2016-01-24

Cars


Published on January 23rd, 2016
by Rogier van Rooij

42

January 23rd, 2016 by Rogier van Rooij

The idea of hitting 100% renewable energy (yes, energy, not just electricity) scares a lot of people. That is, a lot of people don’t think their cities or countries can achieve 100% renewable energy. However, a leading energy researcher at Stanford has led teams of researchers in order to practically show how 139 different countries could go 100% renewable.

You can find the results of each of the plans right here.



Based on research done by Stanford University, led by Mark Z. Jacobson, The Solutions Project is popularizing the maps and plans. It has created infographics, like the one above, highlighting which future energy mix will theoretically be the best to achieve the zero-emission target for each of these 139 countries. On the main page, there’s an interactive infographic. Hover over it, and you get the basic data for each of the countries.

By clicking on one of the nations, many more details are revealed. Fascinating numbers included newly created employment that would theoretically result from the switch to renewable energy, current and future energy costs, and health benefits resulting from the proposed transition.

For the United States, The Solutions Project even created a plan for each separate state, showing at an even more detailed level what a transition to clean energy could look like for the organization’s home country.



The data is not just based on energy usage for electricity generation, but for all-purpose energy use. That means it covers energy demand for demand for transportation, heating, industry, and agriculture.

The research on which the roadmaps are developed is conducted using a consistent methodology across all countries and with the goal of minimizing emissions of both air pollutants and greenhouse gases and particles. Many factors were taken into account, such as future energy demand, costs, and land use availability. And demand as well as potential supply are projected in 15-minute segments all throughout the year.

Although the project convincingly shows how we can generate enough renewable energy for our complete energy consumption by 2050, it is less certain how we get to that future for each specific sector. Cars will switch to electric drivetrains, for which renewable electricity can be generated, but when will the kerosene-powered aviation sector be able to transition — this is a much harder case.

But The Solutions Project’s maps do give a comprehensive look at what our energy future might look like. By spreading the positive impact of such a transition, The Solutions Project might even bring the carbon-neutral future sooner. That is, of course, the aim.

Related articles:

Renewable Energy Is Possible, Practical, Cheaper (Than Nuclear Or Fossil Fuels)

How The US, UK, Canada, Japan, France, Germany, Italy Can Each Go 100% Renewable

Getting To 100% Renewable Energy In the US

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Tags: Canada, Mark Z. Jacobson, netherlands, Stanford, Stanford University, The Solutions Project, US

About the Author

Rogier van Rooij Optimistic, eager to learn about the unknown and strongly committed to society’s wellbeing, Rogier van Rooij wants to share with you what is going on in Holland and abroad with regard to cleantech developments. After graduating cum laude from high school, Rogier is currently an honours student at University College Utrecht in the Netherlands.

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look at this plan for zero emissions for Australia:

http://media.bze.org.au/ZCA2020_Stationary_Energy_Report_v1.pdf

The plan utilizes a mix of renewable energies to meet austrailia’s current energy demand. And it doesn’t need efficiency to do it. There is more than enough land available in austrialia to produce twice the power needed.

Efficiency is not required to go to 100% renewable.

many reports do however list effiency in part ecause in many places today already have mandatory efficiency policies, and because efficient devices are today completely replacing older inefficient devices. Examples are:

-Improved fuel efficiency for cars and trucks.

-Improved efficiency standards for home appliances, refrigerators, air conditioners.

-LEDs replacing incandescent and fluorescent bulbs.

-Electric cars replacing gas cars

-Improved building codes that require more insulation or changes in building construction that reduces energy consumption in new homes.

I’ve checked Latvia which already have 70+% from large hydro and is far north from sun – they projects 12.2% hydro and . Are they offer latvians to destroy all dams, or they are just incompetent at all?

You got a link? This says 51% cogeneration for electricity, and that isn’t even total energy.
http://www.csb.gov.lv/en/notikumi/chp-plants-are-producing-51-total-electricity-latvia-39629.html

Check if it is 70% of electricity or 70% of energy. Big difference. Notice that Canada is 60% of electricity from hydro and the prediction is 17% of all energy in the report.

The only fundamental flaw in getting any country to 100% renewables in a timely manner is that corrupt governments exist.

Yes, indeed, I also take it as preliminary, for what it is – a quick calculation showing technical feasibility to generate 100% of the world’s electricity, and ultimately generate 100% of the world’s energy needs with renewables. The actual implementation mix might end up to be different somewhat, but it clearly dispels myths that it’s technically impossible. It also serves as a starting point for more detailed planning and proposals.

Some caveats about any such plans:

1. How much room do they give for international trade in energy, especially with expansion of grids to potentially continent-scaled markets?

2. Demographic changes are already moving in opposite directions in different areas of the world. Without immigration, Europe’s population will almost certainly shrink, while other regions will expand — even with continuation of the already near-global trend of falling birth rates.

3. I haven’t looked at any of these plans close enough to know if they even try to accomodate regional-scale forecasts of climate change. The only thing certain in that area is that historical records (like the kind financiers like to see in business models for power generation?) won’t be replicated. Of course, it’s quite possible that any changes in weather patterns will give new power-generating opportunities to replace what they take away.

Probably the main point would be to note general patterns for what’s possible technically with each technology per each climate-type, latitude, etc., then note how far we might expect cost/ productivity curves to evolve as markets for each approach expands. Then try to get some idea what the general possibilities are for each region, no matter what climate changes show up.

Another general point to get a grasp of would be to relate the energy demands per area, per given settlement densities, and relate that to the energy supplies likely regionally available per each technology. Rural and suburban density areas can probably figure out all sorts of alternatives, no matter what; urban density areas, once over a certain size of city and scale of multi-city region, will need to be ready to import power under a variety of circumstances, again no matter what.

The world’s population mainly lives in about a dozen major core regions — it might help to think in terms of these whole regions, instead of individual countries or provinces (even though that’s where policy comes from).

Here again this plan as all other 100% RE plans have the same fundamental flaw in their design in order it to work energy consumption must be cut by 26% by 2050 not stay the same not increase drop. Atleast this one is a bit more realistic than the greenpeace 100% scenario that require a 50 cut. I have never come across a 100% RE plan were energy consumption stays on the same level or even slighlty increase.

Todays technology wastes 80% of the energy as heat in ground transport and over half in wasted heat in electrical generation. With renewable, much less wasted as heat.

“Flaw” …you mean, sensible goal, don’t you? They all have the sensible goal of increasing efficiency anywhere between 25 and 50%.

Lowest hanging fruit is conservation of energy used. Lighting used to be 20% of our electricity use. LEDs alone will can cut that down to a quarter of what it was. 15% less electricity used. CFLs have already had an impact. …and that’s just one example. Heat pumps…

I don’t see a problem with that. The EU goal is a 20% reduction of energy use by 2020 and 27% by 2030.

Then you have extremely inefficient countries like the US that could easily cut 50-70% of the energy use if they could get to the same efficiency levels as for example Germany.

50% as Greenpeace suggests would most likely be too much. But Greenpeace has always been crazy and borderline terrorists so it’s hard to take anything they say seriously anyway.

Amory Lovins said in 1978 that the only thing that the US has to do to get rid of nuclear power is to switch to low energy light bulbs and industry only has to is a few minor changes on motor control chips and low and behold you got rid of Nuclear. The problem with cutting energy useage is the same as saving money. Every time you save money or energy you invent 10 ways to consume it. The only reason electrical use in germany is lower than the us is because its so expensive for household consumers. How are you going to change a steel mill for instance that consumes wast amounts of electricity you might get a percent here or there but is no silver bullet. Also in all of these 100% re scenarios developing countries only get a quarter or half the amount of energy than developed countries, now why is that? I might be able to buy a 100% re scenario if it could somehow even be able to say that we consume the same amount in 2050 as now or one that actually would be able believe it.

“Every time you save money or energy you invent 10 ways to consume it.”

True that …unfortunately. Still, especially in the USA we could save more without effecting our quality of life. We do have CAFE for mpg improvements and modern USA building standards are far better for energy use than in the past. With modern electronics I wonder if we won’t be able to do more with less going forward. Growth was decoupled from energy consumption for the first time globally in 2014 (I think it was 2014).

“f it could somehow even be able to say that we consume the same amount in 2050”

Well the predictions here are lame. We will be able to consume more.

Solar PV, with battery storage, will be providing most of power in the USA by 2030. We have the solar resources to do this, costs are becoming competitive and will be lower soon especially at end-of-grid where no other source can compete. Solar PV will out compete Wind for grid source power in some sunny areas. Wind is already the lowest new source of power on the grid …and still dropping in cost …by 2030? …by 2050? …Solar PV, Wind, Storage, and EVs are disruptive tech, wait and see, lowest cost of all by wide margin coming soon.

“Solar PV, with battery storage, will be providing most of power in the USA by 2030” now tell me how on earth will that be possible with current rates of battery production ie 35GW per year. I’m sorry but that is is a pure fantasy. Germany gets 7% of its electricity from solar and it is not expected with current growth rates to get much more. The US alone consumes over 4000TWH of electricity a year. Just for Tesla’s megafactory to produce 1TW of storage would take 28 years. Double to 70GW 14 years, double that 140GW 7 years double that 3,5 years or 280GW. So just to get 2000TW of storage capacity

that is rougly half would take an eternity. Not to mention the fact that you never be able to produce those quantities in the first place since you never be able to extract enough war materials in a timely fashion. In order for the US alone to build enough battery capacity to have a hope in the world to reach the target would require production figures of 250TW per year. Not to mention that Solar PV instalation rates would have to increase to a factor 50. Then you still have the rest of the world.

” tell me how on earth will that be possible with current rates of battery production ie 35GW per year.”

Why would you assume battery production will not grow? We’ve got at least three battery manufacturers moving into the ‘gigafactory’ range at the moment. We have brand new battery manufacturers entering the market.

Obviously multiple ‘gigafactories’ can be built at the same time. In terms of total US/world construction a dozen gigafactories would only be a blip on the radar.

Don’t overlook the fact that our thermal plants are aging out and will have to be replaced (below). We can replace them with RE for less money than with new FF plants.

Or cars wear out. We replace them, on average when they are 13 years old. Manufacturing batteries and electric motors is simpler and will be cheaper than manufacturing internal combustion engines and all their supporting systems.

Simply by switching what we manufacture and put into use can move us from FF to RE/EVs.

“True that …unfortunately.”

Before putting on that long face, let’s also dig into some facts: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/dgoldstein/surprise_or_not_saving_energy_.html?utm_source=feedburnerutm_medium=feedutm_campaign=Feed%3A+switchboard_all+%28Switchboard%3A+Blogs+from+NRDC%27s+Environmental+Experts%29

No. Electricity use in Germany isn’t lower due to higher prices.

It’s just a whole different culture. People in the US living a similar lifestyle will consume just as little power.

Just compare use in different countries. Just because electricity is cheaper in Austria people still don’t waste it.

The 100% scenarios call for all energy including heating and cooling to be electric by 2050.

Naturally there is about 30% increase in efficiency when you go from burning to wind/PV.

It says 20% hydro for Austria which is at ~70% now.

“Every time you save money or energy you invent 10 new ways to consume it.”

Replace every time with sometimes. Saving energy most of the time does not result in increased energy use. For example I replaced all the bulbs in my house with LEDs and then installed a few more to improve the lighting. Even with the improvements I am using less electricity to light my place I could install more LEDs to get my lighting power consumption up to were it was But if I did I would have to put on sunglasses inside my home. Why would I want to do that.? Another case to consider is cars. Someone could replace there gas guzzler with fuel efficient car. They then could drive more to keep there fuel consumption up. but doing that requires more time driving. Going from a car that gets 20 mpg or less to a car that gets 60 would require 3 times more driving time to keep the energy use flat. for many people that would require 3 hours of the day of driving. Most people don’t have 3 hours a day available for more driving. Even if they did why would they want to drive more instead of playing with the kids or spending more time with the wife? Again why would someone do that?

” Every time you save money or energy you invent 10 new ways to consume it.”

The very abused Jeavons Effect.

With price drops we may see some rise in consumption but there are only so many lights one is going to turn on at a time and only a limited number of TVs one will watch at the same time.

Except for predictions of growth in Solar PV production, where only those crazies have been correct.

“Greenpeace has always been crazy and borderline terrorists…” My kind of people alright.

Freddy D is right. The way total energy consumed is counted is “funny”. Let’s say you have a 40% efficient coal plant, and you put a million BTU’s of coal into it, you will get 400,000 BTU’s of electricity out of it, they add 1 million to total energy. If 2 million BTU’s of solar energy hits 20% efficient solar pannels you also get 400,000 BTU’s of electricity, but only 400,000 BTU’s of electricity are added to the total instead of a million, so if you replace that coal fired electricity with solar, the BTU count in the total energy usage goes down by 60% cause of the way they count.

The graphic below illustrates how much primary energy is lost as heat. As we move from FF to RE we don’t need to replace what is wasted, only what we use.

Aviation. Heavy trucks. Shipping. Cement. Primary iron. Agriculture and other land use. Sequestration. These are the areas where we don’t have ready-made technical solutions, only pathways that look OK in principle. Moniz and his counterparts in the EU and other countries really need to shift research funds into the hard problems, away from essentially solved ones like electricity generation and nearly-solved ones like ev light vehicles.

A thought experiment in support. Imagine technical progress stops completely in wind, solar, and batteries. We are stuck for 50 years with exactly the technology we have now. Can we get to 100% renewable electricity and light vehicle transport? Sure. It will mean some minor inconvenience on car range. We can still cash economies of scale, so prices keep falling. It would all be quite affordable.

Aviation: Move a lot to high speed rail. Fuel at least some with biofuel.

Heavy trucks: Electrify rail. Move most of our freight to electrified rail. Use battery powered trucks (and battery swapping) for the ‘last 100 miles’.

Agriculture: Some can be electrified. Battery swapping again. Methane digesters with tractors run on the methane.

These are solutions in hand right now.

and progress continues. The point is that nearly all electricity, building heating and light ground transport could be done with today’s technology and further advances would help fill in these other areas. Hydrogen could resolve a lot of this if environmentally friendly and economical hydrogen could be made because with cheap hydrogen synthesized jet fuel and diesel becomes pretty easy. Again, RD needed, but it has potential along with other pathways.

The article mentioned the challenge of switching aviation from something other than fossil fuel. As far as I know there is currently no alternative not even in the concept phase. Well I suppose there is the solar flight around the world but that is a 2 man aircraft…. not sure that’s scaleable to 200 passenger commercial planes.

Not to discredit the goal of 100% renewable but maybe that isn’t quite necessary. If we were to get to say 90-95% renewable and certain outliers (like aviation) could still use traditional fuels. I assume that drastic change would still stop the reported negatives of high fossil fuel usage.

Aviation bio-fuel is already here just not scaled. I know Boeing is pushing it because as we have moved to heavier oil, the quality of jet fuel has dropped. Resulting in more engine issues. The bio-fuel is “sweeter” and does’t have those issues. If I wasn’t under the weather, I would find the story on this site with that information.

Both military planes and private airliners have flown using biofuel.

There are short range battery powered planes.

Musk has talked about battery powered flight once batteries get to around 400 watt hours per kg.

“Seeo submitted batteries for official testing late last year, claiming an energy density of 220 watt-hours per kilogram. CEO Hal Zarem told GigaOm’s Katie Fehrenbacher that the company had “started working on a second-generation battery” which will have an energy density of 400 watt-hours per kilogram, claiming that the company’s current batteries were at 300 watt-hours per kilogram. ”

” According to Tesla’s Elon Musk, the concept of battery-powered transcontinental airplanes becomes “compelling” once batteries hit 400 watt-hours per kilogram

400 watt-hours per kilogram:

​”

nextbigfuture.com/2015/09/bosch-claims-they-will-commercialize.html



Then there’s the potential to move people out of airplanes and on the ground. For moderate length trips we can use high speed rail. Faster maglev could move even more travel out of planes.

And, hopefully, the Hyperloop will work. If it does we could replace a large percentage of air travel with electrified ground transportation. We might still need planes for travel to/from islands and we might need them to make short jumps over the Atlantic and Pacific at high latitudes. Take the ‘loop to Anchorage and then fly to mainland Asia in order to get back into the ‘loop.

Even a little further out, microwave thrust is one possibility to electrify the power supply for launching passengers and freight into space — so even that sector isn’t immune to more sustainable pathways.

Elons talk about long range battery powered aircraft is one thing I don’t really get, especially since he also seems to mention them being supersonic.

400 watt hours is about 1,5 megajoules. The latest airliners have a lift to drag ratio of around 20 which means that the horizontal force needed to maintain cruising flight is about 0.5 newtons per kg. Since work is force times distance, an airplane consisting of 100 percent batteries, and having no energy losses whatsoever, could at most travel 3000 kilometers on one charge. And if supersonic, you would probably need to halve that lift to drag ratio unless there’s been some major progress in supersonic aerodynamics that I’ve missed.

Electric can fly at higher altitudes. No resistance.

How do you figure? No resistance, no lift, and no thrust. All airplanes push air. Unless you plan to power it with an electric railgun.

Yes, the drag is lower at higher altitude but so is the lift. You therefore need a bigger wing with the end result that the lift to drag ratio of the wing itself remains unchanged. You do get lower drag from the fuselage so the total lift to drag ratio improves, but not by as much as it might first appear.

I redid the calculation using the specs of the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer. It has a lift to drag ratio of 37 and a fuel fraction of 85 percent. Using the same value of 400 watt hours per kg, a battery to motor efficiency of 95 percent and a propulsive efficiency of 85 percent I get a range of about 3650 km. Pretty impressive actually and almost enough to fly all the way across the United States.

It seems a bit pointless though since hydrogen fuel cells should be superior. Even if you assume that you need three times as much electricity as input to get a given amount of output electricity using fuel cells instead of batteries, the weight savings using hydrogen should more than compensate and give a lower total energy requirement. If you use liquid hydrogen you also get access to a coolant that is so cold that superconducting motors becomes possible. I don’t know if that would actually be practical or not, but it’s such a neat synergy that I can’t help but hope that it would be.

How do you get your figure of 0.5 N/kg? Should it not be 1/20, that is, 0.05?

The lifting force equals the weight of the airplane, that is, the mass times the acceleration due to gravity. It’s around 9.8 m/s^2 on earth, or 10 m/s^2 rounded up. So the required lift is therefore about 10 N/kg.

Fair enough. I take the Solutions Project as a simple, clear message to dispel myths that the world can never fundamentally change the energy mix to massively renewable. It’s not really a prescription for every nook and cranny of the economy, but is best taken in the spirit you mentioned – the 80-90% solution. It will take the world a couple decades or longer to even get to 80%. Technology will be much further along by then in storage, potentially hydrogen production, hyperloops, and much more. So I’m willing to focus on the heavy hitters – electric generation and ground transport – while these solutions go through RD stage.

Hydrogen, by the way, is probably the best potential for aviation. Split water with renewable power, direct-air-capture CO2, and make jet fuel with the same chemistry as jet fuel today. Could burn it in an 1972 freighter DC10 by the way. Hydrogen manufacture has to improve to make this viable.

We can only hope we get to 90% renewable energy by 2050.

Is this new? Wasn’t clear in the article. The Solutions Project, at least for the 50 US states, has been around for some time now. Maybe the world-wide version is new?

The Solutions Project is a wonderful piece of work because it’s easy to understand and fun, practical, and helps educate people on the fact that renewable primary generation is very feasible.

The 139 countries aren’t brand new, but were never covered here and I’ve never seen them covered elsewhere either. They were released a bit under the radar.

Creative Commons (CC) article source: https://cleantechnica.com/2016/01/23/solutions-project-139-countries-can-hit-100-renewable-energy/

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