How quickly could the world become 100% renewable?

[Jemappelle]

Assuming a perfect hypothetical scenario where ever country in the world was on board and fully commited to achieving a 100% renewable world as fast as possible, how soon could we see it? I think 2040 is the earliest threshold. But of course that won't happen in reality.

[LucidEnergy]

For 100% I'd say probably 2050 as an absolute best case scenario. Europe could probably make it by 2035 at a push, but China has far too many coal stations already in the pipeline. So they aren't going to pull down stations the day they are built, 90% by 2040 is possible though.

[allegrif]

[quote author=Jemappelle link=topic=216.msg554#msg554 date=1449194204]
Assuming a perfect hypothetical scenario where ever country in the world was on board and fully commited to achieving a 100% renewable world as fast as possible, how soon could we see it? I think 2040 is the earliest threshold. But of course that won't happen in reality.
[/quote]
I#m going to be a lot more optimistic and say 2025. If we were all fully committed, the technology already exists and it would just be a case of making the investment. Just look at the Norway and Uruguay examples given elsewhere on the forum, it [i]is[/i] possible today.

[GemmaRowlands]

I think it will take a lot of work to make this the case, but I don't think it's impossible to think about for the future. You can't just think about the actual energy - you also need to consider the appliances that we use, and the way that these will need to be adapted, so you will need a changeover time of one generation at least, if not two. But for the future, this is definitely possible, without any shadow of a doubt.

[JohnLi]

It will be quite challenging to be 100% renewable, but I feel UK could achieve it in another 15 yrs.

[kritika3333]

The endeavor to use 100% renewable energy for electricity, heating/cooling and transport is motivated by global warming, pollution and other environmental issues, as well as economic and energy security concerns. Shifting the total global primary energy supply to renewable sources requires a transition of the energy system. In 2013 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that there are few fundamental technological limits to integrating a portfolio of renewable energy technologies to meet most of total global energy demand. Renewable energy use has grown much faster than even advocates anticipated.

[olivermasson99]

100% of the world will never rely on solar energy because in some areas like Russia, Canada and Siberia solar is not possible because of the very low sunlight. Other than that commercial electricity can be very costly for industry owners.