A new Stanford University study shows that by 2050, all of California’s power requirements could be met with sources of clean, renewable energy such as solar, wind and hydropower.
The study finds it would be economically and technically feasible to switch every facet of the state’s power generation network; including transport, industry, heating and cooling, and electrical power, over to renewable energy in coming decades.
The sweeping plan details the cost benefits to health, the environment and California’s bottom line. Replacing fossil fuel and nuclear power plants with concentrated solar PV, rooftop solar power systems and wind farms, combined with zero-emission vehicle laws, would save the state billions in pollution-related health costs, the study says.
Once initial job losses were accounted for, the switch would actually add about 220,000 manufacturing, installation and technology construction and operation jobs, from which the state would reap $12 billion in annual earnings. The overall switch would reduce California’s end-use power demand by about 44 per cent and stabilise energy prices since fuel costs would be zero.
“If implemented, this plan will eliminate air pollution mortality and global warming emissions from California, stabilise prices and create jobs – there is little downside,” said Mark Z. Jacobson, the study’s lead author and a Stanford professor of civil and environmental engineering.
California is one of America’s richest solar regions and over half (55.5%) the renewable power required under the Stanford plan would come from sources such as concentrated solar and rooftop PV systems. 35 per cent would be derived from wind farms and the remainder from a combination of hydroelectric, geothermal, tidal and wave energy.
One 2050 scenario put up in the study would see energy split between a mix of sources:
• 25,000 onshore 5-megawatt wind turbines
• 1,200 100-megawatt concentrated solar plants
• 15 million 5-kilowatt residential rooftop solar power systems
• 72 100-megawatt geothermal plants
• 5,000 0.75-megawatt wave devices
• 3,400 1-megawatt tidal turbines
“I think the most interesting finding is that the plan will reduce social costs related to air pollution and climate change by about $150 billion per year in 2050, and that these savings will pay for all new energy generation in only seven years,” said study co-author Mark Delucchi of the University of California, Davis.
“The technologies needed for a quick transition to an across-the-board, renewables-based statewide energy system are available today,” said Anthony Ingraffea, a Cornell University engineering professor and study co-author. “Like New York, California has a clear choice to make: Double down on 20th-century fossil fuels or accelerate toward a clean, green energy future.”
