NEWS Proceedings of the National Academy publishes our critique of “WWS” model

Our paper now avail­able from the Pro­ceed­ings of the National Acad­emy of Sciences:

Pre­vi­ous analy­ses have found that the most fea­si­ble route to a low-​​carbon energy future is one that adopts a diverse port­fo­lio of tech­nolo­gies. In con­trast, Jacob­son et al. (2015) con­sider whether the future pri­mary energy sources for the United States could be nar­rowed to almost exclu­sively wind, solar, and hydro­elec­tric power and sug­gest that this can be done at “low-​​cost” in a way that sup­plies all power with a prob­a­bil­ity of loss of load “that exceeds electric-​​utility-​​industry stan­dards for reli­a­bil­ity”. We find that their analy­sis involves errors, inap­pro­pri­ate meth­ods, and implau­si­ble assump­tions. Their study does not pro­vide cred­i­ble evi­dence for reject­ing the con­clu­sions of pre­vi­ous analy­ses that point to the ben­e­fits of con­sid­er­ing a broad port­fo­lio of energy sys­tem options. A pol­icy pre­scrip­tion that over­promises on the ben­e­fits of rely­ing on a nar­rower port­fo­lio of tech­nolo­gies options could be coun­ter­pro­duc­tive, seri­ously imped­ing the move to a cost effec­tive decar­bonized energy system.

Or, down­load it from the RAEL Pub­li­ca­tions page: here.

Press cov­er­age of this paper:

June 20, 2017 - Power Mag­a­zine: Experts debunk 100% Renew­able Energy Decar­boniza­tion Study by WWS Team

June 20, 2017 - The Chicago Tri­bune: A bit­ter sci­en­tific debate just erupted over the future of America’s power grid

June 20, 2017 - The New York Times: “Fisticuffs Over the Route to a Clean Energy Future

June 19, 2017 - The Wash­ing­ton Post: A bit­ter sci­en­tific debate just erupted over the future of America’s power grid

June 19, 2017 - MIT Tech­nol­ogy Review: Sci­en­tists sharply rebut influ­en­tial renew­able energy plan

June 19, 2017 - Sci­ence Daily:Fight­ing global warm­ing and cli­mate change requires a broad energy port­fo­lio

June 19, 2017 — Green­tech Media: “100% renew­able energy plan as ‘sig­nif­i­cant short­com­ings’ say cli­mate and energy experts”.

Sum­mary:

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