The World Could Be Powered Purely by Renewable Energy by 2050

Thirty years until complete renewable energy

The world’s massive demand for electricity and power could be met entirely thanks to the Earth’s mighty sustainable energy trio: wind, water, and solar.

The 47 research papers that helped reach this conclusion had their own methods to prove this. Some looked at the world at large, adding together the potential for each technology to see whether or not broad regions or individual countries would have enough to survive on renewables alone.

Others focused on more specific locations, such as small island states, sub-Saharan Africa, and individual countries such as Germany. They then looked at which barriers in each area had to be overcome in order to use only renewable energy.

Ultimately, all papers reached the same conclusion: if the political will to achieve 100% renewable energy use was strong enough, the world could run entirely on renewables in just thirty years.

By grouping the countries of the world into 24 regions that cooperate on grid stability and storage solutions, supply could match demand by 2050-2052, relying 100% on renewable energy. Furthermore, overall energy usage would drop by 57.1%, costs would also decrease by a similar percentage, and to top it all off, around 28 million more long-term jobs could be created.