The Resource-Reality of 100% Renewable Energy
Does the world have enough materials to achieve 100% renewable energy?
Two of the three leading contenders for the nomination of the Democrat party, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have plans to shift the United States to 100% renewable energy. Though UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calls for zero carbon emissions by 2050 to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels, Bernie Sanders plans to achieve this by 2030, and Elizabeth Warren by 2035. Their climate plans contain such non-climate related novelties as job guarantees, and early-retirement benefits, but what’s conspicuously missing is any inclusion of nuclear, even though it is the most reliable and scalable source of zero-carbon energy. What has also been conspicuously missing in the mainstream media, is the lack of any serious and critical evaluation of their plans, namely if it is even physically possible to achieve zero-carbon emissions through only using renewable sources. This article will do just that.
My main source of data for this article is a sixty-one page report on mineral sourcing, by Institute for Sustainable Future (ISF), of University of Technology Sydney (UTS) — prepared for Earthworks, a nonprofit environmental group dedicated to achieving 100% renewable energy. As can be imagined, this is as…
