The Hard Truth About Renewable Energy

We have the technology and the capability to move America to 100% renewable energy

Professor Mark Jacobson from Stanford’s Atmosphere and Energy Program with the support of his graduate students have provided the blueprint to achieve 100% renewable energy in America. 

Reaching 100% renewable energy simply by increasing the current capacity is to slow.

Humanity, yes humanity - as this is a global problem – has roughly ten years to make extraordinary reductions in our greenhouse gas emissions to have the best chance of mitigating the most devastating affects of global warming. Those devastating affects include:

• Yearly category 4 and 5 hurricanes like the one that leveled Puerto Rico.
• Severe droughts that last decades throughout the Midwest and in California
• An increase in Wet Microbursts, colloquially referred to as “rain bombs”, causing severe flooding.

Rising water levels, resulting in flooding of all major coastal cities, Miami is just the start.

Even if we assume the political and institutional barriers that current exist were removed…that still would not be enough. In America, the time needed to:

• train the required workforce,
• transform raw materials into the renewable energy technology, and
• construct the amount of renewable energy needed

is greater than the time we have left. Even a herculean effort where all resources were devoted to building up the renewable energy capacity, would take closer to 20 years in the best circumstances. Well pass our deadline of 10 years.

Renewable energy should be the last step in the movement to a low carbon-society

This statement may seem contradictory to you but bear with me. First let me provide a few clarifications.  
First, a low carbon-society is a society that functions at a high level while only releasing greenhouse gases that can be managed by our planet naturally without increasing the planet’s global average temperature.

Note. A low-carbon society includes transportation emissions so moving away from crude oil as the main source for powering our transportation. However, for this article we are focusing on carbon emissions from buildings.

Second, when I state - “renewable energy should be the last step” - I am referring to a general rule for any particular situation. That rule is this: The renewable energy capacity added should be based on the energy consumption after conservation and efficiency measures. This means a homeowner can and should add solar panels to their roof immediately. However, the number of solar panels should not be for their current energy consumption but for the forecasted energy consumption AFTER conservation and efficiency measures are implemented. This rule should also be applied to commercial building owners and municipalities alike.

Shameless plug: Gemini can help commercial building owners and municipalities calculate the renewable energy capacities they should be trying to reach.

There are three reasons renewable energy should be the last step:

Cost. Renewable energy is almost always more costly than conservation or efficiency measures. Typically, from a cost perspective it goes:

1. Conservation
   
2. Efficiency
3. Renewables

Time. Implementing renewable energy is almost always slower that implementing conservation or efficiency measures. In fact, you should start planning for your renewable energy immediately after receiving an energy audit report to get the process started.
Impact on Environment. Remember our goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Purchasing 10 solar panels when you only needed 5 if you reduced your energy consumption through conservation and efficiency measures hurts our goal. Constructing a solar photovoltaics (PV) panel, transporting, maintaining, and eventually disposing all release greenhouse gas emissions.

Note. Renewable energy like solar PV are considerably less impactful than fossil fuels like coal. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/56487.pdf

So…save your money, save your time, and save the planet by choosing renewable energy last.

Your major takeaways should be:

1. We can go 100% renewable energy today; it is possible with our current level of technology.
   
2. Implementing renewable energy is critically important to reaching our greenhouse gas emission reduction goals but not the only one. Depending solely on renewable energy to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions to a safe level is foolish and doom to fail.
   
3. Renewable energy is generally more expensive, takes longer to implement, and is worse for the environment than conservation and efficiency measures. But worlds better than fossil fuel sources.