Here’s how 139 countries could run on 100% wind, solar, and hydro power by 2050

The world could be powered almost entirely by clean, renewable energy sources in the space of a few decades, and two engineers in the US say they’ve have figured out exactly how it can be done.

Blueprints for 139 countries around the world, including the US, Japan, and Australia, break down exactly how many wind turbines, solar farms, hydroelectric dams, and other facilities are required to cover each nation’s personal, business, industry, agriculture, and transport power needs, and how much it would cost. They’ll be presented to leaders of 195 nations at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 21) in Paris, starting on November 30, where a binding and universal agreement on climate will be set.

The people there are just not aware of what’s possible,” one of the researchers, Mark Jacobson, a civil and environmental engineer at Stanford University, told Mark Fischetti at Scientific American. Jacobson has been granted two opportunities to speak at the conference, which will run from November 30 to December 11, and plans to get on-on-one time with as many world leaders as possible during that time with his colleague, engineer Mark Delucchi from the University of California, Davis.

The purpose of the blueprints is to show that 100 percent renewable energy isn’t just a green pipe dream – it’s technically and economically feasible. And it won’t only save countries a significant amount of cash – Jacobson and Delucchi have figured out how many jobs it could create and lives it could save, and it’s a whole lot.

As Fischetti reports for Scientific American, if all 139 countries followed their plans for permanently ditching fossil fuels, it would open up 24 million construction jobs and 26.5 million operational jobs, each with a 35-year lifespan, which more than covers the 28.4 million jobs that would be lost in collapsed fossil fuel industries.

The change would also lead to considerably cleaner air, which the engineers have estimated will prevent the 3.3 to 4.6 million premature deaths that occur every year due to atmospheric pollution. Right now, these deaths cost around 3 percent of the global GDP to mitigate.

And that’s not the only saving that a fossil fuel-free world can bring. Wind is now the cheapest source of electricity in the US, costing around half as much as natural gas – and that’s unsubsidised. And the cost of solar is not far behind.

As Ramez Naam reports over at Energy Post, if the technology continues to grow in efficiency at the current rate, by the time solar capacity triples to 600GW – predicted by around 2020 or 2021 – the unsubsidised price for solar power will be roughly 4.5 cents per kWh in places that get a lot of sunlight, such as the the US southwest, the Middle East, and Australia. For moderately sunny places, such as India and China, this price will hit 6.5 cent per kWh.

Not bad, when you consider coal-fired electricity can cost anywhere from 6.6 to 15.1 cents per kWh and it’s 6 to 8 cents for natural gas. And that’s not including all the associated health costs mentioned above.

“People who are trying to prevent this change would argue that it’s too expensive, or there’s just not enough power, or they try to say that it’s unreliable, that it will take too much land area or resources,” Jacobson told Adele Peters at Fast Company. “What this shows is that all these claims are mythical.”

The timeline states that countries could stop building new natural gas, coal, and nuclear plants, by 2020 and all gas-fired home appliances would be shifted to electric. Over the next five years, governments and industry leaders could work on getting large ships, trains, and buses off fossil fuels to run on electric power instead, followed by all cars and trucks over the next five years. By 2050, everything that currently guzzles fossil fuels could feasibly be switched over to renewable power sources.

Of course, not everyone is convinced, says Fischetti, reporting that the plans “have been heralded as transformational, and criticised as starry eyed or even nutty”, but the beauty of what Jacobson and Delucchi have put together is that everything is there for you to read through and analyse yourself, so you can make up your own mind.

Source: Here’s how 139 countries could run on 100% wind, solar, and hydro power by 2050

Construction Begins On Europe’s Largest Floating Solar Plant

Construction has begun on what will end up being Europe’s largest floating solar plant, atop Godley Reservoir in the UK.

The project developer, and the UK’s largest listed water company, announced this week that the installation of Europe’s biggest floating solar power system had begun construction, on the Godley Reservoir in the town of Hyde in Greater Manchester, UK. The entire project will consist of 12,000 solar panels, covering an area of 45,5000 square meters of the reservoir’s total 60,000 square meters. Once completed, the project will provide the utility with 2.7 GWh of electricity per year, for use directly onsite.

With construction already under way, United Utilities is hoping construction, testing, and full operation will all be completed by Christmas, 2015.

“We have a target to generate 35 per cent of our power requirements by 2020 and this project will make a significant contribution to that aim,” explained Chris Stubbs, head of renewable energy at United Utilities. “As part of United Utilities’ energy strategy to generate more power we identified the Godley reservoir as a suitable site to install a floating solar array to provide the water treatment works with approximately 33 per cent of its energy requirements.

“While floating solar has been deployed elsewhere around the world, most notably in Japan, it is a new technology to the UK. Installations such as the Godley solar scheme will help us to keep energy costs and water customers’ bills low.”

Floating solar is by no means a new idea, with a bevy of such projects in development or in operation all around the world. The new Godley Reservoir plant will dwarf the UK’s only other site, an 800-panel pilot project in Berkshire (whose construction is seen below).

Japanese multinational manufacturer Kyocera is currently the developer and manufacturer behind a number of projects trending for largest floating solar power plant. In November 2014the company announced that it would be developing a 7.5 MW solar power plant atop the Umenokifurukori reservoir in Japan, which was followed a month later by an announcement for a 13.4 MW floating solar power plant atop the Yamakura Dam reservoir in Chiba Prefecture, Japan.

In May alone, Kyocera completed two separate floating solar projects in Japan — the first, two projects totaling 2.9 MW at Nishihira Pond and Higashihira Pond in Kato City, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan; the second, a 2.3 MW project in Hyogo Prefecture.

Japan isn’t the only country moving forward with floating solar, however. Brazil announced earlier this year a phenomenal 350 MW pilot project planned for the Balbina hydroelectric plant. Australia saw the installation of a $9.5 million, 4 MW PV system atop a wastewater at a treatment facility in South Australia, India had plans for a 50 MW floating solar project, as did the US.
Source: Construction Begins On Europe’s Largest Floating Solar Plant

Three Category 4 hurricanes have just hit the Pacific Ocean at the same time

For the first time in recorded history, three Category 4 hurricanes have appeared in the Pacific Ocean at the same time, and they’re inching ever-closer to the Big Island of Hawaii. The never-before-seen meteorological event involves the hurricanes Kilo, Ignacio, and Jimena, the latter of which has sustained winds of up to 225 km/h.

According to the US Weather Channel, we haven’t seen anything close to this event before – three simultaneous Category 3 hurricanes have yet to be recorded. While the most immediate threat is to the coast of Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan are also currently on watch.

Right now, Ignacio poses the biggest threat to Hawaii; at midnight last Sunday, it was about 450 km to the southeast of the Big Island and is expected to travel north of the Hawaiian islands on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The hurricane, which has contained winds of up to 217 km/h, is unlikely to actually hit the coast, but experts are saying residents should expect heavy rain and winds of up to 63km/h as early as tonight, and a 6-metre swell and rip currents in the water before the storm settles back down later in the week. Needless to say – don’t go in the water.

After Ignacio sweeps past the north of Hawaii, it’s not yet clear in which direction it will head next.

Hurricane Jimena, on the other hand, is expected to sustain its ‘major hurricane’ status till at least the midweek, but so far, it poses no threat to any island just yet. But that’s only because forecasters aren’t really sure where its path will take it at this stage.

Kilo is the least threatening of the three, safely churning up the open waters of the Pacific with its 220 km/h winds.

The event has been linked to a stronger than usual El Niño event, which researchers are saying we should start to get used to, as many more are expected in the future.

“The appearance of the chain of hurricanes may be linked to the strengthening El Niño weather pattern being observed in the Pacific,” News.com.au reports. “The Australian Bureau of Meterology says the eastern half of the northern Pacific was now more than one degree warmer than the averages – with patches more than 2 degrees higher.”

Hopefully no one wil be hurt in the upcoming tropical storms, but one thing’s for sure, the event did provide an incredible photo opportunity:

Source: Three Category 4 hurricanes have just hit the Pacific Ocean at the same time