Researchers have found that all of the worlds demand for electricity could potentially be met in 30 year’s time by renewable energy sources.
The researchers come from 47 peer reviewed research paper from 13 different independent groups totalling 91 different authors. They have found that the demand for electricity which will be used for transport, cooling and heating households and workplaces along with powering industries could be met by renewable energy sources by the year 2050.
The papers have been brought together by Stanford University in California.
The papers look at the issue from different perspectives, some assessed the issue from a broader point of view in examining whether all the countries in the world or whole regions would be able to survive on just renewable energy, given the potential for its technology.
Other papers assessed the impact on more specific locations. This included examining small island states, individual countries and sub Saharan Africa. This allowed the researchers to see which potential barriers there could be for different locations given their circumstances and how best to remove these barriers.
Every paper that was conducted came to the same finding that the technology exists to be able to achieve 100 per cent renewable energy by 2050. However, the only thing stopping this happening is politics within countries and how likely nations are to uptake renewable power.
The papers produced are a strong argument to those that believe that renewable energy is not reliable enough or cannot be expanded to the required scale fast enough to take over from nuclear power and fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal power plants.
Once the infrastructure for the best energy efficiency measures are in place, the combination of solar power, wind power, hydro power and large-scale energy storage systems will be able to provide enough electricity to satisfy all demands by 2050.
One of the papers, which came from Stanford University itself studied the impact of the proposals of the new Green Deal on things such as jobs, health, climate, grid stability and costs in 143 different countries.
The researchers compared what the effects would be if business continued at usual compared to a 100 per cent transition to renewable energy. Currently the world is approaching 1.5 degrees Celsius of heating, seven million people die each year of air pollution and fossil fuel resources are becoming limited therefore something does need to be done to stop these numbers getting worse.
the researchers at Stanford concluded that supply would be able to match demand by 2050 to 2052. The report grouped countries together to make 24 different regions which would be co-operating on storage solutions and grid stability, by doing this they found that energy usage would drop by nearly 60 per cent and costs would also fall drastically. Improving the renewable energy industry would also create 28.6 million new long-term full-time jobs then if business continued like usual.
Another additional bonus that researchers found as that air would become a lot cleaner meaning air pollution would decrease.
The reduction is fossil fuels burnt would clean up the air especially in Asian countries such as China and India which suffer from particularly bad air pollution levels.
Therefore, the general consensus from so many different research papers reflect the opinions of many climate scientists in that time is running out to make the transition to renewable energy before climate change has even greater effects on the Earth. It is now up to the political leaders of the world to act and bring in new laws to stop climate change before it is too late.