige Bundeslandwirtschaftsministerin Renate Künast in Übereinstimmung mit Befunden der europäischen Nachbarn das „Waldsterben“ für beendet. Der Trend zu einer negativen Entwicklung sei gestoppt. Der Zustand der Wälder habe sich stabilisiert, auch wenn nach wie vor Teile des Baumbestandes deutliche Schäden aufweisen.”
Renate Künast, a prominent politician of the German Green party declared that ‘Waldsterben’/’Forest dieback’ was stopped and the condition of the forests had been stabilized, strongly correlated to the imposition of cathalysts on all new cars and other sources of polution. The danger is not over, but the original horror stories that the Wald would be finished in 5 years, were premature. Humans were the source of the problem and the source of the solution.
GregT on Fri, 26th Apr 2013 3:11 pm
Our forests in British Columbia are being decimated right now by pine beetles. They normally were kept in check by cold winter temperatures. Now that the temperatures have risen, the pine beetle has been allowed to migrate further south. There are almost 20 million hectares of dead trees and that area is growing rapidly. An area almost 5 times the size of Holland in BC alone. The problem does not end at our border, however, it extends all the way down into Colorado, and is now spreading into Alberta.
http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/pages/49
British Columbia contains 10% of the world’s forests, which produce a good percentage of the planet’s oxygen. Many areas where these trees are left standing dead, are in very difficult to access places. A long dry summer, followed by lightning storms, has the potential to start a firestorm that could burn a good portion of the entire province, and add a massive amount of CO2 into the atmosphere. Yet another climate change positive feedback mechanism.
This is not only occurring in Canada, it is also happening in Russia. Last summer, the smoke generated from the wildfires in Russia, was so thick in Vancouver that you couldn’t even see the mountains to our north, 10 miles away.
The danger is not over, as a matter of fact it is expected to get much worse. This has the potential to wipe out almost 30% of the earth’s standing forests in the next two decades.
Humans were the source of this problem, and it is already too late to come up with a solution.
Arthur on Fri, 26th Apr 2013 5:23 pm
http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfp/sof/2010/SOF_2010_Web.pdf
Greg, this report confirms more or less what you say, but I miss your alarming undertone in the report. Yes, trees die because of a beetle, but new trees will grow, taking the carbon out of the atmosphere again.
GregT on Mon, 29th Apr 2013 6:29 am
Arthur,
This report was commissioned by the ‘Forest Practices and Investment Branch of the B.C. Ministry of Forests, Mines and Lands’. A Crown Corporation that is in the business of making money through investments in the exploitation of natural resources. Publicly funded and privately ran.
The same people are trying to push through pipeline projects in BC to bring Alberta tarsands bitumen to Asian markets. They are promoting coal and asbestos mining, fraking of natural gas, and private hydro electric projects on almost every stream in the province. They have passed bills to stop all environmental studies and public consultations. They have no interest in the environment, and are being fought at all levels by environmental and Aboriginal groups.
That is the reason that you miss my alarming undertone in this report.