Cleaner sources of energy available today could be cheap enough to power most of the world by 2050, according to a model by American engineers. While most people believe clean energy is too inefficient and small for widespread use, this study from Stanford University suggests the opposite. The study claims that in forty years the world could switch entirely to WWS (wind, water or sunlight), which includes wind turbines, solar, geothermal, tidal and hydroelectric power. Hydrogen fuel-cells and Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) were included as options for transportation.
The direct cost of each system was not the only factor in their report. Environmental impact, land usage, leftover waste, renewability and potential opportunity for misuse were also factors believed to indirectly increase or decrease the overall cost of each energy source. In each category, WWS was found to be a substantially better source than the others tested.
Coal with carbon-capture reduces direct carbon dioxide emissions from burning by over 85% compared to normal coal, but the process of mining and transporting the coal greatly outweighs this, as 25% more energy must be made using carbon-capture and sequestration. This takes a huge toll on land use, water use and air pollution. The most environmentally friendly sources of ethanol, such as grasses restored to their natural habitat, were shown to have air pollution mortality on the same scale as gasoline.
Conventional nuclear fission, breeder reactors and nuclear fusion were not considered in the report as a long-term global energy source for many reasons. While some nations may be more responsible with the use of nuclear facilities, many were shown in earlier studies to have increased their ability to use uranium for nuclear weapons. Countries shown to demonstrate this in particular were Pakistan, India, early Iraq, Iran and North Korea, all of which successfully or unsuccessfully attempted to secretly develop nuclear weapons.
Compared to wind energy, nuclear energy resulted in up to 25 times more carbon emissions, due to the refining and transport of uranium and the lengthy process of building reactors, which averages 9 years from the beginning of obtaining a permit to completion. The number of reactors required would have caused a higher loss in vegetation compared to the small footprint of wind turbines.Conventional fission also relies on uranium stores that would deplete in roughly a century. Radioactive waste also raises questions about long-term storage, as it must be kept for thousands of years.
To meet the world’s demands for energy in 2030, it is estimated that stations would have to produce 17 trillion watts of power, 3 million of which would be in the US. According to the model proposed, ninety percent could come from wind and solar energy, four percent from geothermal and hydroelectric, and 2 percent from wave and tidal. These sources could be scaled up to be part of a global energy system with a cost similar to the current systems.
Wind and solar energy are inconsistent though, as some times and places are windier than others, and at night there is no sun to provide energy. Wind energy peaks at night and solar energy during the day, so bringing both sources into one system could lessen or eliminate that problem. The other sources would help provide a buffer for these power sources. The plan has been read by other energy experts, who see it as carefully thought out and detailed. As long as there are no unanticipated population booms, the authors of the study believe only political and social boundaries are obstacles in bringing green energy to the masses. Perhaps a cleaner future is closer than we imagined.
Leave a Reply