Research Shows that a Low-Carbon Future Will Be a Renewable Future - by Michael Barnard

There are multiple academic approaches to the inevitable transformation to a 100% renewable future.  They overlap and provide strong support for thesis that electrical generation, and by extension all primary energy needs, will be met by a combination of renewables.  The four this article will cover briefly are the work of Dr. Jacobson of Stanford, the IPCC perspective, Dr. Mark Diesendorf’s work from Australia, and finally a gloss on the current state of large-scale grid integration and transmission.

The most obvious example of a strong academic approach to a 100% renewable solution is Dr. Mark Jacobson and team’s work from Stanford.  In 2017 they took their model for renewable generation for all 50 US states, and extended it to the majority of the countries in the world.  Jacobson et al show clearly that transitioning to 100% renewables is viable by 2050.

This isn’t without controversy and criticism. the team has come under attack from various sources.  The arguments have varying merits.  Jacobson is fiercely defending the assertions made that the models used are broken, quite rightly pointing out that they are robust, accurate, peer-reviewed, iterated, and based on predecessor models which had stood the test of time.  Also fiercely, and with some merit, he’s attacking his critics who are asserting that technologies which they perceive as necessary aren’t in the mix, specifically nuclear and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).

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