What if the world completely decarbonized its electricity supply by 2040?

[GliderGuider]

What would it take to do that, and what would happen to our CO2 emissions as a result? This was my Quixotic Calculatory Quest for this Tuesday.

First, some assumptions!

• For the next 25 years the world's economy somehow maintains Business As Usual;
  
• The world's electricity consumption rises linearly, as it has since 2000;
  
• Hydro, solar and nuclear power all grow according to their current trends (in the case of nuclear power the assumed trend is flat);
  
• By 2040 we build enough 5 megawatt wind turbines to generate ALL the electricity that would otherwise have been produced by fossil fuels; and
  
• The grid can handle that much variable power input.

What would it take?

• We would need to build 2.2 million 5MW turbines in 25 years.
  
• This implies a sustained industry growth rate of about 15% per year.
  
• The cost of the construction program would be on the order of $20 trillion.
  
• It would require over 2 billion tonnes of concrete and over 1.5 billion tonnes of steel. This is less than it sounds like, about half a year's worth of world concrete production, and a full year's production of steel.
  
• Rare earths???

What would the world get in return?

• Coal consumption would drop by 80%;
  
• Gas consumption would drop by 30%;
  
• Oil consumption would be largely unaffected.

But the good news is that in 2040 the world's CO2 emissions would be...
...exactly the same as in 2014.

That's because all the other things we use fossil fuels for would continue largely unabated uder a BAU scenario.

Oh well, according to some pundits the world economy is going to crash next month, so the whole argument may become moot.
Let us pray...

[gordianot]

1. One real positive for 2040 and recovery of the planet, no Koch brothers.

Something equally odious will emerge.

[GliderGuider]

2. The Koch-suckers are not a cause so much as a symptom.

So yes, something/someone else will emerge to crown the pinnacle of human achievement...

[gordianot]

3. I agree they are a symptom, also do not discount a century + of supression of old&new technology.

Humans no longer fight over salt, however you can track energy to every international conflict of the bloody twentieth century and now beyond. I seldom see those costs added into the equation as the planet enters another great (this one man made) extinction event.

[FBaggins]

4. Electrification

There's no reason why the other uses for fossil fuels need to continue to grow.

In fact, a smarter grid combined with electrification of heating, cooking, and transportation can make it easier to build out variable renewables.

[GliderGuider]

6. I held transportation and heating to BAU on order to focus on one aspect of the situation.

I don't really think that we will decarbonize our electrical supply OR electrify all our transportation. Certainly not before the whole Rube Goldberg machine of civilization flies apart from centrifugal stress. I think any electricity we add to the world system over the next 20 years will come in addition to fossil fuels, as it has in the recent past, not as a substitute. And the only thing that will drive down CO2 emissions is the global financial collapse that has now begun.

This analysis was more in the nature of a "last hurrah." If we can't even decarbonize our electricity when times are good (and we can't), we might as well not worry about any of it now. It's likely my last post on the subject.

[Travis_0004]

5. What is the cost?

Especially in India and China, even a small increase in cost could put the cost of electricity out of reach.

[GliderGuider]

7. It doesn't matter.

None of this is going to happen.