If we could tap into renewable energy, really tap into it (overcome politics and naysayers), we could reduce global power demand by 30 percent and be totally green by 2030. So say civil and environmental engineering professor Mark Jacobson of Stanford University and researcher Mark Delucchi of the University of California-Davis.
There's a great summary of their work on Futurity.org and an article in the latest issue of Scientific American, A Plan to Power 100 Percent of the Planet with Renewables. What would it take?
- 3.8 million large wind turbines (a space about the size of the island of Manhattan)
- 90,000 solar plants
- numerous geothermal, tidal and rooftop photovoltaic installations worldwide
You have to subscribe to Scientific American in order to read the article in full, but Futurity offers a good summary.
And speaking of nice summaries, LabSpaces has a nice one of solar power research that could bring personalized solar energy generation to the home. It describes a cheap, practical way to store solar energy that work like photosynthesis (the way plant convert sunlight into energy).
Photo: iStockphoto
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