The dream of creating a world with 100% renewable energy is closer to becoming a reality than ever. Large corporations, countries, and separate states have already transferred or put a plan into action to transfer to 100% renewable energy in a couple of decades (Garcia et al., 2018). Even individual citizens have begun to implement solar panels as a source of electricity for their homes. This essay will discuss what it will take to make such a change and whether it is worth it.
There are several problems present when considering relying absolutely on renewable energy resources. Since all these resources are forces of nature, they will not be present whenever needed. To compensate for that, energy storage systems must be integrated, but at this point, humanities’ advancements in energy storage are not enough. The prices on the said energy storage systems are also inadequately high. On the other hand, renewable energy sources are more cost-efficient in the long run as they are cheaper to maintain and will null the reliance on foreign sources of energy.
In order to transfer to renewable energy, old sources must be phased out first. According to Garcia et al. (2018), the approximated time frame for completing the global transition to renewables would be by the end of the 21st century. The first task to focus on in the case of transition should be to increase energy efficiency. Since California is a densely populated urban area, supplying 100% of its electricity needs using renewable energy sources would be impossible. The decrease of energy consumption lies within the government’s power to support and provide ways to save energy similarity to the Save Water Initiative. An efficient source of lithium, copper, and platinum must be found as they are required to construct a sufficient amount of RE powerplants. The minimization of energy consumption by 50% must take an approximate of 10 years (Hansen et al., 2019). The time needed to build the power plants would depend on financing, weather, and lack of extreme situations that would slow down production.
References
Garcia, O. A., Sole, J., & Osychenko, O. (2018). Transportation in a 100% renewable energy system. Energy Conversion and Management, 158, 266-285. Web.
Hansen, K., Breyer, C., & Lund, H. (2019). Status and perspectives on 100% renewable energy systems. Energy, 175, 471-480. Web.