Is the fossil fuel age over? The current geopolitical situati | Tech for Good

Is the fossil fuel age over?

The current geopolitical situation is pushing the oil&gas prices to their previous all-time highs. That could accelerate switching to renewable energy sources in many parts of the world. I found an interesting Forbes article published last year exploring the potential of solar and wind power in replacing fossil fuels.

The UK non-profit Carbon Tracker has prepared the report, and here are the key takeaways from it (some of them are quite insightful):

Solar and wind have the potential to produce thousands of petawatt hours (PWh) of electricity a year, while the world’s current electricity demand stands at just 27 PWh;
If humans chose to get all their energy from solar power alone, the land required would take up 450,000 km2—just 0.3% of the world’s total land area. That is less than the space currently taken up by fossil fuel industry operations;
The cost of electricity from solar photovoltaics fell 82% in the last decade, while the costs of onshore and offshore wind fell 39% and 29%, respectively;
We utilize only 0.01% of the world’s solar potential and just 0.16% of wind potential;
Each year we are fuelling the climate crisis by burning three million years of fossilized sunshine in coal, oil, and gas while we use just 0.01% of daily sunlight;
Fossil fuel investments are becoming an increasingly risky prospect: $640 billion in investments in fossil fuel firms had lost $123bn of their value between 2012 and 2020;
At the current 15-20% solar and wind growth rates, fossil fuels will be pushed out of the electricity sector by the mid-2030s and out of the total energy supply by 2050.

The authors state that humans have crossed all economic and technological barriers for entering the new renewable era. And the only remaining wall to break is political. Well, the recent events may push that wall down very soon, will see.

Article on Forbes
Full report here

#renewables #solar #wind #basics