The Energy Watch Group, has a clear and confident answer to this question: 100% renewable energy are the clean, reliable and economically viable alternative to both fossil fuels and nuclear energy.
First of all, renewables are the only technology offering a chance to reach zero emissions soon enough to (hopefully) prevent the most catastrophic climate tipping points. As shown in our policy paper from December 2020, the world could face existentially threatening tipping points in 2030 already. This simply highlights the necessity to cut out all GHG Emissions as early as 2030 and the latest 2035.
Decentralised renewables can deliver a reliable energy supply
Second, a global 100% renewable energy system is economically advantageous over both fossil fuels and nuclear energy. This has already been proven by the EWG and LUT University in their 2019 study. The study showed that a shift to renewable energy in all sectors would create more jobs than it would cost, and renewables became a lot cheaper since then. Another study by LUT University has given light to this significant advantage as well, indicating that, given a transition to 100% renewables, global jobs in the power sector could rise from 21 million in 2015 to 35 million in 2050.
See also: BayWa: 100 percent renewable electricity as of 2020
Third, despite ongoing criticism from supporters of fossils and nuclear, a decentralized renewable energy system, backed up with adequate storage capacities, can deliver a fully reliable energy supply. This is exemplified by China’s recently built 2,2GW solar park with a 202.8 MW storage system, which is outperforming nuclear energy plants not only in capacity but construction time and costs.
Cheaper than nuclear and fossil fuels
Hans-Josef Fell, President of the EWG, was invited to illustrate the points made above at a webinar by World Wind Energy Association at the occasion of commemorating ten years of Fukushima, where he introduced a range of concrete policy proposals, which, if adhered to, can enable a renewable energy roll-out on a global scale. To sum it up in his own words: “100% renewable energy supply, including storage systems, can provide full energy security for all of mankind by 2030 and will even be cheaper than the existing nuclear and fossil energy supply. The only requirement for implementation is the right decisions taken by decision-makers both in governments and industry. All technical and economic prerequisites for a disruptive conversion of the global energy supply to 100% renewable energies are already in place.” (mfo)
This article is a sequel to that one: Why nuclear power is not an option
