In 2035, One Third of the World Will Run on Renewable Energy

The International Energy Agency has released its annual World Energy Outlook [pdf], and one prediction in particular is making all the headlines: By 2035, the United States will be the world’s largest oil producer. Yeah, thanks to fracking, we’ll be able to get at all kinds of shale oil and gas, even if it will be more expensive than the stuff that just pours out of the spigots in Saudi Arabia. We’ll go from importing 20% of our oil to being a net exporter in twenty years, the IEA says.

But another, equally radical—and much more encouraging—projection is getting less play. Over the next two decades, the global boom in renewable energy will continue, and one-third of the world will be running on clean power by 2035.

The report lays out its projection thusly: “Solar grows more rapidly than any other renewable technology. Renewables become the world's second-largest source of power generation by 2015 (roughly half that of coal) and, by 2035, they approach coal as the primary source of global electricity.”

Remember, dirty ol asthma-inducing coal is already falling to the wayside—over the next ten years, the United States alone will see the closure of 231 plants. In just twenty years, solar and wind will be on its heels.

Renewable energy is expected to continue to require subsidies, especially as natural gas prices plummet, but technological advancements will drive costs down, too. The report notes that the “rapid increase in renewable energy is underpinned by falling technology costs, rising fossil-fuel prices and carbon pricing, but mainly by continued subsidies: from $88 billion globally in 2011, they rise to nearly $240 billion in 2035.”

Recall that fossil fuels receive far more subsidies than that—in 2012 alone the industry is expected to reap $775 billion in handouts globally. And even with that massive advantage—three-to-one, from where I’m sitting—renewables are still expected to surge, and to catch up with the oldest, dirtiest power source on the planet. That’s what’s most astonishing here; despite the institutional advantage the long-entrenched fossil fuels complex has over the renewable upstarts, the myriad benefits of clean power are winning out. Human society is slowly deciding to favor a slightly more expensive and cumbersome power source because it’s safer, cleaner, and the moral thing to do—and because it might save our asses.

See, if we’re to muster the sort of carbon emission reductions targets scientists say we need to meet to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we need to phase coal out even faster. The IEA report offers some convincing evidence that such a proposition is entirely within the realm of possibility: stronger carbon pricing, technological breakthroughs, and removal of fossil fuel subsidies could further speed the world towards a clean-powered future.

Scientists have already sussed out a number of ways to run the world almost entirely on clean energy. Some think we can do it as soon as 2050. We are on track to complete significant chunks of those plans already; now we need to push. What seemed like techno-utopian daydreaming just years ago should now seem increasingly plausible; we may yet live to see the day when clean energy feeds the engine of the world.