When Will Renewables Dominate the World Energy Industry?

Mike Bernard asks: Given that the rate of the move from fossil fuel derived energy to renewable energy is constantly accelerating. How long until renewable energy gets to 80% across all sectors?

This is an interesting, albeit unanswerable question.  I wish I didn’t have to equivocate like this, but there are a number of reasons that providing a date is impossible:

• It depends on what you mean by “all sectors.”  Getting fossil fuels out of our electricity grid-mix is a lot easier than getting oil out of our transportation, especially Class 8 trucks and aircraft.

• From an environmental standpoint, not all fossil fuels are created equal; there is a huge imperative to get rid of coal, but having natural gas around as a backup for variable energy resources, i.e., solar and wind, is perfectly acceptable, at least for now.

• A great deal depends on politics, which needs to be considered on a country-by-country basis.  In the U.S., for instance, the overarching issue is that the oil companies essentially own our Congress, and have sufficient PR dollars to keep the average voter in the dark as to the damage we’re doing to our personal health and that of our environment.

• In India and China, both of which are huge in terms of emissions, the issue is affordability; the developing world will not be able to address this issue on a timely basis without help from the OECD.

• It’s hard to see exactly where the tipping point will be in terms of the cost of solar, wind, energy storage, etc.  We’re very close to all this, but the cost of oil is low and still falling, thus this is in itself a very difficult calculus.

Again, good question, but for all these reasons and more, I’m afraid I can’t help you.