‘The world can’t wait’

An influential, if controversial, US academic says renewables alone can halt the climate crisis – and brands other schemes as expensive distractions

‘Combustion is the problem – when you’re continuing to burn something, that’s not solving the problem,” according to Prof Mark Jacobson.

The Stanford University academic has a compelling pitch: the world can rapidly get all its energy from renewable sources with, as the title of his new book says, “no miracles needed”.

Wind, water and solar can provide plentiful and cheap power, he argues, ending the carbon emissions driving the climate crisis, slashing deadly air pollution and ensuring energy security. Carbon capture and storage, biofuels and other technologies are expensive wastes of time, he argues.

“Bill Gates said we have to put a lot of money into miracle technologies,” Jacobson said. “But we don’t – we have the technologies that we need. We have wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, electric cars. We have batteries, heat pumps, energy efficiency. We have 95% of the technologies right now that we need to solve the problem.” What’s missing, he said, was long-distance aircraft and ships, for which hydrogenpowered fuel cells can be developed.

Jacobson’s claim is a big one. He is not just talking about a shift to 100% renewable electricity, but all energy – and fossil fuels provide about 80% of that now. Jacobson has scores of academic papers to his name and his work has been influential in policies passed by cities, states and countries targeting 100% green power. He is also controversial, not least for pursuing a $10m lawsuit against researchers who claimed his work was flawed, which he later dropped.

The evidence proving him right was collected in the new book, Jacobson said. Not only was a fully renewablespowered world possible, it also promised lower energy bills. The first reason for that is electrified vehicles, heating and industrial processes that are far more efficient than those powered by fossil fuels.

Add in better-insulated buildings and ending the drilling and mining for the fossil fuels that consume about 11% of all energy, and you would get 56% less energy use on average from 2035 to 2050, Jacobson said. Wind and solar energy were cheaper too, so average bills will fall 63%, he said.

Rival camps

Jacobson divides approaches to energy transition into two camps: “One says we should just try everything – they’re the ‘all-of-the-above camp’ – and keep investing huge amounts of money in technologies that may or may not be available to work in 10 years. But 10 years is too late.” Carbon emissions must fall by 45% by 2030, scientists agree, to keep on track for no more than 1.5C of global heating.

His camp takes a different approach. Jacobson said: “Let’s focus on what we have and deploy as fast as possible. And we will improve those technologies just by deploying, bringing

better solar panels, batteries, electric vehicles and so on. Some people just don’t realise the speed that we need to solve these problems, especially air pollution – 7 million people die every year. We can’t wait.”

But there are obstacles to a rapid rollout of a 100% renewable energy system: “The No 1 barrier is that most people are not aware that it’s possible. My job is trying to educate the public about it. If people are actually comfortable that it’s possible to do, then they might actually do it,” he said. “The policy of all-of-the-above is also a big barrier to a transition. In the US, for example, in the recent [climate legislation], a lot of money was spent on carbon capture, small modular nuclear reactors, biofuels, blue hydrogen. These are all what I consider almost useless, or very lowuse, technologies in terms of solving the problems. And yet, a lot of money is spent on them … because there are big lobby groups.”

Another barrier was funding the upfront costs of renewable energy in poorer countries – rich countries must help fund generation projects.

Jacobson believes progress towards a 100% renewable energy system can be fast: “The goal is 80% by 2030, and 100% by 2050. But, ideally, if we can get 80% by 2030, we should get 100% by 2035 to 2040.”

Solving the stability problem

A big concern about a world overwhelmingly reliant on electricity is maintaining the stability of grids powered by renewables. Where there are large amounts of hydropower from dams, this is relatively easy – at least 10 countries already have 100% renewable grids. But, in other places, reliance on intermittent wind and solar is more challenging.

The answer was energy storage, managing the demand, and connecting up renewables over wider areas to enable greater continuity of supply, Jacobson said. Storage could be batteries, pumped hydro, flywheels, compressed air and lowering and raising heavy weights.

He also advocated heat storage for some buildings: “Storing heat in boreholes, aquifers or water pits is dirt cheap, excuse the pun. It’s less than $1 a kilowatt hour of storage.” Varying electricity prices with demand, was already growing fast, he said. When the renewables supply exceeded the demand, the electricity should be used to produce green hydrogen to power fuel cells needed by energy-intensive users. “Managing the grid is just an optimisation problem, not a rocket science problem,” he said.

Another criticism of a major renewables rollout is the mining required for the metals used. But Jacobson said such a rollout would hugely reduce extraction from the earth by ending fossil fuel exploitation.

He is scathing about many technologies being promoted as climate solutions. “Carbon capture and storage is solely designed to keep the fossil fuel industry in business,” he said.

New nuclear plants are too slow to build and too expensive compared with wind and solar, in Jacobson’s view: “You end up waiting 15 to 20 years longer, for a seven to eight times higher electricity price – it just makes no sense. We have cheaper, faster, safer technologies. Why waste time?”

He also dismissed biofuels: “They hold constant, or increase, air pollution and use a huge amount of land.”

He is a little more measured when it comes to direct air capture (DAC): technologies that can suck CO2 from the air for burial. It had no role today, he said, with spending on renewables far more cost effective in cutting emissions. But even when fossil fuel burning ends, many scientists have concluded that CO2 will have to be drawn from the air to avoid the worst effects of the climate crisis. At that point, Jacobson said, the costs of DAC should be compared with other ways to sequester carbon and limit global heating.

Jacobson’s book has attracted support from some experts. Prof Michael Mann, at the University of Pennsylvania, said the book presented “a comprehensive and detailed blueprint for the options we have right now to address the climate crisis”.

Prof Claudia Kemfert, at the German Institute for Economic Research, who has advised the German government and European Commission, said: “[The book] shows impressively that numerous crises can be killed with one stone, without us having to wait for miracles.”

But others are critical of a focus on only wind, water and solar. Prof Ken Caldeira, of the Carnegie Institution for Science in the US, said: “Having a broader set [of technologies] in the toolbox makes it easier to solve problems. We will only use the tools that it makes sense to use in any particular circumstance, but maintaining and expanding our options is a good thing.

“The key question is not what is physically possible in an ideal world, but what is practically possible in the world as we know it.”

Jacobson remains optimistic: “There is a technical and economic solution to the climate, air pollution and energy security problems we face. But we have major challenges in trying to implement that solution. The challenges are getting the political willpower to focus on a narrow set of solutions that we can implement quickly. The vested interests are very much a problem because they are pushing this ‘all of the above’ approach.”

No Miracles Needed: How Today’s Technology Can Save Our Climate and Clean Our Air is published by Cambridge University Press

‘We have 95% of the technologies right now that we need to solve the problem’