We Can Save The World From Ourselves
We Can Save The World From Ourselves
New studies show how current technology can stop climate change in its tracks.
Our modern doom-scrolling addiction can make it feel like we are miles away from halting climate change and saving the world from decades of our environmental crimes. This notion has some truth, but such a broad brushstroke hides the tremendous success stories of the past few years. You see, recent studies have shown that not only can our current climate technology completely usurp planet-wrecking fossil fuels, but it already is in the real world, and this transition is far from forced but actually inevitable. So, let me give you your daily dose of optimism by explaining how we are unavoidably saving the world.
Stanford University Professor Mark Jacobson recently unveiled some utterly astonishing analysis. Between 2021 and 2022, 7 countries, namely Albania, Bhutan, Nepal, Paraguay, Iceland, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, produced 97.7% of their electricity from renewable sources! Not only is that practically 100%, but it is also above and beyond the 2050 net-zero target for renewables. Moreover, Prof Jacobson found that during this same period, 40 countries, including 11 EU states, Canada and much of Southern Africa, generated at least 50% of their electricity from renewables! To summarise his findings, Jacobson stated: “We don’t need miracle technologies; we need to stop emissions by electrifying everything and providing the electricity with Wind, Water and Solar (WWS), which includes onshore wind, solar photovoltaics, concentrated solar power, geothermal electricity, small hydroelectricity, and large hydroelectricity.”
The question has to be asked: How have these countries done this?! Well, it is inevitable.
The price of solar and wind energy has dropped substantially. Solar energy is nearly 90%, and wind energy is almost 70% cheaper than a decade ago. This has led to solar energy being at least 20% and up to 50% cheaper than fossil fuel-derived energy, allowing countries to rapidly adopt the technology whilst also significantly reducing costs. In fact, scientists at the University of Exeter and University College London have done research that suggests renewables have reached an “irreversible tipping point.” Their analysis found that even without any further climate policies, solar power is set to become the world’s dominant form of energy as it is so economically favourable.
In short, if a country wants to keep its economy competitive on the global scene, it must adopt solar and wind as fast as it possibly can, as any country holding on to archaic fossil fuel energy infrastructure will be held back by higher energy costs.
This explains why those seven countries have been able to adopt renewable energy at such a rapid pace. But if you dive a little deeper, you will notice that these seven countries don’t exclusively use solar and wind; their grids heavily rely on geothermal energy and hydropower (which are classified as renewables). That is because when the sun isn’t shining, or the wind isn’t blowing, these countries can use these on-demand renewable energy sources to fill in the blanks. Without these forms of energy, a 100% renewable energy grid (that relies solely on wind and solar) would need vast grid-level energy storage systems and an oversupply of energy to keep them topped up, which is incredibly expensive. Or at least it is meant to be.
Sadly, many countries lack the natural resources for geothermal energy or hydropower, so how can they reach 100% renewables?
Well, a novel study has shown that the entire continental US can run on 100% wind and solar energy without the need for any grid-level storage. The idea is that if enough solar panels and wind turbines are spread around the country, at least one location will generate enough energy for the entire country, negating the need for expensive battery storage. You might think using such a vast volume of renewables would be too costly and inefficient with land usage, but you’d be wrong. Using real-life weather data, this study found that such an energy grid with enough renewables to have no blackouts would only take up 0.84% of US land, substantially less than the 1.3% that is currently taken up by the fossil fuel industry. This study also found that per capita energy expenses would be 63% cheaper than the US’s current energy grid!
Such an approach can only work for countries as large as the US, and would require completely reworking the country’s entire energy grid to be decentralised and optimised for long-distance energy transmission. So, in practice, this isn’t really a tenable solution. But it doesn’t have to be.
You see, another study looked into what cost grid-level energy storage has to meet for a 100% wind and solar-based grid to be cost-competitive with our current ones. Such a grid would enable every single country on Earth to transition to a net-zero energy grid, as every country has wind and solar resources. The answer came back as $20 per kWh. That is about 4–5 times cheaper than the cheapest batteries in a modern-day EV, which seems like an impossibly low number to hit! Luckily though, since this study, the price of solar and wind has fallen even further, raising this figure to more like $25-$30 per kWh. But we actually didn’t need this increase. A startup called Noon has invented a carbon-oxygen battery for grid-level energy storage that costs only $15.10 per kWh! What’s better is that this battery is built from easy-to-source, plentiful materials, making it incredibly eco-friendly.
So, no matter how you look at it, 100% wind and solar energy grids are not only feasible but economically advantageous and, therefore, inevitable!
So the question has to be asked: why aren’t more countries racing towards using 100% renewables? Well, we have only just passed this tipping point, and it takes time for countries to change energy grids as they are colossal bits of infrastructure. What’s more, many governments and political figures are financially heavily invested in fossil fuel energy infrastructure they and other countries use, causing them to massively resist this inevitable change to minimise or mitigate damage. However, I’m not sure how much this stance will minimise damage, as fossil fuels simply can’t compete with relabels now and will be driven out of business in the not-too-distant future.
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Sources: The Independent, Stanford, Will Lockett, Nature, Will Lockett, Vox, Cell, Carbon Brief