On October 29, 2025, Mark Z Jacobson, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, gave a succinct one hour lecture to Elders Climate Action (https://www.eldersclimateaction.org) on 100% Clean, Renewable Energy and Storage for Everything
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOXwMb3kPBk
Dr Jacobson has been designing 100% renewable energy systems using wind, water, and solar [WWS] for countries and states most of this century and reality is quickly catching up with his calculations. The speed of change is accelerating as battery costs and new/old energy storage techniques come into use to provide 24/7 power, for all intents and purposes.
Here are my notes:
electrifying everything brings demand for total energy down 54.2%
19.8% through higher efficiency in Building Energy [BE] & Internal Combusion Engines [ICE]
4.1% in electric industry
13.1% heat pumps
10.6% eliminating mining for fuel, processing, transporting fossil fuel and uranium
6.6% efficiency beyond BAU
10% of the energy we produce goes into mining, processing, & transporting fossil fuel and uranium. Bill McKibben wrote in Here Comes the Sun (my notes at https://solarray.blogspot.com/2025/09/notes-on-here-comes-sun.html): "Forty percent of the world’s ship traffic, for instance, consists of moving coal and gas and oil back and forth across the ocean..."
electric and fuel cell vehicles reduce energy requirements by 75%
which is almost a 20% reduction in total demand
Leveled cost of electricity 2023 (IRENA [International Renewable Energy Agency] 2024)
fossil fuels $100/MWh
utility PV $44/MWh
onshore wind $33/MWh
onshore wind $75/MWh
hydro $57/MWh
Onshore wind is a third of the cost of fossil fuels and utility PV is less than half. They have also been the fastest growing source of new generation and jobs, growing year by year.
14 countries with electric generation 95-100% WWS 2023
12 USAmerican states with consumption 49-100% WWS Q324 -Q225
Transition world to 100% WWS
creates 28 million more jobs than lost
requires only 0.18% of land
avoids about 7 million air pollution deaths per year
slows then reverses global warming
stabilizes the global grids
The economics of renewables are now so overwhelming that the energy transition we need to deal with much of our greenhouse gas pollution problems is happening, accelerating, and, seemingly, inexorable.
We just have to recognize what is happening before our eyes.
