We calculated that the amount of wind power and solar power available in locations that can likely be developed around the world, excluding Antarctica, exceeds the projected world demand for power in 2030 for all purposes by more than an order of magnitude.
Jacobson and I estimated the potential supply and compared those estimates with projections of energy demand made by the U.S. Although these projects obviously differ in important economic, political, and technical ways from the project we discuss, they do suggest that the large scale of a complete transformation of the energy system is not in itself an insurmountable barrier.Įfficient and Reliable: A 100-percent wind, water, and solar power system can deliver all of the world’s energy needs efficiently. The iconic Apollo program, widely considered one of the greatest engineering and technological accomplishments ever, put a man on the moon in less than 10 years. In 1956, the United States began work on the Interstate Highway System, which now extends for about 47 000 miles (around 75 000 kilometers) and is considered one of the largest public works project in history. Africa, Asia and Southeast Asia, Australia/Tasmania, China, the Middle East, North America, South America, and Russia will need supergrids as well.Īlthough this is an enormous undertaking, it does not need to be done overnight, and there are plenty of examples in recent history of successful large-scale infrastructure, industrial, and engineering projects.ĭuring World War II, the United States transformed motor vehicle production facilities to produce over 300 000 aircraft, and the rest of the world was able to produce over 500 000 aircraft. The Desertec project proposes a supergrid to link Europe and North Africa, and 10 northern European countries are beginning to plan a North Sea supergrid for offshore wind power. In much of the world, we’ll need international cooperation in planning and building supergrids that span across multiple countries, because many individual countries just aren’t big enough to permit enough geographic dispersion of generators to mitigate local variability in wind and solar intensity. Reducing demand by improving the efficiency of devices that use power, or substituting low-energy activities and technologies for high-energy ones-for example, telecommuting instead of driving-directly reduces the pressure to produce energy.īecause a massive deployment of WWS technologies requires an upgraded and expanded transmission grid and the smart integration of the grid with battery-electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles-using both types of these vehicles for distributed electricity storage-governments need to carefully fund, plan, and manage a long-term, large-scale restructuring of the electricity transmission and distribution system. To make a WWS world work, we also need to reduce demand. And we need to expand production of battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, ships that run on hydrogen fuel cell and battery combinations, liquefied hydrogen aircraft, air- and ground-source heat pumps, electric resistance heating, and hydrogen for high-temperature processes. We also need to greatly expand the transmission infrastructure in order to create the large supergrids that will span many regions and often several countries and even continents. One scenario that Stanford engineering professor Mark Jacobson and I developed, projecting to 2030, includes:ģ.8 million wind turbines, 5 megawatts each, supplying 50 percent of the projected total global power demandĤ9 000 solar thermal power plants, 300 MW each, supplying 20 percentĤ0 000 solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants supplying 14 percentġ.7 billion rooftop PV systems, 3 kilowatts each, supplying 6 percentĥ350 geothermal power plants, 100 MW each, supplying 4 percentĩ00 hydroelectric power plants, 1300 MW each, of which 70 percent are already in place, supplying 4 percentħ20 000 ocean-wave devices, 0.75 MW each, supplying 1 percentĤ90 000 tidal turbines, 1 MW each, supplying 1 percent.
We can get to this WWS world by simply building a lot of new systems for the production, transmission, and use of energy. And we can do it today-efficiently, reliably, safely, sustainably, and economically. We can get 100 percent of our energy from wind, water, and solar (WWS) power. We don’t need nuclear power, coal, or biofuels.