Can we run the world on renewables alone? Various researchers have tried to model how a given country might run a grid using mostly renewables, oftentimes finding that carbon-negative technologies, advanced nuclear power, and even coal power plants equipped with CCS will be a part of the solution set. But no one has produced a comprehensive model that shows how we can run the world on renewables alone, while accurately modeling the weather and grid conditions at a very discrete scale, at hourly resolution, using data on the renewable resources in each region, and determining how that would work while selecting the least-cost resources\u2026 until now.<\/p>\n
In this episode we speak with a researcher from Lappeenranta University of Technology in Finland, one of an international team of 14 scientists who have spent the past four and a half years performing research, data analysis, and technical and financial modeling to prove that a global transition to 100% renewable energy is economically competitive with the current fossil and nuclear-based system, and could reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the energy system to zero even before 2050. This first-of-its-kind study outlines how the world could limit warming to 1.5\u00b0C with a cost-effective, global, 100% renewable energy system that does not use negative carbon technologies, and provides all the energy needed for electricity, heat, transport and desalination by 2050.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Can we run the world on renewables alone? Various researchers have tried to model how a given country might run a grid using mostly renewables, oftentimes finding that carbon-negative technologies, advanced nuclear power, and even coal power plants equipped with CCS will be a part of the solution set. But no one has produced a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[190,88,698,142,101,277,126,699,697,93,64,123,45],"class_list":["post-2465","xen_episodes","type-xen_episodes","status-publish","hentry","category-energy-transition-show-podcasts","tag-100-renewables","tag-ccs","tag-christian-breyer","tag-decarbonization","tag-desalination","tag-finland","tag-grid-power","tag-heat","tag-lappeenranta-university-of-technology","tag-nuclear","tag-solar","tag-transportation","tag-wind","xen_guests-dmitrii-bogdanov"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n