[throw0101a]

Princeton did a study, and found to get to net zero by 2050, the US could do it with only renewables (the "E+ RE+" scenario). To accomplish that:

> Cumulative total wind and solar farm area in E+ RE+ by 2050 is ~1 million km^2, or roughly an area the size of AK, IA, KS, MO, NE, OK, and WV combined (with an additional 64,000 km^2 of offshore wind); directly impacted lands total 70,000 km^2, an area larger than WV.

* PDF: https://environmenthalfcentury.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/t...

* https://environmenthalfcentury.princeton.edu

Most of it taken up by wind farms (94%)

Transmission lines would have to expanded as well: in 2020, there is ~320,000 GW-km of capacity, and so by 2050 ~1,702,000 GW-km (5.3x) would be needed. They estimated it would cost US$ 3,710B (3.7T), though amortized over the next thirty years.

E+RE+ assumes that renewables can be constructed/grow at a rate of 10%/year. They have a E+RE- scenario which growth is limited to what was achieved already, and that scenario needs some nuclear to get to net zero.

Of course net zero may be "too much", and we can achieve good climate goals with modest releases of carbon/GHGs.

[pfdietz]

> Most of it taken up by wind farms (94%)

Wind farms do not exclude the land involved from also being used for other purposes, like agriculture.

[fulafel]

This study starts with existing laissez-faire energy demand projections. Hopefully another large part of the emissions reduction will come from people adopting less wasteful living, transport, eating etc behaviours and preferences.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Hopefully another large part of the reduction will come from people adopting less wasteful living, transport, eating etc behaviours and preferences

Zero chance. This would require reductions in quality of life. Even minor fuel tax increases have spawned capital-freezing protests from the Arab world to Paris.

[throw0101a]

Buildings are responsible for 40% of the total amount of energy needed (US, EU). Mandating better air tightness (<1 ACH@50) and raising insulation levels would go a long way to reducing that.

Residentially, you can built a 5000 square foot (500 sq. m) home that needs only 1500W (1.5 kW)—basically a hair dyer—to heat/cool:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vul4vMFdkA

Using an HRV/ERV with an air filter per ASHRAE 62.1 and 62.2 gives you very good air quality.

[fulafel]

There's a lot of low hanging fruit, eg electricity consumption per household is ~3x in the US vs the EU. I feel it's quite likely that the coming voter and decisionmaker generations have increasingly developed consciences about these things.

Regarding fuel tax protests, I think your anecdotes are actually pretty unrepresentative. In the EU the fuel tax increases have been going on for a long time. And there haven't been any Arab world spanning protests recently from my memory.

[acdha]

Less wasteful is a huge, unsupported claim contradicted by many examples. As a simple one, think about how much electricity the 1990 PC user consumed compared to one today – EnergyStar encouraged that but it had basically nobody cared about it enough to whine about it, much less riot. Lightbulbs did have some efforts to turn them into a conservative rallying point but even Trump supporting it wasn’t enough to get traction because only the most diehard ideologues are going to say they want to give more of their money to the utility company.

The real lesson here is that the best way is to give people clear price signals. Stop subsidizing fossil fuel consumption and suddenly people will make less wasteful choices in many areas. We saw this in the US before fracking took off, when fuel economy was creeping up because $4/gallon gas was enough to get people thinking about whether they really needed a Suburban to take 1-2 people grocery shopping.

The Arab & French protests did involve fuel pricing but that was more in the sense of being the last straw than an unavoidable cause. If the French government hadn’t been using that to lower taxes on the wealthy, for example, or simply been less unpopular before it started, it wouldn’t have flared up like that. It’s a valid concern but I wouldn’t generalize too much from a more complex scenario than it might appear. Especially in the US, where the average family could make substantial energy usage reductions with simple, low-impact changes (combining trips, reducing food waste, insulating houses, replacing antique appliances, etc. are not the stuff of revolution).

[arrosenberg]

In large parts of the US, this isn't necessarily true. Our cities and suburbs are designed around individual auto use. Re-designing these areas to be more pedestrian and mass-transit oriented would likely be a quality-of-life increase for most people.

[abernard1]

I do not know if this is pro or anti-, but I thank you for your statistic.

The land required for this is absolutely insane. Insane.

I challenge anyone with a straight face to argue that utilizing 6 huge to medium size states out of the 50 is an efficient use of land or physical resources. We can't recycle ordinary trash correctly without throwing it to developing countries, who are rejecting it. We don't recycle wind turbines at all. But we're supposed to be able to routinely recycle six whole states worth of panels and turbines?

It's madness.

[rpiguyshy]

i dont want to be contrarian, but this is wrong. you get 150-100 w per square meter. what am i missing?

[throw0101a]

Talk to the PhDs at Princeton and their collaborators:

* https://environmenthalfcentury.princeton.edu/experts

I'm just copying and pasting the December 2020 report.

Off the top of my head, renewables (in the US) only produce electricity about 30% of the time, so you have to 'over build':

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor

They have energy storage experts, so I'm sure batteries and such are taken into account.

[rpiguyshy]

total power requirement of the united states / amount of average power including weather and TOD produced by a square meter of land + amount of land to store necessary batteries = a corner notched out of nevada. not multiple states. i dont think you need a phd to see this, and elon musk also agrees with this and i think he is knowledgeable enough about solar and batteries. plus, there are lots of efficiency gains still in the pipes that will reduce our power consumption. when all houses are properly insulated, heated with a heat pump, have efficient appliances, thermal loops and have solar on their roofs then all of this becomes even more feasible. and thats not even including wind, hydro or thermal.