The article cites research publication by Stanford University professor of civil and environmental engineering Mark Z. Jacobson, very famous 100% wind, water, and sunlight (WWS) advocate.

His past research was already cited by Leonardo DiCaprio on Sept. 23 2014, during opening of the UN Climate Summit.

“The good news is that renewable energy is not only achievable but good economic policy,” DiCaprio told the more than 120 world leaders assembled. “New research shows that by 2050 clean, renewable energy could supply 100 percent of the world’s energy needs using existing technologies, and it would create millions of jobs.”

https://cee.stanford.edu/news/what-do-mark-z-jacobson-leonar...

The 100% renewable papers by Mark Z. Jacobson were subject to strong criticism. Jacobson filed a lawsuit in 2017 against the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Christopher Clack as the principal author of the paper for defamation. In February 2024, Jacobson lost the appeal and was required to pay defendants more than $500,000 in legal fees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Z._Jacobson

Jacobson is also very strong critic of nuclear energy. In calculating CO2 emissions from using nuclear energy, he includes carbon emissions associated with the burning of cities resulting from a nuclear war aided by the expansion of nuclear energy and weapons to countries previously without them.

Jacobson assumes that some form of nuclear induced burning that will occur once every 30 years.

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raptor99 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Whew, very glad that a leading scientific voice like DiCaprio is speaking of this to world leaders. Solid foundations.

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cheema33 2 days ago | parent [-]

> Whew, very glad that a leading scientific voice like DiCaprio is speaking of this to world leaders.

General public does not know the scientists by name. When they say something, few people listen. When a famous person says the same thing, many more people listen. That is the world we live in.

I'll take DiCaprio or any famous person promoting a good cause any day.

	▲	leonidasrup a day ago \| parent [-]
		Mark Jacobson for example proposes “low-cost solutions to the grid reliability problem with 100% penetration of WWS [wind, water and solar power] across all energy sectors in the continental United States between 2050 and 2055” https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1510028112 This proposal uses unrealistic assumptions, for example it uses "copper plate model" to model electric grid of United States - it assumes that the future electric grid could transmit electric energy without any capacity limitations and the buildout of this grid would be cheap. The proposal assumes gigantic buildout of hydropower to be used as backup solution for the times when solar and wind could not generate enough electricity. To be precise: increasing hydro capacity by 13x, which would result in water discharges that would regularly dwarf historic 100-year floods and wash away population centres on America's major river systems. With unrealistic assumptions you can get any result you want. Mark Jacobson has done PhD research on the role of black carbon and other aerosol chemical components on global and regional climates, under atmospheric scientist Richard P. Turco - who developed and popularized the science of nuclear winter. Because of this I think Jacobson is trying to get world of nuclear weapons, nuclear technology and nuclear power by any means necessary, even if this means publishing unrealistic proposals. Jacobson's push toward 100% WWS is not a realistic solution to decarbonize world, it's just way to give politicians and celebrities arguments against nuclear power. "We don't need nuclear technology anywhere in the world, because in future we will have 100% wind, water and solar power energy". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Solutions_Project Jacobson should say load and clearly the truth: I don't have realistic proposal to decarbonize world, I just want the world to get rid of nuclear bombs.

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2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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