Ian Waight

I was interested to learn of Stanford professor Mark Jacobson and his work creating realistic plans for powering the United States on 100% renewable energy. His detailed models show how renewables can be scaled up to work for various regions around the country, with specific proposals to get California, Washington and New York states there by 2050. User friendly, interactive maps that show the basic structures for each state can be found here. Jacobson is a leading climate scientist and is known for his rather optimistic outlook, which I personally find refreshing. And so I was motivated to take a look at the current transition towards a greener energy supply, and to highlight some reasons to be encouraged by the direction that things seem to be going. I don’t want to sound naïve and simply ignore the immense challenges in achieving the visions such as Jacobson’s, but rather to take a moment to recognise that those visions may actually be within reach, and perhaps consider those challenges more as opportunities.