Renewable energy can power the world, says landmark IPCC study

[bananas]

Source: Guardian

UN's climate change science body says renewables supply, particularly solar power, can meet global demand

Renewable energy could account for almost 80% of the world's energy supply within four decades - but only if governments pursue the policies needed to promote green power, according to a landmark report published on Monday.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body of the world's leading climate scientists convened by the United Nations, said that if the full range of renewable technologies were deployed, the world could keep greenhouse gas concentrations to less than 450 parts per million, the level scientists have predicted will be the limit of safety beyond which climate change becomes catastrophic and irreversible.

Investing in renewables to the extent needed would cost only about 1% of global GDP annually, said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/09/ipcc-renewable-energy-power-world

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The report is being released at http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/
The summary for policy makers is available now, pdf: http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/report/srren-spm-fd4
The full report will be available May 31.

[plumbob]

1. Has to be. ALL energy here comes from the sun, directly or indirectly.

Rather crazy to think we can "create" any energy, isn't it?

The various Rube Goldberg inventions that have been made to tap the power of the sun - nuclear plants, petroleum refineries, are really extremely roundabout ways and extremely wasteful ways of using that energy.

[RC]

4. How is nuclear power from the Sun?

[plumbob]

5. No sun, no formation of the planets. No planet, no radioactive particles

formed into mineable clumps. No clumps, no refining. You can follow the rest, right?

[industry_]

8. why stop at the sun, then?

we should be looking at ways to harness big bangular power!!

[RC]

9. That's a reach. Anything heaver than Helium didn't come from our sun.

[hootinholler]

6. Ok, It's not from our sun

But it is from a star, then again pretty much everything was made in a star.

There may be some chemical energy that can be released that is not photosynthetic. But all fossil fuels are photosynthetic in origins.

-Hoot

[sofa king]

12. Uranium is created by exploding suns.

Except for the by-products of radioactive decay, all of the radioactive materials on earth come not from this sun, but from a previous sun (or suns) that went supernova, probably at least a billion years before our own sun formed.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf78.html

So I guess there's a hair to split: Uranium comes from a sun, just not the sun.

[Zoeisright]

2. Of course it can.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool. Or a paid shill for dirty energy.

[Moostache]

3. The longer the people who get rich off the status quo resist this, the greater their eternal infamy.

Those who make their livings off of fossil fuels are not inherently evil, they fill a real and substantive need and provide a valuable contribution to society as a whole. It is NOT the miner or off-shore drill operator that are to blame or should be reviled in the future.

But pieces of human filth like Massey and take your pick of ANY oil tycoon should be forever remembered for the damage they will cause to the human race before we all shake them off like the fleas they are...granted they are fleas with HUGE propaganda operations!

[azul]

7. A conflict of interest rule to prevent big oil from pulling the same

stunt as they did after the 1973 crisis. The oil companies somehow were awarded much of the funds to develop alternative energies and low and behold, they made expensive crap.

If we allow the oil majors to control the introduction of the solar technologies it will be delayed too long, and oil war madness will continue until the US is totally bankrupt.

[bananas]

10. kick. nt

[No Elephants]

11. No one could have figured this out 50 years ago?