Last year, for the first time, 30% of electricity produced worldwide was from renewable sources. Wind and solar are growing. But notice that the biggest is hydroelectric, and it's going down! One reason is droughts in India, China, North America and Mexico. Climate change is causing droughts.
We're in a race against time. But at least we're running.
@adrianmorales - There are lots of problems, not "the problem". I'm in Scotland now, so I've seen how gas prices have skyrocketed here. I'm not surprised it's driving people into poverty. Global warming is another huge problem.
Meanwhile, the price of electricity here sometimes goes negative on windy days. Same in California. The Washington Post even claimed that's a problem! But I don't think that is a serious problem.
@johncarlosbaez I'd like to see an exponential fit through the wind and solar, and when it whizzes through 100% :-) The deployment rate atm seems to be accelerating spectacularly. Surely there are other pieces to the solution (storage, dynamic use, grid support), but just deployment is amazing and inspiring.
I'd would like to see it publicly talked about a lot more. The hope and the direction.
What is interesting is I think there will be a fairly profound reordering of the "form of abundance". It will begin to have consequent changes in how we live with that abundance.
I'm pretty historically ignorant, but even to me its apparent this has happened before. Coal and steam. Oil. Farming and agriculture. And on the vastly awful side – colonies, slavery, war and plunder… We reorganise our society around means to achieve abundance, technological or otherwise.
If people can see this trend, it might both give hope, inspiration of a joint venture, and help them prepare for how life might differ.
@benjohn wrote: "If people can see this trend, it might both give hope, inspiration of a joint venture, and help them prepare for how life might differ."
Agreed! Already the Washington Post is whining about how California has more solar power than they know what to do with - sometimes. But it's not a "problem": it's an opportunity.
Since I'm a worrier, I note that only 20% of world energy production is used for electricity, and a lot of the other uses are harder to decarbonize! For example about 25% is used for transportation. We can convert cars and trains to electric, trucks are harder but doable, ships are still harder, and airplanes are still harder: we could use biofuels for those to make them carbon-neutral, theoretically. And so on... we need to do everything.
And all this decarbonization is just part of grappling with the Anthropocene: how we're now in control of all the biogeochemical cycles on Earth, whether we like it or not.
@johncarlosbaez since this chart shows power generation as a percentage of the whole, it could also be hydro remains constant while the total energy demand goes up. As I understood, most places amenable to hydropower are already used for this.
@doc - The article I cited says that the sudden recent drop in % hydro is due to droughts, but you're right that even if hydro power remained constant its % would drop as other forms of power production rise.
@johncarlosbaez A surprising new technology is being developed for pumped hydro energy storage (PHES), which uses water pressure in deep water and appears to be very efficient. Tackling energy storage with creative engineering.
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