Solar Likely To Become Dominant Source Of Electricity Globally By 2050, IEA Forecasts

[whitehall]

What the hell is the "international energy agency"? Russia just signed a 30 year pact with China over natural gas supply. Does it sound like American windmills are a factor?

 

[TrainTime]

Fossil rules will not last forever. I expect that in the future most surfaces of structures built by man that are exposed to sun light will have some type of solar panels on them to collect energy. Even the roads will be constructed so that the suns energy can be collected.

This might be 2250 rather than 2050.

First off, there's no such thing as "fossil fuel"....oil is generated deep in the earth and will continue being produced as long as the planet remains intact. This is why "old" wells, thought to be dormant. start producing again. Solar is dandy for the Chinese economy....your wind turbines are killing thousands of eagles and hawks. I'm for anything that can spin a wheel, but the bottom line is that OIL is the ticket to energy independence just like it's been for the last hundred years and the next hundred years.

 

[auditor0007]

Solar Likely To Become Dominant Source Of Electricity Globally By 2050, IEA Forecasts

The International Energy Agency says solar energy – a combination of solar PV and concentrated solar thermal with storage – is likely to become the dominant source of energy across the world, accounting for more than 27 per cent of all electricity produced by 2050.

The IEA says its core scenarios for reaching climate targets by 2050 call for 68 per cent of generation to be sourced from renewable energy, but in the (increasingly likely) event that carbon capture and storage and nuclear cannot take up their imagined shares, then the IEA has painted a “high renewables” scenario where solar takes an even greater role.

This might sound like some mighty radical thinking from what is one of the world’s most conservative energy organisations (it was established in the 1970s to devise policies to ensure a continuation of oil supplies), but in reality it is not.

Solar PV, for instance, is likely to expand way beyond even the IEA’s most bullish scenarios, as a result of widespread deployment and continuing cost cuts. The IEA suggests that solar PV could account for 16 per cent of global generation by 2050, although this would require an average of more than 116GW of solar PV to be deployed over that time.

Read more at Solar Likely To Become Dominant Source Of Electricity Globally By 2050, IEA Forecasts | CleanTechnica

That would be nice but I think that it's a pipe dream. I can see a few obstacles in the way:

1. Big oil and its buddies. You won't get rid of oil completely, there will never be a solar powered airplane, and probably no solar powered cars or trucks or trains.

2. BOTH democrat and republican politicians are puppets of big businesses wether you want to admit it or not. These businesses will not make the necessary changes without major resistance.

3. Fusion power will be achieved before 2050.

4. The big energy producers of the world will not allow solar to achieve world wide use until they figure out how to control it's use for their profit.

Solar power will be used to create electricity. All ground transportation can certainly run on electricity. Planes I'm not certain about. The batteries necessary might be too heavy for a plane to carry, making it use so much more energy to fly.

Check out this video. While the technology would likely be very expensive, the long term costs and benefits seem to certainly outweigh any reason not to move in this direction. Watch the entire video; it really is pretty cool.

[ame=http://youtu.be/qlTA3rnpgzU]Solar FREAKIN' Roadways! - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Manonthestreet]

Not only will it not work to heat the roads you have to store the energy if you want to use LED lights because nobody wants to light the road while the sun is shining -- you want to do that at night, yes? Where is that going to happen and who's going to buy the batteries? Never mind their replacement cycles; about three years worth if you get 1,000 cycles out of them, which might be a bit ambitious (but is not entirely ridiculous.)

In short this is utter and complete crap.

It won't work from a technological perspective and from a cost-replacement perspective it's entirely impractical and cost-prohibitive.

The laws of thermodynamics forbid obtaining a "free lunch." My Ghod, The Stupid... in [Market-Ticker]

 

[JakeStarkey]

Auditor, we have just discovered than Manonthestreet does not get it.

Explain it slowly and IN SHORT WORDS for him.

 

[whitehall]

It's almost like we are living in an Orwellian society these days. The radical left quotes an unidentified and unverified international propaganda source called the "IEA" and we are supposed to believe it just because it sounds good. Meanwhile in the real world Russia is getting rich by signing a 30 year contract to supply China with natural (fossil fuel) gas.