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Wednesday, June 10th, 2015

Stanford engineers develop state-by-state plan to convert US to 100 percent renewable energy

Author:    
Source:     Stanford University
Publication Date:     8-Jun-2015
 Link: Stanford engineers develop state-by-state plan to convert US to 100 percent renewable energy
Stephan:   [caption id="attachment_20267" align="alignleft" width="300"]Solar Panel with green grass and beautiful blue sky Solar Panel with green grass and beautiful blue sky[/caption] Here is some good news. Researchers at Stanford have worked out what it really would take to convert from carbon to noncarbon energy. It can be done, and it is clear it is now no longer a matter of technology but of political will, and America's willingness to choose wellness over profit for the few. It will be cheaper, more efficient, productive of tens of thousands of jobs while, at the same time tens of thousands of lives in the U.S. alone would be saved. And it could happen by 2050.

One potential way to combat ongoing climate change, eliminate air pollution mortality, create jobs and stabilize energy prices involves converting the world’s entire energy infrastructure to run on clean, renewable energy.

This is a daunting challenge. But now, in a new study, Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, and colleagues, including U.C. Berkeley researcher Mark Delucchi, are the first to outline how each of the 50 states can achieve such a transition by 2050. The 50 individual state plans call for aggressive changes to both infrastructure and the ways we currently consume energy, but indicate that the conversion is technically and economically possible through the wide-scale implementation of existing technologies.

“The main barriers are social, political and getting industries to change. One way to overcome the barriers is to inform people about what is possible,” said Jacobson, who is also a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and at the Precourt Institute for Energy. “By showing that it’s technologically and economically possible, this study could reduce the barriers to a large scale transformation.”

The study is published in the online edition of Energy and Environmental Sciences. An interactive map summarizing the […]

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1 Comment

  1. Rev. Dean on Wednesday, June 10, 2015 at 8:04 am

    It would be easy, now, to build co-ops for local wind and solar production in which the users of the service own the service. It is the only way the system can benefit everyone equally. It is the only socially viable way to produce energy.