Harnessing the Elements: Powering California with Renewables Alone

Who needs fossil fuels anyway? A recent article by John Upton of the Pacific Standard claims that California could power itself using nothing but reusable energy options, and he links the scientific articles to prove it.

Mark Jacobson, a Stanford Engineering Professor and main author on many of these articles, believes that solely using wind, water, and solar renewables is completely feasible. The only hindrances he anticipates are social and political.

Jacobson has laid out his renewable energy plan in first Scientific American, then in several academic papers in Energy and Energy Policy. In these, Jacobson details how large cities like New York may ditch fossil fuels while also creating so many green jobs that unemployment rates would decrease.

Jacobson states that the same pricipals of his New York Plan could be used in California due to our abundance of shore line and sunshine. According to this plan, the state would wean itself off fossil fuels completely by 2050. It doesn't even require controversial nuclear!

Jacobson's Energy Sources over time, from Energy

This plan creates jobs, decreases pollution, and would save lives.

What are the downsides? The expense of $1.1 trillion which Jacobson claims will be more than offset by fuel savings and lessening climate change destruction.

While Jacobson may be envisioning a green utopia that we would all love to live in, I think his plan will be a bit hard for state government to swallow and nearly impossible for private fossil fuel companies to comply with.